Festival-Inspired Garden Wedding at Hikurangi Gardens

7 Jun

February 2025

This romantic wedding at Hikurangi Gardens beautifully blended boho festival vibes with rustic elegance. Handmade festival flags, dreamy florals, fairy lights, and candlelit details created an intimate and personal celebration for Julia and Steve. With a reception held in a charming woolshed and a heartfelt DIY touch throughout, this wedding was a perfect mix of creativity, love, and laid-back fun

Read on the see what made their day so unique and special…

Were there any important details that were special to you as a couple, you wanted to incorporate in some way?

Yes! So many. Most importantly our beautiful children and all their little cousins. It was so special having all 8 kids in our bridal party. Our kids were given important jobs, our daughter got to present us with the horseshoe which was hand made by my mum and our son had the big responsibility of carrying the rings down the aisle and looking after them. Music and dancing was important to us and I loved dancing with all the kids to an acoustic set by Sonic Delusion.

What was your vision for the day and how did you choose your style?

Choosing our style seemed so easy to me but maybe that was because I had been dreaming about our wedding for a couple of years (we got engaged 2020), I was forever considering different elements and perfecting it in my mind until my vision was clear.

I wanted a dreamy, romantic style with a hint of festival fun. One thing my friends and I love is a good festival, we have a love for the big festival flags, fairy lights and candles that are there and even if we were just camping together we would make our own flags and adorn our little camp area with flags, ferry lights and candles. I wanted to bring this feeling into our wedding so, over the years I saved pieces of lace and old blush chiffon dresses or light cotton sheets in a big box with 'rags for flags' written in big vivid across the box. My mum and I spent a couple of days hand making about 20 big festival flags. We then had the problem of how to put them up. I wanted big tall bamboo and felt like I was always hunting for it or asking people if they had any on their farm. It turned into such a hunt that whenever we were out driving around my kids would point out "bamboo!!" whenever we drove past some. Once we were all sorted It was up to Steve to figure out how to put them up in the hard ground out at Hikurangi Gardens. I never had any worry though as he's always able to find a solution for my ideas.

The reception was held in the rustic woolshed. It is not very big so we had to have a limit on guest numbers. But I had a clear vision from the start of an intimate dining experience filled up with glowing candles, dreamy florals, with brass and crystal accents.

My sister and MOH helped me with the table flowers - lovingly growing me flowers in my colour scheme in their home gardens.

How did you find and select your venue over other locations? What were you looking for in a venue?

After we were engaged I did the circuit of different locations around Taranaki. Nothing seemed quite right and everything just stalled for a few years. then one day my MOH sent me a screen shot of a photo from an Insta story from Rebecca from Pineapple Sage.

It was of a couple in this cool rustic looking barn that I just fell in love with. But I had no other information to go on so I started digging. I finally found out where it was and booked a viewing. When I mentioned it to my Mum she knew about the place - turns out they are relations of hers! Fast forward a few months, Steve's parents came out to have a look and turns out that Washer relations have also lived there! What are the chances. It was like it was meant to be.

I loved the woolshed as soon as I saw it. I could see the potential immediately and knew my light colour palette would look great over the old wood. It had an intimate upstairs for dining, even it's own catering space and downstairs for dancing.

How did you go about choosing the vendors you booked?

Photographer and Florist were the most important vendors to me.

I was already familiar with the industry and had narrowed down the vendors I knew would be able to capture the dreamy style I was after. Looking at the website and social media of vendors was very insightful. For example, sunset photos and being able to capture natural moments through out the day, with a natural unobtrusive ease was very important to me. So l was able to go back and look at different photographers' work.

Aimee Kelly's work stood out to me straight away and when I met her, I knew her calm friendly nature was exactly what I wanted to be around on the day.

Another example I want to highlight is our florist Rebecca from Pineapple Sage. When I had my first meeting with her she immediately put my mind at ease and was able to take what I was saying/ showing her and put it into a mood board that was so exactly what I wanted I don't think I even had any changes!

I know I have some ambitious ideas sometimes but I also had a budget to work with and she was able to take my ideas and deliver them flawlessly within my budget.

Tell us about the planning process.

I loved the planning process.

I had one book for all my random notes and ideas and another folder for all the quotes with notes wirtten all over them. Then I used my design software to layout all of my ideas so I could see exactly what everything was going to look like, from the floor plan to the options for the dresses to the table decorations.

Everything was planned and written down. I think it got up near 60 pages haha! I had the timeline for the day and what each vendor was going to be doing written down. I think I did this knowing that on the day I didn't want to have anyone asking me too many questions. I wanted to just relax on the day. I was able to just give all this information to Lizzy from Elizabeth Jean Weddings who we had helping us on the day and everything was executed as I had planned. And if any hicups occurred, Lizzy was able to just smooth them over and help make the flow of the day seem almost effortless.

What’s some advice you would give to couples planning their day?

Don't worry too much about trends but also don't worry about trying to be too 'timeless' either. Everything dates so try to think about what style you really love. Your wedding can be such a perfect time to capture all the things you love right now. You can look at it like a time capsule of this important time in your life.

Have a clear plan before you go and talk to Vendors, remember they want to bring your idea to life but don't be afraid to ask their opinion or how they would do a certain thing as they do this for their job and there will often be a simple answer to what ever it is you are worrying about. Getting the right vendors is so important. I was so lucky with my team, they all worked so well together. It's the small things, like who puts the cake flowers on the cake? the caterer or the florist? These things were handled smoothly without a problem.

Was there one key moment in your day that you will never forget?

Loads. But seeing our kids and all their cousins dressed up in their beautiful blush chiffon dresses with their super cute flower crowns and then our son looking so smart in his suit - having them all there with their Nana and Oma... helping each other with their crowns and hair and seeing all their nerves just before we walked down the aisle was such a special moment for me.

The other highlight for me was sunset hour. In all of my planning what I really really wanted were a couple of beautiful sunset photos. We didn't think the weather was going to allow it for awhile, but Aimee looked out the window and saw the sun just breaking through the clouds and out we went. I think Steve was over all the photos by then but he was a really good sport and always knows how to make me laugh. It was perfect. These photos are so precious to me and I can't wait to hang some!

Looking back on your day, is there anything you would do differently?

Not plan the first dance - We both totally forgot what we were doing after the first few moves haha I wish we had just made it spontaneous.

Is there anything else you’d like to share about your wedding?

I'm graphic designer and have a business called business Black Coral Creative where I freelance. I'm such a visual person. I loved that I was able to design my own invites, menu design and signage so that the style and fonts were consistent through out the day. I tried to do as many things as I could myself so I could splurge on the vendors I really wanted. For example, instead of printing expensive signs, my MOH and I hired chalk boards and used stencils that I had designed on the computer to draw the signs. I'm lucky she is also very artistic! I also made and hand painted all the 'wayfinder' signs.

I love how organised I felt going into the big day. Everyone knew what they were doing and when. All the hard work I put in to it meant that I felt so relaxed on the weekend of our wedding. I remember the guys from Dobsons Hire turning up to drop off the tables and commenting on how calm I seemed. I think I had watched too many shows where the bride didn't get to enjoy her own wedding as she was too busy answering questions. Our wedding was like out of my dreams and I will treasure my memories forever. Thank you to everyone who helped.