Sarah & Renier
Sarah and Ren's autumn wedding day was full of love, laughter and a few surprises, including a witness lottery, ice cream truck, a hilarious father-daughter dance , and many unique ways they incorporated their beloved cats! The beautiful flowers, stunning cake, and romantic signage were the perfect backdrop for the garden picnic theme. Sarah tells us more about their day...
Photos by Kiri Marsters Photography / Venue: Abel Estate / Florist: Go Flowers
Ren and I are high school sweethearts and we have been together since we were 16 years old. As teenagers, we secretly got matching flask/test tube tattoos to represent us meeting in science class! There has been a running joke throughout our relationship - every time I see a cool date, I always say, “That would be an awesome date to be born or get married”, which Ren used to his full advantage when proposing. We were having a normal night at home in March 2023 when Ren started talking about cool-looking dates coming up, which is when he said “Wow! 14/04/2024 is a satisfying-looking date”. So, in typical Sarah fashion, I fell right into his trap and replied, “That would be a cool date to get married”. So, there it was… our wedding date… and a ring on my finger!
Our wedding day was the first sunny day in Auckland for three weeks. I was surprisingly relaxed about how terrible the weather had been leading up to our wedding, as Abel Estate had just built an incredible wet weather gazebo, but I was very happy that we got to make the most of their main ceremony space by the lake.
Getting ready was so much fun. My best friend’s mum set up a high tea on the morning of our wedding, which is one of mine and Ren’s favourite dates to go on. It was so special being surrounded by my nearest and dearest at my best friend's house - it was the place that I called my second home growing up.
I had a wedding dress disaster about five months out from our wedding. I had ordered my dress eight months earlier and when it arrived, it was MASSIVE! Like, falling off of me massive; I was so devastated. I spent weeks going to different dressmakers for quotes and all of them told me that the dress would need a total remake. That’s when I discovered Ellie Atelier in Silverdale. Ellie put my mind at ease and told me she could custom make me a new gown that would fit me perfectly and could be the gown of my dreams, and that it was! I was in love with my dress and I’ve never felt more confident.
I wore my grandmother's emerald engagement ring as she is no longer with us and she was my best friend. It was so special to have her walk up the aisle with me in that way.
Our wedding theme was a pastel garden party. It really came down to the fact that I couldn’t decide on a bridesmaid dress colour, so… I chose four! We decided to run with it and matched the rest of our decor to the four pastel colours of our bridesmaid dresses.
One of the ways we included our beloved cats Poppy and Bibs in our special day was by having their picture engraved on Ren's cufflinks.
I wrote cards for Ren and his parents to read on the morning of our wedding. I expressed to Ren how excited I was to start our lives together and walk up the aisle to him that day, and I thanked his parents for immigrating to New Zealand as that one decision they made to pack up their family and move here 15 years ago changed all of our lives in ways we would have never imagined.
Ren wore a light grey Rembrandt suit and felt like a million bucks. Our florist, Go Flowers, also made a cool floral pocket square instead of a traditional buttonhole.
Our ceremony was so relaxed and enjoyable. We had so many laughs throughout our ceremony, and our celebrant Nicola Deerness really captured our humour whilst also keeping things romantic. I loved hearing Ren’s vows; we had so many people come up to us telling us they were the best vows they have ever heard. I got pretty lucky.
For a unique twist we did a witness lottery! During our ceremony, Nicola got us to pull a name each out of a glass jar and whoever we picked was going to be our witnesses. I am so glad we made the decision to do the witness lottery, it was so fun. We also had a very intimate wedding of only 44 people so we had enough time on our day to really talk to everybody we love.
After our ceremony, I had arranged for Ren’s favourite person in the world to surprise him at our wedding… Mr Whippy! We had just finished taking our family photos when Greensleeves blasted through our wedding, and Ren went running towards the big red and white ice cream truck. Mr Whippy was a huge hit with our guests; every single person got one and commented about how fun it was.
Our bridesmaids all wore dresses by BLAK Bridesmaids in different styles and colours to match our florals, and our groomsmen wore slightly darker grey Rembrandt suits with ties that matched the bridesmaids they would be walking with.
The grounds at Abel Estate are so scenic, I loved walking around the grounds and getting all of our stunning photos. Our bridal party photos were my favourite because the vibes were just so high and our friends were so excited for us. The boys came up with hilarious poses and our photographers Kiri & Sunny just felt like a couple of friends joining in with us.
I wanted our florals to be ‘Cottage Garden Picnic’ styled, so I reached out to Meghann from Go Flowers, Abel Estate’s resident florist, and she loved the idea. Meghann is incredible; on the wedding morning when I saw my bouquet, I knew my day was going to be perfect. We had the most beautiful pastel cottage garden florals throughout the venue.
Our reception was everything we could have dreamed of. We made our entrance as husband and wife and went straight into cake cutting. We had a hilarious moment where we couldn’t cut through the cake because of the cake boards so it turned out super wonky!
We are absolutely obsessed with our two little cats, Poppy and Bibs, so we tried to incorporate them as much as we could into our day. We named our signature cocktails after them and included them on the stickers for our wedding favours, which was such a fun way to have them with us. They were even mentioned in our ceremony!
My good friend Lucia helped me a lot with planning our wedding, and she designed our signage, which was everything I could have ever dreamed of. Our wedding favours were made by Simon Lewis Wards - little glass Glohearts to match the colour scheme of our wedding and I included a little card and real Glohearts in an old school lolly bag as our favour.
We had a buffet menu for our dinner, which we loved. Our closest friends and family did speeches, we danced, we did one too many shots and we just had such a great time.
Our first dance song was Amazed by Lonestar and my dad and I rocked out to Fat Bottomed Girls by Queen instead of doing a traditional first dance because our favourite memories from my childhood involve us dancing around the lounge as a family to that song.
We could not have asked for a better day. The day after, we set off on our honeymoon, and after four hours of flight delays, we made it to Brisbane on absolute cloud nine and more in love than ever.
Photos and Video: Kiri Marsters Photography
Venue: Abel Estate @abelestatevenue
Florist: Go Flowers @goflowers
Bride's attire: Ellie Atelier
Groom's attire: Rembrandt
Bridesmaids dresses: BLAK Bridesmaids
Cake: Sweet Bites
Nicola Deerness Celebrant / Merchant 1948 / Nike / Swarovski / Augenstein’s Jewellers / Stitched Shop / Fresh & Flawless / Lucia Thwaites Hair / Wild Beauty Nails / Judy & Rudi / Rizanikun (Fiverr) / MThorle (Etsy) / Ashley Wood Craft (Etsy) / Vistaprint / Auckland Copy Shop / Auckland Limo Service / Mr Whippy Kumeu / DJ4You