Chelsea & Chloe: Chloe’s a brand and design lead who looks after all things creative, and Chelsea works in luxury fashion.
We live in Auckland and both love travel and adventure; that special time when the leaves start to fall in autumn; being outside in nature with our dog, Dustin; going to concerts; listening to vinyl records; and blasting our favourite songs from our phones for spontaneous dance parties.
We met more than 10 years ago through mutual friends and had an undeniable connection from the start. We were both young and in different places in life. It wasn’t the right time for us. But we kept in contact and three years later, the universe brought us back together. When we met, we both knew we’d end up together when the time was right.
Chloe proposed with a video she’d created of all the places we’d travelled to together. She’d been saving clips of us since our first trip three years prior, knowing what she wanted them for.
Neither of us wanted a big wedding, but it was important to us to share our day with the people who formed our support network from the beginning, so we invited only our parents, Chloe’s auntie, and our two best friends. Dustin played a big part in the day, too.
We didn’t have a theme but we kept to a colour palette and a clean, modern aesthetic with hints of wild and gypsy. We were really invested in the creative decisions — where our photos were taken, what our flowers were like, the colours our guests wore — as we wanted everything to feel cohesive. We were hoping for the perfect light and our hopes were answered! We like to think it was Chloe’s late nana pulling the strings upstairs.
For our dresses, we were very particular about the colour palette of grey, tan and peach. We wanted the colours to complement each other, but didn’t stress too much about the styles. We started our ceremony an hour later than we meant to, and it was all go afterwards to get out to Muriwai for our photos. We went to Woodhill Forest first, then had to hightail it to Māori Bay for sunset. When we arrived, our photographer said sunset was in five minutes, so we were going to have to run down a cliff and across the beach. All our guests had met us there so they got to watch us, heels off, bare feet, absolutely gunning it down the side of a cliff, over rocks and across the sand.
Photography: Samantha Donaldson | Celebrant: Rochelle Fleming | Chloe’s dress: Miss Crabb | Chelsea’s dress: Shona Joy | Makeup: Grayson Coutts | Hair: Darren Meredith | Ceremony venue & catering: Gracehill Vineyard Estate | Reception venue: Saan | Engagement rings: Meadowlark & Walker & Hall | Wedding bands: Zoe & Morgan | Flora: Rose Tinted Flowers | Fragrance: Givenchy L’Interdit & Paco Rabanne Olympea | Shoes: ASOS | Custom-made date print: One of One
