Looking through the colourful photos from Justine Treadwell and Leroy Beckett’s wedding day in November, the couple’s love for each other radiates. So too does their passion for the beautiful public spaces in Tāmaki Makaurau.
The young couple, who both grew up in central Auckland, have shared memories throughout the city - old haunts from when they were friends as teenagers, and romantic spots over their five years together before they got engaged.
Long before there was a (gorgeous green sapphire) ring, Justine, who works in museums, and Leroy, who works in communications, knew they wanted to get married in the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, a short walk from their apartment.
“In the contemporary extension, the kauri wood ceiling has the feeling of an uplifted chapel, and the elliptical columns are more oceanic than classical,” says Justine. “The central location was important to us, too. Auckland’s city centre is one of the best parts of the country as well as the most accessible, with ferries, buses, trains and bike infrastructure, which helped keep the environmental impact of our wedding down.”
Once they knew they could have their ceremony in the gallery’s North Atrium, the Ellen Melville centre - a six-minute walk away - was a no-brainer for their reception. “The centre has a strong social history that’s special to us (it’s also our local voting booth) and its 60s brutalist architecture looking out onto the contemporary urban design of the huge Freyberg fountain is gorgeous”, says Justine.
Proposals are often a precursor to how a wedding day will run, and in the couple’s case, thoughtful planning - and tears - flowed right from the start.
“Leroy proposed the night before my 26th birthday, having asked to plan the whole day for me. He replicated a dinner he made for my birthday right before we got together, decorating our apartment living room with candles, incredible flowers, our best glassware, my favourite cocktail and Champagne. The biggest credit to Leroy with all of this is that I didn’t suspect a proposal at all, such a romantic gesture wasn’t unusual. It wasn’t until he pulled out a box and got down on one knee that I had an inkling.”
It was a tearful “yes” from Justine, who was planning to propose the following summer. They celebrated with dessert at Amano with their families, followed by a night at Hotel Britomart.
A two-and-a-half year engagement meant plenty of time for wedding planning (perhaps too much - they spent two years collecting and drying petals in the oven for confetti). One of the first things they did was make a list of what they weren’t going to do. “We enjoyed the traditions that emphasised the formality and seriousness of the occasion, rather than the gendered ones,” says Justine.
“We wanted someone we love to be our celebrant and had our longtime friend Niko lead the ceremony and MC the reception. He did a perfect job, which we expected, despite having never done it before,” says Leroy. “We were sure from the beginning that we wanted a child-friendly wedding. We wanted whole families to feel welcome - some of our favourite people are babies.”
“It definitely got more formal as we zeroed in on what we wanted. Spending all that money and time and effort, and having people (100 guests in total) from all over come for it, we wanted something dramatic and worthy of the fuss. A 'fun' or casual wedding, especially the ceremony, wouldn’t have fit us. It was important to us that it was beautiful and sincere. We were thrilled how many people cried.”
The wedding aesthetic came together naturally, led by their tastes rather than a strict colour palette or dress code. Justine’s incredible Cult Gaia shoes were the first wedding purchase. “Their heels are calla lilies, a flower I adore, and I think they guided the style of the wedding for me - artistic, modern, bright and elegant.”
Flowers were the most important vendor for Justine. With exceptional gardeners in her family, she trusted florist Sue from Floral Stylist Co to source glorious blooms and incorporate family-grown bunches. “Sue took our vision of contemporary, feminine, rich and artful and executed it beyond our wildest dreams. My father built a beautiful trellis-like wooden frame for the ceremony flowers to be mounted on, and guests carried the aisle flowers from the art gallery to the reception.”
It was also important for Justine to make her own wedding dress. “My mum was an amazing fashion designer in the 80s and taught me to sew from as early as I can remember. I made a corset first, then I draped the crepe back silk directly onto the corset, pinned and hand sewed it in place. It was fun using couture techniques for this but it was a slog too… The colour was inspired by a painting I love of a woman curled up in an orange gown. My mind kept turning up orange things it reminded me of: Raro and Berocca and Frujus.” The bride accessorised with vintage YSL gold satin heels, and a custom kete muka by master weaver Whiauna Collins.
Justine’s reception look - a playful skirt suit and glitzy bead top - was a chance to have fun with bridal shades. She wore a handmade pearl top by London designer T Label, an Ingrid Starnes custom jacket in off-white silk satin and a column skirt by Harris Tapper with pearls sewn onto the heavy satin. “Partly because they’re not overtly bridal and partly because I’m a diva, I’ve been able to rewear all of these,” she says.
Knowing Justine would look show-stopping, Leroy (who wears suits to work most days), had a tuxedo, bowtie and cumberband made by Wynn Hamlyn - elevated, simple and clean. “I had imagined sneakers but was thankfully talked out of them by my sister, and got some very nice loafers from Beckett Simonon, which cost about as much to ship from Colombia as the shoes themselves.”
For ‘something old’, Justine wore her great grandmother’s pearl ring, and gave Leroy a set of antique mother of pearl cufflinks and shirt studs that had belonged to her mother.
Justine’s ‘something new’ was one of the biggest surprises of the day: a pixie cut, done the morning of the wedding. “I planned it years in advance, I knew Leroy would adore it and I got even more excited as the wedding got closer. My hairdresser Helena at Colleen is amazing and I trusted her 100%. The haircut was its own statement so I didn’t use a veil or headpiece.”
Makeup artist Ruth Baron made sure they looked their best - a warm, glowy look on Justine, and a light dusting on Leroy (“It made a huge difference in the photos. I just didn’t want to look like a sweaty ghoul next to Justine”). Leroy also had his sister, (Ensemble’s own) Tyson running his skincare routine like the Navy in the weeks leading up to the wedding.
“Doing my mum’s makeup was a sweet moment,” says Justine. “It was very special to apply her maroon lipstick that she has worn since before I was born, and blushing up a storm on her amazing cheekbones - fingers crossed mine look like that one day!”
Ever sentimental, the pair gifted each other wedding perfumes that they will continue to wear to mark special occasions: Curionoir’s Ngutu Pā (meaning lips together) for Leroy, and Tom Ford’s Rose Prick for Justine.
The couple decided to have their first look on the gallery’s rooftop terrace with a backdrop of Albert Park, where they had photos taken by Nisha Ravji before the ceremony. “I was so emotionally charged that seeing Leroy first really relaxed and soothed me,” says Justine. “Having Nisha, who we could trust to corral us and get the right shots was so reassuring on the day, she captured exactly what we were looking for.”
When their visitors arrived in the forecourt, they were greeted by the monumental carved columns of ‘He Aha Te Wa’ by Arnold Manaaki Wilson, which represent atua, and are kaitiaki figures to welcome guests into the gallery. They had organised an excellent playlist to set the tone before the ceremony. “I remember standing alone pacing while our guests were let in and Frank Ocean’s cover of At Your Best (You Are Love) played,” says Leroy.
During the ceremony, Justine’s mum played Amanda McBroom’s The Rose on the piano. “Its melody is so evocative just from her humming it that hearing her play it on a piano made us all emotional,” says Justine. They embraced the tradition of Justine walking down the aisle to Leroy, and wrote their own vows, “but formalised them by sharing a version of the traditional ‘til’ death do us part’ ones.”
“For the processional we had Angels by The xx. Played in that gallery space, it was haunting and atmospheric. We headed back up the aisle to The Beth’s Little Death, which is similarly about intoxicating love but more celebratory, and broke the tension in the right way. Our first dance was another Frank Ocean cover, Moon River. A lot of Frank and Kacey Musgraves played at the wedding,” says Leroy.
As excellent hosts, food was something they wanted to provide generously, with plentiful vegetarian mezze platters from Ima cuisine. Later, guests could take their pick from a whole table of cakes, including a wedding cake baked by Leroy’s mum and a cheesecake from The Fed - one of the couple’s favourites.
“We are big proponents of local wine producer, Lindauer. Leroy’s dad kindly ordered a bottle per person, and we are still bringing bottles to social events months later. We love cocktails, so we had martinis and manhattans, with bowls of olives and cherries.”
Always an important metric of a good night, their reception dance-floor was packed, with DJ Alisha from Playlist Project doing a great job of getting a varied crowd up and having fun.
“It was magical to sneak out into the square together at night and watch the reception party through the windows from the steps of the fountain,” says Justine. “When Leroy and I left at the end of the night, his wonderful sister (and best man) Tyson arranged a group of guests to shower us with some of the petal confetti on the way out, which made the zealous petal-collecting worth it after all.”
The couple used The Good Registry to direct the generosity of guests towards donations to the City Mission, which fit with their city centre focus. As for their budget, they spent about a third over what they anticipated.
"We didn’t want to go into debt for the wedding, and were lucky to avoid it thanks to savings and more support from our families than we ever expected. The long engagement assisted with saving, we would recommend it. It was also great for finding low cost options, booking early when things are cheaper. Prioritising a limited number of vendors to spend generously on was also key, and choosing council venues obviously helped.”
