Dress: Vera Wang / Hair + make up: Sophie Lau Makeup & Hair  (P.S - LOVEEEEE JENNY'S RED LIPSTICK)

It was an immense pleasure photographing these two beautiful people. Jenny is gorgeous, bubbly, wide eyed, intelligent and stylish. Bevan is the epitome of dark and handsome - quiet and reserved, but there were glimpses of a playful boy inside when he crinkled his nose when messing around with Jenny. Bevan recalled when a rather young Jenny use to watch/listen (haha, stalk) him at the club where he use to DJ back in New Zealand many years ago. I loved hearing of their growing friendship which developed into a blossoming relationship.

This is them.

It's been just over a year since I blogged. It's mind boggling to think what has happened. Within the year my best friend of 6.5 years fought for my heart and won me over. Many have asked "Why did it take 6.5 years for him to make a move?" and the simple response to that was that we needed 6.5 years to build a solid friendship (of respect, trust and unconditional love). When he decided to pursue me, he knew he wanted to marry me. We got married within 7 months. Marriage has been such a great blessing to me. I would love to share more about our relationship/wedding/marriage sometime, but that will have to wait for another time. Ever since going through the whole process of wedding planning and getting married, it's been quite eye opening. It was a massive learning curve, but now I feel like I can completely connect with my brides. Not that I didn't connect with them before, but now, whenever I photograph a wedding... I feel it... I have personally experienced the wave of emotions (or lack of - due to being way too overwhelmed). I'm there. Quite often enough, I find myself in a creative rut and not loving what I'm doing (because of the repetition of cookie-cutter weddings and the personal cost of running a business), but in times of reflection, I can't deny the joy I experience when I'm in the front line, documenting a special day and being able to sit back and relive the good times when I edit the photographs. I get to bring joy to people's lives. What an honour.

One of my favourite weddings I've photographed so far has been Bek + Pete's wedding. Why? Because of how real it was. It wasn't pretentious and fake. We laughed till our stomachs and jaws hurt, cried, ran on the road and through corn fields, snuggled in the rain and celebrated life. Their wedding was personal and intimate. All the details were D.I.Y. A dear friend of mine dubbed it as "an Instagram Wedding". Why else would it be called "The Hottest Wedding in Town"? (Love the pun. Town is Pete's last name). Bek has the dryest sense of humour. She loves a lot and dances a lot (she has a dance for every occassion). She's one of the coolest girls I know! Pete is cool too... He looks clean (a joke that the bridesmaids made), has a hearty deep laugh and is just... deep. They love God and life - you can tell by the way they live. It's infectious.

Not much needs to be said... I am confident that these photographs reflect them.

I had the pleasure of hanging out with Cherie and John a few weeks ago on a gorgeous Autumn's day. We shared about our lives, basked in the warm sunshine and laughed our heads off while being bashed by a gigantic red balloon flying in the wind. It was a joy seeing the way that they interacted with one another as we carpooled from location to location. There were times when we had no idea where we were going and we were just cruising and chatting. It was great! While John was sharing about how he proposed to Cherie (on a hot air balloon at the crack of dawn - "Awwwh") the gigantic red balloon made an escape. You see. It was too big to fit into their car so Cherie held onto the string while the balloon was floating outside through the window. It was really comical actually. The car looked quite personified... Like a child holding onto a balloon. All John's idea!! Yet, when the balloon made the great escape, they were both unphased by it. I, on the other hand, was completedly devastated. But I soon realised... They didn't care about their fun props/objects, they just LOVED hanging out with each other. That made me smile...

Even though I won't have the pleasure of photographing their wedding in a few months time, I was incredibly thankful to have met them...

It's not about objects and material things, but the object of your love and affections.