If you asked me to describe the perfect wedding day, it would be a mixture of cultures, it would include singing and dancing – lots of dancing – and it would look something like Henri & Pulu’s extravaganza. I never get tired of Siva Samoa!
Venues: Old St Pauls & The Pines, Wellington
Singers: The Musical Island Boys
Have you ever seen anyone enjoy their wedding day more than Lucy & Ants? Smiles and laughter and love ALL DAY & NIGHT LONG.
With possibly the loveliest friends you could meet, the greatest taste in music, they achieved the greatest transformation of the Worser Bay Boat Club and celebrated in style.
Oh, and Lucy designed and crafted their wedding rings. Yeah, you read that right.
Venue: Worser Bay Boat Club, Wellington
Hair: Scout Hair
Wedding dress: Sophie Voon
Flowers: Twig & Arrow
Wedding Rings: bride’s own designs!
Melissa & Elliot flew to Wellington from Australia to prepare for their wedding, so we couldn’t resist wandering the urban landscape of the capital city for a wellington engagement session – one of our favourite places for some great photographic opportunities.
Look to see their wedding posted next!
Venue: The Boatshed, Wellington Waterfront
Celebrant: Megan Whelan
Custom beers brewed by: Tiamana, Parrot Dog, Garage Project
#greensmithmashup
Venue: Old St Pauls & Boomrock, Wellington
Hair & Makeup: Rebecca Connor
Videography: Wedding Films by Jono Tucker
Venues: Milk & Honey, The Hunter Lounge (VUW, Wellington)
It’s a great honour to be asked and trusted to photograph a wedding. It’s an even bigger honour when the bride & groom are relatives of previous couples – when we’ve met them and hung out before.
I couldn’t tell you how many weddings we’ve seen Diana & Tony at, and we couldn’t wait to spend more time with them and their family & friends.
Here’s Diana & Tony’s huge celebration!
Love our work? Get in touch: get in touch
Makeup: Rebecca Connor
Wedding dress: Pronovias
Florist & styling: Twig & Arrow
Venue: Foxglove Ballroom, Wellington
Celebrant: Rachel Dudfield
Musician: Conway Jeune
Phoebe & Nick were married in a Humanist ceremony outdoors at Wallaceville House.
This is their story.
Enjoy.
Ceremony Venue: Sacred Heart Cathedral
Reception Venue: Icon Room, Te Papa Wellington
Hair/Makeup: Kendra Herrick
“Marry Me! Marry Me, my wonderful, darling friend.” ~ Jane Austen
We loved Rosie’s gift to Neil: Ron Swanson inspired Lagavulin scotch whisky.
We loved Rosie & Neil’s love of books and literature.
We loved Rosie & Neil’s appreciation of architecture, archways, and silhouettes.
We loved Rosie & Neil’s walking bus to their reception.
We loved Rosie & Neil’s homebrew – something borrowed, something brewed.
We loved Rosie & Neil’s infectious smiles, and their guest’s willingness to have a great time.
We loved Rosie & Neil’s style.
But most of all, we loved Rosie & Neil’s love for each other.
As Rosie said to Neil, “Plan A was marrying you a long time ago.” It was meant to be.
Venues: Old St Pauls & The Boatshed, Wellington
Celebrant: Greer Berry
Caterers: Blue Carrot
Florist: The Piccadilly Flower Company
Congratulations Pingu & Goose!
This Saturday was a blast. I had sore cheeks by 4pm, and I wasn’t the one meant to be smiling.
I don’t know if it was Aileen’s cats running amok during the morning, the Cardinals beating the Dodgers, those tequila shots during reception, or simply two people in love, but Aileen & Kieran seemed to be having a blast too.
Thanks for kick-starting our wedding season with such a beautiful celebration – congratulations!
Venue: Foxglove
Florist: Best of the Bunch
Celebrant: Miranda Grange
Catering: Foxglove, Wellington
Just when I thought things couldn’t get any better, when I’d won the Wedding – Classic category and the Wedding Album category at the recent Iris awards, this happened:
For the 2nd year in a row, I was named Wellington NZIPP Photographer of the Year.
Speechless.
This wedding was featured on Paper & Lace.
With their theatre dreams realised of performing on some of the greatest stages in the world, Rachel & Sam were part of the biggest performance of their life, married under lights at the Little Theatre.
These guys were glamorous, dramatic, honest, emotional, and far too much fun.
Congrats!
Wow. What an honour.
My recent haul at the NZIPP Iris Awards scored me enough points to be awarded the title of NZIPP Wellington Photographer of the Year!
Giddy Up!
“Because of you no dreams can ever splinter
To fragments, you are the magic that bonds each part.“
Paul & Trent, one of the very first same-sex couples to be married in New Zealand, after the passing of the marriage equality bill. This is marriage equality history.
“All we are doing with this bill is allowing two people who love each other to have that love recognised by way of marriage.”
Here are two people in love. Enjoy.
This wedding was a team effort from some of Wellington’s best:
Ceremony and Details photographer: Penny @ Inspire Photography
Creative and Reception photographer: Jason @ WE DO Photography & Design <- that’s us!
Videography: Jono @ Jono Tucker Photo & Film
Photobooth: Dion @ The Amazing Travelling Photobooth
Stationery: Aneta @ WE DO Photography & Design <- that’s us!
Musicians: Steve @ Crooner Central, Gareth @ Gareth Barker
Planning: Paula @ Paula Bevege Events
Wow. What a stunner. Here’s some teasers of our weddings, as shared all through the summer on Facebook. More to come!
Coming soon, Rebecca & Mark.
Watch this space!
Coming along to the Wellington Wedding Show on Sunday?
We’ll be there. Say Hi!
While you’re along, be among the first to see our still-to-be-launched Design Collection…
… oggle at our favourite wedding photos through our customised Viewmasters…
… or jump behind the curtains of our Photobooth and be in to win some Photobooth action at your next event.
It’s going to be huge. See you there!
Coming next on the blog – Ali & Matt. Stay tuned!
(This is my Max Wanger tribute. No idea? Look him up.)
One of my favourite of many sneaky shots from Zac & Hannah’s wedding at Erskine. More soon!
Arna & Jase at the Wellington watefront after their recent Dockside wedding reception.
Greer & Caleb, Princess Bay, Wellington.
Looking forward to their Tarureka Estate wedding already!
Victoria & Dominic, Erskine, Island Bay. More soon!
A recent snap from Ali & Matt’s wedding. So many great frames from this wedding, can’t wait to share more!
The final shot of the night from Kat & Mike’s recent wedding reception.
More soon.
Curious about our work? Want to see a little more?
Keen to meet us? To have a little chat?
Well you’re in luck. We’ll be exhibiting at the Spring Wellington Wedding Show on Sunday 30 October. We’re just putting the finishing touches on our expo stand, and we’d love it if you popped in, stopped by, said Hi and grabbed a brochure. We’ve also got some pricing specials available on the day, so it might be worth coming along just for that!
See you there!
Lizzy & Luke. And their bridal party. Staglands.
More coming tomorrow. Check back.
A few recent favourites from Kat & Mike’s mid-winter engagement session around Waitangi Park on the Wellington waterfront. Keep an eye out for their upcoming summer wedding, we can’t wait!
Enjoy. 
Check back for more.
From Anna & Leighton’s recent wedding.
More soon!
And finally, rounding out our summer season: the rocking vintage wedding of Katrina & Ant, held at the always awesome Erskine Wedding & Events, Island Bay.
A first viewing and photoshoot before the ceremony; beers and canapes outside on the lawn; Shaun Preston pounding away on the piano as late night entertainment – this was as relaxed and non-traditional as you could get. And, this is the first, and possibly only, time I get to accompany a wedding blog with Guns ‘n Roses. That’s how cool these guys are!
(This wedding was also recently featured over at Polka Dot Bride – don’t forget to head over there for your very own wedding inspiration.)
Katrina & Ant – thank you!
More coming soon. Check back!
As a big advocate of the New Zealand Institute of Professional Photography, and of course a recently qualified member, it was important to my personal growth and development that I entered a few prints in the recent Iris Awards.
Well, imagine my excitement when I sat through 6+ hours of print judging during the awards to see my prints receive awards. And not just any awards, but a Silver and a couple of Bronzes.
Of course, it didn’t really sink in until hours later after been congratulated by plenty of other photographers. Apparently Silver is quite a big deal. Who knew?
The full gallery of winning images can be found here, with the Wedding category (where all 4 of my images were entered) here.
What was really important to me when selecting and processing images for the awards was that the image were true to me. Past winners of these awards have often been criticised for being overly photoshopped, and whilst I’m sure some tone mapping and heavy use of textures could have added some emphasis and drama to my images, I wanted to enter these awards with my photos being processed the same way that me – and our clients – like seeing them. Other than some sepia toning (which, I’ll be honest, isn’t entirely normal for us) these are almost as I delivered them.
The following were the medal winners. 3 out of 4 prints isn’t a bad ratio – next year, I’m going for the album category. Aiming high.
Silver (Kahiwa & Grant):
Bronze (Matt & Kel):
Bronze (Leigh & Giles):
A big thank you must go out to Jenny & Larissa at FineLine Photography for their assistance in helping me choose suitable images, advice on processing & cropping my images, and finally working with me for the final printing & matting. I couldn’t have entered – let alone won these awards – without their help. Thank you!
We learnt a lot over the last weekend at the NZIPP Infocus conference. We even managed to pick up a few print awards in the Wedding category (but that’s the subject of another post).
But one of the things highlighted to us was that Kiwis are terrible at SSP – “Shameless Self Promotion”. We’re far too modest to jump around proclaiming how good we are, so this blog post is going to break that mould, just for once!
We’ve been getting a few features on wedding blogs recently, so I thought I would share them with you all.
The Australian bridal blog Polka Dot Bride featured Katrina & Ant’s Erskine wedding yesterday:
The amazing and always beautiful Wedding Chicks blog featured Leigh & Giles’ Wairarapa wedding at Tarureka Estate:
And New Zealand’s very own Wedding Wise featured Nat & Brett’s Wellington wedding:
Enjoy!
I started by taking off my shoes. Of course, that’s the polite thing to do in anyone’s house – right?
Our conversation deviated from wedding photography through to website design, SEO and social media… What? Not all photographers discuss SEO techniques with their prospective clients?
I brought up the fact that Aneta and myself were married at Erskine – it only seemed fitting to mention it.
I was sitting in Kahiwa’s apartment discussing the prospect of photographing her upcoming wedding to Grant. All of the above seemed fairly respectable and on-topic at the time – the conversation just wandered as we got to know each other a little bit more. Little did I know that a few weeks later we would receive an email from Kahiwa confirming her choice of photographers and the following posting appeared on her blog:
“But here was someone I felt comfortable talking to, almost straight away. I *love* that it’s a husband and wife team, and that they got married at Erskine too. I like that they’re trying for something a little bit different. I like that he took his shoes off when he came inside. I like that I found them through a friend (Jake). I like that I got to talk to him about their website and marketing strategies (I’m such a nerd).”
Well, what do you know?
It was just meant to be. And I’m glad I’m polite enough to take off my shoes, that I too am an internet nerd and that we love Erskine so much, because I got the chance to photograph the beautiful occasion that was Kahiwa & Grant’s wedding. It. Was. Awesome.
Boys & Girls – I present to you: Team Grahiwa.
Kahiwa & Grant – thank you.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about technical (im)perfection.
Much of our craft has been dedicated to not allowing technical deficiencies to get in the way of delivering a good image. We own the best pro-level cameras for this line of work (Nikon FX digital SLRs if you’re interested!) We carry an array of fast prime lenses that focus quickly and allow us to shoot in very low light (we love our f/1.4 Nikon primes). We carry backups of everything. The only thing getting in our way should be our creativity.
But sometimes it doesn’t help. Getting a technically perfect image isn’t easy. Sometimes, throughout the frantic pace of a wedding day, you miss a shot. Your judgement of the light is off. Your exposure is off. Your focus is off.
This is one of those images. A mistake. In the dark bridal preparation room my camera hunted for the focus. I snapped it anyway. Ordinarily I wouldn’t dream of delivering an image like this to a client, let alone blogging it for the world to see. But I love it. The shadows and subtlety almost say more than the fully-focused image would have.
More to come.
You know what they say about pulling a pose when the wind changes.
Kat & Mike. More soon.
Every day is a pretty awesome day in the WE DO household, but last month was something a little bit more special than most. You see, I (Jason) received notification that I passed my NZIPP ‘Q’ assessment and am now classified as a fully professional member of the NZIPP.
So, what does it mean?
It means I’ve been identified as attaining a credible quality standard. It means I have a “commitment to running their businesses in a professional way, with skill and knowledge” – but you already knew that, right?
It means I’ll appear in a pretty select group of photographers in the NZIPP directory, alongside some of my most admired peers in the industry.
And it means I get to flaunt the NZIPP logo around a little bit too!
A few images from the successful album are below, courtesy of Matt & Kel’s amazing wedding day. If you want to see the winning album – or any of our other work – in person, please get in touch! We’d love the opportunity to present our albums and slideshows to you.
Last weekend Aneta and myself decided to exhibit at the recent Wellington Wedding Expo. We wanted to create something a little different from the usual trestle-table affair, so set about building a lounge-themed set to encourage people to enter our stand, get up close with our prints and slideshows and sit down and chill looking over our albums.
We found these awesome chairs. But red isn’t really our colour, so we set about reupholstering them ourselves:
Sweet!
We also built & stained this wicked fireplace surround and reupholstered this beautiful fireplace screen:
We found some other great furniture – a coffee table, a beautiful lamp, and a bunch of assorted antique frames.
We also had a few new albums printed – it feels great to refresh our samples from time to time – and framed a bunch of our favourite photos.
And then on the Saturday, it all came together for the first time as we spent the day setting up the stand. First up was the wallpaper:
Followed by the hanging of our numerous frames and placement of Aneta’s bespoke stationery designs:
Finally, it was all in place:
Sunday was awesome! We didn’t manage to get as personal as we would have liked with many visitors, but we had some great discussions with passionate couples and even ran into quite a number of our existing clients looking for other inspiration for their big day next summer. It was great fun!
If you stopped by and had a chat to us, thanks. We appreciate it. Hope to see you at a wedding next summer.
If you didn’t get a chance to chat to us, but are curious about our work, get in touch and we’ll present our slideshows and albums to you in person!
Take care out there.
Sometimes we like to precede our blog entries with a little background. A little bit of a story.
Sometimes we like to let that story flow through the rest of the blog entry. A few more details scattered throughout.
But then I thought about it – we’re photographers. Our images should tell the story. You don’t need to know these guys were married at St Mary of the Angels, that the walking bus through the heart of Wellington City to the Boat Shed was quite possibly the coolest idea ever, that we had the best possible fun taking formal photos around the grounds of the Boat Shed and Frank Kitts Park, and that their reception involved the groomsmen dropping their dacks.
No. If a picture can say a thousand words, then the following 100 images should be akin to a novel.
So ladies & Gentlemen, I present to you: Sharelle & Craig. Enjoy reading.
Sharelle & Craig, that rocked.
Thanks. :)
Remember Nella & Talia?
If you remember the invitation, it was a cocktail affair at the stunning Massey Tea Gardens. But there’ll be some traditional Samoan dancing, they told us. There’ll be plenty of singing and dancing, they said. Oh, and Samoan people *love* the attention of the camera, they also mentioned.
And Nella & Talia weren’t wrong. What followed was one of the most amazing wedding celebrations we’ve ever witnessed.
Nella was also the Featured Bride over at Astra Bridal so check that out too!
Have a listen to this song as you browse the images, all will become clear later in the post!
Nella and her bridesmaids & flower girls begun the morning getting prepared at their house, Bon Jovi playing in the background. Being a huge Bon Jovi fan Aneta felt right at home!
Meanwhile Talia and the boys had spent the morning putting the finishing touches in place at the venues and generally chilling out. Oh, and laying out all their gear quite nicely for me!
The Soundshell at the Botanic Gardens provided the perfect venue for a wedding amidst the beauty of the green trees and surrounded by almost 200 guests.
Taking the opportunity we scooted into the Gardens for some fun times and bridal party portraits.
And the we ventured to the Tea Gardens at the Massey Museum Building (Tokomaru) for the reception and the rest of the day’s festivities.
After the laughter and tears of the speeches and traditional Samoan dancing Joosy Froot kicked off the rest of the evening.
And then it happened. The most amazing part of the day. Amidst the chaos, laughter and dancing Nella reluctantly took the microphone and sang the most amazing rendition of “Last Dance” I’ve ever heard. Ah-mazing.
Not to be outdone, Talia then followed with his karaoke rendition of Elvis.
And then it continued. the wildest, craziest dancefloor I’ve ever been a part of.
Nella & Talia, thank you.
Team Grahiwa. Hitched.
More to come.
