Annabel and Rasmus

Our Love Story

Ras and I met while both working at M&C Saatchi, an advertising agency in Sydney. He joined as part of a team of people including his best childhood friend (his Best Man) after they won a graduate student competition. There was instantly a connection between us but I avoided him at our work Christmas party because I didn't think kissing an intern was a very good look! It was a few months before we got together, funnily enough, it was on Valentine’s Day after many tequila shots with colleagues celebrating a birthday. He'd promised his mum he'd only be in Australia for six months but ended up staying 3.5 years before we moved back to Denmark together.

In the last year and a half, we have got engaged, got pregnant, bought a house, had a baby, planned our wedding (and had the wedding too obviously!) launched and funded a Kickstarter campaign for Wordbits and worked on the house, so we haven't had much spare time at all recently! We love spending time with family and friends, hanging with our son Louie and on rare occasions, we can - skiing and snowboarding.

Our engagement happened on a summer holiday to the island of Mallorca in Spain (sounds very glam but it's only a couple of hours flight from where we live in Denmark). We took a walk up to an abandoned monastery and watched the sunset over the old broken tiles and rubble, it was beautiful. We knew then that I was pregnant but hadn't told anyone else yet.

Our Wedding Planning

It was really important for us to get married in New Zealand because weddings are more of "a thing" for us Kiwis. In Denmark, weddings are much smaller, more intimate and low key. Many Danes don't feel the need to get married and if they do it's typically at the registry office followed by dinner in a nice restaurant. We wanted to get married in Akaroa because it's one of our favourite places in New Zealand and my family have a long association with the area, holidaying every year in Wainui. Lastly, it was really important to Rasmus that the ceremony location had a water view. While that made it really tricky to find a venue I'm really glad that he insisted on this because we eventually found the most perfect spot.

Finding a venue was the trickiest part of planning for us. The original place we had visited in person while in NZ fell through, so with the only other venue in Akaroa booked out for our date, we were left contacting Air BnB hosts, enquiring with family connections and scouring Google Maps for a location. We weren't able to secure a ceremony location until we arrived back in NZ in November for an early January wedding so it was an intense time trying to bring everything together, and we were only able to do it all because of our amazing vendors and families. While we didn’t have a wedding planner I did have a valuable call with Emma Newman who was an amazing spring of ideas and insight. I loved the creative side of everything - I could use my design skills to do the menus, seating charts, wedding website etc and decorate the community hall we used for the reception in exactly the way I imagined.

Our Wedding Day

The morning of our wedding was fairly hectic with our son Louie staying with me the night before the wedding then going over to "the boys" house after breakfast. Ras and I had been so busy organising everything and making sure family and friends all had what they needed that we were both still finishing our speeches on the morning of the wedding. I swore I'd never be that person, but as I mentioned the planning stages had been intense so that's just how it was.

The ceremony location was up on the hill above Akaroa with a stunning vista across the harbour and surrounded by native bush. The site is really sheltered so it was ideal. Walking on to the ceremony site with my girls after all the stress, uncertainty and work and it all being just perfect. Ras and I had both felt when we first stepped onto the land on the hill that this was where we would get married, and then in that moment it was finally happening. A close friend of ours, my flatmate when Ras and I met, was our celebrant and did an amazing job of the ceremony - it was meaningful and fun in equal parts. My Dad walked me down the aisle to an acoustic version of Fleetwood Mac's Everywhere which was perfect for us, being from opposite sides of the world. I well up with happy emotions every single time I hear this song. My sister in law brought Louie up to us after we had said our vows so that he could walk down the aisle with us which was really special, I'm so happy he was able to be there.

We had The Thirsty Caravan there serving drinks and we cut our cake immediately after the ceremony so that it could be served along with drinks and canapes. The location, view, the weather and all our favourite people just made this such a special part of the day.

We had formal group photos at the ceremony site before heading off to get bridal party photos. Our son Louie had a sleep then met us for some photos on the waterfront which was really special before leaving him with a babysitter so we could kick our heels up for the rest of the evening.

After lingering in the sun drinking cocktails and eating canapes the guests hopped on busses down to the Akaroa township where we had our reception dinner in Gaiety Hall. It's such a beautiful building but a tricky one to decorate because the ceilings are really high, so we had large round balloons filled with helium all down the tables. My talented auntie Jenny did the most incredible job of making floral garlands and had created an archway for the entrance which was one of my favourite details of the whole day.

Dinner was a sit-down meal and the Catering Dept. food was INCREDIBLE. We incorporated all of the traditional Danish wedding rituals which was so much fun. Some of these traditions include that the guests can at any time start clinking their cutlery on plates and the newlyweds have to stand on their chairs and kiss. When the guests begin stomping their feet the couple needs to climb under the table to kiss. During the traditional bridal waltz, the guests all stand in a circle and slowly get closer and closer before finally picking the Groom up and cutting the end of his socks off! This type of bridal waltz/ sock cutting was great as everyone was already on the dance floor when the band started so it got things going straight away without us having to coax people up.

There were little things that didn’t go to plan, but they didn't matter at all. For us, most of the drama was in the lead-up so we were just so happy and relieved that we actually pulled it off!

Not something that happened to us but to our amazing band, DangerBaby. One of their lead singers fell sick during the ceremony so they got another lady over from Christchurch in time for the reception without skipping a beat. We actually didn't know about this, my mum told me later on so they were true professionals in dealing with it.

Our Advice

We have so many pieces of advice to pass on to future couples, but here’s the top three:

Start your speech now! I had started a list of things that I wanted to say 10 months out from the wedding, but with everything that there was to do in organising it was left until the absolute last minute to actually write it which is far to much stress for the morning of your wedding!

If you're getting married in a remote or rural location think about ways that you can make use of what's already in the area rather than needing to transport it from a major city i.e we hired bench seats for our ceremony from Akaroa Area School and the principal himself delivered them! We also used the local Lions gazebo and for a donation, they helped us pack up the site.

Have a wedding website so that you can keep guests updated of the details as you have them. We used a Squarespace site with an RSVP form where we collected everyone's email address which was invaluable for sharing information in the lead up to the wedding.

How We Used Christchurch Weddings

I loved the Instagram inspiration on Christchurch Weddings and researched a lot of vendors from the Directory as well as getting tips from the blog.

Our Dream Team

Massive shoutout to The Catering Dept. Laura and the whole White Tie team were stars and I cannot thank them enough for how professional and kind they were. The food was such a highlight and we lost count of how many people told us it was the best wedding food they'd ever had. This was not the cheapest option but 100% worth the investment and they were very accommodating.

Another huge cheer to Brenton and Hannah from The Thirsty Caravan. Our ceremony site was transformed by the addition of the caravan and it just set the perfect tone. Brenton and Hannah were happy to answer our many questions and went above and beyond. They genuinely made our wedding experience so much more special.

Finally our photographer, Kelly. We loved her from the moment we first Facetimed, and boy did she deliver! I could not be happier with the photos and the way she nailed the brief of "documentary style". Huge bonus that she set everyone at ease and made us laugh with some golden advice like "bush to bush girls!".

Our Vendors

Ceremony Venue | Private land

Reception | Gaiety Hall

Photographer| Kelly Shakespeare Photography

Florals

Bridal Party bouquets and buttonholes | Brynley Prebble

Caravan and Gaiety Hall garlands | Jennifer Bang

Gaiety Hall table flowers | IY, sourced from Downies Flowers

Catering | Catering Dept.

Celebrant | Sophie Stone

Hair | Alex Hannah Hairstyling

Makeup | Anna Turnbull