Wedding of the Week – Andrew and Tamryn Hurren-WebsterWedding of the Week – Andrew and Tamryn Hurren-Webster

Photography & Videography | Wedding Guide

  

The Dunedin Botanic Garden's are were Andrew and Tamryn shared their vows. They share their day with us.

When and where did you meet: We met on Saturday February 3, 2007 when Tamryn turned up at a Southern Skyline Enthusiasts car club meet I was attending at the Dunedin Ice Stadium carpark, with her recently bought Nissan Skyline GTS. She had joined the club's forum on January 14, 2007. Wasn't quite love at first sight though, which ruins that myth! However, for most of the rest of the year she turned up to more club meets, and we ended up chatting a lot more online (Bebo, Facebook, MSN Messenger, Southern Skylines forums and eventually my personal forums) and meeting up outside the car club hours.

We used to hang out at the St Clair Esplanade a lot; just talking or watching the waves for hours, and used to go for walks in the middle of the night, like from St Clair playground to the dinosaur park. About a year later we decided to become a couple and it went from strength to strength. She helped me a lot to get through the worst of my depression, which I have had since about high school. We pretty much never argue about anything, and have never shouted at each other or so on, which is why I feel that she's definitely "the one"!

The proposal: Well Tamryn is a big fan of cows, having worked on a dairy farm for a while, and we have a whole room at home with all her cow collection in it (soft toys, cups, ornaments and so on). So I decided to play on that obsession to propose. A wee side note: we'd actually shopped for and bought the engagement and both our wedding rings a number of months beforehand. But she still had no idea when I planned to propose.

On Saturday September 18, 2010, I took her out to our favourite restaurant (Nellies, out in Mosgiel) for a $60 tea. Then we went home and while she was in the lounge, I brought in a toy cow wrapped up like a present. She unwrapped it and admired it. Then I went out of the room and came back with another toy cow wrapped up.

When she'd opened and admired that one, I left again and came back in with a third wrapped up soft toy cow. I knelt down beside her and handed it over . . . She opened this one, that still had the folded cardboard tag on it, which was sellotaped together for some reason. So I gave her something to cut the sellotaped-together tag and inside were the words "Will you marry me?" with the engagement ring sellotaped to the card just under the words. It had the desired effect!

Where was the wedding: The wedding was held in the Dunedin Botanic Gardens, by the Herb Garden near the one-way south. It was on Easter Saturday, the 7th of April 2012.

Why did you choose the venue: We really wanted a nice outdoor venue for the wedding, and a lot of places we looked at were very expensive or already booked. For an incredibly cheaper price, we made a donation to the Dunedin Botanic Garden and in return were granted permission to hold our wedding at an almost equally nice-looking place! We decided on the herb garden area, as Tamryn's sister had married in the upper botanic garden a couple of years earlier.

The dress: The Victorian-style dress was made by Tamryn's Vietnamese aunty from Christchurch. It was pieced together from ideas out of two separate patterns, which came together quite nicely. The fabric was chosen so there was a contrast to the dress, with both styles in dark purple as it is Tamryn's favourite colour and edged with purple diamantés for a bit of bling. So this dress really is a one off, you will never see another quite like it.

The bridesmaids' dresses: The bridesmaids' skirts were medium purple calf-length, worn with laced ankle boots. This was pieced together with a black and purple laced corset with a black bolero jacket. The guys wore matching purple shirts with ruffle fronts and white evening tails. Tamryn's aunty also made the skirts, boleros and the guys' shirts. She also did the fingernail-painting of all the bridesmaids!

The flowers: We decided to not get real flowers since eventually they would rot away to nothingness, so instead the bridesmaids had fake white and black roses with wee crystals in them, which were wrapped in white netting, but they still looked amazing! However, Tamryn isn't really into flowers at all, so she had a black lace parasol instead, which in our opinion went with the dress a lot better than flowers ever would have! It was certainly an awesome sight when I first saw her.

The caterers: The Crown Mill Restaurant was our preferred venue of choice for the reception and meal. They had the most down-to-earth menu out of all the places we looked at
(nothing with really fancy names that you had no clue as to what it actually was) and in a buffet style. Everyone seemed to love it, and the supper that was served afterwards also went down well. It was an awesome venue and I'd recommend it to anyone.

Highlight of the day: There was more than one! The first was seeing Tamryn for the first time. It was really moving as she looked incredibly beautiful. The second was probably when we finally got into the wedding cars - three club members' R32 Nissan Skyline GT-Rs
(Godzillas) to do some photo shoots at the University and so on. 

Another highlight was my completely self-written (with my unique sense of humour) speech at the reception. I was really struggling with ideas for a speech, even after numerous Google searches. Then I kind of realised that speeches involved thanking lots of people . . . So I made my speech as a continuous lists of thankyous, with a few silly ones mixed in (like: "Thanks . . . to cats for being so cute and fluffy.", and "Thanks . . . to the first person who accepts this thanks as a way of saying thanks for me thanking you.").

My speech got a lot of laughs, and some people said it was the best one they'd ever heard.

Another highlight was seeing so much of my family together again, including Dad, who came all the way from the US.

Your photographer and favorite photo: We actually had two photographers for the wedding, to get a slightly different style of photography. The main photographer was Amy (Van Den Ouden Art & Photography) and the secondary photographer, who was taking pics of us guys getting ready was Sharon (Sharon Chambers Photographer), who can both be found on Facebook. They both did some amazing photos and we are very happy with every single one! As for the favourite photo, we both consider the night-time shot with the sparklers to be our fave pic.

There were a lot of traditional things about weddings we didn't like the idea of, such as the bride wearing white and the guys wearing black. Which is why the guys wore white suits (hired from Esquire Suit Hire) and the girls wore their darker purple colours.

And the traditional thing to give groomsmen seems to be cufflinks, shot glasses and so on. I gave them each a personalised trophy with a bodybuilding figurine on it basically saying "Thanks for having the strength to say yes to being part of this bridal party". We didn't want fancy, luxurious wedding cars. We are big fans of the Nissan Skyline so it was only appropriate we use the ultimate Skyline model, the GT-R.

The "joining of two lives" ceremony is normally done by tying ribbons to each other's hands, or tipping two sands into a jar. We sort of copied the sand idea, but used Wonka Nerds lollies instead (made a yummy treat afterwards!). And our cake was quite special too, made by Heather Swain's Cakes. It consisted of both a white chocolate mudcake and a base layer of lolly cake, which was designed to look like part of a horse and carriage. The same cow I used to propose with was at the back of the carriage, still with the message in the tag.