Alyssa and Mitch – A Real BOA Love Story
Being a bespoke boutique is tremendously rewarding for so many reasons, and one of them as a perfect example is the reviews you receive for a job well done and an ongoing long-term friendship that was created from meeting through the bridal journey.
When Alyssa walked into our boutique after driving all the way from Frankston, I could tell she was a little anxious, wringing her hands and a smile that was attempting to hide her worries. We here at BOA have many anxious clients, there are so many pressures in our society as it is, let alone when planning a wedding. Brides feel judged from so many aspects, you are putting your heart and soul into style, cake choice, fonts, and so on. There are so many choices to be made and then on top of all of that, you’re the main event, your love with your partner is what is being celebrated but sometimes the pressure amounts and that occasionally gets lost amongst the stress. This is meant to be a fun and rewarding process!
Here at BOA, we make it simple. What makes you feel beautiful and unique, what is your personal style and your unique body shape, how do you feel when you see yourself in various necklines and shapes? We are your fashion, designer and style guides that lead you to uncover the version of yourself you didn’t know existed with confidence and a unique flare of your gown.
As Alyssa highlights in her review below, being a curvier bride was a challenge when gown shopping, many stores will only stock between AU8 and AU12. Why? We have always thought this was a strange choice for the industry to make and pride ourselves on stocking most of our gowns in an AU14 – this is the Australian national average!
Alyssa and I connected immediately, we had so much fun laughing and cackling (yes, I use the word cackling) because that is exactly what we did, and this is the story of how Alyssa came to choose her dress with us at BOA.
What we find a lot of people forget when trying on gowns is the fact that gravity exists, especially when relating to a fuller bust. The gowns are structured, boned and corseted, so they don’t stretch and the sample may not be in your exact size. In fact, it is rare for someone to fit perfectly in a sample gown so never feel bad if you don’t either!
When trying on gowns, you need to place your breasts into the cups, otherwise when we pin you from behind or zip you in, the bottom of the breast is being squished below the cup line and now allowing for your shape to be seen properly and breasts supported well. Amongst our already fits of giggles about life, love and business, I forgot to remind Alyssa of this factor, so when we went out in front of the mirror and had her on the podium we both noticed something wasn’t right.
The gown Alyssa was trying on was a square neck with 1.5cm straps, so I explained, you need to come into the dress from the top, scoop your breast up and pop it into the cup so it sits correctly. She did so, very enthusiastically with the right breast, and as she absolutely nails it (or so she thought) she turned to me with a huge proud grin on her face only for us to realise the top of her nipple was poking out! Oh my, did we laugh, and laugh and laugh. We couldn’t breathe; the tears were streaming down our respective faces as we tried to catch our breath. Once we had managed to compose ourselves with large deep breaths and Alyssa fixing the nip back away, she scooped up the left breast (as we hadn’t done that yet) only to do the exact same thing again. There the nip was! On the other side, just living its best life, free to the air. Again, the hilarity ensued, the laughter becoming silent because we physically couldn’t breathe in enough air to make any more sound. She was in a heap on the podium having been unable to continue standing, as I was laying on my side on the carpet next to her in a fit of hysterics.
We knew at this moment that no matter what, Alyssa was going to be creating her dream gown with us at BOA. It was like we had known each other for years and she had trust that I knew what I was doing and no matter what happens along the way, she would feel looked after, safe and cared for, and stress free. What a beautiful and hilarious experience this was for us to bond and begin our journey working together.
As per her review “I truly can not recommend this boutique enough. From the initial appointment, I felt supported, I felt beautiful and most importantly I didn’t feel like just another bride coming through the door. You made me look and feel beautiful AND comfortable on the big day and it’s a bittersweet moment to write this as I already miss the fittings!!”
Read Alyssa’s full review in our Love Letters Tab.
Alyssa ended up choosing a custom version of our Lisa gown, a soft crepe with a custom design neckline specifically for her frame and yay, no nip slips on the day. The gown had a full A-line circle skirt, 1m length train, pockets and a freshwater pearl detailing on the back that we made to be detachable.
The other thing that made Alyssa’s gown so special, was that a few years ago when Mitch (her fiancés) Mum had passed away far before her time, she gave Alyssa the pearl buttons from her own wedding dress. We lovingly sewed each hand pearl onto Alyssa’s for her paying tribute to a woman who was kind, loving and caring.
Ashleigh Haas was their photographer for the day, catching the beautiful details in the Cactus Country Farm. She was stylish and comfortable in her stunning classic bridal shoes from Bared Footwear on High street, Armadale.
Candice Lee absolutely nailed Alyssa’s natural, stylish look along with a Hair Stylist from the Luxxe Hair Lounge Completing Alyssa’s look with her gorgeous flowers from Avonlea Flowers.
The reception was held at The Paddock at Lupna, Victoria, complete with a bouncing castle and food trucks. Mitch looked dapper as ever in his suit from YSG Tailors, Melbourne.
How did you and Mitch meet?
Gosh this is YEARS ago now!! We met each other through mutual friends back in high school, I would have been 15 and he would have been 17. We didn’t start dating until we were in our mid-20s though and married after 5 years of being together.
How did Mitch propose?
Mitch proposed to me on our trip to New Zealand in August 2022. We had been in a campervan exploring the North Island when we ended up at Hahei Beach and Cathedral Cove. He wanted us to get up early one morning to be one of the first people in the world to see the sunrise so we drove up to the lookout (albeit a shaky start to the morning because I didn’t want to get up and we struggled to get out of the camping ground because we’d lost the code to the gate – whoops!) and sat at the lookout waiting for the sun to rise.
He had brought along a GoPro which he wasn’t using much on the trip (I was very suss about this) and he was setting it up in a weird spot but I was like whatever you do you boo because it was 5am and I didn’t want to tell him where the best framing would be if he was capturing the sunrise and the view. Little did I know he was setting up to film our proposal! Once the sun had risen, he told me to go to the edge of the lookout and he’d get a nice photo of me facing the water. I hadn’t heard anything for a while so I turned around and he was down on one knee. It was such a lovely moment with just the two of us until we were joined by a squawking seagull who apparently had plenty to say.
What was your favourite part about planning the wedding?
I loved most of it to be honest, it’s hard to pick just one part. I personally love planning events and the idea of having all of the people that we loved in the one place celebrating us was so exciting.
We always wanted the day to be relaxed, inclusive and fun and so we had a real grassroots approach to everything where we leaned on our incredibly talented community and became friends with many of our vendors along the way. With this in mind I would say working with our vendors/friends to pull off a whole weekend of events was the best part of planning.
What made you choose the venue you did?
We wanted to have a BIG party and not be restricted by bump out times so we always knew we would have to think outside the box.
We’ve always loved the Murray River region and when we met the owners of Cactus Country and The Paddock at Ulupna we just knew that was where we were going to get married.
Cactus Country provided us the perfect spot for our ceremony and photos (with plenty of frozen margaritas on tap), while The Paddock gave us the flexibility to curate our own reception and our guests the opportunity to stay in the cabins or pitch a tent for the weekend.
We hired The Paddock for the entire weekend so everyone could relax and enjoy a couple of days in the region. Because of this we had a potluck dinner with most of our speeches on the Friday night, the ceremony and reception on Saturday and a recovery breakfast on Sunday morning before everyone went home.
What piece of advice would you like to give future brides when planning their big day?
I highly recommend reading The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker – it gave me so much clarity on how to bring people together to make meaningful and memorable experiences. It also provided me with the guidance I needed when we had to make some tough decisions around inviting guests and designing inviting spaces for all.
I would also say to go with the flow. I know it’s easier said than done though. There will always be drama around wedding planning but remember the big picture, we tend to get caught up on the small details but keep focused on the things that are meaningful and the memories that will last you a lifetime. No one will remember that the table placement might have been slightly wrong, but they will remember you tearing up the dance floor.
How did you feel working with us at BOA and the experience of having a gown custom to you?
I LOVED my experience. I was incredibly overwhelmed when I started to think about getting a dress and was genuinely worried that I wouldn’t be able to find something that would fit well, that was comfortable and that I would fall in love with.
I just happened to be looking in the window with my mum when Suzie popped her head out and asked if I wanted to come in because they had a cancellation. I was completely unprepared, had no idea what I wanted and found my dress then and there!
Suzie and the BOA team made me feel beautiful, celebrated my body, designed the fit to my natural curves and supported me through every milestone and drama up to the big day. I absolutely loved every fitting, the attention to detail and the experienced guidance throughout.
