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. 

Venue  | Erskine College (Wellington), Photography | Catherine Cattanach Photography Caterer | Sarah Searancke, Flowers | Piccadilly Flower Company, Wedding Dress and hair piece | Confetti Bridal Boutique, Bridesmaid Dress | Anthropologie, Suits | Van Meer Suit Hire, Hair and Make-up | Hil Cook, Celebrant – Michael McGoff, Music | Aaron Andis, Stationery | Niki Fisher (bride)