Story: WENDY CREIGHTON
Photos: Cas Miller INC.MILL PHOTOGRAPHY

TAILA and Mitch were matched on a dating app.

After exchanging texts for about a month, they decided to meet as both felt almost certain that they knew each other well enough to risk a face to face meeting.

Each believed the other was worth getting to know even better but they’d heard the stories about the first dates that quickly became the awkward last dates, and chose caution.

“Our first date was at KFC,” says Taila and laughed as she agreed it was a safe place if a quick exit was needed.

It wasn’t needed.

“We met just before Christmas 2021. It went really well, there was no awkwardness, I think we knew right there and then that we were going to be together,” says Taila.

But family Christmas plans were already in place and it wasn’t until after the holiday break that they met again.

The second date just happened as if it was already a part of their lives.

“We’d really connected. It all just flowed as if hanging out together was the natural thing to do.”

Six months after their first date they moved in together.

“I was living in Brassall and the lease was up on my rental,” recalls Taila.

“Mitch suggested we move into his parents home at Willowbank while we saved up for a place of our own.”

It was a good move as the location was convenient to Taila’s job in customer service with City Country Foodservice and to Mitch’s work with the family business.

Mitch’s parents welcomed another guest only a couple of weeks later – a purebred Border Collie puppy, which Taila and Mitch had named Beau.

Another six month interval and the couple signed the contract on their first home.

When they moved into their home in Rosewood in January 2023, Taila was wearing an engagement ring.

She laughs as she recalls the proposal.

“We were in an AirBnB in Montville for the weekend.

“I’d just stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel when Mitch came in.

“And he proposed,” says Taila explaining that Mitch had planned the proposal a little differently, “but he was so nervous, he couldn’t wait.”

The date was Saturday, October 14, 2023.

Planning for the wedding began soon after and first on the list of ‘must do’s’ was to find a venue.

“We had a tour of the The Hilltop Barn at Glamorgan Vale,” says Taila. “Once we saw it, we didn’t look any further.”

Taila set about booking other vendors.

“We wanted to use local vendors where we could and it all seemed to go pretty smoothly.”

A hiatus in wedding planning occurred ahead of their engagement party at Mitch’s parent’s place at Willowbank.

And in March 2024, she found the perfect wedding dress.

All was going to plan and then Taila found out she was pregnant.

“We wanted to have a baby but the pregnancy came a little earlier than we expected,” Taila says.

“I was lucky, even though I was 16 weeks on our wedding day, I didn’t have to have my wedding gown altered.”

In fact, they announced the pregnancy that day and it became a dual celebration.

“Our families knew, and the bridal party,” she says, “but it was a surprise to everyone else.”

She takes only a moment to choose her favourite memory from Saturday, March 22; the day Taila Laegel married Mitchell Wooller.

“When we said our vows. We wrote our own.”

Taila adds that it was also special that their celebrant was Andrea Schumacher, as she was one of her teachers at Kalbar State School.

A honeymoon in New Zealand followed and now Taila is planning a huge collage of all the wedding photos … and of course, the arrival of their first child.