Rosa + Rupert by Susannah Blatchford - Together Journal

The weather was picture perfect which definitely set the scene for an unforgettable, relaxing, social wedding.

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

Rupert and I live on our farm in South Canterbury with our three dogs, Winnie, Blue and Herb, and we are expecting a baby girl in Spring 2024. Alongside our farm life, we both have our off-farm jobs. I am the co-founder of Two Raw Sisters with my younger sister, Margo. At Two Raw Sisters, we love sharing recipes that make you feel great through our five best-selling cookbooks and our internationally recognised Two Raw Sisters App. Our mission is to inspire all eaters every day to see food as enjoyment by using good ingredients and being intelligently lazy. Rupert, on the other hand, is an associate director at KPMG, where he specialised in farm agribusiness. A lot of our time is spent on the farm building our exciting future together, and when time allows, we will more than likely escape to Wanaka, which is where Rupert grew up and a place I have been going to since I can remember. We are lucky to have my parent’s beautiful home to enjoy, and things we love doing while we are there include heading out on the lake or up the river, walking with the dogs and relaxing in the sun on the deck.

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

Our first official date together was a deep and meaningful conversation over wood-fired pizza, where we delved into our life stories. It showed me that he was someone who was meaningful, kind, a good listener, always loved a challenge and loved his family dearly.

We didn’t muck around, the next date was going to collect Blue, once his border terrier now has become ours. One of the most memorable first comments that Rupert made to me was that he didn’t feel as relaxed or comfortable around a girl as he did with me. He felt he could just be himself, and I felt exactly the same way.

We aren’t great at sitting back, we are ones to do things at a rather fast pace. Rupert lived in Timaru when we first met, and I lived in Christchurch. Labour weekend 2021, Rupert moved on the farm, and six months later, I decided to make the move down to be with him and commute to Christchurch for work weekly. We are so happy and fortunate to have had this opportunity and to be living our absolute dream together so early on.

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

Ru and I make a solid team and I think it shows with what we have achieved together in our relationship over a relatively short space of time. We both love each other and are committed to spending the rest of our lives together, we are both so excited for the opportunities, memories and experiences we can fill that with.

Key traits of us both include being hard working and goal driven. The farm being our biggest challenge that we both are so very grateful for. It is our project together that we are both passionate about and dedicated to putting the hard yards in to hopefully reap the rewards later down the track!

There is no doubt about it we can both have a good laugh and that brings us both a lot of joy. Practising our first dance for the wedding definitely provided lots of laughter!

We both bring different strengths and weaknesses to the relationship which complements us extremely well. We act as great sounding boards for one another when one needs advice or feedback.

Family is extremely important to us both. We both love our family very dearly and they are such a special part of our lives, including our 3 dogs. We are so looking forward to meeting our new addition very soon.

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

Rupert caught me by absolute surprise. We had preplanned for my Mum and dad to come to stay at the farm for the weekend, and it happened to all fall perfectly in line for Rupert, with the ring arriving on Friday of that weekend.

Our usual Saturday morning played out—moving animals, me in the garden, ticking off our never-ending list of farm jobs. It was an absolutely amazing day, weather-wise.

That morning Rupert had called dad to ask him if he could marry his daughter. I think Dad was just as shocked and emotional as I was when he proposed. We didn’t know Rupert had weak knees yet…!!! After he had been playing out that we had heaps of time to get married, he showed no interest in the rings I had been hinting at him with.

Saturday midday, we sat down and had a lovely lunch, I was keen to sit back and soak up some sun but Rupert clearly had other plans. He woofed his lunch down in no time and was keen to get going again… we had jobs to tick off, apparently!! So off we go on the motorbike. Coincidentally, we were heading up to my favourite spot on the farm. Arriving at the top paddock, I was mesmerised by the amazing view of the sea on this fine, clear day and chatted away to Rupert about how much I love this spot and the view….. Unknown to me, very closely to my left was ‘Will you marry me?’ plastered in black tape over the side of the balance.

Rupert gave me a couple of minutes before telling me to look to my left. Clearly taken by full surprise, I burst into tears not quite believing what I was seeing!! In amongst the tears came a definite yes!

We then proceeded to make an official proposal where Rupert got on one knee. It was extra special having our three dogs with us to enjoy the moment! Soon after Mum and Dad arrived, we popped some bubbles and ate some bluff oysters in the sun on the deck at home. It couldn’t have got much better than that.

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

Rupert and I started our wedding planning journey by writing down what was special to us both. Key things included our friends, family, Wanaka, Lake Hāwea, good food, and music. This led us to create our vision for our wedding day—a day we will never forget.

To kick start the wedding, Rupert and his groomsmen arrived in Rupert’s grandfather’s refurbished Jet30. The weather was picture perfect, with the sun out and the lake flat as a pancake. This definitely set the scene for an unforgettable, relaxing, social wedding. Celebrating with friends and family was something we were so excited about, we wanted the day to be as people orientated as possible which lead us down the pathway of doing a walk n fork compared to a sit down dinner. I was a bit nervous about it at the beginning as we had both never been to this style of wedding before. However, we ended up absolutely loving it as it gave us the opportunity to chat away with everyone and anyone while enjoying delicious, refreshing drinks and food in the sun.

Our location was breathtaking, and we didn’t want to take away the incredible backdrops of the lake, mountains and hills, so we decided to keep things to a minimum in terms of furniture and accessories. We went with the less is more approach. Focusing on good quality, stand-out pieces such as the beautiful Flagship marquee and Flock Events furniture. The space was filled perfectly, not feeling overcrowded, yet we had plenty of comfortable seating for people to relax back on, whether that was in the shade under the elegant marquee or in the sun.

What was one element you were happy to splurge on?

Going with the less-is-more approach, there were a few things we were happy to splurge on. Number one being a good photographer. Suse did the most amazing job, and we keep reliving such an incredible day through the photos. Having such a love for good food, this was obviously another area I was happy to go all out on, too. Morsel was incredible, and every mouthful of food was delicious. To get the tastebuds going, a few of the items we had for our canapés were ‘fried organic chicken, amchoor, curry mayo’ and ‘roasted tomatoes, basil & mozzarella’. Then, for the mains, a few highlights were ‘confit lemon grass, turmeric salmon, sticky Thai coconut rice cakes and coriander, spring onion salsa’ and ‘beef cheek rendang, with punchy Asian, peanut, herb slaw and coconut yoghurt. Then, to finish it all off for our late night snack, we had the most insanely tasty bao buns – ‘pork belly, cucumber and spring onion ginger oil’ and ‘sticky fried eggplant, cucumber, sesame kewpie, coriander’. These definitely went down as an absolute treat by all!

Since we were doing a walk n fork style wedding we didn’t need to worry about tables, chairs, table settings etc. which meant we were happy to focus on having statement furniture pieces that were comfortable and inviting for our friends and family to sit back and relax on. From the get-go, I had my eyes on Flock Events. I love their style of furniture, and it worked well with our overall mood and style, which was simple, high quality, and beautiful. That also goes with our statement marquee from Flagship. The detail and quality of the marquee were next to none and an item we were happy to also splurge on being such a key area that people congregated to on the day.

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

Nothing in particular! The day was honestly so perfect. One thing I was stressed about was the weather, despite knowing that it was uncontrollable and the day would be amazing no matter what it decided to do. However, I did have this vision in my head of what the day was going to be like, and wind and rain weren’t in the equation! We didn’t really have a ‘plan B’ lined up other than everyone ending up in the marquee! The forecast for the day in the week leading up to the wedding was rainy, overcast and a bit windy. However, we woke up to the most incredible, picture-perfect day. Looking back, I do laugh about how many times I looked on the weather app and pep-talked myself that it would all be fine and low and behold, it was more than perfect. The day after ended up being another incredible day, and then the day following that, we woke up to a rainy, overcast day.

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

My number one thing when choosing my dress was comfort! I wanted to wear the one dress throughout the whole day and feel great, and I got that exact dress from Hayes Bridal. Alice was an absolute delight to work with, and customising my dream dress with her was such a fun process. It was simple yet elegant, and most importantly, it was fit for a good boogie at the end of the night.  Rupert on the other hand went for the classic look being black and white. He worked with Sergios to create a custom suit for himself, to create a few subtle, unique differences between what he was wearing and his groomsmen. We were tossing between this option or a navy or olive green suit jacket; however, we are very happy we went down the black and white route, fitting in perfectly with our overall style and mood of the wedding being simple yet elegant.