This is going to be a long post.

Actually, this is going to be a story over several posts.

Bear with me. 

Frankly it’s never been about you, my 12 loyal readers.

This has always been my memory box.

And this memory, I want to remember. Forever. 

We chose a Friday for our wedding in Akaroa. 

There were some concerns about the weather, given that three weeks prior it had snowed. And quite heavily.

We had a sort of Plan B. 

A fairly loose one which we didn’t want to implement. 

It meant the guests standing on the balcony looking down while the bride, groom and celebrant stood on the grass.

Not ideal compared to this…..which is exactly what we ended up with.

Not too shabby. 

Someone was most certainly looking out for us (thanks Mum). 

Our day dawned a perfect cloudless sunny sky, with the promise of 25 degrees. 

Better still, no wind.

So we got married.

As with weddings, nothing goes exactly to plan.

But we can talk about that later. 

For all concerned it was a truly absolutely amazing day. 

Apparently the friendliest nicest bunch of wedding guests ever.

Do all guests say that?

Mind you, no surprise to us. We do surround ourselves with the nicest people. Exceedingly lucky that way.

The best food, the nicest day, the best wedding.

I am sure they all say that.

We walked down the aisle accompanied by our kids to the special music we had chosen. 

MoD chose ‘Up Where We Belong’, walking down the aisle with his daughters Taryn and Shelbie on each arm. 

Our son-in-law to-be Daz, was charged with taking a video of the ceremony for our relatives who couldn’t get to NZ.  So generous of him. 

I chose two songs. The first was a bespoke version of ‘Change Your Name’. 

A country song. 

My friends would laugh – and did – as I have always maintained I detest country music.

Myth.

Or maybe my tastes have just matured.

I mean who doesn’t love OUR Keith Urban (said as an Aussie, I don’t care where he was born NZ’ers). 

One Saturday morning in September I had booked my youngest son Michel’s recording studio for the day.

I headed to Melbourne, with the brief to Michael to find the backing track to Change Your Name.

He didn’t.

Instead, that Saturday morning, he learnt the music, played all the instruments for the song, recorded them and then told me to make my way to the studio to record the singing. 

The song became bespoke due to my changing of the words slightly to include how MoD and I met and the fact that I ‘might change my name’.

Which I subsequently have.

During the recording of the instruments Michael came upon an artist, also in one of the studios that morning, and asked her if she would do back up singing for his mums wedding.  

This young lady, Shannon Wilson, agreed to do this for someone’s wedding whom she had never met. Truly amazing, kind and generous. 

Check her out on Spotify under Wils’n. 

I especially love her track ‘Tell Me’.

She sang the chorus as is, as I hadn’t mentioned to Michael that I had changed the words. We got away with it.

So, Change your Name played before I walked down the aisle, as a surprise for MoD.

First down the aisle was the ring bearer, our grandson Finn with his mum and dad, Jaime and Tim.

He fell over once, realised he had an audience and then fell over twice more.

So I am told. 

I think there may have been tears from MoD. 

Michael and Tewh then walked to the end of where the guests were seated and waited for me.

James and Ness walked me down the hill and handed me over to Michael and Tewh, who took me to my soon to be husband. 

It was after all a process. I wanted all my six kids to be part of the ceremony. They are the most important people in my life. Aside from MoD of course. Oh and my besties. And all our friends. Of course.

Anyway, as usual I digress…….Annie’s Song’ by John Denver played. A beautiful timeless tear jerker classic. 

I should tell you that I was initially going to dance down the aisle to ‘This Will Be’ by Natalie Cole. A fun song. You gotta dance to it. Really you do. 

To the horror of all my kids and MoD, even though they disguised their concerns and said ‘whatever you want, of course we will do that with you, it’s your wedding’. 

James did mention he would be happier being the flower girl, throwing rose petals to precede me. 

That may have been a hint. 

In the end I came to my senses and as it turned out couldn’t have danced anyway. More on that later.

During the ceremony the microphone hijacked us but it didn’t matter, although I may have told our lovely celebrant Sharon, it was giving me the shits. Daz fortunately edited that bit out. I did however, upon request, have to post the video on ‘The Book’ later so everyone could hear what was actually said. 

There was laughter.

There were tears. 

MoD did a low five at the end.

The views were spectacular.

We then headed off for post ceremony drinks and photos.

It was hot, hot, hot but a perfect day on the hill. 

We didn’t have a photographer lined up. We thought, second marriage and all that, we wouldn’t worry too much and just rely on people to take photos.

And of course Daz, is a wedding photographer and so is our friend Tina.

We absolutely did not want them working on our wedding day and certainly would not bring some other photographer in. That would be just wrong. 

That was our thinking anyway.

Probably not the smartest thinking in hindsight, but it seemed logical at the time. 

A few days before the wedding, Tina (Tina McGregor Photography) asked if we would like her to take some photos.

Of course we said yes, what a lovely thing to offer, but you aren’t working at our wedding, just a few photos of the family and one of my inner circle please. 

My inner circle of women who have been with me for nearly 40 years. 

Tina and her hubby Duncan took about 300 of THE MOST AMAZING PHOTOS ever.

Well there were probably double that….

We are so grateful.

They were both supposed to be guests and yet worked their butts off.

We love you Tina and Duncan (I adore this photo of us and you)……

Eternally grateful. 

Such a wonderful gift and stunning record of such a beautiful day. 

Between the post ceremony drinks and reception I changed into another wedding dress I had made for the occasion. For the dancing actually. Bottle green. A colour I would have never have picked but my Chch friends Maggie and Gertrud suggested the colour would look good with my eyes. It did. Turns out the zip wasn’t quite up to standard and broke while my new husband and first born were trying to zip ‘er up.

Bestie Kath to the rescue with some safety pins sourced by MoD and eldest son James. 

We finally made our entrance and commenced the reception half hour late. 

Such patient guests. 

But more importantly what an amazing MC ❤️

Smithy – aka Michelle – kept everyone entertained while waiting for us and throughout the day did the most amazing MC job ever. We are so grateful. We knew she would be good but she was above and beyond our wildest expectations.

Smithy you should hire yourself out…….

The food was amazing.  Apparently a lot of it, but we would rather too much than too little. 

Thank you Wayne and your staff at Bully Hayes Akaroa. 

The B.H. staff worked our wedding and then were back in the restaurant the next morning to do the breakfast shift. Staff is hard to come by at the moment. These guys were tremendous. 

Although, somehow the wine and beer didn’t all come out. We had a lot left over. That’s ok. Well probably not ok if you were wanting some non-alcoholic beverages because they seemed to be in short supply that night. And we seemed to have a lot to pack up and take home. We do like to drink at our house but may have already passed on the excess non-alcoholic stuff to anyone who happened to drop by. We may not have been as generous with the alcoholic variety……

The speeches were amazing. 

Thank you Doug (we loved your stories), a surprise speech from Dave (wowsa😀) and from my son Tim (on behalf of my kids – unbelievable!) I think I was so blown away by them all I may not have thanked those guys, particularly my kids who stunned me with their words. I was so proud.

And then of course MoD’s thankyou speech (I thanked him…didn’t I?).

The wedding cake was a big surprise to MoD, he loved it. His two favourite things, Band of Brothers and Ice Hockey. And whilst the top tier was the only one cut up on the night, we can attest to the fact that the second layer of Hummingbird with Pineapple butter cream and the third layer of Carrot with Vanilla butter cream were both yumdiddlyumcious. So can anyone who dropped by our place over the next week.

Thank you also Twisted Flour and Sugar Merchants. 

The wedding dance started with Ed Sheerans ‘Thinking out Loud’ and morphed into ‘Love is in the Air’ by fellow Aussie John Paul Young (thanks Michael) and a Congo line to get everyone up dancing. 

Which they did. 

The DJ was disappointing. 

I know if I had of been up to scratch healthwise I might have been more onto that. We have always intended the music to be a very important part of our wedding. 

But people did dance and enjoy themselves.

I think for most it was more about the socialising. 

Like everyone told us, best wedding ever. 

Best company at a wedding ever.

Best food ever.

Best wedding day ever.

And now I am a Mrs.

Married to a man who makes the brightest days from the darkest nights.

Of course, to be fair, whilst it was wonderful day for us both, for me it was a blur of pain.  And I don’t quite remember all of it. It’s a bit of a bride thing with a little extra thrown in I am told.

More on that in the next stories.