Weddings
04 November 2016
Article published with the kind permission of Together Journal.
Dirk and I had known each other for a number of years before we started dating. We met through our local church and had many mutual friends, and one day those mutual friends decided to set us up on a date… and the rest is history.
Being a part of the wedding industry myself, as a photographer, I’ve seen an array of weddings, and from the beginning we knew we wanted our wedding to be all about the people, creating an atmosphere for everyone to gather and have a good time with one another, all on a beautiful winter’s day. I knew I didn’t want to have our wedding in a location I’d photographed before, because I wanted fresh memories, so I was on the lookout for venue that wasn’t a commonly used one and that would work for wintertime. We both love nature, and in particular mountains, so when we came across Poronui online, it captured my heart and I knew we couldn’t get married anywhere else. We had to make some sacrifices on other things to be able to get married there, but I’m so glad we chose to do it the way we did.
I drew my inspiration for the day from all sorts of places – it was really just a reflection of the things in life we both like. Obviously the venue and the landscape spoke for itself, so I was inspired visually from the natural surroundings at Poronui. We wanted it to feel like a big family dinner, all cosy and romantic, everyone with a mulled wine in one hand and a marshmallow toasting over a fire in the other, wrapped up snug in blankets. I knew it was going to be quite cold, so I would need to have something over my shoulders, but I never had a set dress in mind. Rue de Seine’s Louvre gown was the first dress I tried on and it was that simple. I also opted to get changed later in the evening into a blush pink cocktail-style gown, purely because I fell in love with it in the shop – such a gorgeous colour! The cake could have been the only flop of our wedding day. I’m a huge lover of cheese, so I told Dirk I’d love it if we could have a ‘cheese’ cake. He agreed, but on the day realised it wasn’t the sort of cake he thought we’d have – he was thinking baked cheesecake! So I guess it was a highlight for me but a disappointment for him – he still hits me up about it every now and then!
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