Wedding hitch after the storm

When Nelsonian Toby Leadbetter showed his bride-to-be the Boathouse, it was love at first sight.

Little did Leadbetter know that more than a year after the venue had been secured, he would be looking for somewhere else – and fast.

Ex-cyclone Fehi’s wrath on Thursday closed one of Nelson’s historical buildings and popular event location.

Leadbetter and his fiancee, Laura Harnett were to be hosting their wedding reception at the site a week later.

‘‘As soon as my fiance saw it, she’s from New Plymouth, she fell in love with it and I’ve always loved it growing up here, so it was a no-brainer really to have it there.’’

‘‘But yeah, things changed pretty quickly.’’

The couple had arrived in New Zealand after working in London for a number of years, deciding to move back to their home country for their wedding and their future.

When the weather turned nasty in Nelson, Harnett was in New Plymouth with her friends and family enjoying a hen’s party while Leadbetter stayed in his home town.

He said he found out through social media that things weren’t great for the Boathouse.

‘‘I was looking at all the videos getting put up around Rocks Rd, then the one of the Boathouse got put up and I was like, ‘Holy sh*t, that’s our venue!’.’’

Leadbetter got into action straight away.

He rang the site expecting the worst and he wasn’t let down.

He was told the venue would be ‘‘out of action for months’’.

His next call was to his fiancee. ‘‘Are you sitting down?’’, he asked her. He told her about the state of the Boathouse.

‘‘She was a little upset. She had her heart set on it, she loved it as soon as her eyes set on it.’’

He said it was ‘‘probably a good thing she was away because it meant I could just get on to it’’.

And he did. His next two days were ‘‘bloody stressful’’.

The Boathouse did what they could to help along with their other wedding service providers and a new venue was eventually found.

The couple expect to to be saying ‘‘I do’’ this weekend afterall.

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