jess-and-jaidanTop 15 Wedding Venues in the North New Zealand

‍Jess and Jaidan had grand plans for an intimate wedding in Italy but, unfortunately a global pandemic had even greater plans and shut-down international borders.

Having the rare experience of planning a wedding 3 times meant Jessica and Jaidan ended up executing a meticulous and electric wedding day. What more could one expect from a teacher and a linesman. They also joined forces with some pretty awesome suppliers who helped bring their dreams to life.

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How did you meet?‍

Our love story began in 2011 in the physics lab at University. We were asked to pair up with someone and found ourselves naturally gravitating to each other.‍

Jessica says of this time: ‍‍‍

“I was instantly impressed with how well we got along. Common interests aside, Jaidan had a magnificent side fringe and I could also see the potential behind those silver braces, the vans and the skinny jeans and snap back hat. These factors were the icing on top of all my pop punk dreams. More than anything though, his confidence and humor really made me want to be around him”

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Jaidan remembers his first encounter with Jessica like this: ‍

“We spent our first conversation marvelling about how we had never met each other before, given Jess lived one street away from me and we had gone to neighbouring high schools growing up. From there we started carpooling together spending the two hour commute to University browsing each other’s iPod playlists and asking each other every conceivable hypothetical question. Jess had a calm demeanour, she was funny, had beautiful long hair and she was so intelligent. I was soon searching for any reason to hang out with her.”

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How long have you been together for?

We have been together for 9 glorious years.

How would you best describe your wedding in a few words?

I don’t want to be cliché and say the best day ever but literally the best day ever. It was low key, intimate, perfect and so us.

How and why did you choose your reception and ceremony location?

We wanted a venue with a small reception room fit for a long table and great views with a focus on nature and incredible food. The Lake House ticked every box. We had that venue in mind from the start as we go to Daylesford often.

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Was your wedding in your local area or did you have a destination wedding?

We choose a local location with onsite accommodation for all our guests.

What was the most important element for you to have in your wedding?

We really wanted our day to be a no fuss day where we could all sit back and enjoy the day.

What were the factors in determining the size of your wedding?

We had a very small wedding. We generally dread large gatherings. We also originally planned all of our guests to be staying in a Villa in Italy for a week, hence the cap of 20 guests.

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How did you choose what to wear?

I was very worried I would never find a wedding dress for me. I felt strange in every dress I tried on and was very close to just buying something simple and white but I tried one more dress for a local designer called Kyha and I fell in love as soon as the dress was on.

Tell me all about the proposal?

Jaidan proposed under the cherry blossoms in Tokyo. He had meticulously planned the proposal but on the day, very little went to his original plan. He took me over to these little row boats where a photographer was going to surprise us for some “holiday” photos but, the boats weren’t operating due to rainy weather, the photographer was late and the language barrier was challenging.

In the end he stopped me under a huge cherry blossom tree and read from a hand written note he pulled out of his pocket. I feel so lucky that we had a photographer capture the moment.

In our relationship, we literally plan everything together, we have joint bank accounts so I thought I would know if there was missing money but, I had no inclination of what was to come or that he had a ring. I found out later he started the ring design process almost a year earlier.

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What style helped to shape your reception and where did you get your inspiration?

Originally or wedding was planned out of a villa in Tuscany, in July of 2020. Then the pandemic happened and obviously “take one” was cancelled, so we tried to maintain a similar vibe locally.

Did you write your own vows?

We did, honestly we wrote them the week of the wedding, which I don’t recommend. We are very cringey and over the top lovey dovey with each other but really not at all in front of our others so we found it a challenge of how to find the right balance.

Looking back, I am so so glad we did, we refer back to them often and so do our guests.

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Did you include any unique or special elements into your ceremony?

We lit a candle for Jaidan’s dad who has passed away. This felt really special and a simple way to honor important people who are not with us.

How did you choose your suppliers? Who were the stand out suppliers on the day?

A lot were recommended by the Lake house which made it really easy, after the initial recommendations I then looked up reviews and their Instagram profiles and we went from there.

Honestly every single vendor was outstanding!!

Tobi Tobi played our favorite songs.
The ceremony written by Charis White was amazing.
Lilli captured amazing photos and the Lake House crew were divine.

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‍Why did you decide to marry?

It really doesn’t change much for us in terms of our lifestyle or our commitment to each other, we just love the feeling officially being husband and wife.

What was an absolute stand out on your wedding day?

Having Tobi Tobi perform our favorite Mumford and Sons song, titled Lover of the Light, for our first dance.

What advice would you offer to future couples?

Make sure you are both planning the day that you want. Do not plan it for others and to make others happy. It is your day.

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What supplier did you book first and why?

We booked our Venue followed by the photographer as I am very picky about photos.

Is there anything you would change about your wedding day?

The day was perfect; however, I am kicking myself that I don’t have a video of the first dance only to hear Tobi Tobi sing our song again. I never bothered with a videographer because I knew we would hate watching ourselves on film so I just had my dad set his camera on a tripod for the ceremony recording which is really all we needed. However he was too distracted to do the same for the first dance.

How much did you budget for your wedding and did you stick to the budget?

We really didn’t want to spend more than 30K which is probably about right. The funny thing about a small wedding is you really don’t save that much money- the decorations, band, photographer and the ceremony costs are all the same. In the end, you end up paying more per head because you have less people. I think it’s worth mentioning, so people know a nice dinner for 20 people can still cost that much.

What was the most stressful part of the wedding planning process?

Covid caused havoc with our wedding. We had to reschedule twice. Other than that, nothing else was stressful. Hiring quality vendors meant our day ran so smoothly.

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Were there any funny moments in the day?

I picture myself laughing all day but I have literally no idea what over. Nothing bad- funny happened. I kept saying all day I was in disbelief at how perfect it was- the sun was shining but not too hot, I didn’t wake up with a massive cold sore or pimple out of nowhere. We have amazing memories and beautiful photos to look back on.

Did you both equally plan the wedding together or did one person have more input?

Jaidan and I planned everything together; however, I did all the emails, man oh man were there a lot of emails. To his credit, Jaidan did all the spreadsheet and budget data.

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How did Covid affect your planning?

This was our third time trying to get married. The first wedding was planned for a Villa in Italy, then one reschedule at the Lake House, then the day of the wedding.

This made the actually day so low key because in the nicest way I was so over the details of it. A fancy welcome sign did not seem important anymore, my long hair I was growing for a beautiful pony tail got chopped into a bob and also we decided to try and get pregnant. Which we did end up doing, so I had to say goodbye to my wedding day abs I was working on.

Did anything go wrong on the day of your wedding?

Literally nothing. I still can’t believe it- I have a bad habit of secretly expecting the worst which I would’ve just laughed off but it all was like a dream!

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What are your hopes for your married life?

We’re very excited to welcome our little girl in July! We cannot wait to be able to travel again and experience all our favorite things with our little family.

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