Katelynn & Kymberlee

Kymberlee and I met on Tinder. We played mini-golf for our first date. One month later, I asked her to be my girlfriend with a huge bunch of flowers.

Kymberlee grew up on a farm near Napier whereas I’m a city girl. Regardless of this, we share similar values and we’re both family orientated. When we got on with our respective families, we knew we were onto a good thing!

We had discussed engagement rings and had also both purchased rings before Kymberlee proposed to me at Muriwai Beach in January 2020. Muriwai has been a special place for us from the start of our relationship. We head out there often to watch the sunset, take a picnic or go for a walk. I knew something was up on the day Kymberlee proposed as she was acting strange and being a bit secretive. We went for a hike and after a picnic, she popped the question. We married 16 months later.

I found the venue online. We chose autumn as we love the colours and the temperature: not too hot or too cold. We matched our colour theme to these warm autumn shades, especially our invitations, stationery and bridal party outfits. It meant a lot to us as a same-sex couple to feel so welcomed and special at Markovina.

We had a small, relaxed ceremony with 50 guests. We share the same sense of humour but neither of us like being the centre of attention. We’re quite traditional and did the something old, new, borrowed and blue; our flowers were wrapped in Kymberlee’s mother’s veil; we borrowed jewellery and we carried a blue crystal. We hired Jaguar cars to drive us to the venue.

Our meal was a buffet and our wedding cake was two-tiered; lemon and raspberry and black forest, with buttercream frosting, decorated with red roses.

Getting away from the hustle and bustle of the wedding for our photos was so nice. We had some quiet time and we were able to soak up the day and laugh together.

For the music, I created different playlists for the ceremony, dinner, dancing and guest mingling. When we started dating, I created a playlist for Kymberlee with songs that have become ‘our’ songs and these featured a lot!

Our fathers made speeches, as did both our bridesmaids. My brother wrote a speech that my mother read for him. Kymberlee made a speech that she and I wrote together. Kymberlee’s sister rapped her speech to the tune of The Prince of Bel-Air!

I wanted a gown that was fitted and highlighted my curves. I found dress shopping really overwhelming. I knew it needed to be ivory as Kymberlee and I had to wear the same colour. I fell in love with the train and keyhole back detailing of my dress. I felt beautiful in it; the bodice, train and shoulder straps were in French lace. I also wore a long veil with a floral headpiece and an old family heirloom: my nana’s ring.

Kymberlee’s dress had a beautiful V-shaped back and a little element of sexy with thin spaghetti straps and lace embroidery on the bodice. She accessorized with a veil, a diamante headband, pearl and diamante earrings and a diamond heart necklace that was a gift from her dad to her mum on her 21st birthday, and that she’d worn on her own wedding day. We wore the same silver sparkly block heels! Two of our three bridesmaids (Kymberlee had two, I had one) wore Cleo-style dresses and the third wore a Kate-style gown, all in the same rust colour.

We both agree that the most memorable part of our day was the ceremony and finally seeing each other in our gowns. Also, expressing our love for each other through our vows. It was a dream for us to see each other looking so beautiful!

Celebrating with our family and close friends made us feel incredibly lucky to have such amazing support and love in our lives. It was the first same-sex wedding for all our guests and so we hope that they took away the message that love is love, and it is the same no matter what gender people are.

We’re so happy we had a Polaroid camera guest book as we absolutely love looking back at these photos. We also placed advice cards at each table for our guests to answer questions about us and draw a picture. These proved to be hilarious!

The whole day was a fairytale; perfectly imperfect, memorable, togetherness, love. Our best advice is to brush your teeth before you get into your wedding dress. We have a photo of Katelynn brushing her teeth over the kitchen sink in her gown!

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