In Food and Wine, Weddings

In a wonderfully open and honest style Hollie and Chade share with us their wedding day story. Told in their own words it is a loving recount of a day full of emotion, personality and of course…love.

Auckland wedding venue hosts another perfect day

Our wedding date

Saturday, 31 May 2014.

Our ceremony and reception

Both were held at Markovina Vineyard Estate, Kumeu, Auckland.

Auckland wedding venue hosts another perfect day

Why we chose Markovina for our venue

We visited a few venues in central Auckland, thinking we would try and get somewhere close to accommodation, as we had family travelling from Australia. Most of these venues were very expensive so started to look elsewhere.

We found Markovina on the web and once we were there we knew it was our place. We were greeted by Rina, the owner and she was lovely. We walked through the gardens with her and learnt that she had created the whole venue from scratch, planting every plant over the years – this showed through with her passion for the place and weddings.

We saw the reception venue and we were sold.

Grapevines through the roof, nice relaxed feel and a good dance area for a great party. Rina and her son Mark were so helpful throughout the whole process. Knowing that it was a family owned venue really appealed to both Chade and I as we support local business wherever possible.

We searched online for our venue

We found Markovina Vineyard Estate by trawling through the internet. Markovina is only fifteen minutes from our house so we were able to make loads of visits during the planning stages, this easy access helped seal the deal.

Our style of wedding

Not really sure what theme you would call our wedding, maybe rustic vintage I guess?

I knew right from the start that I didn’t want anything too matchy-matchy, I also didn’t want the bridesmaids to wear something they didn’t love so the girls had a budget and a pastel colour palette to work from. Selecting the final dress was their own decision.

This proved a little difficult having my sister in Canada, another sister in Paris and the other three girls here in New Zealand, despite this, they all looked stunning. The groomsmen selected their own suits which were in different tones of grey with Chade in navy.

DIY delicious

Auckland wedding venue hosts another perfect day

We chose to decorate and theme our wedding

Everything was DIY as we were on a budget. Together with my maid of honour we designed all of our stationery from invites, table menus, seating cards etc. I trawled Pinterest for inspiration and ideas and went to charity stores and got all the tea cups for the table centrepieces.

We labelled the tables after places we had been or that meant a lot to us as a couple and used white vintage-style frames.We used hessian table runners with hanging tea lights from the vines on the roof, tea cups with flower arrangements I did the day before the wedding and tealights.

We also wanted to acknowledge our heritage so the main flower we used was the protea as Chade is South African and that is their national flower. So I put a single protea in a high vase on every table. The pastel colours complemented the protea very well.

The favours were our family favourite – hot chocolate. So we gave each person a vintage style glass lidded jar with hot choc mix, marshmallows and choc bits – Tyler’s favourite recipe. This also went with the winter weather well!.

My mum made a quilt for us and this was the guest book, everyone wrote us a message with fabric pens which we can keep for a lifetime. I knew that we wanted to have a good dance so provided a basket of thongs/flip-flops for guests to swap their heels for a more comfortable option.

My father in law and I made two signs that lit up, one for the bridal tablle and one for the cards/guests’ quilt table.

Auckland wedding venue hosts another perfect day

We made the all stationery, favours, seating plan frame, escort cards, programmes that were name places also, ceremony programmes, individual tissues packages for each guest to wipe away those tears of joy at the ceremony, rose petal cones for tossing at the conclusion of the ceremony, table runners out of hessian, table names, tea cup centerpieces – everything we did ourselves.

We had so many comments at the wedding of how everyone thought the personalised touches were amazing and nothing was left off.

We had a kid’s table which was themed in rainbow colours.

I made a rainbow table runner, kid’s table sign out of letters, chalkboard table mats that on the other side was a activity sheet for whiteboard markers. Each child had a colour helium balloon tied to their chair and a gift box full of colouring pens, crayons, colouring in book, bubbles, glow in the dark bracelets and stationery items to keep them entertained.

My dress

Auckland wedding venue hosts another perfect day

What I loved about my gown

It spoke to me, the delicate fabric and the boning in the bodice worked its magic on my motherly curves but from the outside you would never have known it was a boned dress – there were no visible structure lines.

The way the draping fell from the front then looped around to the back, made the eye follow slim lines. The way the fabric was cut and the lines across the bodice were simply flattering and the train was a great length for a garden setting with the veil matching perfectly. It felt like it was made for me and there were so many comments at the wedding about how flawless it was.

Anecdotes

Auckland wedding venue hosts another perfect day

Some personal and touching moments from our day

Our boys are very important to us and we wanted to include them as much as possible. So we searched for ideas and came across one of including them in the vowels and then thought why not include them in the ring giving as well.

Below are the vowels and ring giving we did with the boys.

This was the highlight of the ceremony – there wasn’t a dry eye in the house when Chade started his vowels to Tyler. Everyone knows how much Tyler means to Chade and how good Chade is with Tyler, so it was a very touching moment.

“Chade and Hollie, as you make your vows to each other, with the promise of love and companionship for one another; will you also do the same for Tyler and Reagan? Will you promise to honour and respect them as an individual and guide their growth and development? Will you pledge to cherish them, encourage them, and make your home a place where there is trust, love, friendship and laughter? Will you hold their hand through their mistakes rather than preventing them from making them? Will you promise to show them how to find happiness rather than tell them? Will you make these promises to Tyler and Reagan lovingly and freely?

[Response: Yes.]

And will you do the same for any other children you may bring into the world as her/his siblings?

[Response: Yes.]

Now Chade and Hollie would like to ask Tyler and Reagan to join them.

Chade: Tyler, thank you for sharing mummy with me, loving me and allowing me to love you with all of my heart. I was not there when you took your first steps, but I promise that now I will love and support you in every step that you take in your life. This ring is a symbol of our love and devotion to you.

Hollie: Reagan, you have brought us all much joy since the day you were born. We have enjoyed and cherished watching you grow into a loving, cheeky boy. We will be by your side forevermore. This ring is a symbol of our love and devotion to you.”

The added extra

Auckland wedding venue hosts another perfect day

This… our guests LOVED – the bridal party and guests doing a “mass bomb off”.

There is a wee joke amongst friends that my husband and I fell in love over a few Jager bombs.

So we thought we would play on this at the wedding and at the end of our speech we surprised all of our guests with a Jager bomb to share the love and calling it “love potion”. This was a great hit and the Markovina venue were only too happy to help us sort the logistics out. Red Bull and Jägermeister supplied all the products for us who made it possible as they thought it was a great idea and wanted to be a part of the fun of it.

Our amazing wedding suppliers

Florist Country Blooms, Riverhead, Auckland. We were so happy with the result. We wanted the proteas to feature and I knew that I wanted the king protea. The bouquets were amazing and had the pastel colours.

PhotographerSoul Sisters Photography, Auckland. Lara and I had played hockey together and against each other for years. We had our family photos taken by Lara when Reagan was a couple of months old. I knew as soon as Chade proposed that Lara would be perfect as I knew she would be relaxed and go with the flow on the day. Lara did an amazing job and I would recommend her to anyone.

Music –Through the ceremony we had a friend play music through the sound system from an ipod. We had “2s a Crowd”, an acoustic duo play while we had photos and then through dinner. They were amazing – played covers of a range of music and appealed to the wide range of guests and ages. Then we had Beatworks DJ for the dancing – Aaron had us all feeling like we were at an old school disco.

First Dance – We had lessons from Harry Raiend from Ucan2 Dance Studio and danced to John Legends – All of Me. Just days before the wedding Chade injured his back so Chade and I had to change the dance to suit. There were no lifts in the end but it was still great to get us dancing fluidly together – no mean feat!

CelebrantMargaret Sauvarin and she was perfect. Very knowledgeable and experienced. She brought much tradition and allowed for flare.

Menu Markovina Vineyard Estate. We wanted a family style dinner table and Markovina catered to that perfectly, serving the meal in a platter style, like a family meal. Everyone loved the food and the variety and even better everyone was fed within ten minutes – no waiting!

Cake –Trish Masters, local lady that bakes out of her home kitchen

Hair Revamp Hair Co. Angela Elliot did an amazing job for giving everyone a vintage inspired hair-do.

Make up – Angela Renee. Angela made everyone look flawless. The makeup lasted well into the night whilst feeling weightless.

Wedding Bands – My set was purchased by Chade from Michael Hill. Chade decided on a gunmetal tungsten ring from Simply Sauvé. We also purchased custom made rings for Tyler and Reagan the same as Chade’s from Simply Sauvé, keepsakes for the boys to look back on in the years to come.

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