I have never visited Matakana myself but everytime I see feature a wedding there the location always makes me swoon. There is something so relaxed about todays wedding, and the photos by Qiane Photography are (as always) stunning, perfectly portraying the love, emotion and all the little details of such a special day. Enjoy!
What were you most excited about on your wedding day?
On the day I was probably most excited about seeing my husband after we were both dressed up and seeing if he liked my dress. I was also excited about seeing everything come together, the venue decoration, the vowes.
Seeing all our friends and family together and getting to hang out, dance, party with all our favorite people in one place.
I was super excited about having the same name as my husband and just knowing he was my husband. We were very committed and had been living together but for both of us there was something very special about having the ceremony and making our commitment more formal, even if our day was very relaxed and untraditional in some ways.
Why did you choose to be married at Matakana River Winery?
Matakana was an important place to Marty and I and every time we went there we would have lunch or brunch at Mahurangi River Winery. We loved the food, atmosphere, people, view and of course wine there! So really that was the easiest decision after we decided to get married. In fact we made the booking before getting engaged.
Why did you decide to have a first look?
We really wanted our wedding day to be about spending time with family and friends. One of my favorite times during most weddings I have been to has been the canapés, drinks and socialising while the wedding party is having photos done so I didn’t want to miss that at my own wedding.
I had also read Qiane’s blog and she had commented on this which definitely sold us on both having a first look and choosing Qiane for our photographer.I am so glad we did do the first look it was such a special time to spend together. We also had photos with the wedding party before the ceremony and again this was such a neat time and so much fun.
What was the most memorable thing about your wedding day?
Everything! Seeing my husband for the first time for the first look. My dad crying (he is a very staunch kiwi block so it doesn’t happen much) when he first saw me. My niece’s excitement at being a flower girl. Our vowes, we wrote them ourselves and they were read as a poem. Speeches, my sister stood up and gave an impromptu one which was very special. Having such a wonderful time with my husband, friends and family.
You hand-made quite a few things at the wedding, what was hand-made and where did you get the inspiration from?
We handmade the seating chart, using a world map. Each table was named after a place we had visited together. Marty loves maps so I came up with the idea of using the world map with arrows coming off of it. When we couldn’t get the large numbers I wanted to go on the tables Marty came up with the idea of letters glued on top of boxes which had 4 photos we had taken from each of the destinations. We both love traveling and have been fortunate enough to be able to travel both within New Zealand and internationally since being together. We really wanted to personalise the day as much as possible so we used photos we had taken from each of the places we went to.
I have always known I wanted green and cream as a color scheme and we wanted everything to be quite natural so using brown paper and then getting the hessian flags made for us really fitted the look. This also really suited the venue. We put together the table flowers ourselves, again I just always had that image in my head. We used glass bottles and bought a mixture of white and green flowers using just a couple of stems for each bottle.
I had a lot of fun going through wedding magazines and ripping out pages with things I liked which I kept in a wedding inspiration album. I did a lot of googling and looking on etsy and felt.
How do you feel about your wedding day now, looking back? What were your favourites elements of the day? Would you do it all the same again?
Loved it all, it was amazing!! Everything and everyone we dealt with exceeded my expectations. I was very aware of enjoying and taking in every moment of the day as so many friends had said how quickly it goes. Despite doing exactly this it now feels like a fantastic dream that happened a long time ago. Looking at the amazing photos Qiane took takes me back to that moment. As most brides say I would love to go back and relive the day all over again.
The only thing I did mean to do and would have liked was to have videoed the speeches and ceremony.
Photographer // Qiane Photography <Facebook ><Instagram><Pinterest>
Second Shooter // Hannah Sutherland
Pre-wedding location // Riverside Matakana
Wedding Venue // Mahurangi River
Florist // Bloom Saloon in Matakana
Grooms Suit & Shoes // Barkers
Bride’s Dress // Sally Eagle Bridal < Facebook >
Bride’s Shoes // Diane Von Furstenberg from Runway
Bridesmaid Dresses // Sally Eagle Bridal < Facebook >
Hair // Chloe Rowe
Makeup // Ellie Herewini
Cake // The Caker (amazing flourless chocolate cake as bride is wheat free)
Kia Ora, I’m Qiane! (pronounced Key-Ah-Ne) Don’t worry if you get my name wrong, I have had a lifetime of mispronunciations. Once we get to know each other a little better you will see its pretty easy to say. My mom named me and I love to tell people it came from her imagination. She’s pretty clever my mom. My family rocks my socks and I guess that is a big part of what drives me to document life. I want to have a visual memory of moments, time, emotions and, most importantly, people. I want you to have that too.
Telling stories is my passion and doing it through photography is my gift. My philosophy is simple, it is to take beautiful images of your love, your moments and your unique essence so you can remember it for a lifetime.
I live in Auckland and I am available to travel… don’t get me started on how excited I would be if you wanted me to travel abroad!
I would love to meet and get to know you – you can contact me here and tell me how I can help with photographing your wedding day or your lifestyle portraits and we can talk about capturing your unique story.