Tell us about The Beginning!
We met at Toby’s flat during uni. He and his friends needed an extra flatmate and Tessa’s friend Mikey moved in and Tessa began turning up on the scene. One night Toby planned an evening where a popular artist would be playing but after one too many drinks, didn’t make it while all our friends, including Tessa carried on partying. Afterwards, everyone returned to the flat, woke Toby up to make late-night toasties. Slowly one by one, all his flatmates went to bed. With the options of crashing with her friend Mikey, the couch and a sleeping bag, or sneak into Toby’s bed, only one option stood out…
From then on we became inseparable. We decided to move to London after a couple of years and were there for the next 7+ years before finally deciding to make the move back to NZ and get married just after our 10 year anniversary.
Tell us about the aesthetic you’ve chosen for your wedding day?
We wanted there to be minimal fuss and for it to feel like we had invited friends and family around to our home for a dinner party so it’s quite a homely vibe – just with the perk of overlooking Christchurch’s bustling Riverside market and only metres from the bars and restaurants of the Terrace. It was important to us that it reflected city life and some of our best memories in London hosting dinner parties and enjoying late night negronis. The palette is quite colourful (Tessa!) but is delivered in quite a minimalist way (Toby!). Orange and pink are our hero colours against a backdrop of Riverside Kitchen’s whimsical garden wall and dining kitchen.
What were you most looking forward to on the day?
To be married, to have fun, enjoy everyone’s company and to get dressed up in our fancy new outfits with a negroni in hand!
Share your top 3 tips for planning a wedding
Identify what is most important or non-negotiable and make that work, everything else is not worth the angst. Find a venue that knows what they’re doing, is flexible to your ideas but can also handle the majority of the implementation – makes life so much easier when deciding what is and isn’t important! Do photos before the ceremony so you can spend as much time as possible with your guests.
