We’ve just recently returned to New Zealand after spending the most incredible past 4 years living and working in London, which is where we based ourselves to travel the world. We are both travel mad and all of our wedding day styling, food and ideas were inspired from our adventures together.
We were after a glamourous, Slim Aarons style setting with a tropical twist – the bigger the tropical leaves, the better! We also wanted to include special Chinese touches, so we made red and gold prominent in our styling and also had a fusion feast of a menu, which included dumplings and pork galore! One of our favourite and most special details was the artist, Sandra Adams, who we had painting at our wedding ceremony. She painted a beautiful portrait of me and Allen standing at the end of the pool, which will be the best keepsake. Oh, and our gold foil embossed wedding invites that were designed in London by the talented water colour artist, Pinar, who owns curiousme.com, were pretty darn awesome too – I still catch myself admiring them. Aside from our marriage certificate blowing into the pool, the other most memorable moment of our wedding was when it got to about 9pm. With the cyclone and the affects of the espresso martinis in full swing, I whispered in our photographer’s (Danelle Bohane) ear, ‘please let me know when you’re about to leave, as Allen and I are going to jump in the pool!’. Danelle loved it and the pool shots are some of our favourites. From about 10.30pm onwards, half of our wedding guests were doing bombs into the pool, and the other half were inside dancing in the smoke machine filled ‘club’ – it was insanely perfect and it made our wedding so memorable. My advice to other couples would be to Plan your day as if there are no rules and it will be absolutely perfect. What I love most about our relationship is that we constantly crack each other up – I’m very goofy and Allen’s exceptionally witty (he puns all day long…), which makes for a pretty hilarious combo. Allen loves to plan out the big picture and I love to fill in all of the little bits in-between, so we are a pretty great team. To me, married life is all about being the best team that you can be, forever and ever and never forgetting that a wedding is one day of the rest of your journey in life. I feel so lucky to have my best friend by my side to create so many amazing memories with.
Photography—Danelle Bohane | Bride’s dress—Gemy Maalouf from Morgan-Davies Bridal | Groom’s attire—The Kooples | Location—Waikopou, Waiheke | Event Coordination—Waiheke Island Weddings and Events | Flora—Vicki at Wild Flower | String quartet—Real Entertainment | Styling—Waiheke Event Hire, My Waiheke Hire and Figment Events | Bridesmaids’ dresses— Reformation | Bride’s shoes—Charlotte Olympia | Celebrant—Julie Fuller at Celebrants on Waiheke | Bride’s veil & headpiece—Bo and Luca | Hair & makeup—Kaitlin Chapman | Bow tie—Hackett London | Groom’s shoes—Joseph Cheaney and Sons