Maddison & Braxton

Braxton and I met through mutual friends. We weren’t looking for a relationship but that all changed as we soon became inseparable! We didn’t believe in love at first sight but this had to be the closest thing to it.

Our families merged together and almost instantly became dinner. It was the most unexpected and beautiful moment of my life!

We started to plan a low-key wedding just before the first New Zealand lockdown. Later, we entered a wedding giveaway on Instagram to win a free elopement package to Queenstown and we won! We spent hours crying in disbelief and excitement and got zero sleep when we found out. I screamed the house down! Even though it was an elopement package, we were lucky to have eight of our family and friends attend.

We kept everything chilled and stress-free and just enjoyed the moment. We both like to go with the flow. We trusted all our vendors to take control of a lot of things! We believe this is a big factor as to why our day was so perfect.

For the flowers, we loved the idea of wild and dried blooms. We had buttonhole flowers for our guests and I wore a beautiful floral crown for the ceremony. We dried my bouquet and keep it in a vase next to our bed.

We ate at The Public Kitchen in Queenstown; they served us delicious platters of classic Kiwi nibbles such as cheese rolls, pork rillettes, pork belly sticks, squid, baked Camembert, crispy cauliflower bites and more.

Live acoustic entertainment was included in our prize. John and Gem from Calico Entertainment sang all our favourite songs! It was chilled and romantic.

As it was a small elopement, we all cuddled around with some champagne after the ceremony and everyone had beautiful things to say. It was small and intimate so we were all comfortable being emotional and embracing our families and friends! We are both quite reserved so this was a dream for us.

My dress was made for me. I wanted something simple and elegant and it was exactly that! The dressmaker was in Clyde and I live in Tauranga so I sent her my measurements and through FaceTime calls, she made a dress that fit me like a glove. It was a white silk slip dress with a low cut back. I also wore a beautiful veil and a flower crown with gold earrings and a necklace from my late nana, which was very special to me.

That morning, Braxton played a game of golf with the boys while the girls enjoyed a platter with some champagne and slowly got ready in the dome at our venue. It was such a special time spent with my two best friends and my beautiful mother.

Our time as a family in Queenstown will be something we all cherish forever. We are so glad we eloped rather than had a big wedding! I never felt uncomfortable or uneasy.

Our honeymoon is on hold for now. We spent an extra week in Queenstown as a mini-moon, which was beautiful. Our priority now is our tiny home, which we have just built.

My advice is to find vendors you love and trust and let them create their magic. Chances are the end product will be 100% better as it will be full of passion.

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