Kate + Simon, Wedding

I do not know what ever possessed me to do one of these lame picture movie type deals of our wedding photos. I actually quite honestly hate them and I'm not even sure why.

But the thing is that most of our friends and family missed it by being so far away - The joys of this globalised world huh? You love people who sometimes you have never met in person but nevertheless make up a chunk of your everyday lives. Most of these people couldn't even make it over to be a part of it.

Our day obviously wasn't a big hoohar. It was laid back, homespun and sweet. I think none of it would of happened without almost everyone playing a part in it somehow.

It was held in an old community hall in the middle of nowhere - so much in the middle of nowhere most of my Auckland friends missed the ceremony because they couldn't get their city senses to figure out where to go. We had no wedding planner, no matching furniture, no matching bridesmaid dress and I wore a green cardigan when it got cold. Almost everything was handmaid and we didn't spend money on beautiful centerpieces or favours. Infact the centerpieces were 160 odd jars that I had collected up from all around the place to serve as candle holders. We told people to take them home as well so I guess in the end they were favours too. I spent a good few hours the week before the wedding crafting name tags and wrapping bits of lace and material around jars. The day before was a family effort. My mother pulled together all the crockery, cutlery, napkins and tablecloths our of thin air (with the help of a trailer and my father) and enough booze to keep us all drunk for about 3 months given half a chance. My sister in law Jody spend a few hours helping me organise tables until they were right, hung fairy lights and lanterns with my brother in law and told my very hungover husband to be to go find branches to hang up around the place.  My sister Tania came up with her daughters and they sat putting name tags around napkins for a good few hours. Troy finished off the jars, hung streamers and gave hugs while I fussed over bits and pieces. Simon's mother organised all the catering we had, and we asked all our guests to bring their signature dish (and the recipe for it!) in lieu of a present so we had a crazy amount of food - it was fantastic. We had red velvet cake, something I knew nothing about as my mother had organised the cake - it was phenomenal. And I swear I wasn't really going to stab Simon in that picture, honest. It was after he just tried to dump my head face first into the cake though.

The days before were spent on the edge of a lake close to the venue, sharing a lovely house with friends from all over the place - New Orleans, Hawaii, Auckland and Dunedin. The morning before we hung out in the sunshine. Even though it was early autumn the day was bright and sunny and there was even swimming and waddling in the lake. One of my fondest memories of this day was walking down to the lake with my best friend to pick manuka and pinch flowers from people's gardens for my bouquet. Cass and Zoe risked life and limb hanging over the edge of a highway to get the rest of the flowers and Cass put them together in a pretty rustic bundle before spending a couple of hours doing my hair and makeup with Zoe. Michele lit a good couple of hundred candles, took a plethora of pictures and supplied the bride with a drink bottle of rum and coke. Jade sung drinking songs and was our technical support. And she wore goggles. Simon's brothers were all groomsmen and each took a job, Adrian did our knot tying ceremony, Julian signed the paperwork and Christen took one for the team and stood up to do a speech.

Our music playlist never happened because iTunes is the devil... and the music I chose to walk up the aisle to wouldn't work but it didn't really matter. We didn't do much dancing, but the kids certainly did. Jade even got a second line of them going a couple of times.

Really there are little bits and pieces people did on those days that I'm still only finding out now a couple of months after the fact. I thank you all for every single little bit you did for our day.