 From very early on in our relationship I knew that I would marry Sarah. We had a connection that blew me out of the water. It was something very special that I had never encountered before and it had changed my entire perspective on life. Instead of being a typical boy, taking risks and thinking I would live forever - I now realised I had something I truly didn't want to lose. Something that made me think twice about doing silly things and planning for the future.
In the end, I decided that I was going to propose to Sarah on the day of her 23rd birthday - 15 July 2003 . Earlier that morning I had organised to meet her Dad for lunch - I told him I was "co-incidentally" in the area and thought we could catch up for a bite to eat. I'm sure he knew straight away why I had asked to meet him, but he played his cards smart and made me sweat, mumble and stumble my way through twenty minutes of small talk before I w
With the first hurdle over, I now had to actually make my proposal to Sarah. I organised the proposal to happen at Bouquet Garni, a very nice restaurant in Wellington . I had been looking for rings high and low, but none of them had that "wow" factor I was looking for. In the end I ordered in a diamond from South Africa and decided that I would let her design the ring, that way she would have the ring of her dreams and there was no way I could muck it up!
 I also had called in a favour from a friend that worked with Sarah and had asked her organise a day off work afterwards as I wanted to take Sarah to a hotel room where we could sleep in as I knew the excitement and inevitable phone calls throughout the night would mean we weren't going to bed early.
That night, I left Sarah at home to get ready for dinner and went to the pub to write and memorise my proposal over a few beers.
That done, I picked Sarah up and took her to dinner. Unknown to her I had hired an Opera Singer, Brendon Mercer, to sing Andrea Boccellis "Con Te Partiro" with the guitar as I asked her to marry me. After a few nervous dry retches in the bathroom, it was time to do it. I still remember the first few notes of the guitar as the singer entered the restaurant and played the song in front of everyone while I proposed to my girlfriend.
Before I knew it, my speech was over, Sarah had said yes, the diamond was out and sparkling in the candlelight and the restaurant had poured us a glass of very fine complimentary champagne - lovely!
So now we were engaged as of 15 July 2003 and the hard work began almost immediately.
Within a month or so we had settled on April 17 2004 as the date. We were a little worried about the weather at that time of year, but November 2004 was too far away and any earlier would be pushing it financially both for us and my overseas family who I wanted to attend.
I think for a couple of first timers with little to zero experience at organising a wedding, we did remarkably well. We had all the major hurdles done and dusted in a very short period of time - within the first 2 months the ceremony and reception venues, cake, photographer, DJ, flowers and other major items had been booked and confirmed.
 The smaller bits and pieces were done in the months following Christmas which made all the difference. Without having to worry about the big ticket items, we were able to concentrate on making sure the finer details of the invitations (which did take some time to get right), favours, place cards etc were looked after. One saving grace was that I had spoken to all my overseas family and informally invited them to the wedding. That took the pressure off getting the invites out ASAP as everyone knew the details of the Wedding and could plan well in advance.
I think also that we were really lucky to be surrounded by some really top quality professionals. We certainly couldn't afford the top price bracket for all the services we hired, but the people that helped with our wedding were all true professionals. One example of this is the cars - from the start Sarah had said she really wasn't fussed about the cars and instead of spending heaps of money on fancy, boutique cars, we spoke to a rental agency and asked to have three cars of the same model for our wedding day. They made it very clear that we would have a lot of trouble getting three cars of the same model and colour for the same day - but come April 17, I was riding in one of three identical late model Ford XR6s - silver and beautiful!!!!! It was heaven and just one example of the amazing service one of our professionals provided us with.
 On the day my best man and groomsmen met at our place and Sarah got ready at her parents. I was in a panic as my speech wasn't ready and I didn't want to adhoc it later that night and spent some frantic minutes typing it out and sweating under the pressure. I got it typed before the photographer arrived, but there was no time to rehearse. We went out to the Basin Reserve for our pre wedding "boy" photos and had a blast. The photographer (Murray Lloyd) is the kind of guy that prefers energetic photos, photos capturing the real moments of a wedding, not just the manufactured poses that you see quite often. We all thoroughly enjoyed it, but all too soon, we were back at the apartment and tying white ribbon to my wedding car (we live in an inner city apartment and the car was parked down the road, so we got a few strange looks in our suits).
As the hour got closer and closer, I got more and more nervous. I started dry heaving - very loudly which the boys all thought was hysterical! My Best Man brought some "Rescue Remedy" which seemed to help, but in the car on the way to the chapel, I was dry heaving more and more - at one point I thought it would continue on throughout the ceremony.
However, cometh the hour, cometh the man, so they say and when the time came to stand at the end of the altar, my dry heaves had come under control.
Surprisingly, I can remember quite a bit about the ceremony, which a lot of people said would be over before you knew it. Fittingly, we had hired Brendon to sing "Con Te Partiro" while she walked down the Aisle.
Sarah and her father didn't appear at the end of the aisle until right at the end when it came time for her to make her entrance. I know this is the kind of thing you expect to hear and that it may sound corny, but I really did have to close my eyes and take a deep breath. As soon as I saw her, I felt a strange feeling wash over me - it wasn't anything else I had felt before and is really difficult to explain. It really felt like a cross between losing my breath after jumping into a really cold pool of water and like someone throwing a brick into your chest, but without the pain. She was that beautiful.
The Wedding ceremony was fairly traditional, we had a Presbyterian Minister marry us because we're not the sort to be overly fussed with our religions and wanted to be able to customise our ceremony, balancing the religious aspect with a more modern approach that reflected both Sarah and I as a couple.
Unfortunately, the thing I worked on the most did not go to plan and was cause for a bit of laughter. During our three or four rehearsals of the vows, I had continually missed the cue for me to say I will and I do. I was so intent on listening to the vows because I wanted to be consciously entering into my marriage and not just parroting the words. However, during the ceremony, I was listening so intently that I missed my cue and before I realised it, I had abruptly jumped in just a little bit too late with a quick "Oh, I do!". Everyone thought that was pretty funny and Sarah's arched eyebrow as she said "I do" provoked even more laughter. The great thing about our wedding was that we were conscious, willing and active participants - which I know sounds weird, but I didn't want to be simply going through the motions to get to the end result, I wanted to take the tradition in actively, not like a deer in the headlights.
 The candle lighting ceremony was wonderful. My mother and father probably haven't been in the same room for 25 years as my Dad lives in Australia and my Mum in Taranaki, so while they kept in touch over the phone, to actually see them doing the single act of lighting a candle really brought a little bit of closure to the divorce that had dominated my life.
During our meetings with our minister, he had taught us the meaning behind the vows and the importance of the kiss to seal the covenant we had just entered into and when he said the words you may now kiss the bride, we took full notice of his advice and had an entirely awesome (and appropriate) wedding kiss to start our new lives with.
During the signing of the register, Brendon sang the classic wedding song Ave Maria, which was a truly memorable moment given the Chapels architecture and vaulted roof. It was a really special touch which Brendon threw in for us.
 After our minister had given us and the congregation some words of advice on relationships, communication and forgiveness we fairly raced down the aisle - however, a quick sharp "slow down" whispered through clenched teeth by Sarah's mum, slowed us down before we got too far and when we got to the end of the aisle, before the door, we stopped for another kiss - to a second round of applause.
The scene outside the chapel was chaotic, as naturally, everyone wanted to congratulate us and get photos of us. Probably the only thing we would do differently is to organise the time directly after the ceremony a bit more. People were organising family photos and wanted you to be here there and everywhere. Unfortunately, we had our ceremony quite late in the day ( 4pm ) and we just didn't have time for everyone to get photos of absolutely everyone else. In the end we managed to get away pretty quick smart, both Sarah and I knew we had limited time (the benefit of good communication!) and so we were off to Parliament with just enough time to get our photos done before the light left us.
The photos again were great, Murray was a fun guy to pose for and talked to us as well as photographing us and making suggestions for different shots that were enjoyable and definitely not a chore.
 We arrived at the reception venue at 6:30pm and spent about half an hour outside waiting for everyone to get seated. This was fine as the ladies had to sort out some finishing touches to thier appearances and we had time to go over the entrance and order of service with our very nervous MC.
Our first formal entrance as Husband and Wife was fantastic - imagine every person that you love in the world standing and clapping and cheering - it was amazing, heartwarming - one of the real highlights for me.
We got straight into the speeches as it was 7pm by this time and people would be getting hungry (and inebriated). The speeches were great, they were opened by our MC who facilitated the night brilliantly and had co-ordinated with the reception venue to ensure everyone knew the housekeeping tips (cars could be left overnight, what was on the bar, what events would be happening throughout the night etc).
Throughout the preparation of the last few months I knew that we had pretty much everything down pat and organised - except for the first dance. Neither myself nor Sarah knew how to dance properly and the one or two practices we had at home we disastrous at best. However, we knew how to spin and dip and with a few whispered directions ("ok, now I'm going to spin you out and then dip when you come back in") we did very well and pulled off our first dance in style and class. We had picked The Rolling Stones classic Wild Horses - which I knew my Dad loved and I that had drunkenly sang to Sarah on one or two nights out together.
All in all the entire day was great. We did have one or two close friends just not turn up without even so much as a courtesy call, which was interesting, considering we were paying a not insignificant amount of money per head for them, but I think that if that is the only thing you have to worry about, then you must have had a pretty good wedding.
 When it comes to advice for anyone now planning their wedding, I think the thing I learnt was that when you care about something so much, you do tend to get quite deep into the nitty gritty of all aspects of what you are planning. Therefore, it is natural for you to find yourself debating (okay, arguing) over some pretty minor things with your fiancé. My advice is that if you find yourself in this position, tell your partner that you need a break and go and make a coffee, go clear some emails, go for a walk to the dairy, anything, as long as you are not using your head for at least half an hour and you have calmed down. I found that Sarah and I had differences of opinions over the seating plan and other less important details, but following a half hour break (from the problem, not necessarily each other), we were able to come back to the table and see either a very reasonable and logical compromise, or one of us would simply say "oh, ok, well I guess thats alright".
My other piece of advice is for the boys. Get involved. If you don't involve yourself from day one, you have no right to start complaining when things start going in a direction you don't like. Besides, this really is a bonding experience as well. We saved almost every penny we spent on the wedding as we wanted to avoid borrowing as much as possible (although some assistance from Sarah's parents helped immensely), we spent almost a year living for just one day. Every night we were revising our budget, trimming everything except the essentials from our spending, checking the internet (a great tool!) and doing things like making our favours and writing, folding and stacking invites. At the end of it all, not only were we married, but we had just been through some of the toughest months we had faced yet and felt like we had really achieved something together.
Finally, married life now is great - the pressure is off and we now know that we have the rest of our lives to plan for and enjoy. It has been a bit weird, to realise that you're now married and that yes, it is for life, but also it makes you closer. My wife and I have this funny little high five that we do while saying "Le Breton power!" and the first time Sarah said it, it made me so happy, she took my name and we're now a real team. We're not boyfriend and girlfriend (something that can end at anytime), we've undergone a centuries old ceremony and tradition that has bonded us together for life. That kind of feeling not only humbles you, but inspires you I think.
I hope you have found this story interesting or even maybe helpful, Sarah and I would like very much to wish anyone out there currently planning a wedding the very best of luck - you're entering into the most amazing experience of your lives and about to embark on an awesome journey together as a stronger, more close knit team than ever before. Good luck!
|
