Samantha and Vanessa got married at a family home in Mareeba — nothing grand or sprawling, just a place that already meant something to them, dressed simply for a rustic, country-style day.

Sam, a Brisbane local finishing her law degree, and Vanessa, a boilermaker from Mareeba who builds boats for a living, met on Hinge with about the lowest expectations two people can have — by their own admission, it was meant to be a one-night stand. Almost two years on, engaged and building a life together, that plan clearly didn't survive contact with reality.

Vanessa's proposal wasn't exactly low-key: a helicopter ride to Flaxton Gardens on the Sunshine Coast, sprung on Sam with no warning at all. Between weekends split across CityCats in Brisbane and trips home to Mareeba, country music, true crime marathons and an ongoing search for the right puppy, theirs is a relationship built equally on the everyday and the occasional grand gesture.

For the wedding itself, the brief was simple: rustic, relaxed, country — and above all, about family. A helicopter proposal is one thing, but when it came to the wedding itself, Sam and Vanessa kept it modest and personal instead — a family home in Mareeba, a celebrant who's a genuine friend, and nothing about the day dressed up as bigger than it needed to be.