Flora (nee Chen), the e-commerce manager and assistant buyer at Workshop, and Marc Choromanski, a consultant ecologist, tied the knot at Kauri Bay Boomrock in Clevedon.
The couple were wed in front of a breathtaking view and along to the smooth sounds of a personality-packed playlist, including Childish Gambino, Lauryn Hill and Wiz Khalifa.
They shared the day with 120 guests, more than half of whom were family. “We wanted to celebrate our special day with those who had made an impact on our lives and those who we will grow old with,” says Flora.
The dress
I always knew my wedding dress wouldn’t be very ‘bridal’ and I wanted something modern, elegant – sans lace. I went to the Celebrations team at Ruby and they were able to custom design and make my dream dress. Cut on the bias, the dress had thicker shoulder straps, cowl front and back and draped so beautifully. I loved that the dress was minimal in detail but it was really special and it felt like me.
Bridesmaids’ dresses
I actually bought the bridesmaid dresses online 8 months out from the wedding and they were these gold shiny midi dresses. I’m not entirely sure what I was thinking but as we got closer to the wedding, I disliked them more and more. Three days out from the wedding, I stumbled across these amazing dusty beige, cowl neck dresses from Glassons and they were perfect.
Groomsmen
Marc opted to keep his suit classic and timeless, he went with a black two-piece from Rembrandt. The groomsmen wore matching black suits from Hallenstein Brothers.
Accessories
My rings were custom designed and made by Melanie Kerr Jewellery. Marc’s wedding band is a family heirloom that was passed down to him from his grandmother, which was pretty special. My beautiful Baroque Pearl earrings are from Anni Lu and I wore the Christian Dior J’Adior Slingback – both items I hope I will keep as future heirlooms.
Ceremony
Our ceremony was relaxed and intimate but also very special. Being Chinese, we included the traditional Tea Ceremony to honour our parents and grandparents and in turn, received their blessings. Our celebrant was Rob Stacey, my youth pastor throughout high school and university. It took away a lot of our nerves having someone who we knew personally.
Flowers
Blush Flowers worked their magic for the ceremony, reception and my bouquet. I am obsessed with our ceremony pillars, they were quite wild and undone with the most beautiful orchids, blush-toned roses and silver dollar leaves. We’re both quite relaxed people and we wanted the reception to reflect that. We kept decorations to a minimum and dressed the tables with pillar candles and place cards with Manuka twigs. We had a floral garland made for the ceiling and accompanied that with festoon lights.
The cake
I am a huge fan of The Caker and knew before we were engaged that they would be the one for the job. We had a two tier wedding cake which was lemon, raspberry and plum, lime and coconut.
Music
I walked down the aisle to Childish Gambino’s cover of ‘Into You’ and our first dance was to ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ by Lauryn Hill. One of the best moments was when Marc and I walked into the reception to ‘Black and Yellow’ by Wiz Khalifa.
Photographer
We chose Stephan and Nakita to capture our day. I had followed them on Instagram for quite a while and had always admired their aesthetic and beautiful images. They did an amazing job capturing our day and they are just genuinely lovely people too, we loved having them celebrate with us.
Favourite moment
It would have to be a draw between walking down the aisle with my Dad and Grandad and taking some time out with our bridal party during cocktail hour to sit down with a picnic and take a breather – we were all so happy!
Most unexpected moment
My dad’s speech. Our MCs had called him up and he almost looked surprised but his speech was more than I could have imagined. There was not a dry eye in the room.
Advice
If I was to give any advice, I would recommend staying true to your style across all aspects. It is so easy to get caught up with creating this big beautiful event but at the end of the day, we had to remind ourselves of what was important and stuck with what reflected us as a couple.
