Sam and Dom wanted their wedding day to truly reflect them and their relationship. Their whimsical garden venue was the perfect spot to bring their vision to life, and they celebrated the happiest day with their loved ones, including their four young children. Sam tells us more…

“Since Dom and I met, our life has been in fifth gear. We’ve got four young kids in our tribe, we run a business together, and our life is incredibly busy so we’ve had to really prioritise our love and making the time to build, work on and grow the love that we share. It’s made our relationship, and the foundations of our marriage, stronger than we ever could have imagined and has made ‘time for us’ not just incredibly precious but an absolute priority. We constantly make sure we have time in our day to touch base and spend time together and make sure we have regular date nights around our hectic lifestyle.

Keeping our love front in centre in our life, we knew when we started planning our wedding that we wanted the day to be about Dom and I, and our love and sharing that with everyone that is close to us. We wanted the entire day to represent us and who we are as a couple, and to do this, the venue was incredibly important.

I had become really sick in the year before the wedding and lost all my hair which was terrifying as I wanted to look like me, I wanted to dress up like a princess for the day and live out that little girl dream. Georgie’s Wigs in Christchurch were amazing and found me a wig that closely resembled the hair I had had for most of my life. My amazing hairdresser worked with it really well, and my hair on the day was perfect. No one would have known it was a wig and I felt like an absolute princess.

We looked at many venues around Christchurch and Canterbury. Originally, we had entertained the idea of a giant tepee in a forest or a farm environment but we wanted to make things as easy for us as possible, while still having a large element of control over the design of the wedding. Bringing in individual caterers, chairs, sound systems, power, cutlery and crockery is doable but that would have increased our budget significantly and we’d rather put that money where it mattered to us. A winery didn’t feel like us as we’re not big wine drinkers, and the estates didn’t feel quite right either.

Eventually we came across Stonebridge in Geraldine. It was branded as a ‘blank canvas’ venue so you could essentially dress it up as you wished. It had a gorgeous reception room, courtyard with outdoor bar and a fireplace and the most incredible lake and gardens imaginable. There were a number of ceremony spots but the one at the back of the property was like an absolute fairytale. The trees created a canopy over the ceremony spot, a river ran close by and it felt like you were in the middle of a forest.

We had an amazing celebrant in Jane Godfrey who helped us every step of the way, guided us in the right direction and kept us calm. She made the whole process really easy, and with her on board we had no reason to stress. She wrote a beautiful ceremony and Dom and I wrote our own vows which gave us a chance to really express our love for each other in a really important and meaningful way.

The flowers by Farmhouse Botanics were so stunning and matched the surroundings beautifully. I’m not usually big on flowers but these absolutely made it, my daughters and I had flower crowns which we’ve all kept and we had our bouquets dried and turned into a wreath after the wedding so we can keep a little bit of a wedding florals forever. We had flowers incorporated into our cake as well so everything fit this earthy and natural theme.

We have so many dietary requirements in our close friends and family so our cake (chocolate for one tier and carrot for the other) was gluten free and we had some separate vegan cakes for the vegan and dairy free guests which was very much appreciated. Twisted Flour and Sugar Merchants did so well meeting our requirements with such a delicious tasting cake!

We invested in Boogie Beats who was our DJ. He was such a professional and I found his input into the ceremony music vital. He provided background music during the canapes and reception and got the party started after the first dance. He also mixed our first dance music for us which was a huge help.

A good friend of mine couldn’t make it to the wedding and she was going to be a bridesmaid so instead she choreographed our first dance which was so special and everyone loved it. We had little touches around the place, like stones we had collected from the beach with people’s names on for their places at the tables and an Instax table with our visitors book so people could take a snap to put alongside their message in the book.

Looking back, one thing I believe we did really well was spending our budget in the areas that mattered most to us – predominantly our photos and our video. We flew down Rachel Jordan from Two Little Starfish to Geraldine. She is based in the Bay of Islands but has the most incredible photographic eye and her style of photos is just stunning. I trust her implicitly and as a person I think she’s one of the bravest and strongest women I’ve ever met. She survived a helicopter crash in Canterbury two years ago while shooting another wedding and her journey back has been long, but her talent and creativity just keeps getting better and better. There is no one else we wanted to shoot our big day, it had to be her, and for us she was worth every cent.

We used Parallax Films for our videography. A lot of people humm and haaar about videography at their wedding but I am so glad we went down that route. From the day after we got married we’ve just wanted to relive the day, watch it all again, and spot things we missed on the day. It is so special to have that record and to be able to share that with our kids and those that couldn’t make it. We have all the speeches on video, the entire ceremony and highlights from the whole day. We also opted for a video guestbook which was a special touch. It’s something we will have forever so was easily worth the money.