Joel + Bridget by Olivia Melhop

Our core palette was dark green and soft pale blue

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

We’re Bridget and Joel, and by the time we got married we’d been together for almost nine years. Wellington is home, but travelling has always been a big part of our relationship – we’re happiest when there’s another trip somewhere on the horizon.

We both have busy day jobs, but a lot of what fills our time outside of them is creative. Bridget runs The Minimal Co alongside her day job, a design-led home and lifestyle business that has gradually grown to include weddings and events through The Minimal Studio. Music has always been a big part of Joel’s life, and he’s played in a rock band throughout our relationship – which means Bridget has spent a considerable amount of the last nine years at gigs she probably wouldn’t otherwise have found herself at.

We love good food, the beach, travelling, and finding reasons to bring our favourite people together. We both love making a home together and creating occasions around the people we love.

We’re quite different in the ways that work well together. Bridget is the planner; Joel is much better at trusting that things will work themselves out. Somewhere between the spreadsheets and the optimism, we’ve built a life we really love.

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

We met in Wellington in April 2017 through what was essentially a very convenient overlap between our respective friend groups. Our flats were connected through mutual friends, and we ended up at a shared birthday dinner together.

We clicked almost immediately. Bridget remembers how easy Joel was to talk to and, more than anything, how much he made her laugh. Joel remembers being taken by Bridget’s looks, the fact that she laughed at his jokes, and how instantly they seemed able to talk about anything. There wasn’t really a dramatic beginning or a long period of wondering whether we liked each other – it just felt very natural, very quickly.

That ease has probably remained one of the defining things about our relationship. Over the years we’ve travelled through around 20 countries together, changed jobs and careers, started businesses, followed various slightly ambitious ideas and supported each other through all the ordinary and difficult parts of life too.

By the time we got married, we’d already spent nearly a decade building a life together. The wedding didn’t feel like the beginning of our relationship so much as getting to stop, look around at everything we’d built, and celebrate it with all of our favourite people.

What styling and visual elements worked best for you?

We wanted each part of the weekend to have its own identity, while still feeling like it belonged to the same celebration. Our core palette was dark green and soft pale blue – complementary colours, but also our respective favourites: green for Bridget and blue for Joel. We used the blue more through paper and fabric, with green appearing across both stationery and florals.

For the wedding day, we chose a simple green-and-white floral palette. The Old Church is already such a beautiful, character-filled venue that we didn’t want the flowers to compete with it; we wanted them to accentuate what was already there. For the welcome dinner and Sunday’s pool party, Bridget’s niece – an aspiring florist visiting from Melbourne – created the arrangements using the same flowers across both events. Her brief was essentially “bright, bold European summer”: deliberately playful and completely separate from the wedding-day florals.

Bridget designed all of the stationery and signage, which was printed by Pinc and Paper Darling respectively. Across all three days, we hired furniture from Flock Furniture, looking for a classic-but-modern European summer feeling. We selected different pieces for each event rather than repeating the same setup, which helped each day feel distinct while still sitting within the same visual world.

One of our favourite decisions was holding the ceremony inside. We loved the sense of tradition that came with actually getting married inside The Old Church. From there, guests moved outside for cocktail hour while the team transformed the main hall for dinner. Over the course of the day, we moved from getting ready in the villa, to the ceremony in the church, outside for drinks, back into a completely refreshed main hall for dinner, and finally into the conservatory and outdoors to dance into the evening. Even though we stayed at one venue, every part of the day felt like arriving somewhere new.

We were also conscious of what would happen to things afterwards. Where we could, we tried to choose things that could be used, enjoyed or passed on again rather than existing only for one weekend. Instead of traditional guest favours, our guests received professional photographs – something genuinely connected to their experience of the wedding rather than another object to take home. And the wedding-day flowers were given another life too: Bridget brought ribbon from Wellington and, the morning after the wedding, her aunts helped turn the remaining flowers into small bouquets which they delivered to a local hospice that has cared for several people close to our family.

What did you enjoy most about the planning process, and do you have any tips for couples starting their wedding planning journey?

Bridget genuinely loves planning, so this was possibly the one occasion where an unreasonable number of lists and spreadsheets could be considered socially acceptable. By the end, this had culminated in a 226-page wedding bible shared with Alicia and the bridal party – which probably tells you everything you need to know. That energy has since been redirected into planning an annual Friendsmas, so apparently the wedding didn’t cure her.

One of the best decisions we made was to think about the wedding as a whole weekend rather than a single day. Almost everyone, including us, was travelling to Napier, where Bridget’s parents had also married in 1992, adding a lovely family connection to the weekend. It felt like such a rare thing to have so many people we loved in one place. While the wedding was officially three days, we actually started on Thursday night with Thai takeout and a few too many gins with our best man, maid of honour and friends who had travelled from overseas, before the celebrations properly began.

Having events across three days undoubtedly added cost and planning, but we would make that decision again in a heartbeat. It gave us so much more time with everyone and took a surprising amount of pressure off the wedding day itself. We never felt like we had to rush around doing the rounds because we knew we had a whole weekend together, which meant we could experience the wedding day at its own pace.

For all the planning Bridget did, the weekend absolutely wasn’t something we pulled off alone. We had an incredible community of family and friends around us who gave their time, skills and energy so generously – from helping with flowers and setup to the countless little jobs that appeared along the way. We came away from the experience with an even greater appreciation for the people who genuinely celebrate your happiness alongside you. There’s something particularly special about women who wholeheartedly champion other women’s joy, and Bridget felt very lucky to have that kind of friendship around her.

Looking back, one of the loveliest parts of planning was seeing how many people genuinely wanted to help us bring it all to life. It made the weekend feel like something our community had helped create with us, rather than simply an event we had planned for them.

Our biggest advice would be to decide what traditions genuinely mean something to you rather than feeling like your wedding has to sit entirely at one end of the traditional-versus-modern spectrum. We kept some traditions, changed others and left plenty out. Once we stopped asking what a wedding was supposed to look like and focused on what felt right for us, the decisions became much easier.

Tell us about your vendors. Were there any standout suppliers you would like to make special mention of?

We were incredibly lucky with the people we had around us, particularly because so much of what made the weekend feel easy came down to having people we trusted.

Olivia was one of those people. We already knew her and loved her work, so having her photograph the weekend meant we could completely let go of that part of the day and trust her to capture it as it happened.

Our on-the-day coordinator, Alicia, actually came recommended by Olivia. We hadn’t worked with her before, but after our first meeting, Bridget just knew she was our girl. We brought both Olivia and Alicia from Wellington to Napier, and having people we completely trusted in those roles made an enormous difference. Alicia took the plans Bridget had spent months building and made them exist in real life, while quietly handling all the things happening behind the scenes so we didn’t have to.

Our celebrant, Millie, was another immediate yes. She was bubbly, warm and completely down to earth. We wanted our ceremony to combine some traditional elements with something modern and relaxed, and she understood that balance perfectly.

The Village Goldsmith has also become quite woven into our story, from Bridget’s family heirlooms to her engagement ring and eventually our wedding bands.

And we can’t forget Vinci’s, who deserves a special mention for opening during renovations to make the pizzas for our welcome dinner – a level of commitment to pizza we remain extremely grateful for.

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

One of the most important pieces Joel wore wasn’t clothing at all. Bridget’s family has a gold wedding brooch dating from the late 1800s. Traditionally worn by brides in the family, more recently it had been attached to the bride’s bouquet. We wanted to bring it out from amongst the flowers and let it be seen properly, so Joel became the first man in the family to wear it, in place of a boutonnière. We loved taking an existing tradition and changing it slightly so this little piece of family history could really be part of the day.

Joel had his main looks custom-made by Tuong Tailors in Vietnam. For the welcome dinner he wore a dark green double-breasted linen suit, and on the wedding day a black cashmere-and-silk tuxedo with vintage cufflinks and the family brooch. His best man and ushers also went custom through Tuong.

We actually organised all of the tailoring remotely over WhatsApp, so one of the loveliest full-circle moments came later on our honeymoon when we visited Hoi An and finally got to meet the Tuong team in person. They had no idea we were coming, but recognised us when we walked in and were incredibly generous with their time, showing us around and sharing more of what they do. After having worked together from opposite sides of the world on such an important part of the wedding, getting to meet everyone properly was really special.

Custom clothing became a theme on Bridget’s side too, partly out of necessity. At 5’11”, finding full-length dresses that are actually full length isn’t always easy.

For the welcome dinner, Brooke Tyson created a custom silk dress. Brooke completely understood Bridget’s vision, her body and, importantly, her hope that the dress would have a life beyond the wedding. The statement bow was made detachable so it could later be worn in a completely different way.

The wedding gown from Astra Bridal was almost the opposite of what Bridget thought she would choose. She had imagined lace, sleeves and something traditionally romantic, but kept finding herself drawn to structure, shape and beautiful fabric. It was the floral jacquard that ultimately won her over. She then had the gown customised with buttons down the back and straps from additional fabric, which became some of her favourite details.

Phoebe’s in Vietnam created much of the rest of Bridget’s weekend wardrobe, but also solved one of our biggest bridal-party challenges. With a wide range of ages, heights and personal styles, Bridget wanted the women around her to feel cohesive rather than matching. Her maid of honour, bridesmaids and wider bride tribe each chose a custom silhouette they genuinely felt good in, all made in a coordinating silk composition, with some designed to be worn in different ways afterwards.

Bridget also wore one piece she hadn’t planned at all. On the morning of the wedding, her girlfriends surprised her with a sapphire and diamond bracelet. They hadn’t expected her to wear it that day, but it immediately felt right to add it – a little piece from the women who had been beside her throughout the whole process.

That idea of an afterwards ran through much of what we wore. Bridget is planning to dye several of her wedding-weekend dresses so they can become occasion wear, rather than pieces that belonged to only three days. Between that and bringing a nineteenth-century family brooch back into view, we loved the idea that the things we wore could have stories on both sides of the wedding.

Tell us about your wedding and engagement rings.

Jewellery and heirlooms have become a lovely way of carrying our families’ stories forward, and The Village Goldsmith had actually been part of Bridget’s jewellery collection well before the engagement.

In early 2023, Bridget took them an aquamarine brooch dating from the 1800s that had been sitting broken in a box for generations. She was given the opportunity to give it a new life, and The Village Goldsmith transformed it into a cocktail ring. The design was inspired by another ring made from an heirloom brooch on her mother’s side, so the finished piece feels like a meeting of both sides of her family history. Bridget loved not only the result but the process and the fact that their jewellery is made in-house, with so much time taken to perfect the design. So by the time Joel secretly began working on an engagement ring, he already knew exactly whose work she loved.

He had actually started working with The Village Goldsmith at the end of 2023 to source the right stone. They eventually found a teal sapphire he knew Bridget would love and created a bespoke sapphire and diamond ring around it.

Joel then had the slightly complicated task of carrying the finished ring around for three months of travelling without Bridget finding it. It moved strategically between bags and hiding places throughout the trip depending on what we were packing, unpacking or carrying that day, all while Joel waited for the right moment.

That moment finally came at around 3 am beside a frozen lake in the Arctic Circle, underneath the Northern Lights, at -11°C. Even the photographer who was with us that night wasn’t expecting a proposal.

One of Bridget’s favourite things about the sapphire is that it never seems to be quite the same colour. Depending on the light, it can appear dark blue, a deep vivid green or teal. Completely unintentionally, it ended up behaving a little like the Northern Lights it was eventually proposed under.

We returned to The Village Goldsmith during the wedding planning process for our wedding bands. They created matching bands engraved by their master jeweller, Darren, with a tulip and thistle pattern chosen to symbolise our connection.

At the same time, Bridget had another much-loved piece given a new life. A heart-shaped silver
signet ring her parents had given her was becoming so worn that it was close to cracking, so The Village Goldsmith recreated it in rose gold as an exact replica, right down to the original engraving.

None of these pieces really feel like jewellery bought simply for the wedding. They’ve gradually become a collection around our relationship and our families – old pieces restored, familiar pieces recreated and new pieces made to eventually become part of that history themselves.

What were one or two elements that were most important to you both that you were happy to spend a little more on?

For us, it was less about spending more on particular objects and more about investing in the people who would shape how the weekend felt and how we would remember it afterwards. Photography was an easy priority. We knew the photographs would be one of the few things from the wedding that would become more valuable to us with time, so having someone whose work we loved and who we already felt completely comfortable with mattered. We brought Olivia from Wellington to Napier with us for that reason.

We made the same decision with our on-the-day coordinator, Alicia. Bridget had planned the wedding in enormous detail, but neither of us wanted her to spend the actual weekend managing it. After meeting Alicia, we knew we trusted her to take everything Bridget had planned and run with it. Bringing her to Napier meant we could properly hand things over and step into the celebration ourselves.

Looking back, those were some of the best places we could have put our budget. Neither was really about adding more to the wedding. They gave us the opposite: the ability to be present, knowing somebody else was looking after the things we cared about.

Was there a favourite moment (or two) that you will treasure always?

For Joel, it was seeing Bridget walk down the aisle. Bridget had insisted we spend the night apart, so it was the first time we’d seen each other that day. The bridal party’s entrance was set across an atmospheric buildup of two Lana Del Rey songs, beginning with the flower girls, bridesmaids and maid of honour before Bridget came in. Just before the girls started walking, Bridget’s brother caught Joel’s attention to tell him to button his jacket – a timely save from his future brother-in-law.

Joel knows watching the bride walk down the aisle might be the obvious answer, but it was the first thing that came to mind. Seeing Bridget in her dress for the first time, knowing how much of herself she had put into creating the weekend, and then finally being there together in that moment is something he’ll always remember.

Another favourite was our first dance, mostly because we genuinely couldn’t believe we pulled it off. We’d only started lessons four weeks before the wedding and had four in total, so we’re incredibly thankful to Katherine at First Dance for somehow getting us there.

Somehow, the best we ever performed the dance was on the wedding night itself. Apparently the pressure helped. We were ridiculously proud of ourselves, and once it was over, it felt like the last formal part of the day was done – we could finally let our hair down and enjoy the party.

Really though, from start to finish, the whole weekend felt perfect to us. Joel summed it up simply: “There’s something satisfying about planning an event and actually pulling it off.” After all the time and thought that had gone into those three days, getting to actually live them – surrounded by all of our favourite people – was pretty special.

What does being married mean to you, and are there any special rituals you have that you would like to share?

Being married hasn’t dramatically changed the way we live together – after almost nine years, we had already built a life together. But there is something lovely about having made that commitment deliberately and having gathered so many of the people who have been part of our lives to witness it.

If we have a ritual, it’s probably continuing to make things to look forward to. We love planning trips, meals, weekends away and reasons to get our friends together. The wedding has probably made us even more conscious of how valuable those occasions are and of remembering them afterwards.

Memory keeping was something we thought about a lot throughout the wedding. Alongside Olivia’s photography, our guests captured the weekend on camcorder, Polaroid and film, and we also had professional camcorder footage so we didn’t miss the important parts while still getting that candid, home-video feeling.

We’re already thinking about what our albums will look like and how we can incorporate some of those extra pieces and details. We don’t just want to preserve how the wedding looked; we want to be able to come back years from now and remember what the whole weekend actually felt like