If you’ve ever looked at Pinterest or Instagram, you’d be forgiven for believing a wedding =
Fancy clothing + 3pm ceremony with flowers + sit down dinner + speeches + dancing
And that does make a lovely wedding, but what if that doesn’t appeal to you?
What can a wedding look like? Well, read like, I celebrated all of these alternative weddings... but I only have photographic evidence of two.
And just for fun, I throw in some other alternative wedding planning ideas at the end too.
Bex and Guy opted for a Halloween wedding, asking all of their guests to attend in Halloween costume, while they wore epic black attire. It was totally them and it was perfect.
Shan and Mark originally booked a trip to Central Otago as a birthday celebration for Mark, but decided while they were here they'd get married too.
They booked me and had me book a venue, photographer and make up artists who loved their mid winter, fun, goth, elopement plans. It was totally them and it was perfect.
Gerald and Margaret prioritised place. Their whitebait stand just out of Haast on New Zealand’s West Coast.
Relaxed and fun, with a dress code of jeans and gumboots, after getting them married on their whitebait stand, we celebrated with carrot cake, a wee drink and of course whitebait at their house afterwards. It was them, it was perfect.
Amy and Cam chose to include their favourite activity in their day. We all arrived at the Canyon Swing at Arthur’s Point, where after Amy arrived on the arm of her Dad, we got them married on the deck overlooking the Shotover River. After the ceremony Amy got changed into better attire for canyon swinging and the two of them jumped off the ledge in the swing to celebrate. After their guests had all had a turn, nibbles were shared in the Canyon Swing building, followed by Fergbaker Pies on the beach back in Queenstown. It was them, it was perfect.
Rachel and Les had the afternoon ceremony with flowers and fancy clothes, but after dinner was served they surprised us all with a proper Scottish Caelidh. The band, the guy in a kilt telling us all what to do, and when we’d worn ourselves out they served macaroni cheese for supper. It was them, it was perfect.
As you might know if you’ve followed me for a while, I take my birthdays seriously. For my 40th I came up with a birthday formula that works for me. I love people and socialising… but my battery runs out, I can’t socialise for ages. So I combined a social activity - drinks, nibbles, dessert - with a non-social activity - an outdoor movie with interactive game (and popcorn). It was fabulous!
You can choose to move the time frame to 10am and celebrate with some relaxed live music, a brunch buffet, mimosas and coffee, and be enjoying your day in solitude as newlyweds by 1 or 2pm.
You can choose to replace the dinner and dance part of the night with a food truck and lounge feel and set up different spaces for different activities - a board games table, a multi player MarioKart game projected onto a big screen, a silent disco area for the guests who really want to boogie.
Yes, guaranteed you will have some people questioning your departure from the norm, but as Amy and Cam, Shan and Mark, Gerald and Margaret and Rachel and Les will tell you - everybody without fail, told them afterwards how much they loved how they chose to celebrate.
Talk to me about what’s important to you, and together we can plan an elopement or wedding that feels great to you.
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