Proposal: We had been together for three years. Sam was going back to Jersey, UK to play rugby. My parents have both passed on and my brothers told me if I wanted to go with him we had to at least be engaged. Sam wanted to take me out to dinner before he left, to say goodbye. He surprised me with a dinner at the top of the Sky Tower at Orbit revolving restaurant. He sat me down and told me he had spoken to my brothers and that he wasn’t ready for marriage. I knew this would mean I wouldn’t be able to leave with him and I got really upset. His aim was to make me cry, and he succeeded. Then, he asked if I wanted desert. The waiter arrived with a covered plate. He pulled off the lid and written in chocolate were the words “Will you marry me” and there was a diamond ring. I cried again, snot and all. Sam got down on one knee and proposed.
Rings: My cousin, who was also my maid of honour, helped Sam choose my engagement ring. It’s from Royal in Kingsland, which specialises in contemporary jewellery. I like being different. It’s yellow gold with etchings on it as part of the design. White gold encases the diamond.
Theme: We wanted to incorporate colours we like to our wedding day. Sam likes green and I like blue so we decided peacock feathers incorporated both those colours perfectly. I had the feathers in my bouquet and the bridesmaids had them in their corsages. The colour was continued through to the bridesmaid dresses and the ribbon on our cake and table decorations.
Dress: Because we lived in Jersey for a year I bought my dress from the UK. It’s an Augusta Jones design. I didn’t want to have a typical strapless dress so I had an organza floral strap ordered in to add detail to the dress and make it unique.
Cake: Sam chose to go with cupcakes for our cake. It worked out cheap because we used a friend of a friend who only charged us $2 per cupcake (usually $5 each). We had a chocolate fountain at the wedding as well so guests could dunk their marshmallows, fruit and cream puffs.
I do: We really wanted to get married in a chapel church but found it difficult to find one that would allow us to bring our own pastor. We married at the beautiful St George’s Anglican Church in Epsom, Auckland, and were allowed my Christian pastor to conduct the ceremony. We went with the traditional vows because one of us lacks memory, even repeating after Derek was a challenge for Sam (laughs). Our reception was at One Tree Hill.
Something special: My mum had told me, before she passed away, that the fine mat they brought from Samoa was for me when I got married. My aunty had remembered and we had the mat displayed at the church during the ceremony. It was very special to me. I also wore my mother’s pearls and her rings wrapped around my wrist as a bracelet, to go along the lines of something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.
Honeymon: Instead of wedding gifts, we asked our guests just to donate to our honeymoon fund. Sam and I went back to Samoa, that’s where our roots are. I hadn’t been back for 21 years and Sam had only visited once for three days.
Advice for others: Cut costs wherever you can. Our budget was NZ$20,000 for our entire wedding, we managed to stay under budget because we used friends and relatives for flowers andcake making. Our friend’s wedding present to us was free entertainment from his band Three Houses Down. Things like that really made our wedding special, knowing we had friends and family who helped us. I advise all couples to tap into their connections; it not only saves you money but allows others to be part of your day, too.
