A colourful afternoon soiree at Goodin Country Garden

29 Jul

January 2024

Pax and Teddy’s colourful garden party wedding, was filled with non stop laughter, continuous applausing and contagious smiles.

Many of the guests, had traveled from all parts of the globe to celebrate their day at Goodin Country Garden. The ceremony space was nestled in the intimate lawn area of the gardens and the party continued into the evening on the lawn in the front of the beautiful iconic Goodin house.

Read on the see what made their day so unique and special…

Were there any important details that were special to you as a couple, you wanted to incorporate in some way?

I have always loved my parents wedding that was in an English country garden. So we chose Goodin for that reason. It has such a beautiful garden that really had an English feel to it.

Tell us a bit about yourselves and how you met?

We are Pax and Teddy, and we met about 14 years ago in an Aussie backpackers in Bundaberg. Thinking we just had a lovely summer romance, I went back home to NZ and Teds was meant to stay on and finish travelling Australia with his brothers and friends, but a month later Teds jumped on a plane to NZ and we’ve been together ever since!

What was your vision for the day and how did you choose your style?

The vision was a garden wedding with lots of pops of colour and elements of a vintage feel. I had seen one photo online that I took inspiration from for my bridesmaids, so my mum and I handmade the girls dresses with this photo in mind. I wanted the girls to be in a bouquet of colour and they looked stunning.

How did you find and select Goodin Country Garden over other locations? What were you looking for in a venue?

It was as simple as typing into google ‘English Country Gardens’ and Goodin fit the bill perfectly! We drove up from Wellington the next weekend and as soon as we drove up the driveway we were in love. Meeting Chris and Steak (the owners) sealed the deal! They are the most welcoming and kind people, and we knew it was our venue!

How did you go about choosing the vendors you booked?

Not being from Taranaki, we spoke with Chris from Goodin who recommended a few vendors. From there it was a case of looking on instagram and reading reviews then driving back up to have meetings. We were so lucky with all of our vendors, who listened to us and respected our budget.

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The planning process: Did you love it? What was your plan of attack? eg, Budgets, making decisions, choose who to invite as guests?

It was daunting. Because we didn't have the biggest budget we knew we had to do so much of the planning ourselves. Having friends who had done it before helped massively, they all had magical spreadsheets that listed everything we hadn't thought of, but also once speaking to our vendors things started coming together.

Looking back on your day, is there anything you would do differently?

Besides from maybe being slightly more organised so we weren’t so stressed on the day, absolutely nothing. If we had had a bigger budget and were able to have someone coordinate everything rather than doing it ourselves that would have helped, but looking back we loved every minute of planning and the day itself was perfection!

What’s some advice you would give to couples, reading this, planning their day?

Start early. Have mood boards and have a clear vision, and also trust and listen to your vendors because they know what they are the pros! We would also say, dont try and follow trends too much, take inspiration from who you are as a couple and everything will come together!

Was there one key moment in your day that you will never forget?

So many moments, its hard to choose, but one that stuck in both our minds was when we had our first moment to ourselves, in my dads vintage car driving down the road for photos. It was the first time we had been alone in what seemed like weeks, and we both started giggling!

Is there anything else you’d like to share about your wedding?

Just that there is something magical about Mt Taranaki. It was torrential rain all morning and the weather forecast was not being kind to us, but about 10 mins before our outdoor ceremony the rain stopped and the sun came out for the rest of the day! We feel like the maunga was looking out for us that day!