Roseanne and Eldon share their beautiful garden wedding with the Otago Daily Times.
We are Roseanne (Gardner) and Eldon Megaw and we got married on the 2nd March, 2012. I'm 25 years old and Eldon is 23. I am a preschool teacher and Eldon is a dairy farmer. We live in between Geraldine and Hinds.
How we meet: We met in Timaru at a church convention in 2003 and got together pretty soon after that!
The Proposal: Went down like this.... I (Roseanne) went to the Greek Islands for a month in June 2011 - when I got back Eldon was waiting at the airport for me, holding a sign saying 'Roseanne Gardner' and I was busy having a laugh because he's a bit of a joker like that, and when I looked up again he had turned the card over to reveal another sign saying 'Will you marry me?' - I couldn't believe it! It was all very surreal - I'd been waiting for this moment for 8 years!
The Wedding Venue: The location of our wedding was a beautiful old homestead in Geraldine, South Canterbury.
Why?: We chose the venue because I had house-sat for the owners in 2010 and just fell in love with the place, so as soon as we got engaged I was on the phone asking if we could get married there! We were going to use my parents shed for the reception but then found out there was an old unused barn on the homestead which turned out to be more in keeping with our theme (and more convenient!).
The Dress: I designed my dress and had it made. I got a tutu skirt made by a lady who runs her business through www.etsy.com. She used hundreds of meters of beige, ivory, cream and white tulle. I had a knee-length cream fitted dupion silk dress made by local designer Brian Molyneux. It was covered with white lace, embellished with beads and sequins. He also made a cumerband which was held together with pearls off my mother's wedding dress. I wore the tutu for the ceremony and afternoon tea and then took it off before the grand entrance into our reception.
Bridesmaids' Dresses: The bridesmaid dresses were also made by Brian Molyneux. I bought some ivory silk off trademe and then had it dyed a light blush pink by the fabric dying tutor at Aoraki Polytechnic. She also dyed the offcuts of lace from my dress to be used on the bridesmaids dresses. The foundation of both dresses was the same, slim fitting strapless and then at the final fitting (3 days before the wedding) we draped the lace over each dress and cut around designs to achieve a slightly different look for each dress. Brian then spent countless hours handstitching the lace to each dress. I picked them up 2 hours before we walked down the aisle!
The Flowers: I handmade three oversized flowers using silk, lots of hot glue and wire. The two carried by the bridesmaids were painted pink and mine was cream. I used a bunch of fake peonies on top of my wedding cake. The only fresh flowers we had were pink and white roses picked from a friends garden to fill the assorted glass bottles on the reception tables.
The Catering: Spit Roast Affair from Timaru catered our reception and did a fabulous job! We wanted LOTS of simple food that tasted great and that's exactly what we got. There were loads of left-overs which they kindly boxed up for us and we were able to use for our bbq the next day. Mum, my sisters and some close friends made all of our desserts which include meringues with raspberry coulis, chocolate pate, bannoffie pie (a favourite of Eldon's), cheesecakes, ambrosia and so on. We also catered the afternoon tea which has been the most talked about aspect of our wedding among the guests! We had mini hamburgers, cupcakes, scones with jam & cream, coffee walnut slice, carrot cake, an interactive bellini platter, hot drinks in old fashioned tea cups and lots more.
Highlight of the Day: Part way through the day we our photographer asked us what the highlight of our day had been and without hesitation we both said that the absolute best thing was seeing all the people we love in one place together, enjoying each others company and having fun.
Photographer: Our photographer was the amazingly talented Cathie Watts from Phunkey Photography in Pleasant Point. Our favourite photo is one of us leaning against the hood of the GTO Pontiac, me facing away and Eldon looking at the camera.
