As Alex is such a jokester it took a good 10 minutes and an insistence that he get down on one knee to prove the proposal was real. We travelled around the South Island that summer keeping the engagement to ourselves which was quite a special thing to do. It allowed us time to honour it and sink in to the commitment we were making to ourselves first before telling our loved ones.
Lauren —— We’re both from New Zealand but now live in Los Angeles. I work in health/wellness and sustainability PR while Dano is an audio engineer who tours with bands. Many people would say we’re pretty different but it works for us (on good days!).
Julia —— We’re actually both wedding photographers. Before we met, we both had photography backgrounds and together have created HAUTE Weddings, our wedding photo and video company. We love that our job gives us the flexibility to be able to do more of the things we love: travelling, fashion, exploring new business ideas, taking photos, trying new restaurants. One of our favourite things, though, is to slow down and unwind in Italy. Aperol spritz in hand, of course.
Abundant textural foliage, florals and plants that tied in with the landscape was brought into the clear marquee and blended in with a crisp white base accented with modern and masculine elements in the tablescape and furniture selections. If there is one way to describe it, it was quintessentially “Huy and Sam”.
Sarah —— We were set up by mutual friends. We’d both heard about each other, but life gets in the way, so our friends sneakily organized for us to ‘bump into each other’ on a boozy Sunday out. He told my best friend that night that I was his ‘dream girl’.
“Our vision for the day was ‘spring garden soiree’. I was very inspired by colour and so we chose pinks, blues, oranges and greens as our palette. We fell in love with our venue because of its beautiful lush gardens so we made a conscious effort to enhance the existing elements of the venue through florals and styling, rather than take away from it.”
Tell us a little about yourselves, what you do, what you love…
Dylan and I both own a couple of business together so alongside running those we also work on the family farm together. Every day is completely different and never the same which is amazing!
“It ended up raining not long before the ceremony was about to start and everyone had to be ushered inside the marquee, where the ceremony took place on the dance floor. It wasn’t part of the original plan but I am glad we had the chequered dance floor as it came out so cool in the photos – especially with the bright & colourful flowers!”
Our vision for the wedding was architectural, minimal, elegant, classy and modern. We thought it’d be perfect to host a tea ceremony at our home in Richmond. That meant we could capture some special portraits in our beautiful home as well as around the neighbourhood we love.
Tell us a little about yourselves, what you do, what you love…
Chiara – We’re both born and raised in Melbourne and have been together since we were 19 (11 years ago!). For the last three years we have been living in San Francisco both working in Tech. I work in Strategy and Courtney works in Sales.
Hugo offered to take a photo of me and told me to walk towards the sea with my back turned to him. I obliged and set off into the waves. Luckily I was wearing wellies but when I got ankle-deep in the water, I turned around to see if he’d got the shot yet, and there he was… kneeling half in the water with a ring. He said some beautiful things and then asked me to marry him. I jumped to hug him and nearly knocked the ring out of his hand into the sea – good job he had a steady grip on it!
I was inspired by Meg’s wedding in Little Women. The ladies arranged flowers the morning of, while the guys played beach volleyball. Since we were in my hometown and surrounded by friends with various skills, it truly felt like we had a village behind us, using their unique talents to pull together each element of our day. That made the whole process even more special.
