OUR WEDDING : The location

I knew that perhaps the hardest part of planning our wedding was going to be narrowing down and deciding on the location. When we started discussing what we wanted, the only stipulations we had was that we definitely wanted it out of the country and we wanted a location that held meaning for us, not just choosing a venue/location simply for convenience.

After pitching a concept of a wedding in the south of France (Oh my God, can you imagine?!), Grant brought me back to reality and we decided to narrow down the search to the southern hemisphere.

I remembered an article I came across years before and began researching a location in New Zealand called Hawkes Bay. The country itself is breathtaking and New Zealand has special meaning for me as it is where my father grew up and I have extremely fond childhood memories there. Grant was just as enamored with the country when we traveled there a couple of years ago. So I managed to find a spectacular venue managed by a vineyard that we penciled in and were finally able to see for ourselves last week when we visited New Zealand to get the ball rolling on our plans.

I had seen every image the venue had of the location but when we saw it for ourselves, it just confirmed all of our expectations and we knew that we had found the perfect venue fit for us and our needs. A beautiful log building set amongst an incredible backdrop of a landscape you could only find in New Zealand. I deliberately tried to hold off making any decisions such as flowers or clothing until we actually saw the location because I knew that it would have such a big impact in our choices. That is, except for our photographer who we locked in without question a couple of months ago – more on that later

Within moments of being there I was able to envision exactly how the decor will look, the colour palette and all the other bits and pieces. So the Save the Dates have been sent, the location is locked in and we are officially in planning mode.

The images below was our view from our accommodation while we were in New Zealand last week. The hills look as though they have been draped in velvet fabric and had little white sheep and black cows dotted across the landscape. I am so looking forward to creating some very special memories in this spectacular corner of the world.