Backyard New Zealand Wedding
If there is one thing you should know about me, it's that I am in obsessed with romantic weddings. Those Jane Austen-esque affairs where beautiful blooms play hand in hand with gorgeous vintage details and soft hues. This, loves, is one of those weddings. A backyard masterpiece chock-full of romance and all sorts of pretty. See it all captured by Meredith Lord in the full gallery.
From the Bride... I always wanted to get married at my family home - the scenery is perfect and it gave us the ability to personalise our big day as much as we wanted with all the little extras. The inspiration for the wedding was a vintage garden theme and I wanted to do as much DIY as possible so I could get all the little touches as close to what I wanted. The colour theme first started when I purchased the bridesmaid dresses a month after we got engaged and from there it was navy, pink and white. It then moved onto an obsession with Etsy where I ordered all of my invitations, seating plans, table numbers etc from 'Sweet Pea Sunday' who create the most beautiful wedding stationery. From there I purchased lots of little bits and pieces and it all just came together perfectly.
The ceremony area was created by my father and brother who designed and built the whole thing as we wanted a special place to have the wedding. A Koru featured right where we stood which was very special. A Koru is a big part of Maori art and symbolises new life, growth, strength and peace. One of my favourite features of the wedding was the bunting that was handmade (all 200 of them!) and took many hours of work from my family as I wanted to make sure I had the right fabric to go with the theme. The cake was another challenge to tackle. Dad chopped up a few logs from down the back of the house to sit the cakes on. The old farm gate was taken from the property and created a fantastic seating plan. All 150 antique teaspoons were collected by my mother from various antique shops across New Zealand, often she had to purchase two or three at a time so it was time consuming to say the least! The flower boxes were handmade by my uncle and my mother planted these months before the wedding making sure they were well looked after and blossomed on the big day. We had our signs handmade for the wedding and this was an idea I had found online. We had a Polaroid camera and our guests took a snap of themselves to add to our guest book (which made interesting reading the next day!). We also had a table for our grandparents who could not be here in real life spend the day with us. This was one of my favourite features of the day seeing my grandparents wedding photos feature on a special table. This was even more important to me as I was very close to my nana in particular and my engagement ring was hers so it has very special meaning to me.
The ceremony area was created by my father and brother who designed and built the whole thing as we wanted a special place to have the wedding. A Koru featured right where we stood which was very special. A Koru is a big part of Maori art and symbolises new life, growth, strength and peace. One of my favourite features of the wedding was the bunting that was handmade (all 200 of them!) and took many hours of work from my family as I wanted to make sure I had the right fabric to go with the theme. The cake was another challenge to tackle. Dad chopped up a few logs from down the back of the house to sit the cakes on. The old farm gate was taken from the property and created a fantastic seating plan. All 150 antique teaspoons were collected by my mother from various antique shops across New Zealand, often she had to purchase two or three at a time so it was time consuming to say the least! The flower boxes were handmade by my uncle and my mother planted these months before the wedding making sure they were well looked after and blossomed on the big day. We had our signs handmade for the wedding and this was an idea I had found online. We had a Polaroid camera and our guests took a snap of themselves to add to our guest book (which made interesting reading the next day!). We also had a table for our grandparents who could not be here in real life spend the day with us. This was one of my favourite features of the day seeing my grandparents wedding photos feature on a special table. This was even more important to me as I was very close to my nana in particular and my engagement ring was hers so it has very special meaning to me.