Simple, relaxed and beautifully chic, today's wedding will be the envy of all brides coveting a white and natural greenery colour palette (the florals by On My Hand Props, Styling & Flora are GORGEOUS!). Bride Morgan's slick locks and stunning structured dress are giving me major bride style envy! And I can't help mention the INCREDIBLE film above by Mark Lahood that makes me want to get married again! Well worth a watch!
Congratulations to Morgan & Jaz and your beautiful daughter Sophia, and a big thank you to Jody Lidstone from I Do Photography for sharing these lovely images with us. xox
We are both from NZ, and started dating in 2006 after meeting at a bar in Auckland city. We have a 4 year old daughter and have been living in Australia for 8 years now. It was important for us to return home to get married in my hometown of Rotorua.
In three words describe your wedding style... Minimalist, Natural, Classic.
I walked down the aisle to Boyce Avenues version of A thousand years by Christina Perri (yes that Twilight song), but as we'd waited for 10 years to get married, it seemed fitting. Our first dance was to John Legend's You & I and while we were dancing our daughter started crying as she too wanted to dance with her Daddy.
What were the save and splurge items for your wedding?As we hired a venue where we had to bring everything in, our entire wedding was a splurge for us. We definitely splurged on the photographer and florist but they were worth every cent. We saved on small ticket items like wedding favours, candles and table runners by purchasing online and from IKEA and my accessories - by not having any!
Planning a wedding from overseas was difficult at first as I couldn't just go and meet with people/see things before booking. But with the help of online wedding blogs, Instagram and Facebook I was able to track down exactly what I was after. Also the guest list, as we wanted a relatively small wedding with only our closest friends and family, it was hard to not invite some people. The most fun was all the chit chat with my girlfriends in the lead up to the wedding about dresses, shoes, hair, makeup etc, and of course the hours spent trawling online blogs for wedding inspiration.
My good friend Kate and I were up till midnight the night before the wedding making the seating chart and a few nights before that we put stickers on cake boxes for guests to take home. Jaz also painted a letterbox white (which we picked up from Bunnings) and that became our wishing well. I didn't do much DIY as with our style of wedding it wasn't really needed.
We initially set a budget based on what we thought it would cost to get married in Australia. With exchange rates and the difficulty of securing vendors in a small town, we ended up spending a lot more but it was worth every cent. If you're doing everything from scratch for a wedding like ours (from hiring cutlery to port-a-loos), then definitely shop around for quotes and I highly recommend purchasing bridesmaid dresses/shoes etc online if overseas as shipping to NZ is often free and that saves a lot.
CREDITS
Photographer Jody Lidstone from I Do Photography
Videographer Mark Lahood
Venue Te Manu Lodge
Planner/Stylist I styled the entire wedding and my dear friend Kate set it all up on our wedding day. I couldn't of done it without her.
Flowers & Signage Shaye Woolford, On My Hand Props, Styling & Flora
Catering Aunty Annies Catering
Bar & Bartenders The Catering Co.
Favours Fortune Cookies
Hire Company Stretch Tents and Luna Vintage Prop Hire
Stationery Kristen Dangerfield from Design meets Paper
Printer Super Dooper Print
Makeup Amanda Ashton from Mata the Face of Beauty
Hair Jordan Craig from Melbourne
Cake The Cake Tin
Celebrant Marama Royal
Brides Dress Rachel Gilbert + Brides Shoes Leona Edmiston
Bridesmaids Dresses Various styles from ASOS
Grooms Suit & Accessories Roger David + Grooms Watch The Horse
Flower Girl Sophias flower girl dress from David Jones + Shoes Seed
Rings Tiffany & Co. and Hofstays House of Diamonds
Transport Xquizit Limousines
Music Absolute DJs
