Alice & Kyle
The waterside New Zealand wedding of Alice and Kyle had a magical feeling to it. The couple wanted the beautiful waterside location to drive their styling on the day, using Mother Nature’s beauty to create a day that was about family and the love of friends. They chose A Couple Of Night Owls to capture their day.
Alice tells the story of how she and Kyle decided it was time to tie the knot! “We had taken a trip to America, the last section of our trip was in California camping in Yosemite National park. After driving along the coast down through Big Sur towards L.A we spent our last night in Santa Barbara. After celebrating our last night on holiday with dinner and cocktails Kyle proposed on the beach. I think he needed the pressure of the trip coming to an end to build up the courage to ask! Were engaged for a year and a half. By the time we got our heads around the idea of organising a wedding and picking a date this was the perfect amount of time to save up and put all of our energy into organising the day.”
Alice chose a gown by Mariana Hardwick, noting, “The whole experience was pretty overwhelming. In saying that, I’m not the greatest shopper at the best of times! I knew I wanted something in lace and a simple cut. Once I started trying on dresses my ideas changed quite a bit from what I had initially pictured. Once I found a dress I felt good in I knew it was the right one. There are so many dresses out there, I’m so grateful to my friends and sister for coming along with me to the bridal stores each time to give me a second opinion. I made sure I had my dress organised as early as possible as I didn’t want to risk any last minute problems.”
The couple chose The Officers Mess for their wedding, noting, “Because we decided to get married in Auckland, New Zealand and we are living in Melbourne it meant we had to do a lot of research online. This was really difficult as surprisingly so many venues don’t have the best photos on their website. We spent a lot of time researching and asking friends what venues they had been to for weddings previously.
We narrowed it down to 5 places and Alice flew home to Auckland for a long weekend. In that weekend Alice visited each place and from there we picked a venue. Looking back this worked so well as it meant we couldn’t endlessly look for a venue and had to make a decision from the options we had at the time.
The Officers Mess was the perfect blank canvas for us to decorate and yet it already offered such beautiful scenery. It’s on a reserve over looking the Auckland harbour with Rangitoto Island in the background. It meant we could have the ceremony outside which is something we both really wanted. We had also heard about how great the food is so the decision was made! ”
“The ceremony archway was our favourite feature of the day. We went out to Piha beach to collect the branches from a family friend’s property, we threaded the flowers to be able to hang them from the archway and on the morning of the wedding the guys put it all together. It symbolised everyone chipping in to create the day and created a beautiful frame for us to get married in front of.”
Mazhar Kefali from Shore Elim officiated the ceremony, the bride noting “We loved reading our vows to each other. We hadn’t told each other what we were going to write. It was such a nice surprise to see what we each said on the day. On a day where you have organised everything from start to finish, its nice to have a little surprise in the mix!”
One Little Wagon helped the celebrations continue, Alice remarking “The One Little Wagon was such a great addition to the day. The caravan provided so much atmosphere to the reception. The champagne cocktails were served from the caravan and it was such a super cute backdrop for the photos.”
“The photographers, A Couple Of Night Owls, were so lovely to work with, they were really encouraging during our photo shoot and made us feel completely relaxed. The photos they took look amazing and we are so happy they were there to capture the day. They did such a great job of capturing the feel of the day.”
“The venue guided our inspiration, with it being on the large reserve and right by the sea. We wanted in include as much of the beautiful scenery in the day as possible. The decorations included a lot of wooden props, plenty of greenery in the flower arrangements and we made sure most of the wedding day was spent outside (very risky with Auckland’s weather!). We tried to achieve quite a simple and natural feel to the day. Pinterest was a huge help in collecting images we loved of other celebrations. We wanted the day to be about our family and friends as much as possible, we tried to keep the space quite small so that the event felt more intimate. We are lucky that we have so many wonderful people around us who help with the preparations of the day which is what made it so special in the end. ”
” The DIY projects were all part of the fun of getting married. I’m really glad we arranged the flowers for the table settings ourselves – it was a fun thing to do with the bridal party the day before over a glass of wine and meant everyone could be involved in setting up for the day. Even though we totally underestimated how many flowers we needed, it resulted in one of the bridesmaids racing around town buying flowers and raiding a few gardens!”
“We did as many DIY projects as possible – the two weeks leading up to the wedding was spent visiting the flower wholesale markets, stamping and filling seed packets for the favours, collecting jars, making blackboards, etc. Kyle designed the wedding invitations, which included some of his drawings that then featured on the printed menus and the seed packet favours.”
“Our friend Matt was the MC for the day, he created such a great vibe and really did help with the flow of the day. He did an amazing job and really took the stress off us and our family members so they could enjoy the day. We couldn’t have asked for a better MC.”
“The dessert table was a feature of the reception, our clever family and friends made delicious desserts, tarts, cakes and slices, it was decorated with flowers and photos of our parents on their wedding days. ”
“The dance floor at the end of the night was so much fun. We made sure to leave plenty of time for dancing at the end of the night, we really felt like we got to enjoy everyone’s company and just relax and have fun. ”
Congratulations Alice and Kyle! Thank you for sharing your day with us! Thank you also to A Couple Of Night Owls for sharing today’s wedding!
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