Alysha + Mitchell by Pia Photography - Together Journal

From the day we started dating, we became best friends. Like a hand in a glove, our personalities mesh well together. Or as our friends would say – he is the calm to my chaos.

Tell us a little about yourselves, what you do, what you love…
Mitchell and I both grew up in Auckland NZ. Mitchell has been in the building industry since he left school and now runs his own business. I work in textiles – managing a retail store and operating the e-commerce. We both share a love for the sun, you’ll find us waking up with the sunrise to catch every minute of it. During the summer we spend our days at the beach, beside a pool or going for long walks. We bond over our love for fitness, oat flat whites, almond croissants and finding new restaurants to try on the weekends.

How/where/when did you meet – and what were your first impressions?
Mitchell and I are high school sweethearts.. well sort of. We were actually too shy to talk to each other at school. It wasn’t until Mitchell left to do his building apprenticeship in our last year of high school that we began talking. It’s funny looking back on that time. We both barely said a word to one another, just admired each other from a distance, but we both had this mutual longing feeling we would be together one day. Mitch remembers back to those school days and says “I knew I was going to marry you one day” And he was right. Here we are 12 years later, married, in our own home with a dog and, just recently, have been blessed with our first child.

When did you first realise that this was someone you’d like to spend the rest of your life with?
There isn’t one particular day that I look back on and think “That was the day I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Mitchell”. It’s more so been an accumulation of all the small things that he does to show me he really cares. It was all the small gestures, the extra effort or even just the kind words on a bad day that made me say Yes! without a second thought the day he asked me to be his wife.

Was there a proposal? Tell us a little about it…
It was 2019 and we were off on our 6 week trip around America. I was oblivious to his big plan and to the failed attempts Mitchell had made at proposing. Little did I know he carried a ring in his back pocket for the entire New York trip! Up the Empire State Building, around Central Park, across the Brooklyn Bridge and to all the way to an exclusive roof top bar. It wasn’t until we landed in Florida and had planned a day to have breakfast and relax by the pool that he decided that now was his chance. It honestly took me by surprise. I couldn’t believe he had organized something so big without me knowing. I’m such a spy when it comes to things like this. The proposal was perfect! We had gone for a little walk around the hotel property and stopped at their extravagant outdoor chapel on the lake. We were looking out at the view, and as I turned around to head back he was down on one knee.

Tell us about the vision you had for the mood or style of your wedding…

When it came to the vision for our wedding we primarily focused on how we wanted our guests to feel. We wanted to establish creating an atmosphere that reflected us and then we thought about how this would look. We wanted our guests to feel like they were at a Sunday night family dinner… With one or two too many drinks. We kept the invite list small, we had round tables with big sharing plates to encourage good conversation. We celebrated the night on an outdoor dance floor beneath dimly lit fairy lights. We kept the drinks flowing, and the food abundant. We wanted our guests to be so swept up in the night that they wouldn’t want to leave.