Incense
St Matthew-in-the-City
Auckland
Scope: Concept, Floral Design, Installation
Featured in
The design began with the church itself.
St Matthew-in-the-City is a place shaped by ritual, history and movement. Our first thought was incense — more specifically, the way smoke moves through a church: appearing and disappearing, rising, drifting and leaving a temporary trace in the air.
We originally imagined a suspended installation that would recreate this almost weightless presence. When the architecture made this impossible, we stopped thinking about smoke as an object and began thinking about its movement instead.
The ceremony installation became a frozen trace of that movement — a continuous floral line travelling through the architecture.
Deep reds and oranges gave the form weight and presence, while its irregular curves allowed it to move visually through the stone interior.
The same references continued into the personal flowers.
The bridal bouquet took its form from a thurible, the suspended metal vessel traditionally used for incense. Instead of a conventional hand-tied bouquet, a compact red floral form was suspended from fine metal chains, allowing it to hang and move with the body.
For the groom, we made a small edible boutonnière — a playful reference to bread and the Eucharist, translating another element of church ritual into something unexpected and personal.
For dinner, movement became the focus again. The tables were arranged in long, flowing curves rather than straight lines. We wanted to exaggerate that shape rather than decorate over it, so strands of red dates travelled continuously across the tables, weaving between flowers, candles and tableware.
The tables were static; the red line gave them movement.
Red dates were chosen for another reason. For the Chinese couple, they brought the design back to a familiar cultural language — a fruit associated with celebration, good fortune and auspicious occasions.
What began with the movement of incense inside an Anglican church ended with another kind of ritual at the table: one drawn from the couple's own cultural memory.
