Under the towering sycamore trees of Trent’s Estate Vineyard, Olivia and Michael were wed amongst multitudes of overflowing blooms and foliage from vintage urns. Reminiscent of an English garden wedding, the couple wed on the lawn, with a Victorian gazebo as the backdrop, before moving to the Estates wooden-floored dining area for the reception.
This serene Christchurch wedding was beautifully captured by Grey Area Productions.
How did you meet and how long have you been together?
We met in our neuroscience undergraduate degree at Otago University. Michael struck up a conversation in the middle of a class and we started sitting together from then. We actually secretly knew each other’s student ID’s so that we could find out who did better when the class results would come out ha ha. Despite that competitive edge, we established a strong friendship and romance blossomed from there. We have now been together for 6.5 years!
Tell us a little bit about the proposal and your engagement?
The engagement was VERY built up as Olivia had been ready for the bridal era 1 year in and this proposal happened about 5 years into our relationship! Olivia had an inkling it would happen on this specific day and had told the whole world. As the day went by Michael had organised all these cute things like going for a nice breakfast, picking up some pink roses from the store, buying special treats and we had a plan to go to a fancy dinner that night. For some reason, Olivia had it in mind that the proposal would be during the day, so it got to the late afternoon, nothing had happened, and she had a big cry, certain she had gotten it all seriously wrong. A couple of hours later, Michael proposed at St Clair Beach, just the two of us followed by a beautiful degustation dinner with a hotel stay for the evening. It was perfect, albeit an emotional rollercoaster!
Tell us about your wedding style. What influenced your planning for the day?
We really wanted our wedding to feel fun, romantic and personal. For the overall aesthetic for the day, we wanted it to feel like a beautiful, vintage style garden party so we focused on LOTS of flowers – muted pastel floral overflowing from beautiful urns as the ceremony feature, meadow style bunches lining the aisle and many bud vases lining the outdoor and reception tables. The various glass vases and candlestick holders that Olivia had collected over the course of a year, really added to the vibe, as did wicker hampers filled with parasols for the guests. A cascading linen seating chart and a string quartet who played through the ceremony, really added to the atmosphere. This style was largely influenced by Olivia’s love of flowers and that vintage, collected look. Pinterest also helped!
To bring in the personalised, fun side, we did his & her cocktails after the ceremony which the guests loved, made sure our ceremony was super personal and sentimental (facilitated perfectly by Britt Muir our celebrant) and had an awesome song line-up by our DJ which kept the dance floor alive throughout the evening. I think your energy as a couple definitely determines how your guests feel, and because we were feeling so excited, happy and in love, people definitely channelled that.
What was your favourite detail from the day?
We had one of our dear friends singing ‘somewhere only we know’ with the string quartet during our registry signing and that was beautiful, something to remember forever.
Why did you choose your destination?
We wanted to get married out of Dunedin for that holiday feeling, and as our whole relationship has taken place in the South Island, we knew we wanted to get married here despite both growing up in the North Island. We came across Trent’s Estate Vineyard while researching online and immediately knew it would fit perfectly with our vision of a garden party style wedding. Christchurch was also perfect as it was easy for our guests to get to and has lots of accommodation options.
Did you have a standout vendor from your Wedding?
We absolutely LOVED all of our vendors, from the gorgeous hair and makeup team, to our hilarious celebrant, to our fab entertainers. But our standout vendor was undoubtedly Alex from The Flower Press. She worked with us for the full eighteen month wedding lead up to nail our dream vision and her floral magic really made the day feel so special and beautiful.
What was your favourite moment from the day?
Olivia – The whole day was a dream but the first few minutes standing with Michael at the altar were pretty special. I’ve never felt such a strong, overwhelming sense of love, connection and certainty that everything in my life had led up to this one moment, ready to marry this wonderful man.
Michael – Definitely seeing Olivia for the first time as she walked down the aisle looking beautiful in her wedding dress. I couldn’t believe my luck that I was getting to marry this girl.
What does marriage mean to you?
Officially being able to commit to a life together, no longer just partners but now family. Knowing that we will now always have this sense of strength and unity doing its best to tie us together in both the best, happiest times and in the most challenging, chaotic times.
Advice for other couples planning a wedding?
While for the majority of the time it was really fun and exciting planning/styling the wedding ourselves, it did become a bit of a full time job toward the end! We would 100% recommend a month of or even day of coordinator. This is something we didn’t do and it likely would have made the lead up less of a chaotic time.
|| VENDOR CREDITS ||
PHOTOGRAPHY Grey Area Productions | STYLING + PLANNING The Bride | FLORA The Flower Press | CAKE Full Time Tart (Banoffee & Dark Chocolate/Hazlenut) | VENUE Trents Vineyard | HIRE The Little Hire Co, The Event Boutique, Hayley the Hirer | STATIONERY + SIGNAGE With Love Shae | CELEBRANT Brittany Muir | RINGS Brent Weatherall Jeweller | TRANSPORT Airpark Limousines, Classic Car Hire | BRIDAL GOWN Hera Couture | HAIR Golden Studios | MAKEUP Stacey Banfield | VEIL/HEADPIECE Veil- LT Couture Atelier (Etsy) Earrings- Christian Dior, vintage | BRIDESMAIDS Bec and Bridge | GROOM + GROOMSMEN Barkers | FLOWER GIRL Oui Babe | ENTERTAINMENT Canterbury String Quartet, MIXIT DJ
