Leftover blooms for forgotten graves
For Huia Rentoul, Richmond Cemetery is a place of peaceful contemplation.
“I really like this place,” she says.
She visits often, bringing her two young sons.
The pair zip around the adjoining green space on their bikes, while Rentoul visits her mum and her sister, who rest in the cemetery.
And the event planner is often found there after a busy weekend of weddings, placing the flowers left over from nuptials on the grave sites.
Rentoul picks graves she thinks could use a little love.
“A lot of them don’t have names or anything on them.
“They probably don’t have loved ones to care for them; we always go to them.”
She also leaves blooms for whānau – as well as her mum and her sister, a cousin and her husband’s grandparents are buried there.
“Mum really liked flowers and gardening, I feel like she would’ve approved.”
Rentoul began her company, Atahuia Wedding and Events, in 2019. Bookings slumped during the thick of the pandemic, but coming out the other side, the wedding business is brisk, she said.
“Everyone wants to get together now that they can.”
Rentoul plans big weddings, small weddings, and everything in between.
“I always loved family get-togethers as a kid; now I can be at everyone else’s get-togethers,” she said.
The idea of repurposing leftover flowers was born after her very first wedding, which was bedecked with daisies and gypsophila, she said.
“The bride was hungover, and almost annoyed the next day at having to do something with them.
“So I brought them down here. “Sometimes [a wedding party] will just leave the flowers.
“Or brides will say, you can just bin them.” Often, the wedding party can’t take the flowers with them – like the couple from Australia who recently tied the knot in Whakatū.
“I said to them, ‘if it’s okay, we’ll take them down to the cemetery’, and they loved that idea.”
Sometimes, Rentoul’s team will join her at the cemetery after a busy weekend.
“It’s a nice way to end the weekend with the team after a chaotic couple of days; a way of grounding ourselves.
“We come down, bring the flowers sit and chat for a while.”