Back when March didn’t suck so much
get married. Great. Because I knew the perfect spot.
A place I considered the only beach in the world. A place that has deposited black sand into crevices I never new existed, a place that has a long family history. Port.
She wasn’t convinced. I leaned over and banged one ear, years of black sand fell out, she still wasn’t convinced.
I took her for a quiet weekend away and we walked up into the mountains that overlook the powerful surf beach at Port Waikato.
Done. She fell in love then and there. From high up in the mountains we could spot the small community hall where we’d end up paying a few hundred bucks to host the reception.
I pointed out the small community gardens in the distance where 50 bucks would reserve our spot for the ceremony. Fifty bucks would also reserve the full payment, of 50 bucks.
A truly DIY, down-to-earth wedding dream.
I spent the next four months filling our home with ‘‘on special’’ 24-boxes of Lion Red, Speight’s and Waikato.
I chose my outfit of pants, shirt and jandals from Farmers – red dot sale.
We Googled ‘‘Port Waikato celebrant’’ and found the only one there – Mike. He was tall, cheap and cheerful.
We hired stuff from party hire places, a spitroast company was signed up, I found a guy with an old American pick-up truck to be our wedding car, a box of beer and some whitebait and that was sorted.
The wife and I did some DIY art stuff, decoration stuff, and also did the mandatory stress-out over who would sit where.
On the 16th we set up the garden and hall and I even hung some fancy fairy light things.
March 16th evening – my fiance´ e and I went to our separate accommodation full of excitement and false promises about having a quiet night.
And now here I am. Standing at the altar with the dry horrors, but the biggest smile as my gorgeous teenage crush walks down the aisle/grass bank.
It all goes off without a hitch – 70 of our best friends and mandatory family are there to celebrate with us and my anti-perspirant has held up.
A mate with a camera took our wedding snaps, Dad cooked some whitebait fritters on the barbie. Brotherin-law got people in the mood with his DJ gear.
The spit roast is still talked about to this day, speeches didn’t drag on, we nailed our little rock’n’roll first dance and 95 per cent of the wedding guests danced the entire bloody night.
My wife and I were some of the last to leave, not back to some beach-front villa, those don’t exist at Port Waikato.
Instead we bunkered down in a single-sized cabin at the Top 10 Holiday Park. Barely room to swing a cat.
Eight years ago, March was a bloody
brilliant month.
I met my now wife at Bay of Plenty Polytechnic when I was 18 and ever since it’s been one of those cheesy teenage love stories.