Elsie + Tim by Stephan and Nakita - Together Journal

Tim surprised me with a helicopter into Mount Assiniboine in Canada, which is 3,618m in elevation, before dropping a knee 48 hours later.

Tell us a little about yourselves, what you do, what you love…

Elsie – although we’re both from NZ, we have lived abroad for most of our relationship. First in Denver, then in Vancouver and now in Brooklyn, NY. Tim works in tech, and I work in advertising. I’m a sucker for anything visually interesting, and Tim has a 300+ record collection, we’re both massive foodies who love vintage finds, fashion and music. All details that showed up during our day—vinyl DJ set and live pianist with unique aisle songs (Aphex Twin and GroupLove), my Danielle Frankel dress was actually designed as a top that I turned into a dress, my dad’s vintage Daimler, unbelievable food by Craggy’s head chef Casey McDonald.

How/where/when did you meet – and what were your first impressions?

Although we both went to the same highschool (a year apart), we didn’t meet until one summer in NZ when we were back from Uni. Our paths crossed in our hometown of Rotorua while I was studying in Auckland and Tim was studying in Wellington.

When did you first realise that this was someone you’d like to spend the rest of your life with?

We’ve been together since I was 19 and he was 20, so being together for over a decade meant we really grew up together. When we first met, Tim was not a city boy, and I was not an outdoorsy girl – since then, we’ve hiked and camped all over Canada and now live in one of the biggest cities in the world, needless to say, we’ve both rubbed off on each other in the best way possible and have created a life we love living.

Was there a proposal? Tell us a little about it…

Tim surprised me with a helicopter into Mount Assiniboine in Canada, which is 3,618m in elevation, before dropping a knee 48 hours later. It was awful weather when we arrived, and after camping for two nights in the wet and cold, the skies opened up the day we hiked 22km out of the woods, which was his opportunity! Definitely made the hike out a lot easier with a pretty ring on my finger!

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

With this being our NZ celebration, we always intended on it being intimate with our closest friends and family, which also meant we could include special handmade touches like native NZ wood boards made by my dad as wedding favours and watercolour place cards made by my mum. We love details, so went out of our way to ensure everything was considered. With my background in design, we incorporated the ampersand as our symbol because it originated as a linking of the letters e and t—it was engraved into our bands, embroidered onto Tim’s tux, included on stationary and burnt into the boards.

The landscape of Hawkes Bay is so stunning we really just wanted to let the natural beauty shine with minimal add-ons. We were lucky enough to have a beautiful summer’s day before the devastating cyclone that hit the East Coast (we actually got stuck in Gisborne for our mini-moon due to all the roads closing and our guests having trouble getting home). We felt so unbelievably fortunate we were able to celebrate in this beautiful part of NZ before this happened.

What was one element you were happy to splurge on?

We are both big into music, so splurged on having a mini grand piano + pianist.

Did anything happen on your wedding day that you laugh about in hindsight (even if it was stressful at the time)?

Our precious baby niece yelled, “I want a banana”, right in the middle of the ceremony!

Tell us about your main outfits, what was unique, is there a story?

Living in NYC and having access to the flagship boutiques for both Monique Lhuillier and Danielle Frankel was a dream come true. Danielle Frankel was everything I could’ve dreamed of and more, and I loved working with their team. My entire 2nd look was head (veil) to toe (shoes) Danielle Frankel. When getting home, we had to check my Monique Lhuillier dress into a bag due to it being too large to carry on. At first, we thought it would be fine, but then we got stuck in Vancouver due to a snowstorm while transferring and were so worried it would get lost, thankfully it made it to New Zealand in one piece!