John and Karena

Real Wedding - 22 January 2005

We had talked about marriage for awhile before getting engaged and even picked the ring out together then one night while I was cooking dinner John got down on one knee and proposed. We decided on a wedding date of 22 January 2005 which gave us a year to plan it. After looking around at reception venues, we selected Solway Park at the Copthorne Resort and drew up a guest list of 45-50.

We chose our wedding colours to be blue and gold and this helped to us to make many of our decisions. I decided to make our invitations myself and even did my own flowers using yellow and blue flowers which turned out great - if I do say so myself!

My dress was a white off the shoulder gown with beading down the front and a little train out the back. I also wore a long veil especially suitable for a church wedding. The flower girls were also dressed in white dresses but with a blue trim and the bridesmaids wore blue in keeping with our theme. Both of which I sewed myself.

The groom wore a fabulous black dinner suit with gold tie (to fit into our wedding colours) as did the bestmen. The page boys also wore black suits but had bow ties of black and gold and looked very smart.

I arrived in cars which we had been kindly lent from friends and which were also a great colour match to the rest of wedding - great coincidence for us!

It was a very memorable ceremony for us both especially as we said our vows to each other. We also included a candle lighting to unite John and I along with my three children. We each lit a small candle of our own then all at the same time lit our joint personalised candle.

The reception went really well and everyone enjoyed themselves. The speeches were emotional for us despite the bestman's best efforts to get us all laughing! We then had a very romantic first dance as a married couple and also time to take a moment out together (albeit infront of all of our guests). The dance was followed by my two daughters doing a special dance which they had been practicing for a few months. We felt very honoured.

It was really special for us how much our families helped out. As well as moral support and advice, several members made an extra special effort:

- Brides mum made the cake;

- Brides brother was DJ;

- Brides sister was hairdresser; and

- Grooms sister in law's sister took the photos.

Could we have been any luckier?

We wanted to have some of the more traditional aspect of weddings in our day and chose to have a church wedding, I wore a white dress and followed the rule of "something old,- new,- borrowed - blue". John also stayed away night before. Doing this made the wedding all the more special for us.

We spent the first week after the wedding spending time with the children as it was the last week of the school holidays then we spent 1 night in Tauranga and 2 nights in Auckland.

Our advice on married life: GREAT!!!!! We couldn't be happier. We both didn't want to go back to work. Getting married was the best decision ever.