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We met 5 years ago when out in town for the night.  We dated for around 4 years.  My partner really wanted to travel, and I had just got an awesome new job and was torn between what we should do.  In the end we decided to go our own ways for a while and see what happened.  After a tearful goodbye at the airport, Kane journeyed off to Europe to do a working OE and I started my new job the next day.  Ten months later he returned, and we haven’t been apart since!

We decided to get engaged (as it was now apparent we were meant to be together!), and Kane proposed on Paihia Beach in July 2005, in the rain under the shelter of a Pohutukawa tree!  We had a quick glass of bubbles before running back up to our hotel room to dry off!!

We decided to get married on March 25 2006, and the choice of venue was easy.  Hahei Beach in the Coromandel.  We had holidayed here often throughout our 5 years together and loved the thought of a summer beach wedding.  Our invitations were brought in from Australia and had starfish on them.  And these were sent out in December.

I wanted to keep the wedding fairly simple and relaxed, especially seeing the wedding was to be on the beach!  And this was our theme.

My dress was designed by Warren Edwards and brought from Bridal Elegance in Howick.  As soon as I had put it on, I knew that that was the dress!  I chose a full length veil which was awesome because the breeze would pick it up on the beach for the photos.

For the bridesmaids we chose dresses in a rose pink, which looked awesome against the sand.  These were brought from Sasha in St Lukes.

For the boys, we chose pants in a silver/grey colour from Barkers menswear, and plain white shirts from Hallensteins.  They wore slip on leather shoes to keep the casual look.

Our flower-girl was in a plain white dress which we brought from Farmers!  But fitted perfectly and looked fantastic!  The page-boys were in shirts and shorts from Pumpkin Patch!!

The flowers!  Simple but effective, we chose white gerberas.  My bouquet was plain white with flax detailing, while my bridesmaids had white gerberas with some pink thrown in to bring out their dresses, again with flax detailing.  Our flower-girl had a smaller version of the bridesmaid’s bouquets.

Our reception venue was The Grange Café in Hahei.  We had 66 guests in total!  So it was a small and intimate wedding of just close friends and family.  The tables were decorated with paua shell pieces scattered up the middle of the tables, tea-light candles, and skinny vases which had just one gerbera of either pink or white with flax detailing.  The name cards we did ourselves with blue card, silver hand-written names, and a star-fish in the corner.  We also printed individual menus detailing what food was on the buffet.

Our cake was from The Chocolate Cake Company, and was 2-tiers, decorated with pink and white gerberas.  We also had a separate fruit cake which was made by my Mum!  And decorated the same way.

The ceremony was on the beach at 4pm in the afternoon.  We used a small beach track as the aisle, which we all came down to the music of a piper (this sounded fantastic when combined with the sounds of the beach!).  We had a woven mat at the front which Kane and I stood on when doing our vows.  Our rings were handed to us by our page-boys in paua shells (tied in with ribbon just in case!).  I think this would have been one of the highlights of our wedding, as it involved the children in our special day.  My niece only being 18mths at the time was so good!  She walked down the ‘aisle’ all by herself and sat in the sand playing for the duration of the ceremony!

Our photographer was Natasha Corkill based in the Coromandel Peninsula, she was awesome and caught our day perfectly!  All our photos were either on the beach or overlooking the beach.

Our first dance was to ‘Oughta Be in Love’ by Dave Dobbyn.

I don’t think I’ve left anything out…!!!  I loved our day, it was perfect.  And everything we hoped it would be!