I can hardly believe that a month ago Matt and I were getting married (what a lot can change in the world in a month eh?!)
With all the kerfuffle going on and trying to get back into the swing of everyday life after our honeymoon (hah), it has taken me longer than I would like to start-up blogging again after my hiatus. But it wouldn’t be much fun if I didn’t share some of the magic and mayhem that went into planning my wedding day. And so, I bring you a Residents blog-post series based around different aspects of the day.
Weddings are a huge amount of effort to bring together, and even if you, like we, want a low-key affair, you’d be shocked by how much work and compromise is needed to pull off a big day that everyone can enjoy.
How To Plan a Community Hall Wedding will cover off the venue aspect, and photographer, plus details on including what we did ourselves and what we received help with.
Next, we’ll be onto Wedding Day Hair and Makeup with my friends David Playle and Natalee Fisher.
The Wedding Outfits will cover all things wedding dress, bridesmaids dresses, and suits.
The Wedding Food, Drink & Flowers will round off those folks made the day so delicious.
First, I’d like to preface this by saying that planning a wedding was not - in my opinion - alllll a barrel of laughs. There were a few tears and tantrums linked into the big day - and our chaotic year of having no-fixed-abode whilst house sitting REALLY did not help. However, we made it through and had a splendid, well-paced day with plenty of fun.
I think that the most important thing to remember is that even though it is your big day, you can’t make it all about YOU. It’s about the people who have enriched both your lives and thank them for traveling so far and making people feel welcome and like they’ve had a good time. Yes, you have designed the day and will be leading the charge but ultimately other people can switch off and get really drunk, whereas you need to keep it together.
Personally, my wedding day reminded me of a bit of a school performance where Matt and I were the lead actor and actress, our friends were the supporting cast and my Mum was the producer. Our friends, family and wedding guests were in the audience but really we were mostly on the side with my brilliant crew who had spent hours working hard to bring things all together. I’m sure there plenty of you who disagree and think you should have ‘the best day of your life’ but this was my experience. Fun, but not a time to get super loose. My priority was to work with everyone as a team to ensure we had the best time possible TOGETHER, and that meant making sure I was organised and knew when it was time for the first dance and the cake to be cut.
But let’s take a step back and explore what made Matt and I decide to hold the wedding in Greytown, and why we did it at a community hall - not a professional wedding venue.
A Decent Proposal…
A year ago my boyfriend of 5 years, Matt proposed at Nikau Cafe Wellington. It wasn’t exactly a shock proposal - I had seen the box holding the ring in his pocket as we drove into town that morning - but nevertheless I blubbed like a baby rhinoceros, celebrated with champagne - and within 48 hours we were planning our wedding. Of course, one of the first questions we asked was where was it to be?
The Budget
Like many of you, I found the idea of casually dropping tens of thousands of dollars on one day a bit terrifying - especially when I looked at some venues who charged $4000 before you had even started…on a weekday!! Professional wedding suppliers and venues are big business and the sky really is the limit in terms of what you spend.
The best advice I got on planning a wedding is that you should spend where it matters to you. Personally, I felt that we could look at brilliant and less expensive options when it came to food, most drink and the venue. The biggest costs ended up being my dress, the champagne, and the photographer, all of which I think were one-hundred-percent worth it!
My goal was wherever possible to cut out the middle-man and to get product direct from a great Wellington or Wairarapa based supplier.
In the end, our wedding cost the average price of a Kiwi wedding once all the extra costs were taken into account. My family, Matt’s family and Matt and I agreed to go a-third, a-third, a-third on the cost. My mum also went and bought a whole lot of other things to decorate the hall with, like plants and second hand-crystal glasses, but we always knew that she would do that and agreed that that budget wouldn’t be included because we couldn’t oversee it.
To keep track of things, and show my Dad we were being responsible for our financial planning of the big day, I created a spreadsheet on Google Sheets in the initial stages of planning and roughed out what I thought everything would cost. Amazingly, our wedding ended up on budget. Along the way, some things were more expensive than initially anticipated but a lot of things were less. Somehow, it all evened out in the end!
I ended up using a Google Drive file to keep track of all the documents I needed for the wedding and to make sure nothing was forgotten. This worked well for me, and I didn’t feel I needed a wedding planner because I largely knew what I wanted so didn’t shop around much.
The Guest List
Initially, Matt and I were looking at having around 50 people - mostly friends - to our wedding. After some debate, that idea was scrapped. We ended up compromising and went with a rough estimate of 80 guests. It felt like a small medium-sized wedding, or a large small wedding (if that logic makes sense) and kept everyone happy.
Again, I used a Google Spreadsheet to keep track of who we invited, track numbers (at one stage we had too many guests for our space but rest assured we had about 10 people not come in the end) and whether I had sent them a wedding invitation.
It was really tricky to source a wedding invitation that we both liked. Oddly, we found that there weren’t many inspiring options. After faffing around with trying to get one made, we ended up using a Vistaprint template to create our wedding invitations, which cost about $80 NZD. I loved that the hydrangea motif tied in with the theme I had in mind for my bouquet of flowers.
The Venue: Community Halls in Wellington and Wairarapa
To be honest, I didn’t look too far into the professional wedding venue space because I knew that I didn’t want to use a place that made us use a set caterer, catering staff and over-priced wine from their menu. Many wedding venues have hidden costs that they don’t tell you upfront, and lock you into contracts with few options for variation because of their relationships with suppliers - for instance, charging $300 to turn on pre-installed fairy lights.
I knew that if we looked at non-wedding venues like restaurants or local community halls, we’d get much better bang-for-buck and the freedom to decide what food and wine supplier we wanted to use. So what was it to be?
I had heard of friends who had used community halls and I knew that they were a great option, charging a tenth of the price that many professional venues used. Yes, we’d have to work a bit harder to tart the place up - but it would be unique to us and our day. There are also lots of options to choose from and many have attractive rustic buildings with real character charm.
Early on, after getting engaged and spending the weekend in Greytown together, Matt and I walked past the Greytown Town Centre and inspiration struck. We decided to have it in Greytown because that is where Matt’s parents live.
Greytown is our second home, and the Wairarapa is a picturesque and popular place to get married, all year around. I liked that we decided on Greytown over the more popular Martinborough because it felt unique to us and connected. In fact, community and connection was the theme of almost every part of the wedding day, as you’ll soon see (the relationships I’ve forged through writing this website and interviewing The Residents of Wellington was a huge part of it too).
The great thing about community venues is most publish their rates online - and they’re much less expensive than traditional wedding venues.
All up, the Greytown Town Centre would cost $300 to have as a reception venue - much more in our budget! I decided to start getting in touch with the South Wairarapa District Council to see if the date we had in mind was available. It was.
After a bit of discussion, and a visit to check the space out, we settled on it. To me, the recently renovated hall looked like Prefab’s back hall, but at a fraction of the hire cost. It also fitted with one of Matt and my original wish-list ideas: have The Greek Food Truck cater our wedding, in honour of our trip around the Greek Islands in October 2018.
More on The Greek Food Truck and food and drink here.
Applying for the Venue, Finding Furniture and Getting A Special Licence
Unlike professional wedding venue managers, if you are doing a community hall venue wedding, you are personally responsible for making sure all the important legal details are covered - liquor licenses, supplying low alcohol beverages, garnishing the hall and so on. It absolutely creates more work, but I would say that if you like being creative and feel confident creating magic, you should absolutely suck it up and do it yourself.
Furniture
My Mum helped out by identifying a great furniture supplier - Arch Furniture. Arch offers a new way to furnish your event with interesting, handmade and unique furniture. Arch were very easy to deal with and I loved the natural timber look that their furniture provided. The owner of Arch even dropped over a ‘Thank You’ package to my house after the wedding was done!
Community Hall Hire
In order to use the venue for a wedding, I needed to prepare information about our intended use of the venue for the South Wairarapa District Council to approve. This included a menu for the day, drinks, applying for a special license, finding licensed managers to run the bar, working out what furniture we’d need and how big the venue space was in order to fit our guests.
Fortunately, the South Wairarapa District Council was really easy to deal with and the lovely Hazel Turner was a huge help when it came to organising what materials I needed.
It was also important to read all the terms and conditions of using the hall as I knew we’d have to likely clean up ourselves after and didn’t want to be on the hook for anything unexpected.
Special Licence
When it came to making sure my special license was all sorted, I was very lucky to have the manager of Loretta on Cuba Street, Erin McKenzie Lawton and her husband Jamie volunteer to run the behind-the-scenes bar and service aspect of our wedding. Jamie is a veteran of the Matterhorn and Erin has a strong career in hospitality, working for Loretta’s owner, Marc Weir, for eight years. Erin already had a manager’s license and had run weddings in the past, which helped to ensure that I hadn’t made any major mistakes like forgetting the host responsibility sign on the day. Erin also helped if I had any little questions.
Matt and I felt in safe hands with Erin and Jamie, especially because my mum trusted them to do all the right things on the big day - and trust is so important!
The Hall Look
My Mum, Helen Revill, was entirely behind the look of the day. Mum has great taste and knew the vibe I’d like to create something truly special on the day at the reception.
Again, sticking with the hydrangea theme, and thinking about the colour of the flower as it changes based on the soil and the seasons, my Mum and I planned out the general vibe of what we did and didn’t like sometime before. Matt and I were already keen on an outside-inside vibe, and images of olive groves with fairy lights.
Helen and I had very similar styles when it came to the wedding day look. I probably showed my Mum one or two images before she totally got it and was away, going around Briscoes, op-shops and old boxes in storage to find the right combination of old-meets-new-chic. She was able to buy a really wonderful range of gorgeous candle sticks, vases and other beautiful decorations for the hall and made it look so elegant. She also hand made a stunning circle wreath which had our initials written in fairy lights in the centre, and a beautiful longer wreath that was draped over the door.
Matt’s mum, the lovely Liz, grew hydrangeas over the year leading up to the wedding. Helen collected crockery and other items to create an elegant ‘Garden Shed’ look. She hand-selected ever platter, every glass, every hunk of ivy. She even hand-sewed 90 napkins. What a ton of work!
I was truly breath taken when I finally saw the hall the day before and I felt so lucky to have a Mum to bring it all together. A big thank you to Denise Ongley for letting us pick so many flowers from her beautiful garden. They helped adorn the tables with fragrant table setting flowers from Juliette Florist and hydrangeas from Liz.
I know no one would have been able to create something as unique and as beautiful as my mum did and even though at times. I was incredibly grateful to Mum on the day and knew it was the utmost supreme expression of her love.
Plus, it looked freaking amazing. A big thank you to Bex, Siobhan, Liz, Evan, Jay, Robbie and Regan for helping to set up and take down the hall.
The Cake
My best friend Maria made the cake which was her generous wedding present to Matt and I. It had nine cakes in it all up, with the top layer made of fruit, one layer made of chocolate-mud and one made of orange gluten-free cake. It was just sensational! I loved my cake so very much.
Originally, we were just planning on simple Ivy but Maria - ever the perfectionist - decided that it needed some flowers at the last minute. She absolutely made the right call! People agreed that it was the best cake they’d ever eaten and tasted like a Terry’s Chocolate Orange. I feel so grateful that my best friend made my cake. It made it all the sweeter.
The Photographer
For me, there was only ever one choice - Ana Galloway was an incredible presence on the wedding day, and ultra-organised in the lead-up. I truly think that it is worth spending your budget on getting a brilliant photographer like Ana (who I first found out about because she shot Jessie Bush from the blog ‘We the People’ in Nelson). Ana was an absolute delight, calm under pressure and a total pro throughout. I cannot recommend her highly enough. Her images truly speak a thousand words. I would love to do a whole blog just on Ana and if I have time, I will!
The MC
My brilliant friend Hayley Sproull, who I’ve known since school and saw the Foo Fighters at 15, was the MC for the evening. And boy, did she do an amazing job. She had our guests in stitches and looked incredible in her Karen Walker two-piece. Hayley really knows me and has a relaxed, natural style. As such, she was able to handle the changes through the night with aplomb.
Hayley even did a special quiz for me the day before at my hen’s do at Poppies, asking me whether I was paying attention to quirks about Matt in her signature quiz mistress style. Everyone loved Hayley, and she really brought a spark to the occasion.
Hayley, I will never regret that I didn’t understand the laws of physics because sitting next to you in science and drawing emo-style tees was just too much fun!
The Scent
As a brilliant gift on my wedding day from my friends, Amelia Barton, regional manager of Mecca, arranged for me to receive a three-wick Baies Diptyque candle. It is probably the most decadent thing I’ve ever owned and I truly will associate that scent forever with my wedding day. I can highly recommend having a friend (who again I’ve known for over half my life) that has a passion for beauty and works for a brilliant business like Mecca Cosmetica.
The Best Of All
The best thing of all was the fact all our amazing family and friends came from overseas. It truly made the day feel very special and if there is one highlight I couldn’t speak more highly of, it was being able to have everyone in one room together - amazingly, for us!
Have you had a community hall wedding? How did you find it? What would you change if you could do it again?
ALL PHOTOS BY ANA GALLOWAY