Rosie Tupper & Sam Margin

Bound by an unspoken knowingness, a love that drew them together across lifetimes, colliding on a serendipitous balmy night in New York. Model Rosie Tupper and musician Sam Margin of The Rubens welcome The Lane into their sanctuary and talk finding home in one another, the importance of time together and balancing their new family life.

How did the two of you first meet? 

We met at a show Sam was playing in New York City. I was living there and he was passing through on tour. I went to the show with a friend and we had drinks after.

Tell us about your engagement and your beautiful ring… 

We had been traveling back and forth between New York and Sydney for the first year of our relationship. The morning of our engagement, I flew into Sydney and Sam picked me up to take me to our hotel in the city. I had no idea at all that he was going to propose that day. We dropped our luggage off at the hotel before check-in and went for a walk in the botanical gardens to kill time.

Sam said he had a surprise for me and brought along a picnic bag which I assumed had some champagne or something in it (which made sense to me because we hadn’t seen each other in a few weeks). We put down the picnic blanket near the harbour and Sam pulled out a bottle of Perrier-Jouët (the one with the flowers on the bottle) and we opened it. Suddenly, he hands me a ring box and I couldn’t believe it! I said yes and we smashed the champers! The ring is an early 19th-century halo ring.

You had a rather untraditional wedding on a beautiful rural farm, tell us a little more about the overall experience…

Neither of us wanted an enormous celebration or anything particularly traditional and because I’ve spent most of my time living overseas and my family are all in Perth, we knew it would be hard to have a single celebration with everyone important to us there, so we decided to do the ceremony in Sydney with just our parents watching, followed by little celebrations with family and friends in both Sydney and Perth.

Sam’s family friends were lovely enough to let us use their farm for the Sydney post-wedding party. They converted an old shed into a beautiful event space that looks out over the dusty paddocks across the farm. It was low key, but beautiful, and something that suited us both. The following week we flew to Perth and had another little celebration with my family and anyone who couldn’t make it to Sydney which was really lovely too. Kind of ironic that in us trying to have the most simple wedding possible, we ended up having three events across the country from each other, but in the end, it was really fun stretching out the celebrations over three weeks!

Fast forward to today, you’ve now welcomed beautiful baby girl Mozes to the family, how do you spend time together as a family? What’s a typical weekend for you and the family?

Although we both have pretty unusual work schedules it seems to really work. Sam has to go on tour sometimes which can be difficult, but if it’s for a few weeks at a time, I’ll usually spend that time with Mozes in Perth with my family. And when he’s not on tour, we get to spend uninterrupted weeks at a time together as a family, no work or commitments, and I think that’s pretty rare for most families these days. We’re really lucky. Our days off consist of long drives along the coast, taking Mo to the park, and Sam spending afternoons cooking dinner for all us.

While you’re both busy working on exciting projects, how do you find balance and time for each other? 

It’s important that we find time to be alone together, just the two of us. Things can get so crazy with our schedules, and now with Mo, we sometimes realise we haven’t had any time together for weeks. We’ve been trying to make sure we get a babysitter (our families!) and do dinner together as much as we can.

With travelling being a big part of your careers, and now having baby Mo, how important has ‘home’ become and what does that mean to the both of you?

We both love being home. Since having Mo, our place really does feel like our sanctuary. As soon as we brought her back from the hospital, things changed instantly, we were now a family.

What is a favorite poem, quote or song that you feel resonates with you as a couple?

What does love mean to you?

Not being able to imagine the world without someone.

What’s next for the two of you? 

I’ve been getting back into work more recently which has been great. I only do a few days here and there while Sam looks after Mo. We spent some time in LA earlier in the year which we loved so are thinking about spending a bit more time there while Mo is young. Sam’s about to tour Europe and will be recording their next album soon. 

Photography / Jennifer Stenglein

Creative Direction / Emma Westblade @ The Lane

Talent / Rosie Tupper & Sam Margin