Holly and Simon live in Duntroon and married at the beautiful Totara Estatein February this year.
When and where did we meet: We met on April 8th 2010 at the Oamaru Public Gardens where I'd taken my second cousins to play. A mutual friend did a little bit of match making and gave me Simon's cellphone number. Then ten days later I plucked up the courage to send him a text message. We texted for a week or two and then arranged to meet. Small world though . .. his cousin is a good friend of mine.
The proposal: Well where do I start, this is a story in itself. Simon is a dairy farmer and spent 5 hours towing a paint sprayer across three paddocks behind a bike, writing those three little words. He kept riding up to the top of the hill to look down to make sure it looked spot on! Simon knows that I love going for a ride on the four-wheeler with him so his plan was just to say "Hey come out on the farm with me" and away we'd go up to the top of the hill for me to look down and see those three little words . . . how romantic, if only if all went to plan. The next day he was all set to pop the question BUT. . . his workmate decided to turn on the centre pivot irrigation, washing away all his hard work. So therefore he went to plan B, but there was no plan B. He had me convinced he had bought a section/house so there on the side of the road, in front of a section for sale he pulled a ring out of his back pocket and asked me to marry him!
Where was the wedding: Ceremony: Totara Estate, Oamaru.
Reception: Camp Iona, Herbert, North Otago.
Why did we choose the venue: Totara Estate was somewhere different, there hadn't been a lot of weddings there. I wanted somewhere significant for us. There were lots of amazing places to get photos there as well, and lots of space for our 108 guests, and for the children that were coming to run around.
Camp Iona was great because there was lots of grass for the kids to run around on, a good-size hall to seat all of our guests comfortably, bunk rooms for our guests to stay, and there were wonderful places to get scenery shots. It was very important to us to have somewhere our guests could stay if they wanted, as half of them had to travel. It also meant they didn't have to travel back for the BBQ breakfast/brunch.
The dress: I am very lucky, my mother-in-law has a bridal shop so the choice of dress was pretty much endless. (Amanda's Bridal & Fashion, Waimate, South Canterbury). My dress was perfect, I had it nine months before the big day and didn't see anything I liked better. As soon as I put it on I knew it was the one. It had one shoulder strap that had a beaded flower on it and was off-white. It was fitting down to about my knees then flared out. It was beautiful.
The bridesmaids' dresses: A beautiful blue/teal colour, they were a strapless style with a wee flower on the bust area. Also from Amanda's Bridal.
The flowers: All of the bouquets were made from flax. I wanted something that we could keep, as well as the bridesmaids and flower girl having something to remind them of our special day. My bouquet was blue with a big polished paua shell in it to match the bridesmaids' dresses. It was a teardrop shape and the bridesmaids' bouquets were yellow, in a pageant style. Simon had a blue button hole to match my flowers and the groomsmen had yellow button holes to match the bridesmaids. When I first saw them in the box when they arrived I wasn't too fussed on them but with everything put together they were perfect.
The caterers: My friend's brother and his partner did our catering. We bought the food, organised the menu and he cooked it for us. We had a massive gas spit roast which we cooked a sheep on. It was beautiful. The owner, Judy, from the Criterion Hotel, Waimate made us a gorgeous profiterole tower, it was amazing. My mother made the wedding cake (which was very special for her and me). We had a square two-layer cake (fruit and mud cakes), iced white with the paper from our invitations around it. We had a wooden cake topper of our initials. My friend who iced the cake also modelled our dogs in icing and put them on the cake.
The celebrant: Our celebrant was Tony Dudley, and he was fabulous. He made the ceremony very personal and unique to us. Before we organised the wedding with him we did a questionnaire online called ''Prepare and Enrich''. There were over 200 questions and after we had both done a questionnaire each a report was sent to Tony telling him our strength areas and what we needed to grow on. We learnt so much about one another and would definitely recommend it to anyone if they got they chance.
Highlight of the day: Simon's highlight of the day was driving to the wedding venue in his late great-granddad's Valiant.
My highlight of the day was listening to the wedding vows Simon wrote and saying ''I do''. Another big highlight was walking into the hall and seeing it done up for the first time. Simon, the groomsmen and his parents spent hours the night before the wedding doing the hall and I had no idea what it was going to look like. Walking in and seeing it was extremely emotional, it was phenomenal.
Your photographer: Our photographer was Ian Gough from Kolourcare in Waimate. I have cerebral palsy (a tremor in my right arm) and he had photographed me before (for an ad for a wedding venue in Waimate) and I felt comfortable with him. He knew about my disability and knew how to work around it, and make me feel relaxed so the tremor wasn't bad. He was also great at being able to get our page boys to look at the camera and smile. We loved every single photo that he took. It was very hard to choose a favourite photo, but we eventually came to a decision. We love the photos taken in the wheat field at Totara Estate and the ones on an old bridge at Graves Dam.
