This is the first in our Ensemble Weddings series, which will celebrate the love, joy and creativity of unique and imperfect weddings. If your wedding fits the Ensemble vibe, please get in touch!

When Hart Reynolds and Anthony Wiseman decided to get married, they knew they didn’t want a cookie-cutter wedding or anything formal and stuffy.

It wasn’t clear what that would look like until all the little elements started coming together - which had to happen quickly. The resulting colourful ceremony was brought together with the help of many artistic friends and family, from a canvas backdrop painted by Hart’s dad to the Kowhai tree altar tied with personal notes from guests - and a dress by an icon of New Zealand fashion.

Hart and Anthony (who met in early 2019) were engaged in late September 2021, during Auckland’s second lockdown. Like many others who went stir-crazy after spending so long in Covid alert level four, Hart remembers having a particularly terrible time one day, when her mum Claire took her on a socially distanced bike ride to try cheer her up. 

She returned to the house in the evening to find their garden with a little table and chairs set up, surrounded by lights, and her partner Anthony all dressed up. Thinking of everything, he even laid out a dress for her to wear, and made cocktails and dinner. Afterwards, ‘This Must Be the Place’ by Talking Heads played as Anthony got down on one knee and proposed. 

To his relief, Hart immediately said yes. “It turned out my mum distracting me had been the plan all along, but he had nearly called it off as I was so sad that day and was worried I’d say no,” she says.

Getting engaged during lockdown meant they had to wait to celebrate with family and friends, but that suited the couple just fine, who enjoyed having this special time to themselves. 

The couple decided to get married just six months after the engagement - largely due to having close family members who were facing some serious health problems, including Hart’s mum who has stage four breast cancer. “Living with these sorts of realities makes you realise the importance of celebrating the happy things in life,” says Hart. “It was very important for me to have my wedding at a time when I knew my mum could be there and be well.” 

The couple’s search for a special yet relaxed wedding venue was answered by family friends, who kindly offered up their beachside house in Piha to host the 55-person celebration. “It was so generous for them to have us and it was perfect. It matched the kind of casual and fun vibe we wanted and the beach is an important place for both of us,” says Hart.

With Anthony and Hart both working full-time (Hart as a lawyer, Anthony a sales manager), planning a wedding in six months was “at times chaotic”. Luckily, friends and whanau offered to help in any way they could. 

Not only was this a huge support for the couple, it also added those unique and personal touches they had wanted - nearly everything at the wedding was made by or sourced from friends or family. 

Hart’s wedding ensemble was no exception, a beautiful result of two families coming together, along with some special vintage. Her father, renowned artist John Reynolds, and Anthony’s aunt, the designer Adrienne Winkelmann, collaborated on a silky ivory dress, fitted with a long detachable train that Hart’s father drew over in silver. “It had this amazing iridescent effect in the sun.”

To match the vintage feel of the dress, hair stylist Tony Thorn styled Hart’s striking copper locks into classic waves, and her natural makeup was done by Gabrielle Jones, a family friend who has known Hart since she was a girl, with help from Niki Adlington. 

Hart also wore the same long veil that her mother Claire had worn to her earlier wedding. Dad John had found it at a vintage store in Christchurch, and used it to propose to Claire instead of an engagement ring. 

The bride’s own engagement ring has its own interesting history, having belonged to Anthony’s grandmother Kathleen Winkelmann. Her husband proposed to her with a version of it before he went to fight in the Korean War, but in the early 2000s her house was burgled and all her jewellery was stolen. “The family made an updated version of the engagement ring, the one Anthony proposed to me with,” explains Hart. “A few years later, when Kathleen was moving house, they found the original ring under a chest of drawers.”

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For the wedding rings, the couple enlisted the help of family-owned local jewellers Zoe & Morgan. Although it was tricky to get a wedding ring to go with the deep-set emerald on her engagement ring, “Zoe was incredibly helpful and had so many ideas… she managed to pull design elements from it so they worked together.”

Anthony’s was a simple gold band, creatively engraved with their wedding anniversary; a diamond and emerald stamped in the inside as the dots on the date. “A diamond is my birthstone and an emerald is Anthony’s. They are also the stones in my rings so the rings reference each other that way.”

Planning a wedding during Covid meant there were some unavoidable challenges for the couple. Originally, they had an invite list of 180, which had to be reduced down to 55 guests, but ultimately Hart thinks it was for the best. “I liked that we ended up having such a small event. It meant we got to spend time with everyone.” 

Most of the guests stayed in and around Piha, and chipped in for the joint clean up effort the following day, with a big rewarding lunch of leftover wedding food. The couple still hope to celebrate with those that couldn’t come to the wedding, with “a massive party one day, perhaps as a one year anniversary.” 

For the reception, friends and family put up a big marquee on a lawn at their house, with tables and chairs that could later be easily shuffled aside to create a dance floor. Later in the night, Hart whipped off the veil and train and wore her beautiful dress on its own, with the same Mi Piaci heels - a simple trick for what felt like a complete outfit change. 

Guests raved about the food, catered by Divine Foods. “Katherine was amazing at solving any problem that arose and at reassuring us that everything was going to turn out okay (see chaotic approach above).” 

Then there were five different cakes, made by Petra Galler, the pastry chef at Homeland who is of course, another of Hart’s talented friends. “The flavours were chosen as a surprise by my sister and mum.” 

For drinks, friend Jessie (the mother of the flower girl) helped the couple pick wine and beer from Red + White Cellar. 

Hart wanted flowers that were whimsical yet natural, and her florist Felicity Jones nailed the brief. “Felicity was full of great ideas for how we could style the space and did beautiful arrangements on all the tables.” 

One of the couple’s favourite elements was the two kowhai trees which took the place of a traditional altar behind Anthony and Hart during the ceremony. Instead of a traditional guest book, friends and family hand-wrote notes to the couple before the wedding and tied them to the Kowhais like a Japanese wishing tree. 

Hart’s bridesmaids wore different shades of reds, pinks and purples and carried bouquets to match their dresses and unique styles.

Thanks to so many artistic friends and family, the ceremony was full of colour and made photographer Ash of Sapphire Studio’s job a dream. Hart’s dad painted a beautiful backdrop on raw canvas, which now hangs in their house like a tapa cloth. “Another very close family friend, Deb Smith, made tablecloths and napkins for the reception with help from my dad. They were so beautiful most of them got taken by guests as souvenirs.” 

Just like the engagement Anthony planned, music played a huge part in the wedding, with songs that reminded them of memorable moments together. Hart walked down the aisle to ‘Tougher Than the Rest’ by Bruce Springsteen, a song Anthony sent her just before they went on their first date. “It always reminds me of the sheer excitement when we first met.”

After they were declared husband and wife, ‘Got To Give It Up” by Marvin Gaye played, and they had their first dance to ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’ sung by Anthony’s little sister, Helena. Hart’s cousin Laszlo Reynolds then played ‘This Must Be The Place’ as a nod to the song that played when Anthony proposed and to get the dads on the dance floor. 

“Laszlo then sung ‘Greetings to the New Brunette’ by Billy Bragg to welcome Anthony (the new brunette) to the family,” says Hart. Friends from overseas sent special music videos and then a DJ kept the dance-floor going late into the night.

There’s a lot less expectation to get married these days, but for Hart, “getting married was a way to celebrate both of us, our love for each other and for our family and friends who have been important in our lives and relationship.”

Hart admits “it’s wild” how expensive it can be to have a wedding (theirs cost approximately $40,000), but in hindsight, there wasn’t anything she would go without if she was to do it again.