Renee + Dan by Holly Shin Photography - Together Journal

The live weather forecast was closing in, I honestly didn’t even think we would get any pictures that weren’t in front of the fireplace indoors. Well, the rain didn’t really arrive. In fact we had sunshine, guests outside, incredible weather!

Tell us a little about yourselves, what you do, what you love…
D – I’m in Real Estate and she is a Registered Nurse. We love love love people and we think our lives and careers reflect that. You can find us at almost every social gathering. We also love a good party, and a decent boogie. We definitely are both low key weirdos but love that we can be weird together. We definitely don’t like to take life too seriously (maybe me more than Renee!).

How/where/when did you meet – and what were your first impressions?
R – We met on Tinder! It was two days before the first ever COVID lockdown. The world was crazy and we were bored. We hit it off and spent the entire lockdown sending voice notes, playing games, dressing up for FaceTime dinner dates and having the funnest time. Our first date was socially distanced, we both sat in our separate cars with our favourite snacks and rolled the windows down. I thought Dan was hilarious and so sweet. He was just glad I wasn’t 6 foot tall.

When did you first realise that this was someone you’d like to spend the rest of your life with?
R – I think we knew it was the real deal early on, but when we knew we were ready to get married was when Dan’s father passed away. We realized life was short and we loved each other! Grief definitely united us and we knew we were a great team. Dan’s Dad would have loved to be at our wedding, he hinted regularly about us getting married. I think he would have been super proud.

Was there a proposal? Tell us a little about it…
D – She is very hard to surprise so it was a bit stressful trying to plan a proposal. We were in lockdown so there was nowhere to hide. I ended up taking her on about 4 decoy dates, where I would act like I would propose but it was just another date. Every single one I blind folded her, brought her to a range of locations, sometimes give her flowers but no proposal. For the actual proposal, I drove her out to Pokeno in a blindfold. When the blind fold came off, she was in a gravel car park beside the famous Pokeno ice cream. We then got back in the car and drove all the way to North Auckland, to her favourite beach in Stanmore bay. I had her flat mate set up a rug (which we later got married on) along with champagne, flowers, and goodies. She stayed to film the whole thing! I managed to get out a few words which were basically just will you marry me. It was perfect.

Tell us about the vision you had for the mood or style of your wedding…
R – I wanted classic, clean and modern. It also had to be romantic! I was all about candles, as many as I could I think I genuinely ended up with over 100 candles. Warmth and coziness but classic. The most romantic dinner you’ve ever been to.

What was one element you were happy to splurge on?
Our venue! People being warm, well fed and well watered was our number one priority. Plus a bloody good party. Our package was all inclusive (definitely the higher end of our budget) and a worthwhile expense. Would spend the money again.

Did anything happen on your wedding day that you laugh about in hindsight (even if it was stressful at the time)?
It was meant to be 100% thunderstorms all day. Not even one hour of no rain. The live weather forecast was closing in, I honestly didn’t even think we would get any pictures that weren’t in front of the fireplace indoors. Well, the rain didn’t really arrive. In fact we had sunshine, guests outside, incredible weather! Amazing! We had one sun shower for 2 minutes max and then managed to get all our dream photo locations. The perfect winter day.