Actor Huia Max Rose never dreamed of a big white wedding dress.
“I’m quite androgynous and didn’t want to change who I was for a day,” she explains.
Instead, Huia wanted to celebrate her and now-husband Reon Māoritanga as loudly as their love. Award-winning Māori designer Kiri Nathan made a custom denim blazer named Rīrā for Huia, a privilege she’s still pinching herself over.
“Kiri was so receptive when I said I wanted to wear something that felt Māori and wanted others who were takatāpui [both Huia and Reon identify with the rainbow community] to see there’s more inspiration to take from our taiao [natural world] than just a white dress and korowai [woven cloak] over top.”
She’s quick to add, “I don’t want to whakaiti [belittle] people who choose that, but it was really important to me to re-indigenise what I wore.”
Wellington costume maker Julie Zavala Ron Jackett was pivotal in transforming two luxury New Zealand wool throws by Noa Blanket Co into skirts for Huia, 24, and Reon, 25. Friends helped weave muka [flax fibre] neck pieces, while another close friend, Jesse Brons, wove a kākahu piupiu [traditional shoulder wrap] for Reon. It was a shared labour of love from many and the result was exactly as Huia envisaged.
A wedding that felt like them
“I felt the most like me I had ever felt in my entire life,” she smiles.
“And I think Reon looked so much like his true self and just so handsome.”
She hopes their aesthetic will inspire others to be unashamed in the way they design their weddings.
Breaking tradition with confidence
“There was lots of pushback, saying, ‘You’re going to regret not wearing a white dress’, but I was so sure,” says Huia, who was nominated for Best Actor at the NZ Youth Film Festival in 2023.
“I want people to see our photos and know the way you do the day is yours, and no one should take that away from you.”
Instead of flower girls, Huia and Reon, a musician under the name WYNONA and an actor with roles on Shortland Street and Westside, had “flower grandies”.
Their grandparents were the first to walk down the aisle onto Huia’s Waikato marae Te Kūiti Pā. Reon was next, stopping to stand in front of the whare tīpuna [ancestral meeting house], with both of their poutiaki [bridal parties] following behind him. Then, holding a photo of her late father, Darren Thomas Max, Huia made her entrance.
Finding peace on the ātea
“In the moment when I stood on the ātea [formal courtyard] and looked up at my whare tīpuna, I felt so tau [at peace]. It felt like I was coming home.”
Both Huia and Reon, who met through mutual friends in the arts community in 2023, are the first generation of their families to reclaim the Māori language and chose to have their ceremony conducted entirely in te reo.
As they planned their November 2025 wedding, they also studied te reo Māori together – a deeply healing experience. Huia is staunch in her identity, but says that because of her fairer skin and blonde hair, plenty of people have told her she’s “not Māori enough” over the years.
Celebrating identity despite judgment
From reactions to a TikTok video that went viral in 2021 of Huia dancing with a moko kauae [traditional chin tattoo], to a play called Tuakiritea that she and Reon wrote and performed together, exploring their experiences as Māori, the uninformed opinions have only strengthened her connection to her culture.
“When I was younger, I felt I needed to prove myself, but nowadays I am so sure in myself that it doesn’t bother me at all,” reflects Huia.
A wedding rooted in whakapapa
During their wedding, their Māoritanga was undeniable. Close family members recited their whakapapa or ancestral lineage, going all the way back to their ancestors’ waka arriving in Aotearoa.
“The whole reason we wanted to get married was to bind our whakapapa,” explains Huia.
“The big promise I made in my vows was that we will continue to learn and teach our mokopuna where they come from so it will never be forgotten.”
Also acknowledging their Scottish heritage in her vows, Huia named the castles she and Reon descend from, and the rivers that flow by them. In lieu of kissing the bride, the duo exchanged a hongi, then sat down to receive tā moko [traditional tattoo] on their ring fingers from friend and artist Dani Renata.
“We had heaps of our friends around us singing and it was so grounding to just be in that moment,” Huia beams.
In the end, it was everything they hoped for and even those who had their doubts left saying it was the best wedding they had ever been to.
“They could just see us so much in all of it.”
