A personal and sustainable wedding memento for each couple from my family.

As a marriage celebrant, I’m responsible for making sure the legal requirements of the ceremony are met. Part of this, is presenting the couple with their legal paperwork. My daughter has lovingly handmade harakeke twine (NZ Flax) for me to wrap each newly married couple’s paperwork in. A personal & sustainable memento for each couple from my family.

During the wedding ceremony:

Couples can write their own vows as long as they say “I [name] take you [partner’s name], to be my legal [wife/husband/partner]”, or something similar, to each other at some point in the ceremony. (I prefer “choose you” over “take you”, but that’s my personal choice and the ceremony is legal if you choose to use “choose”.

After the wedding ceremony:

I am required to:

Have the couple, as well as 2 witnesses, sign the 2 copies of the ‘Copy of Particulars’ straight away — the couple must sign the documents using their pre-marriage signatures.
present the couple their copy (BDM45A)
email the BDM45 to Birth, Deaths and Marriages to confirm the couple named on the marriage licence are legally married by a Marriage Celebrant. (me)

To personalise the presentation of this very important paperwork my daughter, Steph, who whakapapa’s to Waitaha Katimamoe and Kai Tahu Iwi has lovingly handmade twine from harakeke (te reo Maori for flax). Harakeke was traditionally used by Maori for medication, shelter, clothing and decoration and is found mainly on lowland swamp areas throughout New Zealand (as well as in my garden in Queenstown and Steph’s garden on the south east coast of the South Island).