Wednesday, November 7, 2018

A Fabulous Find on Trove


I was looking at Trove recently, and had finished the search I was doing and decided to search to see if I could find an announcement of the wedding of my grandparents, William Spiller and Dorothy Highett. I think I'd searched for it before, but I just entered two words: the two surnames "spiller" and "highett" without the quotation marks. I was hoping to find one of those little notices in the births, deaths and marriages section, but I got much more than I could have dreamt of.

The first article I found in the Prahran Telegraph, 11 Nov 1927, was a full description of the wedding and the clothes worn by the bride, bridesmaids, and others.


MR. W. SPILLER TO MISS DOROTHY V. HIGHETT.
 A pretty wedding was celebrated on October 10 at the Presbyterian Church, Wattletree road, Malvern, when Dorothy Viola Highett, grand-daughter of Mrs. A. F. Alway, of Dixon street, Malvern, became the wife of William Spiller, youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Spiller, of Wattletree road, East Malvern.
 The bride, who was given away by her grandfather, Mr. Fiddes, looked charming in a frock of palest pink georgette heavily embroidered with crystal and showing an uneven hem line. Silver lace caught with orange blossom secured her pale pink tulle veil, and she carried a shower bouquet of pink roses and lily of the valley.
 Misses Nance Green and Vi MacDonald, as bridesmaids, wore dainty pale pink, georgette frocks under silver lace coats, and their shower bouquets were of pink roses and delphiniums. Mr. K. Cummins was best man, and Mr. D. Robinson groomsman.
 The reception was held at 9 Darling street, South Yarra, and was followed by dancing. The bride's grandmother wore a black georgette frock trimmed with goffered frills, and carried a posy of dark red roses. The bridegroom's mother wore black georgette, the panels embroidered with mauve beads, and pansies formed her posy. Mr. and Mrs. W. Spiller will reside in Sydney.

The next article I found was from Table Talk, 2 Nov 1927. It carried the same text, but included a photograph! This was a particularly important find as my grandparents had accidentally thrown out their wedding photos during one of their house moves, so I had never seen any.


It may be just a grainy photo from a newspaper, but it is invaluable to me.

It illustrates perfectly that even if you have already searched Trove for something, you should keep searching, as new publications are added all the time.