Marlborough Express - Weekend Express
Top 10 battle for $27k free wedding
From their 20s through to their 40s, a total of 37 Marlborough couples entered the Marlborough Big Fat Free Wedding competition to try to win their dream wedding for free.
The Facebook event collected about 70 nominations, with some couples nominated multiple times.
It took about three hours on Sunday for organisers Rachel Tau’alupe, Bex Gardiner, Roxanne Phipps and Ruth Thompson to shortlist the top 10 couples to continue the adventure and try to win the $27,000 all-inclusive package.
Tau’alupe, who is also a wedding celebrant, said it was a real challenge to decide between the candidates.
‘‘It was not an easy job. We have got a real mixture of couples, the youngest couple are 20 and 21 and the more mature is 40.
‘‘We have people who are just starting their life as a couple and couples who have been together for years and years, who already have kids.’’
For some of them, wedding is the last box to tick before they can feel like a complete family, she said.
‘‘We also had a lot of couples who were financially not able to afford a wedding, putting their money towards their children or setting up a home.
‘‘Everyone’s story is quite different but all the couples were deserving, it was really hard to pick and chose who was more deserving than the next,’’
Tau’alupe said.
Organisers made their choice based on the originality of the applications, looking for something that really capture their attention.
‘‘We had some really awesome videos submissions,’’ Tau’alupe said.
‘‘One couple recreated their story of how they met, how they get together, the proposal . . . and they had their kids’ voice over the video.
‘‘We agreed instantly to have them in our Top 10.’’
Organisers received poems, PowerPoint presentations and ‘‘beautiful letters’’ from family to support couples’ nominations, explaining how deserving they were.
‘‘People shared a lot of information about themselves and it actually surprised me to see how open and honest people were and how much they shared in their submissions,’’ Tau’alupe.
On Sunday, a judging panel of celebrant Lorraine Eade, radio presenter Tasha Knox and real estate agent Michael Rea would then interview the couples before whittling them down to five.
The top five couples will then go to a public vote on the Marlborough Big Fat Free Wedding Facebook page.
The overall winner will be announced on February 20.