Jade + Louis’s Hillbrook Estate Wedding, Whangamata, New Zealand
(a cliffside ceremony, a boutique ice cream truck, and a rainy lawn lunch I’d do again a hundred times)
This was my first 14 hour flight and I found it surprisingly easy. I feel so fortunate to have photographed this wedding in New Zealand. Even more fortunate to have been able to take my husband (aka The Farmer) with me. We left our three kids back on the farm and got on a plane to New Zealand and thats how I found myself somewhere over the Pacific, thinking about how surreal it is that this is my job. That I get to do this very cool thing and that someone trusts me enough to bring me to the other side of the world to tell the story of the most important day of their lives. We stayed at the best airbnb I’ve ever had the privilege of occupying, along a river on a farmers piece of land. He hand built the three cabins there himself. If ever I want to return to a place again, it’s there.
Actually, I revise- if I were to move to any other country, it would be NZ. Hardly any bugs, nothing poisonous, their largest predator is a cousin of the raccoon and the cutest thing ever. The people are incredibly kind, the scenery is INSANE. Take me back.
And duh, I did Hobbiton which made my real wish for life clear: may a movie director fly over my property and decide it will be the perfect place for an iconic set that I later turn into an attraction. This place makes $60 mill every year.
Video from the porch of our airbnb. I jumped right into the river that ran in front every day.
Jade found me on Instagram, thats our meet cute. I loved her from the moment we “met” (on FaceTime). Beautiful, kind and incredible film photographer herself (you will see some of my own film scattered throughout this gallery).
Jade and Louis live in the UK. Louis is a pilot and together, they charter and fly those little personal planes that make me a littler nervous everytime (though I will ofc go b/c adventure). They flew to the other side of the world to get married on a cliffside above the Pacific Ocean, candlelit and surrounded by their favorite people.
Hillbrook Estate sits on the Coromandel Coast just outside Whangamata, New Zealand. I spent my entire trip pronouncing the “W” until a toward the end, a local farmer (whose incredible AIRBNB my husband and I stayed at for a week) said “what are you talking about? I think you’re trying to say FANGAMATA.”
Face. Palm. Anyway, Hillbrook Estate is not only a gorgeous wedding venue but also a working farm with Pacific Ocean views, a cliffside that drops into the kind of sky that makes you forget what you were saying mid-sentence, and a private beach. It is the kind of place that attracts couples who want their wedding to feel less like a production and more like a chapter in a book.
Jade and Louis were exactly that kind of couple.
The day before the wedding, their people gathered for an outdoor dinner on the grounds. It was the warm, easy kind of evening full of jokes and songs that reminds you weddings are really about the accumulation of time with your favorite humans. I love when couples build in that extra day, create experiential weekends for their guests and really lean into immersion with the people that mean most to them.
Then came the wedding day.
It rained in an eyeball- popping, beautiful, misty moody New Zealand sort of rain that felt like it was being produced on a movie set. Jade and Louis got ready together that morning, taking time to dress each other and write vows side by side. Before the lunch even started we wandered out into the breezy cow pasture on the estate for some phots. A soon to be bride, a groom, standing in a cow pasture on a working New Zealand farm while the wind moved through everything around them. Is there a such thing as too scenic?
They received well wishes and toasts at a lunch out in a tent on the lawn, with narry a worry for the rain whatsoever. They were ready to lean in to whatever the day brought for them (my fave).
After lunch, we returned to the house where they separately changed into their offical wedding attire (some of my favorite photos of the day include Jade pulling her dress over her head; see below). When they were ready, we loaded into the car and headed down to the beach for their first look. A beachside first look at Hillbrook is its own kind of thing because the beach is literally perfect and absolutely private. The light off the Pacific was extraordinary. And when Jade came around the corner in her CINQ bridal gown — she’d been in a Chloé day dress through the rainy lawn lunch and changed for the ceremony — the whole thing felt like it had been art directed.. Louis was himself a handsome king in a suit from Edit Suit Co London paired with pieces from SuitSupply.
The candle lit ceremony was held on a cliffside next to the venue, overlooking the ocean as the sun dropped below the horizon line. Again- stuff of storybooks. What I will say is that standing on that cliff, watching two people who flew from the UK to New Zealand to say their vows above the Pacific, I felt the particular brand of privilege that this job hands me sometimes. How the hell did I get to do this with my life?!
After the ceremony, the night opened up into exactly what a wedding night should be — everyone together, music from Mel at MixItDJ, incredible food from Aimee at Sugarfish, florals by Ainsley at Floracentric that looked like the landscape had decided to collaborate, and a boutique ice cream truck from DuckIsland that I still think about. They partied all night. Obviously.
The whole day — the eve dinner, the rainy lawn lunch, the cow pasture portraits, the beach, the cliff, the candles, the dancing — was held together behind the scenes by Nicole and Ellen at Coromandel Weddings, who are exactly the kind of planners you want when you’re building something this layered. Aimee at AimeeWillow Designs handled the paper goods. And Si Moore at Bayly & Moore , one of my favorite videographers to work with ever, was behind the video camera.
The morning after the wedding, while the rest of the world was still sleeping off the night before, Jade and Louis slipped down to the estate’s private beach with me. Just the two of them and the Pacific and a blue morning full of salt. Two people who had just gotten married, standing on a beach at the edge of the world, was romantic and unhurried and incredibly sexy. I loved every single photo (as you will see here).
If you’re considering a Hillbrook Estate wedding in Whangamata, know this: the venue does something rare. It hands you the whole property – the house, the farm, the cliffside, the beach – and then it gets out of the way and lets your wedding actually be yours. No two weddings there look the same ever (I will die on that hill) and Jade and Louis’s certainly didn’t look like anyone else’s. It looked exactly like them, which is the only thing a wedding should ever look like.
It was an honor to be the one holding the camera.
Thank you, Jade and Louis. I’d fly 14 hours to New Zealand for you again in a heartbeat.
L
Venue: Hillbrook Estate, Whangamata, New Zealand Wedding Planners: Nicole & Ellen — Coromandel WeddingsFlorist: Ainsley — Floracentric Caterer: Aimee — Sugarfish Bakery/Ice Cream: DuckIsland DJ/Music: Mel — MixItDJ Videographer: Si Moore — Bayly & Moore Hair & Makeup: Jade Own — @jadeshallcrass Wedding Dress: CINQ Bridal Day Dress: Chloé Suit: Edit Suit Co London & SuitSupply Invitations: Aimee — AimeeWillow Designs
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