Sarah Fecher met husband Chris in Switzerland’s Verbier ski resort on day two of her OE - two young ski bums hooking up for an adventure that would see them do fifteen back-to-back ski seasons before putting down roots in Hāwea.

“I was like a little Kiwi with my backpack,” says Sarah of that first ski season, “I managed to get a job, a proper job, at Fall Line Skiing magazine because of my photography experience.” Sarah has a diploma in photography and had been working as a photographer for Shotover Jet. Chris was a professional skier, being paid to compete and do photoshoots but he still had to find other work. “You do all sorts of silly jobs to keep skiing,” says Chris. “Yeah, like cleaning toilets in chalets,” adds Sarah. At one point they did try settling in the British Midlands - Chris’s homeland, renovating a barn into a homeware store and café, “Kiwi style,” says Sarah. “But Chris missed the mountains too much and started going off climbing and skiing and back to Chamonix.” Chris explains that skiing is in his blood. “My Dad would take me skiing when I was a kid and when we went to Chamonix (in the French Alps) when I was about 13. I was like ‘Oh my God’, I was magically drawn to it and that’s where I headed when I turned 18 and started doing ski seasons.”

So, the barn was sold, Chris got his ski instructor qualification and it was back to Chamonix to start a bespoke ski school. “That’s what we did for a long time,” says Sarah. “Chris would ski, and guide and I would manage the bookings and at the end of the season we would come to Wānaka. Chris would work up at Cardies or TC and I worked at Racers Edge until we had our daughter Elsie and then I just enjoyed being a mum. Because we were travelling, we couldn’t get her in to any day care, so I looked after her, while still managing the ski school. We owned an apartment in Chamonix that we would rent out for the summer and were lucky enough to rent the same house in Hāwea each winter.”

It was their daughter that stopped them being so itinerant. “Elsie got to about four-and-a half and we could tell she didn’t want to travel away anymore. She was making buddies and we knew we had to make a home in one spot – either France and bring her up as a French person or bring her back to New Zealand where I’m from and give her a Kiwi upbringing,” says Sarah. With them owning their own apartment and business in Chamonix, it would seem likely that they would choose there but the couple explains, “We had a small one-bedroom apartment in Les Bossons, in the smog. People don’t realise that the pollution in Chamonix is bad. There are constant red alerts and you can’t go outside. The smog, which is created by vehicles on the nearby motorway to Switzerland, the Mont Blanc tunnel, burning rubbish and log fires … it just sits in the valley.” Sarah stresses, “It’s not that bad when you can get up the hill in to the fresh air but I didn’t want to make my home somewhere where I can’t go out for a walk and I grew up in New Zealand so obviously I wanted Elsie to have all of that. To go to a small school.”

That school is Hāwea Flat and Elsie, now eight, is a very happy Kiwi, not that she was ever French, laugh Chris and Sarah, “When she started at Hāwea Flat the other kids were all excited about the new French girl and had learnt to say hello in French. Elsie greeted them in English with a Kiwi accent – she didn’t speak a word of French.”

With Chris working up the hill and Sarah a fulltime mum, it didn’t take long for the enterprising pair to think about starting their own business again and to relook at event tipi hire, something they had looked in to twelve years ago after their tipi wedding in the UK. “We loved it and made enquiries about bringing these giant Nordic canvas tipis back to New Zealand, but the manufacturer said they couldn’t even keep up with the demand in the European market, so we forgot about it, thinking it was too hard and too expensive. When we found out that it was now possible to bring them in, we sold the Chamonix apartment and put all of our money in to buying three tipis with furniture.”

“It was scary,” says Sarah, “Chris said to me it’s going to take five years and it’s going to be really hard and we might have to live in them, and I said, ‘okay if that happens it happens’.” Chris points out that they had done their research into the market. “We had faith in the area but it’s always a gamble, we didn’t know if people would get it. It’s hard to get across the scale of these tipis – they’re not a glamping tent, they’re an alternative to a marquee so they’re huge (10 metres by 10 metres huge). We had to get them up and get people to see them. We let wedding planners know about us, but the phone didn’t ring for two months. We were like, okay this is going to be hard and Sarah got a job in a café. Then we got one booking, then four and by the end of the next year we were fully booked – all three tipis, so we bought two more and three years later we bought another one. We doubled in size in three years. Growth has been fast, and we’ve had to reinvest to keep up with demand. We’re lucky we found a product that people love.”

It’s a bit of an investment, “for a couple of ski bums,” says Chris. The tents are meticulously crafted in Sweden making them very expensive, then there’s getting them into the country, the fit out – matting, furniture, lighting, fire pits … a truck and trailer, somewhere to store it all and that is just to get started. The couple say their landlords kicked them when they knew the tipis were arriving but have previously mentioned how wonderful these landlords were to them and Elsie when they were coming and going all those years, so it’s not as bad as it sounds. “It was good,” says Sarah, “because we found this place.” They have been renting here for four years. It’s a serene five-acre spot set among established trees that gives them a life in Hāwea that is as it should be and plenty of room for tipi business. “It does look like a shanty town,” says Sarah. “The house is small, so we’ve added lots of little buildings.” Including an old DOC loo that serves as an office. “The house needed quite a lot of love when we moved in and we had to collect stuff from Wastebusters to fill it because we landed with not much at all. We’d love to buy it.”

Chris now has a fulltime crew to help him rig the tipis, but Chris and Sarah started out doing it together, with Elsie’s help.

Now that the business is finally going to allow them to buy a house Chris and Sarah are looking for somewhere that will allow more separation between home and business, but they’re not sure they can achieve what they want in Hāwea with prices the way they are. “We don’t see the sense in paying a big mortgage to live in a high-density housing development, so renting here works for us. We could move out further - a few friends have moved out to Makarora …” “With Chris having to drive the Crown Range weekly in Summer, we should probably just move to Cromwell,” Sarah laughs. That would make getting to Queenstown events easier, but they don’t want to leave Hāwea, it’s home for them now. “We’ve always loved Hāwea – it’s got a very small town feel about it. The view coming over the dam is very Kiwi to me, the hotel sign and the cabbage trees.” says Chris. Sarah says it was probably the school that made them settle here. “We’ve also got friends on ‘Hippy Heights’ (the elevated area above Hāwea Flat) and we’ve always loved that spot. They were kind to us when we were travelling, inviting us to go hang out with them and their daughters and their guinea pigs and goats. They would cook us meals and it was so nice to be at someone’s home. I was hanging out there when I was pregnant with Elsie and I think that made me want to make Hāwea our home”. “It’s a lot cheaper than Wānaka but I don’t think either of us wanted to be in Wānaka, I think we just prefer it out here,” says Chris. “This to me is why you live here,” Sarah says, looking out to their yard. To have some space around you. We were living in a shoebox apartment in the smog and I wanted to bring Elsie home. I wanted to know that she could run next door and play with the kids or climb a tree. To breathe fresh air - when you don’t have it you realise how precious it is.”

Gather & Gold tipi weddings are so special that one couple got matching tipi tattoos

The tipi business, that they named Gather & Gold*, is now a full-time job for them both and Chris can’t help but smile when Sarah mentions that he still works part time up the hill in winter. “He still does ski patrol and ski guiding. It doesn’t pay much, but it’s important to have that balance. You can’t lose sight of why you live here. Things slow down event-wise in winter, so Chris spends a lot less time putting tipis up and down. I carry on with the bookings and the admin. We do site visits and meet caterers and the networking, that doesn’t stop. For weddings we meet onsite with the bride and the caterer, sometimes the photographer. For other events the suppliers and vendors all get together. We peg out the tipis and talk about how the day is going to go – that’s the OTT end of it but it’s worth it because everyone knows what’s coming. We do it because we care, we offer a really high level of service and are there to guide people. We don’t offer a planning service, we recommend a wedding or event planner for that, but we know how hard it is, especially for destination weddings. The bride and groom might pop here for a weekend and they want to meet us, it’s a big thing. They are trusting us with the biggest day of their life, one of the most exciting and expensive, so the least we can do is be there to answer tricky questions. People quite often come to us having seen the tipis online and don’t know where to start so we show them the sites we use, recommend caterers, musicians, florists, photographers … we’re spoilt for amazing vendors around here. There is a huge pool of cool people. We send people to them, they send people to us, it’s a great network. We get letters from brides saying that we have made their day. Two girls got married in our tipis at Dublin Bay and they got tipi tattoos – that’s cool.”

A two-tipi wedding at Dublin Bay. Image by Simon Darby

They used to put the tipis up and down together. “Self-taught from a manual and with the help of friends,” says Chris. “We used to fight a lot,” laughs Sarah. They now employ two fulltime crew to help Chis with the putting up and taking down and a part-time crew that also provide admin support for Sarah. You can hire one tipi or all six. “Two tipis linked together holds 70-80 seated in each tipi with room for a dance floor/band area. Two is our most popular configuration. The six tipis can link together in a circle. Anything you’d book a big white plastic thing for – weddings, parties, festivals, corporate events, anything that needs cover, that’s us and well go anywhere. We’ve flown to lots of remote spots.”

They’re conscious of moving the business forward, “doing it before someone else does,” says Chris. “We are looking into new products and are constantly growing the hireage side of things – the furniture, the extra styling items. It’s easier for people if they can book it all together. We are taking on a new CRM (customer relationship management) which will hopefully get stuff out of our brains. We’re also launching a new website, investing a bit more into background stuff which will hopefully free us up to have more time out.

Time out obviously involves skiing in the winter and the girls are lucky to have their own live-in guide. “He doesn’t try to teach me to ski though” stresses Sarah “tried that” winces Chris. “He’s actually tried to kill me a couple of times guiding in Chamonix. But yes, I am lucky to have a ski guide husband who can put up tipis. He can even load a dishwasher. It just must be a balance – not too much tipi-ing. We’re seeing skiing through Elsie’s eyes now and Cardrona is an amazing, fun paradise for her. I’ve done lots of skiing, now I just want to ski with her and enjoy it. Chris likes to go touring and I’ve just bought a touring set up so one of our goals next winter is to go touring at Pisa and Soho while Elsie is at school. “I’m happy zooming about on the pistes at Cardrona but touring gets you away from the crowds.” Chris adds, “It’s also a great way to keep fit, Cardrona’s fun, we have a good cruise around and have a few coffees. I get a ski pass for each mountain with my ski patrolling so I can pick wherever’s in condition when I’m heading out to do my own thing.”

If they’re not skiing, you’ll find them hanging out drinking coffee and Sarah has a little routine that involves coffee and Wastebusters. “Working from home can get a bit tedious, you need people,” explains Sarah. “Summer is very people-y and I love that I can stay home or retreat to the DOC loo, but in winter I need to break things up. I’ll go into town, get some food, have a coffee, check out Wasties and the other op-shops, come home and spend the rest of the day working before picking Elsie up. They do try to do a bit of everything, “climbing,” says Chris, “and I love walking, I go up Breast Hill quite a bit, and mountain biking. All just keeping fit for skiing really … and having fun.” They spend a lot of time down at the lake, exploring and rock-hopping. “In summer we’ll take a picnic down to Timaru Creek and try not to get eaten by sandflies,” adds Sarah. “We love to hang out at Dublin Bay because it’s shallow and you can swim and there. “Summers are a totally different vibe. We’d only spent winters here so our first summer was like ‘oh, we have to buy kayaks and a boogie board and Elsie had to learn to swim and how to just hang out in the water. Elsie wanted to try fishing, so we got fishing licences,” Sarah laughs. “I don’t eat fish and I hate fishing, but we did it with her - caught a fish, brought it home, cooked it and ate it and now she never wants to eat fish again either.

They haven’t managed to get back to Chamonix “The tipis kind of killed it, we didn’t really think about that. But we feel like we’ve ticked that box. It’s too easy to pine for a life we used to live and think you want to run away again, that’s human nature. We’re focused on all of this now, we’re grateful that we have created a business and a brand that people love. We will go back at some stage, Elsie was born there so we’ll take her back, hire a campervan and drive around Europe. But right now, it’s about life here and life here is pretty cool.”

Gatherandgoldtipis.co.nz

*The name Gather & Gold Tipis came about through gathering – to gather and the gold is from the history of Central Otago, the gold tussock, making it gold (Cardrona’s tagline), gold memories, as good as gold. “The name’s not so important, say Chris and Sarah, “It’s what you do with it, how much you care, the service you offer. Everyone seems to love the brand and the logo. Although some think we take people gold mining want to know where we go to find gold.

G&G lochnagar.jpeg — Expert wedding planning tips from Sarah

+ First things first - **choosing a spot**. We can travel and rig our tipis anywhere that has a flat area big enough. We’ve been to mountain tops, lake sides, backyards, ski fields and hotels (we can rig on concrete too). Even Lochnagar, (pictured, left). We have an awesome list that we’re happy to share, just get in touch. We are spoilt for amazing locations.
+Remember **the number of people** you invite will dictate how much the wedding will cost. If you don’t want to spend up big have a small intimate wedding, or if you really want to invite all your friends and fam then go for a walk-and-fork, relaxed wedfest-style wedding. You will never regret the money you spent on having your dream wedding, those memories will last a lifetime for you and for everyone there.
+Choose your site/venue 18 months prior as they book up first. Then line up your photographer, florist and caterers. If planning a destination wedding book a wedding planner! **The best weddings we see always use a planner.** It takes to pressure off you so that you can enjoy the day.
+Have a Skype meeting, or better a face-to-face, with your vendors. Make sure they are your type of people (this is especially important for your photographer - you need to have a connection with them). Taste the food, meet with the florist. These things are fun and all **the build-up and planning is part of the journey**. Enjoy it!
+Then just remember to **relax and enjoy** what will be one of the best days of your life. You’re about to marry your best friend.

Making it magic

The Fechers shared their story with Jo Elwin