Last weekend, under the shade of the trees that have watched over us for several seasons, and surrounded by our family and friends, we stood in our backyard and said yes — to love, to partnership, to a future woven with the same quiet, steady rhythms that have shaped this place.

There was no grand venue — just the small piece of land that holds our everyday moments, the place where we drink our morning cups of tea and slowly watch the seasons shift… the same backyard where the flowers bloom and fade, where vegetables grow [or don’t] and where life unfolds in its simple, [ideally] unhurried way. It felt right. It felt right to be home.

A wedding is just one day [or in our case, a night before too!], but a marriage — like a garden — is something tended over time. It’s built in the small moments, in the care and the noticing, in the way roots grow deeper even when you don’t see it happening. We chose to begin ours here, beneath the canopy, surrounded by the people who make our world feel whole.

And so, Beneath the Karaka begins, too.

This online space will be a home for reflection — for the ways the backyard mirrors life, for the small observations that hold meaning, for the conversations that unfold slowly. Just as our backyard gave us the perfect setting to begin this next chapter, it will also be a place to pause, reflect, and find the stories hidden in the everyday.

Thank you for being here at the start of this. May we all find meaning in the places that ground us.

Check out this older post from another project. It gives a little snapshot of the garden in it’s beginnings and offers a sense of how far we’ve come.

From beneath the canopy,

🌻 Issy