Vineyard wedding by Coralee & Alex

I have a lovely vineyard wedding from the fabulous duo of Coralee & Alex first up this week. You may remember Amber & Jamin's cute engagement shoot I featured last year, so I'm thrilled to be sharing their beautiful day with you too. How incredible are these flowers? And the perfect pictures in the fields? Love it!

The inspiration for our wedding came from our two upbringings (England and New Zealand) and the fact the Jamin looks good in brown and I wanted a Grecian type wedding dress. This is why we fell in love with Markovina Vineyard Estate because it brought a blend of our two homes, with features such as its red phone box, open country field, flower gardens and the beautiful native plants, vines and the gorgeous chestnut tree that we had our ceremony under. Markovina Estate also naturally matched our colour theme with its antique, rustic wagons and cart wheels dotted around the gardens. If this wasn't enough, with all of Jamin's nieces and nephews, the ground provided lots of fun and games, as well as a good old English game of Croquet.

Our florist was Fairy Florist in Titirangi who worked with our colour themes choosing a range of dark purples, gorgeous greens and whites. Although my amazing mother did all the flowers for the reception and also provided small pots with cute little flowers for wedding favours, each with a small flag with the guests name handwritten on.

We actually made flags a part of our theme with white bunting all through the garden and a very handsome wee flag boy who raised a flag at important events during the day as well as our divine white chocolate cake made by our amazing cake maker Claire Rowe that had flags and bunting hung on it.

Our super creative friends James and Freya Brown handmade our wedding invitations and order of service for our day that were shaped as a fan for guests to fan themselves in the heat. They encapsulated the theme of our wedding using images like bunting, flags, trees and flowers.

I knew from the beginning as I am quite short that I would need a dress that was not too puffy and big. That is why I went with a long flowing Grecian style dress. I got this from Modes in Newmarket and they were extremely helpful with choosing my gown. The bridesmaid dresses and flower girl dresses were made by our family friend, whose attention detail and patience was spectacular!

Our day started with a whole lot of fun. Jamin and his mates had a big hearty breakfast washed down with Guinness and then headed to Cornwallis for some childish ball kicking and tree climbing and a cold dunk in the sea and Alex (our photographer) did well to put up with our antics! The girls on the other hand were quite oppositely relaxing being beautified at Peter Sahramann hair salon in Titirangi along with our amazing makeup Amanda Beets Makeup Artist.

Jamin’s most fond memory of the day was the anticipation sheltering under the great chestnut tree awaiting his bride, whilst squinting in the sun as it shone but then momentarily but repeatedly was hidden by fast moving clouds, threatening to down pour and soak us all! But it shone gloriously as Amber walked up the aisle, passing all our friends and family of like faith; with Jerome and Felix Alderson (of ‘All a Sudden Darkness’) strumming a classical guitar piece they composed just for us (http://soundcloud.com/jerome-alderson/jamin-ambers-wedding-song). Never have I been more content!

My most memorable moment was during the hymn we sang at our ceremony Jamin and I turned and looked out to all our guests and it was at that moment that I realised I had all my friends and family all in one place together at one time celebrating our very special day with us, a feeling of love, comfort and familiarity all in one, which our photographers Coralee and Alex captured beautifully through the camera’s eye.

* Coralee & Alex are one of my fabulous sponsors.