A multicultural wedding, filled with color, flowers, nature, waterfalls & traditions in New Zealand? Umm, yes please, sign us up. This Indian Sikh & Kiwi wedding celebrates the couple’s vibrant cultures while making the day completely their own.
The day began by celebrating Bride Sam’s Sikh traditions. Wearing a lighter, stunning, champagne & blush Lengha, Sam while allowed her guests to go wild with color, giving the temple ceremony venue a rainbow effect. With henna’d hands and a Shiraz red color scheme, the scene was both vibrant & romantic.
Moving into the evening, the couple drove into the New Zealand wilderness for a wild portrait session by a majestic waterfall (of course!) and Kiwi celebration and reception at an olive grove venue. Changing into a slinky KWH gown, Sam’s second dress was still fitting for the vibrant day, with festive beading & sparkle.
Photographed by Hallow and Co, we can’t get enough of this vibrant celebration of two cultures coming together in the name of love.
Merging Two Wedding Cultures
Basically, Logan & I had envisioned our wedding to be a warm, welcoming, colorful celebration & one big massive party with all of our nearest & dearest!
I didn’t want a typical Indian Sikh wedding and it didn’t feel 100% right having just a western wedding as I was brought up in NZ to Indian parents and Logan being a Kiwi. We really wanted to pay homage to our cultures and give our guests a taste of what this meant to us! So instead, we opted to merge the two distinct celebrations into one day, unique to us but full & in the name of love!
The Venues & Style
We decided on venues & colour schemes early on. It was important to us to tie the two events together but also acknowledging their differences. Really making sure they flowed nicely, without one one part overpowering the other. We did this by really choosing our attire, accessories, flowers, and invitation carefully, not too Indian and not too modern with a Shiraz Red colour theme throughout both.
The Sikh temple is a beautiful building & I wanted a lighter palette for my beautiful Lengha. This being the more traditional part of the day we wanted this to be more colorful & guests to wear the rainbow! Then we found a stunning venue in an olive estate for the reception so the evening was a bit moodier but vibrant.
The Flowers
Jennifer did a magic job on the flowers. I wanted a moody vibrant vibe with a big is better attitude and she turned up with the most gorgeous bouquets for my bridesmaids and myself. She had the shiraz red as the main colour with pops of white, blush, green and yellow. Jen also did the styling for the tables and I’m so glad I handed those reigns over to her. It was nice to have a surprise on the night as I had done most of the planning and set-up myself.
The Important Details
We really wanted to make sure we were present and to truly soak in the day! We decided early on that having cars wasn’t a high priority on the list so we opted with my Dad’s Mercedes and Logan and I drove together from the Temple to the reception together. It was so nice to have that down time just the two of us. To reflect on the major milestone that just took place in front of all our loved ones! It also got us pumped in anticipation for the party that was our crazy reception!
We splurged on our invitations, they were beautiful. I had a rough time finding the right card and design that complimented the temple and the olive grove but I found The Distillery where they had the perfect embossed suite on crisp off-white paper that screamed modern bohemian that suited our day to a tee. We got so many compliments!
The Cake & Favors
We went with a red velvet, semi-naked cake with macrons and a few flowers over the tiers. It was delicious and devoured quickly.
As our reception was held in an olive estate so we gave all our guests the most divine fresh bottled olive oils.
