Karen + Bao \\ Captured By Chasewild

Karen + Bao travelled from Sydney for their elegant lakeside destination wedding at Rippon Hall in Wanaka, New Zealand. After falling in love with the South Island, the couple wanted to share this favourite getaway destination with their nearest and dearest.

Vows were exchanged overlooking the lake, where guests enjoyed the surrounding dreamscape mountain ranges and vineyard views.

Styling by the team at One Fine Day was kept to a romantic palette of natural hues and minimal styled wooden tables with soft blush linens, paired perfectly with white and pale blush flowers.

As dusk fell over the elegant soiree, Karen + Boa celebrated the night away with friends and family from all over the world. Read more below about Karen + Bao’s love story and all the details from their wedding day, beautifully captured by Chasewild.

**How did you meet and how long have you been together?**
We met each other through mutual friends at a music festival and have been
together ever since. We’ve been together for 7 years!

**How would you describe each other?**
Karen – Bao as a great sense of humour who is adventurous and loves to have fun. He is
thoughtful and always sees the positive in every situation. His the type of guy who will
always have your back.
Bao – Karen is loyal, kind, respectful and meticulous. She values her relationship, friendships
and people that are close to her. It really shows by the way she interacts with people.
Tell us a little bit about the proposal and your engagement?
We were on a month long trip around Europe and was in Austria when Bao proposed. We
were walking around our accomodation and Bao took out a blindfold from his bag and that’s
when I knew something was up. There was a guitar playing and someone singing and when
the blindfold was removed there was a beautiful picnic laid out and Bao was on one knee
with the ring. There was a professional photographer to document the whole proposal and
a boat waiting to take us down the river.

Tell us about your wedding style. What influenced your planning for the day?

We wanted our wedding to be fun, romantic yet relaxed. It was important for our guests to enjoy the surrounding mountain ranges and take in the amazing views of Lake Wanaka and the vineyard. We wanted the views to the be the main event and the other details helped compliment this. We had 100 of our close family and friends who made the effort to travel from all parts of the world to celebrate with us and we just really wanted them to have the best time and really be amazed with the location. Everything from the blush and neutral flowers, the use of gold cutlery and acrylic elements to the candles and fairy lights at night really helped to set the tone of our wedding and create that romantic yet minimalist vibe that we were after.

What was your favourite moment from the day?

Karen – walking down the aisle and seeing Bao emotional. It was really sweet and not something I expected as Bao hardly sheds a tear.

Bao – seeing Karen for the first time walking down the aisle

One moment from both of us would be when we were seated for dinner and we looked out and saw all our guests inront of us. It was a magical moment where we knew how special it was that our family and friends had travelled to be with us to celebrate our day.

What does marriage mean to you?

Marriage means getting to spend the rest of your life with your best friend. It is a promise to always support each other through life ups and down and to always love each other unconditionally.

Who were your stand out vendors?

We worked with so many amazing vendors but the top three that stood out the most were: One Fine Day who looked after the styling and running the coordination. They really made the day run smoothly and letting us enjoy every moment.

Mojo played our ceremony song and continued to entertain our guests during canapes and they were amazing. Our guests really loved the entertainment and we received a lot of compliments at how good they were and the amazing/fun atmosphere they created. Cam from Chasewild was great to work with he made us feel really comfortable and captured all the special moments from the day. We are so happy with how the images turned out.

Advice for other couples planning a wedding?

Enjoy the whole process of planning the wedding together with your partner and remember to have fun (don’t stress over the little details!) Research and save inspiration photos, this really helped us narrow down the style and details that we both liked and wanted to include into the wedding. We showed our vendors all our inspiration images and they helped us bring our ideas to life. Last advice would be to create a spreadsheet, this helped us keep organised and work out all our budget and numbers.