Nicola and Will

Real Wedding – Nicola and Will Mouat -24 April 2004

Will proposed to me on a cold Friday afternoon. I was sitting in front of the fire reading the newspaper, Will had just some home from work and was having a shower before we were going to go out and get takeaways and a DVD (a typical Friday night). 

He was taking so long and was trying to iron a shirt, I started to wonder why he wanted to wear a shirt when we were going to McDonalds.  I was reading an interesting article and was reading it aloud to him when he came and knelt down before me with one hand behind his back. 

He was all nervous and had tears in his eyes.  He then told me that he loved me more than anything and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and asked would I marry him!!!  I kissed and hugged him and managed to say yes between the tears.

We were engaged for a little over a year and started planning our wedding straight away.  As we live in the Hawkes Bay and our wedding was to be in Hamilton we had to be organised and travel to Hamilton a lot.

We wanted to add our own personal touch to the wedding and made the invitations ourselves using our home computer and rice paper.  We also organised all of the votive candles at the wedding and made up the boxes which were printed with our names and the date of the marriage for the bombonierie.

The wedding colours were silver, white and sage green (the colour of my bridesmaids dresses).  

The wedding was held on the 24th of April 2004 at The Narrows Landing in Hamilton and we invited 110 guests which was the perfect number.

I wore a satin and organza gown made by Jane Yeh. It had an organza lip with a scattering of crystals and pearls at the top.  Using Jane Yeh to make my gown was a great decision, the dress was made for me and every detail was perfect. I probably had 10 fittings in all so I knew that the dress would be everything I wanted it to be.

My bridesmaids wore sage green gowns with a touch of organza at the top as well and carried smokey pink flowers.

I decided to follow the wedding traditions and had a blue garter that mum had bought me, my underwear was my new thing, I had a pearl pin in my bouquet that mum had on her wedding day and a antique brooch in my hair that my sister had lent to me.

We arrived at the ceremony in our mothers’ cars, both Mercedes, one white and the other green/blue so they matched us perfectly.

The chapel was wonderful, it looked spectacular! The ceremony went well and is a memory that we will both treasure.

The whole day was made extra special as we got married on my parents 34th wedding anniversary. Also we asked my sister (even though she wasn’t a bridesmaid) to sign the register as we wanted to include her in our day.

The reception was everything I imagined.  The Narrows Landing was a great choice.  It flowed so well and all the guest said they felt very well looked after. A jazz band played while we were having our photos.  Once the guest were seated we were brought in.  We had to walk down some stairs into the room and it looked amazing.  Fairy lights and candles everywhere.

We had lots of friends and family come from overseas for the occasion, both my bridesmaids had flown in from the UK the week before, as did my husband’s sister, so this made the day so special.

The night was so perfect, my husband’s speech did not leave a dry eye in the house. The bestman’s speech was hysterical. He has a very dry sense of humour and his speech was a real tribute to my wonderful husband. My sister also made a toast to my wonderful parents for their wedding anniversary which was so touching and heartfelt.

After dinner we danced the night away until 3.00am.

The most romantic moment was when we were dancing our first dance.  It was like no one else was there, just the two of us dancing to our song.

After the wedding we went to Waiheke for 4 days as we both had work commitments but wanted to have a honeymoon to celebrate our wedding. We have just had 7 days on New Caledonia .  So it feels like we have in fact had two honeymoons! They were both so special.

And the couple’s advice to other couple’s planning their weddings: Married life great, it definitely has made us closer, we had been gong out for 7 years before we got married and I didn't think we could get any closer but we have.  Every day we seem to find out more about what we love about each other. 

Getting married was the best thing we ever did!!!