General News
11 March, 2026
Special day at IGA
BILLIE and Sam Harrop knew they wanted to celebrate their wedding day by honouring the place they first met and grew to love one another – the Timboon IGA.
With the help of their wedding photographer, the newlyweds dropped by the IGA on their big day to commemorate the occasion and take a walk down memory lane.
Billie was due to graduate Year 12 in just three weeks when she started working at the IGA in 2018, where Sam had already been working for three or four years.
Billie said it wasn’t until she returned from a trip to Europe around a year later the pair began to build a connection.
“I came back and gave Sam a really big hug,” she said.
“I’m still not really sure why I did that.”
Sam said it was this exact moment which made him go heart-eyes for Billie.
“It really stuck with me. I thought it was really random,” he said.
“I remember speaking to a co-worker as well and she said we were really cute.
“That’s when I started taking notice of Billie, too.”
Sam worked in the fruit and veg while Billie worked in the deli, and Billie said prior to the hug, their interactions focused on work-related tasks but bloomed into something more afterwards.
“Really our interactions were limited to asking for the markdown gun and printer,” she said.
“At 12.30pm when he would finish work on a Saturday he would give me his temps to make sure I would do them after 12.30pm.
“That was really all the talking we did before that one hug we did in 2019.
“After that we started talking a little bit more and we found each other on Tinder and we thought that was hilarious because we knew each other.
“We swiped right and spoke a little bit more and it went on from there.”
Billie said she would leave notes for Sam to find when he came into work, cementing the IGA as a special place in both their hearts.
“I used to leave him little love notes which would normally say, ‘Could you please bring me the gun and printer,’ because I didn’t want to walk down the stairs to get it myself,” she said.
“He did actually keep a lot of my love notes that I would give him – here’s one, it says ‘Don’t think you know how much I appreciate you, love always, Billie,’ and I would just leave them on the fruit and veg bench before he would start work.
“I always knew when he was working because I would check the roster to make sure.”
When it came time to get married years later, Billie said she was adamant about taking photos at the IGA where they met and learned to love one another – even though others were sceptical at first.
“When we were planning the wedding six months ago, I was like, ‘I’m going to get photos taken at the IGA,’ and no one believed me,” she said.
“Everyone thought I was being so stupid.
“I’ve been telling people for literally months that it’s happening and it’s going to be so fun.
“You know, some people might meet at a restaurant, a bar or a park and they might go get photos done there, and I was like, well we met at IGA, which is lame, but it’s still cute.
“Sam was even thinking we weren’t going to do it, but I told him, ‘I don’t know if you realise, but I’m serious.’”
The pair had grand plans of honouring their original IGA roles by taking photos in the fruit and veg or deli sections, but decided it would be too messy and complicated in their fancy wedding attire.
“We originally wanted – well, I wanted, Sam was just going along with what I wanted – to get photos of Sam in fruit and veg cutting up some watermelon or the watermelon shaped like a love heart or something,” Billie said.
“But we ran out of time and we also didn’t want to get our clothes dirty.
“I did think about the deli too but it’s a small deli and there was no space for my wedding dress so I thought we better not.
“We were pretty lucky there was only about four people in the supermarket so we had the place to ourselves.
“I told everyone that’s how we were going to announce we were married, with photos in IGA – I loved every minute of it.”
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