Real Wedding: Billie & Sam - Photography by Wild Souls - Together Journal

Tell us a little about yourselves, what you do, what you love, what is unique about you and your relationship…

Sam is a wealth banker for ANZ and I work as a programme facilitator, working with offenders in the community and prison, supporting them to not re-offend through rehabilitation programmes. Sam and I have known eachother for 10 years but didn’t offically get together until 6 years ago when we reconnected through mutual friends. Sam made me cupcakes for my 19^th birthday when we first started dating and left them on my doorstep, after those cupcakes the rest was history. What makes us a great team is we accept we are two very different people who are opposites, but it works. We believe we are each others yin to their yang.

Tell us about your special day, was there a specific theme or style? Tell us a little about the setting, the styling and some of your favourite details… We are from Auckland and we wanted a destination wedding that incorporated our true loves, food and wine. We choose the Hawkes Bay for its amazing winery selections, epic weather and stunning scenery. Black Barn Vineyards was the perfect setting as it sits at the bottom of the famous Te Mata Peak and highlights all of the best elements in the Hawkes Bay; we wanted our guests to fall in love with the Hawkes Bay like we did and I think we achieved this.

The night before the wedding we hired Pipi’s pizza truck (THE BEST PIZZA EVER) to come and do pizza for all of our wedding guests. People laid out blankets on the orchard we hired, grabbed a bottle of wine and a pizza. It was such an amazing and relaxed enviorment the night before. People got to mingle and catch up and we got to say hi to family and friends who had travelled to be with us.

I was drawn to my dress initially due to the white sakura flowers that feather down it; this was my inspiration for the centre pieces at the reception. I wanted the stylists to incorporate locally found white flowers with lush greenery to create a whimsical and romantic style. Our colour theme was white, gold accents and heaps of greenery. My most favourite details were all of the Joan Malone candles which made the room smell amazing and our personalised, hand painted white and gold tiles by Isobel & George which we used as place cards for the guests. They added that special touch, looked beautiful on the table and were an awesome gift idea. It’s now so cool going around to friends and families homes and seeing them displayed around their houses. It brings back special memories.

What were some of the most memorable/unique moments from the day? Hard to pick…a couple would be when Sam and I did our ‘first look’ in-between the vines at Black Barn; I was shaking of excitement, as I started to walk towards Sam who was facing the other way. It was so emotional when Sam turned around and saw me for the first time. I am glad we did this before the ceremony; it eased my anxiety and made this moment so intimate and special, being just Sam and I. Sam looked so handsome and when he saw me and he couldn’t stop crying, he whispered in my ear how amazingly beautiful I looked. That’s a moment I will remember forever.

Another favourite moment was at the reception when my bridesmaid and her dad (who was on the guitar) sung us a personalised song as her speech. This was to the song from Dire Straights – Romeo and Juliet…it was hilarious and everyone sung along at the chorus. This bought so much energy and laughter into the room. Her speech was hard to follow after that!

Any advice for other couples planning to spend the rest of their lives together? Since being married we refuse to become an ‘old married couple’, instead we continue to date each other regularly, travel together and still head out for regular nights out with friends.