Sally Mussared is the designer and founder of Mussared design studio creating luxurious handmade silk wedding gowns.

Nicky Thomas operates the Little Church & Springhill Peony Farm, a superb wedding venue!

Recording by the fabulous Miss Bella Hazelton.

Time Stamps

00:24 The Usual Procedure

00:57 Why it Began

02:19 First Contact

03:23 Elements of Fantastic Weddings

04:34 Break the Rules

07:19 The Biggest Tip

07:54 A Saucy Request

09:16 A Heartwarming Tale

13:24 Working Overtime

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Hopelessly Devoted Podcast! I’m  bridal gown designer Sally Mussared, delivering you the inside tips from Melbourne’s top wedding professionals.

We’re here today, just outside of Trentham, at the Little Church & Springhill Peony Farm with Nicky Thomas. Hi!

Hello!

It’s great to meet you!

You too, Sally.

The Usual Procedure

So we mostly have weddings from between 60 to 80 guests, which is the perfect size for the church, and then they can have a reception afterwards that they can have 60 people in the pavilion, or if they have 80 guests they can bring a marquee and have it on the lawn, so it’s beautiful, a very flexible property too.

And you grow beautiful Peonies, as well, just ‘round the corner?

We do, just up over the hill, and we’ve got five acres with 10,000 Peony plants in the five acres-

And they would be springing forth soon, are they not?

I think we’ve only got about three weeks to go, so that’s pretty exciting, yeah.

Why it Began

So what got you into weddings, you know, the whole bit. How did you start?

It’s probably my husband that started the whole Peony farm. He actually bought the property in the year 2000 and then planted, by hand, all those 10,000 plants, with the help of his father, Martin, and also just mates. So then when I met Mack, I had to really enjoy Peonies and working on a Peony farm, that was all part of it, so yeah.

And what led you to the Little Church?

The church has been here since 1890, so when we moved into the area we’ve always looked at it and it’s so beautiful, but it was privately owned, so when it came onto the market, we just got really excited and thought gosh we could do all those weddings that people have been asking if they could do on the Peony farm, but we could do it here in a proper church. And it’s a special place, it’s got the history, it used to be the old schoolhouse before they build the other Springhill school, and so it’s just a lovely quaint little place that people come to visit and they love it straight away, and they want to have their wedding here, so it works, it’s appealing to people.

Yeah it’s lovely.

First Contact

So what happens when a bride contacts you?

Ah, they usually… they’ll either ring me directly or they’ll send an email, but what I try and do is actually speak with them on the phone rather than email back, so that we can just have a quick chat about numbers, and their date, and work out whether it’s going to work for them, and then I arrange a time within the next week or two weeks for them to come and visit, and come and see the property, and I’ll show them around and then we’ll talk in detail about what the’d like to do, and we’re pretty much anything goes here. I prefer to talk to people, see what they want/had planned, and then see if we can do it, and that’s fun! Every wedding’s different, it’s really good!

And so can you have two weddings on a weekend, or do you get the whole weekend?

You get the whole weekend. I don’t want to have two weddings on a weekend, it’s too busy, too stressful. Couples love having the place for the whole weekend, you know, to set up on the Friday, have the wedding on the Saturday,