Art Deco Wedding at The Mission Estate Winery, by Hawke's Bay photographer, Eva Bradley
When I first met Aimee at our planning session in the lead up to her to Chris at The Mission Estate in Napier, I understood exactly why he fell in love with her. Her energy and passion for life generally and their wedding specifically just oozed out of her and after yakking for well over an hour, Chis had to work quite hard to wedge us apart. Being a fairly modern woman myself, I LOVED hearing how she proposed to Chis on a leap day. Once we started talking about Art Deco wedding themes and period drama television…well…the rest is just a beautiful love story between all three of us…best told in photographs!
Eva: Why did you choose an Art Deco theme and what was especially fun about planning a wedding with elements from that era?
Aimee: “I've always loved retro and vintage, from when I was really little. There's a delicateness and beauty you just don't find today. The art deco idea came in when I found my dress, in all its beaded beauty. It looked like something out of Downton Abbey (which I am absolutely obsessed with) and suddenly it occurred to me that we could theme the wedding around the dress. I love the glamour of the Art Deco era, the symmetry, the colours, but most of all the idealism of the "bright young things". It seemed like an era absolutely dying to jump into the future and innovate everything from medicine to art to clothes.”
Eva: What led to your leap day proposal?
Aimee: “I think you get to a point in the relationship where you can see it's heading toward marriage, but your friends see it before you do and we were being pestered with questions from all and sundry. The leap year was coming up, and Mum and Dad were constantly cracking jokes that I'd be able to ask Chris to marry me. But it wasn't until I was reading a Facebook post from Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook's COO) where she talks about marriage until it hit me that it was an option. Sandberg had recently gotten engaged herself, and she had planned and agreed on an engagement with her then boyfriend. She asks why we can't rethink the norms around getting engaged, why women can't take control of their own relationship futures and the best relationships are equal right from the start and all the way through. That was a really powerful message for me, and it turns out the leap day has a long tradition of women asking men to marry them so it was a way of being traditional and not traditional at the same time.”
Eva: Equality is talked about in the workplace and other spaces but is often just assumed to be ‘a thing’ in marriage, which isn’t always the case. Should we encourage this more?
Aimee: “I think that it's so important for women to have partners who champion them, and who don't feel threatened by equality. I really struck gold with Chris in so many ways because this just doesn't phase him, it's not an issue for him. It shouldn't phase men being with a strong woman, but it really does. I think that's because men can be quite insecure with equality because they think it means women will out do them in some way, but I wish that it wasn't like that at all. I think we're all stronger when we do this together.”
Eva: Every now and again at a Hawke’s Bay wedding I get to shoot an especially epic series of ‘groom reactions’ as the bride walks down the aisle. Every imaginable emotion seemed to cross Chris’ face in the seconds it took Aimee to walk through the doors of The Mission, and I felt quite overwhelmed myself as I captured them all with my zoom lens. I asked them to both describe how they felt as this big moment in life happened for them…
Chris: “I saw Aimee and everything else became a blur. It was the culmination of something that I never thought I would see, that someone who cares that much for me, who wants to spend the rest of their life with me. While there are photos of me trying to hold back the tears, there was no holding them back or the joy, it was just floodgates. I don't even remember the bridesmaids, just seeing Aimee. The way she looked was absolutely magical, and I couldn't have dreamt of anything better.
Aimee: I was just so happy to see Chris, and very emotional as well that I was getting married to him. Chris is such a wonderful, amazing human and I just wanted to get up there and declare that I was going to spend my life with him in front of our family and friends, which is how a wedding should be.
After the ceremony and family photos, we took about an hour out before the reception to create some beautiful wedding photography with the bridal party. I asked Aimee later what advice she would pass on from this experience to other couples and I have to say her answer was a distinctly ‘Eva Bradley Photography’ specific one:
Aimee: “Plan ahead for family photos, pack warm things in case of weather changes (especially for winter weddings!) and wear fence climbing shoes!!”
I’m sure there are LOADS of my former brides laughing right now because they relate to the advice on shoes. For me, the measure of any good Kiwi bride is her willingness to climb a fence for the shot!
One thing I’ve hardly thought to mention with this blog is that it took place right in the middle of winter (and right before the snap national lockdown). The reason winter was a irrelevant for this Hawke’s Bay wedding is…well…it was in Hawke’s Bay! Although there are lots of great reasons to have a wedding in the warmer months, I absolutely love shooting winter weddings because as a photographer, I’m fresh (aka having wedding photography withdrawals) and as a guest, it is a super exciting social event in what can otherwise be a really long, boring winter. It’s also REALLY easy to book the best venues and vendors, often at short-notice, and sometimes at a seasonally reduced rate.
Hawke’s Bay has some of the mildest winters in New Zealand and although we get bad weather like the rest of the country, it’s not nearly as frequent as elsewhere and our wedding venues (like The Mission) are almost always really fantastic places to be on cold, stormy days (spoken by a winter bride who got married on one of Hawke’s Bay’s uncommonly foul wet-weather days and absolutely loved it!).
With lots of changes happening to wedding planning and dates at the moment because of Covid, thinking outside the box about an off-season wedding in a sunny part of NZ is a really good idea.
As always, I’m in my happy place right on dusk when the skies go inky blue and I can bust out some off-camera lighting. It’s romantic, it’s some time alone to connect during a busy reception and, frankly, if I’m there with you, after-dark wedding photography is a happening thing…
As always, I’m so humbled that my amazing couples like Chris and Aimee let me share not just their images, but their love stories too. I’d also like to thank all the other vendors who helped make this Hawke’s Bay wedding look so lovely:
VENUE: The Mission Estate Winery, Napier.
BRIDAL ACCOMMODATION: Art Deco Masonic Hotel, Napier.
DRESS: Maggie Sottero from Astra Bridal, Wellington.
VENUE HIRE (arch + interior): A Touch of Elegance
MAKEUP: Candice Dear.
HAIR: Libby Caligari from Vivo on Lambton Quay.
CELEBRANT: Nola Dare (Aimee’s aunty, how cool is that?!)
CARS: Hooters Vintage Hire.
FLORALS: Lushka.
SHOES: Bella Belle Shoes.
Suits: Major Tomm’s.