Kate & Rick

"The custom experience with Trish was super special and one I will always remember. Trish is so lovely and very talented! She has an incredible eye for detail and I always had complete trust her and her team would be able to bring my vision to life. They did a great job of making the custom experience unique to me and I always felt very excited walking through the beautiful pink doors at her store for my fittings. Trish and her team were always so welcoming and never made anything feel impossible. I am still so in love with my dress and know I will feel the same in the years to come. Thank you Trish and team for giving me my dream dress, she sure is beautiful."
- Kate Panara

THE DETAILS

Location: Mudbrick, Waiheke
Bride's gown: Custom Trish Peng
Hair: Brooke Mann Hare & Hunter
Makeup: Serenity Make-Up
Groomsmen Attire: Rembrandt
Groom's Attire: Working Style & Rembrandt
Bridesmaid's Dresses: Shona Joy
Rings: Diamond Shop (Kate's wedding band) and Dora Australia (Rick's wedding band)
Photographer: Hollow & Co
Videographer: Hollow & Co Planner: Myself and Rick
Flowers: Wildflower
Catering: Mudbrick

How did you meet?
Through my friend Jo who went to Uni with Rick. Before I met him she said to me “I think you will really like my friend Rick”. She definitely knew what she was talking about! Thank you Jo for being our matchmaker.

When and where did you get married?
Covid led us to have a few different wedding celebrations. We initially planned to get married on 13 February 2021 at Mudbrick, Waiheke. 6 months before our wedding there wasn't much certainty about the borders being open for our family and friends overseas so we decided to postpone to 19 March 2022. We wanted to still celebrate our first wedding date so had a postponed wedding lunch at Baduzzi with family and friends on 13 February 2021. Thankfully we were able to have our lunch as a few days later NZ went into another lockdown!

On 19 March 2022 we got married at Mudbrick. Unfortunately the border restrictions at the time meant most of our overseas guests were unable to travel to NZ and watched our ceremony through a live stream. Even though they weren’t able to be there in person we loved hearing stories of how they celebrated our day. Some got together and dressed up to watch our ceremony with a celebratory drink in hand and some even watched in the comfort of their pyjamas. In July 2022 we travelled back to Canada (Rick is from there) to do a second wedding celebration at Langdon Hall.

What was the theme/aesthetic of your big day?
Mudbrick is an incredibly beautiful and romantic setting on its own so we decided to keep our aesthetic pretty simple. We went with all white flowers and added other details to our day that felt special to us. We had a string quartet for our ceremony and canapés which we felt created a romantic ambience. Our table names were different types of pasta to show our love of food and the incredible cooking Rick learnt from being in the kitchen with his Nonna when he was growing up. To show our love of wine and celebrate getting engaged and married on Waiheke, we gave our guests wine knives that were engraved with our date and initials.

What was the biggest source of inspiration while planning your wedding?
Rick was a big inspiration. He was super involved in the planning and had lots of great ideas for how to make our day special to us. Instagram and Pinterest were the main places we found our inspiration photos. We found it useful looking at what our vendors had done in the past and photos of previous weddings at Mudbrick. We saved photos of what we liked and shared them with our vendors to give them an idea of what we were envisioning. My friends were also great at sharing inspiration photos with me that they thought I may like.

The most memorable moment from your day:
It is hard to pick just one as I loved all the moments I shared with my new husband and our family and friends across the day. One of the most memorable moments would be walking down the aisle with my Dad to a string quartet playing “Can’t Help Falling In Love” and seeing Rick at the end. I felt beautiful in my dress and couldn’t wait to reach the end of the aisle to stand with Rick. Our ceremony was a very special start to our day and it felt surreal to finally be sharing our vows with each other after all the uncertainty Covid created for our wedding.

The biggest hit on the dance floor was:
Because of Covid restrictions many of us hadn’t been on a proper dance floor for what felt like a very long time. We all definitely made the most of the dance floor and I don’t think I ever saw it empty. The whole night was an incredible celebration. I don’t recall there being one particular stand out song as I think we were all pretty happy to be together again on a dance floor. Early on there was a conga line to “Celebration” which really set the mood for the evening. We finished the night how our day started with the last song from the DJ being the same one I walked down the aisle to.

We honeymooned in:
We are looking forward to honeymooning in Europe later this year. We spent our mini-moon in the lounge at Auckland airport. This wasn’t our first choice and at the time we were quite disappointed we didn’t get any further than Auckland airport. We had planned to do a mini-moon in Wellington but sadly didn’t make it due to the weather. We pretty much spent all day in the lounge hoping for some good news and enjoying a self-guided wine and cheese tasting. When the last flight of the day got cancelled we gave up and went back home. I left feeling incredibly full and disappointed but we both look back now and laugh at what happened. We ended up staying in Auckland, enjoying great restaurants and playing tourist in our own city.

Did you always have an idea in mind of what you wanted your dress to look like?
I saw a photo of a long sleeve, fitted dress with a long train online and immediately knew that was the style I was after. I used the photo as my inspiration and showed it to Trish in my first consultation with her in 2020. I tried on one of her long sleeved dresses to see how I felt it in that style and instantly knew that was what I wanted. I tried on a few other styles for fun but didn’t get the same feeling. Trish did an incredible job of sketching a dress that included all the things I loved about my inspiration dress and tweaking a few things that I wanted to change. The whole custom experience with Trish was super special and one I will always remember. She was really accommodating to any changes I wanted to make along the way and did a great job of making the experience unique to me. Thank you Trish and team for bringing my vision to life. I am still so in love with my dress and know I will look back in the years to come and feel the same way.