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Breathtaking views & DIY details. A New Zealand wedding by Sarah C Photography.

Morning lovelies,
Today I have a gorgeous wedding to share with you all the from New Zealand. Photographed by Dubai wedding photographer; Sarah C, this wedding has the best views EVER. Should I mention now that they hired a helicopter? Hmm… bride and groom and mountain views = AMAZING!  Bride Emma also hand crafted lots of her wedding details, which makes me love this wedding that little bit more. DIY and breathtaking views!!  Hooray for weddings!!!
Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding
Jordan and Emma got married on the 24th January 2015 at The Lookout Lodge, Wanaka, New Zealand with 80 guests.
The planning process…
Our planning process began by agreeing on a location and then choosing a venue. Although currently living in Wellington, New Zealand, we are both originally from the South Island and wanted to be married in the South Island. We narrowed our location choices down to Queenstown or Wanaka, both places we loved to spend time and with stunning scenery. It then came down to the venue. We viewed a venue in Queenstown and one in Wanaka. Our venue in Wanaka offered everything we wanted: beautiful scenery,  a fantastic outdoor area to perform our ceremony, a lovely intimate blank canvas reception area and accommodation on site for the wedding party to stay and the bridal party to get ready the day of.
We knew we wanted a summer wedding, so our next step was to work with the venue to pick a date. We have ourselves 1.5 years for the planning process. We then put together our initial guest list and sent out save the date magnets.
From here there was a lot of time spent on Pinterest creating boards for inspiration. This was the really fun part! We crafted our own invitations, programs, favours, personalised menus, candles and set up our own wedding website providing guests with all the information they needed for our wedding and Wanaka.
Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding
The dress and accessories…
The dress was from brides on Thorndon in wellington, nz. It was straight off the shelf and a sneaky steal at nly $500nzd as it was designed to be an evening dress as opposed to a wedding dress. The shoes were Sergio Romero and ordered online. The only accessories I wore were small fresh water pearl drop earrings from silver moon.
Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding
Finding the dress…
Having a summer outdoor wedding I knew I wanted a dress that was going to be light weight and easy to move in. I therefore hadn’t spent much time looking through the bridal shops snd had purchased a very simple dress online. When I was walking home from work one day I saw my dress hanging in the window of brides on Thorndon in Wellington. It caught my eye straight away. I walked past it every morning for just over a month before I finally decided to go in and try it on (despite already having a dress I purchased online). I tried it on and fell in love. It was so simple, lightweight and comfortable. Exactly what I wanted!! And even better was the price as the dress wasn’t designed to be a wedding dress. I purchased on the spot and arranged for the dress to be taken up and in.
Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding IMG_2495
Grooms threads…
Working out at the same price as hiring, we purchased the groom and groomsmen a suit, tie and shirt. Gifting a suit to the groomsmen was also a nice way to say thanks. The suits came from hallenstines and were a dark grey, with a white shirt and black tie.
Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding
The readings and more…
we were very lucky to know our officiant personally and to have seen him perform before. We put together our own ceremony based on a mixture of previous ceremonies our officiant had performed and little pieces we found on the Internet. We wanted to try and include our parents and guests as part of the ceremony. We wrote our own vows and our officiant choose a reading for us. We both sent out vows direct to the officiant and our first time hearing each other’s was on the day. We had an iPod playing ‘dice’ by Finley Quaye and a soloist on guitar played ‘all of the stars’ by Ed Sheeran during the signing and ‘love is beginning’ by imaginary future for the recessional.
Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding
Beautiful bridesmaids…
We had 3x bridesmaids. The dresses were ordered online from didobridal. The girls choose their own style and colour for their dress with the guidelines of choosing a full length chiffon dress in a pastel tone. I’m so pleased this is something we allowed the girls to do. As all the girls have quite different body types, colourings and styles it would have been difficult to try and pick one colour and style that suited all of them. Allowing the girls to choose their own meant they all picked something they felt comfortable wearing and was a fun way to bring the girls personalities into the day. I even managed to find some material incorporating the three colours they choose for their dresses to make table runners out of. Again, the girls choose their own shoes and hair styles. Everyone looked beautiful!
Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding
The flowers…
The flowers were provided by the green room in Wanaka. With pops of colour from the table runners, bridesmaid dresses etc we wanted to have white flowers. The bride and bridesmaid bouquets were white hydrangeas. We purchased ribbon the match each of the girls dresses (mint green, lilac, peach and white) and each girls bouquet was tied with the ribbon colour that matched their dresses. The bouquets were used later that night to sit in vases on the head table. The groomsmen had baby breath button holes tied with twine.
Lining the aisle was shepherds crooks with hanging jars of flowers. Again we used a mixture of small white bouquets in the jars. We had mini clusters of flowers inside on the guest tables. Each table had 4x mini clusters (containing 3x vases of flowers). The vases in each cluster were of varying size and had a selection of flowers all in white tones, ranging from roses to baby breath.
Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding The details and decor…
with such a beautiful natural backdrop, our ceremony details were minimal. We had a blackboard pointing guests to the ceremony and wooden benches for guests to sit on and lining the aisle we had jars of flowers hanging from shepherds crooks and paper pinwheels. We made our programs for guests to take  and the seats on the edge of the aisles had homemade confetti poppers which were popped after the ceremony upon the recessional.
Inside we had our homemade seating planning hanging from ribbons next to a string of photos.
We had crates of mini milk bottles next to drink dispensers of water and elderflower spritzer.
The tables had homemade table runners in pastel colours that matched the bridesmaid dresses. Each guest had a personalised menu made from Kraft paper with fabric bunting flags along the top and personalised homemade favour bags with homemade scented mini candles  inside. The tables had mini clusters of flowers on them and sets of homemade candles. Behind the head table were shelves decorated with homemade candles, letters, vases, jars of flowers and paper pinwheels.
Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding IMG_2308
The honeymoon…
We are yet to decide /plan the honeymoon. This is our treat to start organising now the wedding is over. We are looking at bora bora in Tahiti.
Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding
Memorable moments…
Our helicopter ride and photos at the peak of the mountain. As it was just the two of us (plus pilot and photographer) who went up the top of the peak, it was such a nice breather for the two of us. I gave us a moment on our own after the ceremony to relax and enjoy each other’s company. Plus the ride and the scenery was incredible!
Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding
Advice for other couples…
DIY weddings are a lot of fun and great way to bring your own personality into the day. If you are wanting to take on a lot of diy projects though give yourself the time!! It’s nice to be able to plod along on little projects when you have the spare time but quickly becomes unenjoyable if under time pressure.
You don’t need to have traditional outfits or music if you don’t want to. The day is about you so feel free to let your own personalities come through.
Be organised!!!!! One of The best part about our wedding was the week leading up. As everything was organised we had that time to spend with family and friends leading up to the day.
Remember your wedding party has to stand up in front of potentially a lot of people they don’t know too. Try and ensure they feel comfortable and include them if you can in the decisions around dresses or hairstyles.
Remember if something doesn’t go perfectly to plan you will probably be the only one who notices! Relax and enjoy the day…you have earned it
Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding Sarah C - Dubai wedding Photographer - NZ wedding
Lovely Vendors…
SarahC Photography: Sarah made us feel so comfortable throughout the entire day and the photos are just beautiful! You would never know Sarah had never photographed a wedding in nz before. We can’t thank her enough!
The green room flowers: Miriam was fantastic helping us along the way forming our ideas and bringing everything together so beautiful.
The lookout lodge: such a stunning venue!
Aspiring catering: we had nothing but compliments all night and the next day about the outstanding food and service from the aspiring team.
Wanaka helicopters: such a lovely team to deal with and really knew the spots to go to get some amazing photos
LA Social: for getting everyone up on the dance floor having a good time
Janine Joseph makeup and Hair Thou Art hair styling: such amazing job by both ladies!
Big thanks to all our family and friends for making the day so awesome.

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