Magnolia Rouge: Wellington Wedding

Friday, October 19, 2012

Rustic Chic Wellington Wedding by Catherine Cattanach

Good morning!! How are you this (yet again) terribly windy Friday? Honestly I'm so over the wind and rain, and it's all everyone around here seems to be talking about... so moving on to prettier things!! We're ending the week with this lovely Wellington Wedding sent it from Catherine Cattanach. I don't have an image of it, but the couple chose to have a DIY Ice-cream sundae bar instead of a cake which sounds rather fabulous to me!! I also love the bride's croqueted vintage shrug... such a sweet additional to her dress. There was a fair amount of DIY involved with the very clever Niki making all her own stationery (photos of stationery by herself) - and what an amazing job she did of it!! I'll hand you over to her to tell some of their story...

Steve and I met at a ball in 2008. He needed a date for the evening and asked a mutual friend if he knew anyone who might be available to partner him. One text later and with the proviso of me finding a formal dress to wear, I agreed to come to the ball. Neither of us was expecting it to be anything more than just a favour… luckily for us it turned out to be a lot more!

We spent the next four years dating long distance before getting married in April 2012. We looked at a number of different wedding venues around Wellington but once we had seen Erskine College in Island Bay, we knew we’d found the right place for us. Having been a Graduate Architect, I fell in love with the historic school building at first sight. One requirement for our venue was having options for an outside or inside ceremony (with the weather in Wellington being somewhat unreliable!) and somewhere that we could have photos taken without straying too far from our guests. We wanted the feel of our day to be relaxed and fun with a ‘no fuss’ atmosphere. To keep things casual, we decided to get married on the lawn and keep the beautiful ornate chapel as our wet weather back-up and the place for our ‘first look’ photos.

We also decided to have an informal end to the reception by having a DIY ice cream sundae bar rather than the usual cake. The overall style was what could be called ‘rustic chic’ with a number of DIY elements. My mum and I collected jars for our vases, Steve’s dad made the hessian table runners and I sewed fabric flowers for my bridesmaid and flower girls dresses. With my design background a particular highlight for me was getting to design our wedding stationery – it was easily the best part of the planning! I really wanted to look and feel like me on the day…albeit a slightly done up version of me! I had my dress altered to remove the train, added the asymmetric strap and chose not to wear a veil. I found some beautiful blue shoes and art deco style earrings and a crocheted vintage style shrug. I also purchased a vintage Queen Anne style couch specifically for the wedding (my husband thought I was mad)…which was a Trade Me steal for $80.

Every one of our vendors was fantastic. Yvette at the Piccadilly Flower Company did an amazing job with our flowers. My brief was to have a ‘freshly picked’ approach, as if we’d gathered the flowers from the roadside before the ceremony. She used an amazing array of flowers, even managing to source the common weeds and wild flowers that I had hoped for. Steve found our wonderful photographer Catherine Cattanach, purely by chance whilst looking for something else on the net. Once we met Catherine we knew we didn’t need to look any further. She made us feel completely at ease and we felt like we were on the same wavelength as each other.

If I had to give any advice to brides, it would be to select vendors that you feel comfortable with. We went with the theory that if we felt relaxed and could chat easily with them, we could trust them to do a great job for us. That proved to be the case - without exception. As for my favourite moment of the day, it would have to be the few minutes alone that Steve and I stole during the reception. We deliberately found ourselves a quiet corner and just took a moment to soak it all in. It was amazing to stand back and marvel that all these people were there to celebrate and share our day with us. It was a really humbling and ‘full-heart’ moment.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Boomrock (Wellington) Wedding by Erin King

Boomrock on the Kapiti Coast looks like the most incredible venue for a wedding, and these gorgeous photos from Erin King capture it at it's best. You have to love a bride who's not afraid to break away from the norm and wear a dress with such bold colour. I love how much of a contrast it makes with the natural landscape. And I especially love that sweet headpiece from one of my favourites Twigs & Honey.

We meet in Australia in 2004 while backpacking along the east coast. After three months together Jimmy returned to New Zealand with me where we spent a few more months travelling about the country before he had to return home to England. After a few months apart, I missed him so much and knew I wasn’t ready to let him go, so I decided to venture over to the England to see him. After three months, I had to return home to my final year of my university studies. We made the hard decision that Jimmy would stay behind while I finished my studies. After eight months apart (which felt like years) we were finally together again. I was adamant I never wanted to get married, but after 7 years together I changed my mind and knew that now I was going to have to propose to Jimmy! I decided I would pop the question while travelling, on a trip to Croatia, as travelling was how we met initially. Being quite a shy person, I didn’t have it in me to actually say the words “Jimmy will you marry me” so I came up with a more creative approach. Veuve Clicquot champagne has been our special occasion drink ever since our first trip to France, so I decided to create a label for the bottle. One evening on our trip, when we arrived at Hvar in Croatia at a lovely romantic spot to watch the sun set, I pulled out the bottle (label covered with a wine cooler sleeve). Encouraging Jimmy to pull the sleeve off because this was a special bottle, confused, he did so and immediately said “f**k me” followed quickly by a “hell yes”. Needless to say he was blown away and very happy indeed. We celebrated by partying the night away in Hvar.

Our wedding day was personal, relaxed and natural and with only 47 guests it was a small intimate cosy day with close family and friends. It was the best day of my life! The whole day was perfect, we were both relaxed and had a blast! It was amazing having all our friends and family from all around the world (UK, Australia and NZ) at one venue together for a day. It was fantastic for all our close friends and family to really to get to know each other and enjoy a night dancing together and celebrating the joining of two wonderful groups of family and friends.

Our sweet little flower girl Siena (14months) had a great time pre-wedding running up and down the aisle without her shoes on. But when it came to her moment there were just too many eyes looking down on her and not even her Daddy at the end of the isle was enough to entice her down. Tears from Siena, but giggles and smiles from our guests.

Boomrock is a stunning naturally decorate wooden lodge on the rustic Wellington coastline. It's a spectacular venue that showcased Wellington, New Zealand at its best to all our friends and family from overseas (who all can’t wait to come back again now – success!). They provided amazing food, wine and service – and we were told all night by family and friends how amazing the food wine and service had been.

Our photographer Erin, a wonderful friend from Wellington, did a fabulous job of capturing our wedding. She made having our photo’s taken a fun and relaxed experience on our magical day and produced a fabulous array of photos for us to pick from.

Memorable moments from the groom: Relaxing at the start of the afternoon (after a hectic morning!) with my two best friends, my brothers. Having a few beers, throwing some knives and shooting my clays. If I have any advice for a groom, I recommend some down time with your groomsmen pre-wedding having some fun to wind down.

Waiting up the front for my lovely Emma to arrive, with all my family and friends from England sitting with my family and friends from NZ and Australia all together. Magic!

As everything was about to kick off I got to shoot a clay bird to capture everyone’s attention. After I blasted the clay you could hear the helicopter in the distance. I then got a glimpse of Emma as she flew past in the helicopter and could see a small hand wavy down at me.