Campbell Johnstone and Ben Thomson on their wedding day. Photo / Amour Weddings
Former All Black Campbell Johnstone and his groom Ben Thomson made the grandest of entrances for their wedding ceremony at The Flaxmill in Oxford. The pair were choppered in by none other than rugby legend Richie McCaw.
“Richie did this really steep loop around the property and I lost my stomach a bit,” laughs Ben. “Then he landed and we got out. Our parents congratulated us, people swarmed to take photos, then the wedding kind of kicked off from there.”
Campbell, 44, and Ben, 37, admit the ceremony wasn’t exactly traditional. Firstly, the 165 guests, who had come from all over the globe to celebrate the couple, were met with a voting station: Should the grooms’ last names be Johnstone or Thomson?
The next and certainly most shocking bombshell of all was the revelation that the grooms wed secretly back in October.
“Nobody knew what was going on,” chuckles Campbell. “Even the groomspeople and our families didn’t know.”
Ben explains of their private nuptials, “We had a day with just the two of us, when photographers videoed and photographed us getting ready together in a hotel. Then we went out to Castle Hill Station and held our ceremony on top of a mountain.”
In the video, the pair exchanged wedding rings that Ben’s close high school friend Rachel MacGoldsmith designed and created especially for them. Her personalised lapel pins and cufflinks displaying the newlyweds’ initials can also be seen on their T.Begg Tailoring suits.
“It was literally just us, the two photographers and the videographer on that hill, so it was quite cool,” recalls Ben. “We didn’t even have a celebrant.”
The following week, the couple had met their wedding planner, Studio Alchemy’s Maddy Lloyd, at the Pink Lady rooftop bar in Christchurch to sign their official marriage certificate. Maddy acted as their celebrant, while two friends witnessed, before ordering a few rounds of drinks to celebrate.
“We just wanted to do it privately, for ourselves,” explains Ben. “I don’t think I would have got my vows out if it was in front of all those people.”
Campbell adds, “We also thought it should be a moment just for us. That was really special because we just got to enjoy the day together.”
Their guests did get to see the video, which was projected on a big screen at the wedding.
“It was meant to look like we came straight from the video,” says Campbell. “I think some people thought it was live.”
Violinist Arna Morton entertained the crowd until the frenzy of photos and well-wishes settled. The couple poured a whopping six-litre bottle of Moët & Chandon Brut over a Champagne tower and then the speeches ensued.
“My favourite part of the entire day was my sister’s speech,” Campbell says of his best lady, Bridie Johnstone. “She was telling me that she’d just written something very quick and very light. She doesn’t like talking in front of people, so I was really amazed at how well she spoke. It was very emotional.”
Ben says his groom’s party surprised him by cleverly stringing their speeches together, so each person presented a line or two of a rap-like rhyme.
“I was wondering why they were in their hotel room for hours that morning!” laughs Ben. “It was mainly about how competitive I am and how much I hate losing.”
Ben’s dad Gerry stood up next to announce the results of the last name vote.
“Our guests voted for our last name to be Johnstone! ” says Ben. “Technically, I lost that competition, but that’s a loss I’ll happily take.”
Keeping with the theme of surprises, the grooms opted for a mille-feuille dessert from Full Time Tart. It was “probably a metre round, just layers of pastry and custard, with pistachio cream in the centre”, topped off with berries and icing sugar.
“We weren’t going to have a cake at all because neither of us really love cake, but then three weeks before the wedding, I saw this cake somewhere online,” recalls Ben. “I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, we can eat one of those!’
“While the guests mingled and enjoyed the dessert, we managed to sneak up a hill outside to enjoy a plate of food and just be alone for 10 minutes. We watched over the whole scene and stole a moment for ourselves. That has to have been one of my favourite parts of the day.”
After everyone had settled and tummies were full of mille-feuille, they were ushered into a marquee from You Gather for the grooms’ take on a first dance.
“We did the flash-mob dance from The Perfect Couple,” says Campbell, referencing Nicole Kidman’s Netflix hit. “So again, we had all the different groups of people and then a whole bunch of friends joined in!”
Talented pianist and singer Sean Preston took over the entertainment, while guests drank and danced until the next surprise was unveiled at nine o’clock.
“The whiskey lounge opened, which was in this new room that we renovated in the last week before the wedding inside one of the vats of the flax mill,” Ben explains of the venue, which was built on his grandfather’s 400-hectare farm in the 1940s and has been in the family ever since.
“It was so cool! It was full of Chesterfield leather, with dark wooden furniture, black candles, and two big gold frames of pictures of Campbell and I that were taken the day we did our elopement.”
Guests enjoyed limitless espresso martinis, Rifters barrel-aged negronis and whiskey for the rest of the evening. Crisp & Vale-catered canapés were passed around, and a pasta station with a large parmesan wheel and three different types of linguine pasta was on offer, or guests could go for the rib-eye steak surf-and-turf option.
As the clock struck 10.30pm, a “night club” opened up to reveal DJ Vito hosting a rave in a dark room, lit by a UV reactive mural of neon trees up each wall.
“With all the black light, it was just like this big, glowing jungle,” tells Ben. “We also had saxophonist Michael Gordon in there, who was playing alongside the DJ, which was really cool.”
Campbell says the rave came to an end around 1.30am, when guests ventured down paths lined with floral arrangements by Bourbon Rose, towards festival-like fields scattered with the 30 glamping tents that The Flaxmill supplied. They were welcome to stay on and extend the celebrations until Sunday, playing games, drinking and enjoying their time together.
“We didn’t do much of anything traditional,” jokes Ben. “Everything was new. I just used my engagement ring. Maybe we could call that old because it wasn’t new for the wedding?!”
So now that the chaos is all over, the venue is cleaned and the hangovers are subsiding, what’s next for the newlyweds?
“We’d love to do like a luxury safari in South Africa or something for our honeymoon later this year,” says Ben.
Adds Campbell, “We’ll just be travelling, eating, drinking and enjoying each other’s company.”
New York Times: The internet is reframing the humble fizzy drink as an indulgent escape.