Brother saves the wedding day
After saying their vows and signing the papers, newlyweds Stefan and Christine Wernli began their blissful walk away from the ceremony.
They said ‘‘I do’’ in Waterfall Bay in the Marlborough Sounds on February 12, surrounded by family and friends who had trekked over from Europe.
The couple were shocked when their guests started ‘‘screaming’’ their names, and immediately thought someone had fallen off the jetty.
But as they turned around, they saw Stefan’s brother in the water, ‘‘fishing’’ out the freshly signed wedding papers, which had blown away in the wind.
Stefan, from Switzerland and Christine, from Germany, had their first date in Waterfall Bay. They got engaged there five years ago.
For the couple, who had lived in New Zealand for six years and work in the hospitality industry, holding their wedding at Waterfall Bay was a ‘‘no brainer’’.
The bay was ‘‘really calm and beautiful’’ for the ceremony, which took place on the jetty, surrounded by native bush, with a little beach and 100-year-old bach in the background.
‘‘It went well and all as planned,’’ Christine said.
‘‘And then when we walked out, that’s when the papers flew away,’’ she said.
They didn’t know what was going on as the crowd frantically waved them back.
‘‘And then we realised that someone was in the water, we assumed someone fell, or jumped,’’ she said.
They went back down to the jetty and saw that it was Stefan’s brother Adrian.
‘‘Then we realised he was fishing something out of the water and then someone told us what had happened.
‘‘We were super shocked, it happened so fast, we didn’t really realise what was going on but it was so funny.’’
They agreed he was the ‘‘hero of the day’’.
They had signed everything and it was all in a folder, ready for the celebrant to take away, when ‘‘suddenly the wind did its thing’’.
‘‘It was not only the original, it was also the copies that had blown away,’’ she said.
Adrian managed to rescue the papers and they dried them. The papers were still legitimate and they were officially married, they said.
‘‘We don’t have to do it again,’’ she said.
A waiter gave Adrian a new shirt to wear for the reception.
‘‘I’m sure we’ll talk about it in 50 years,’’ Christine said.
‘‘Apart from that, everything went to plan,’’ Stefan said.