Dashed wedding turnaround

A Clyde couple who had to cancel their wedding because of financial pressures with a baby on the way will get to walk down the aisle after all.

Ashleigh Sinclair and Jai Beck were among 500 people attending the inaugural Central Otago Wedding Fair in Alexandra this month.

A dream wedding package valued at more than $15,000 is up for grabs.

Sinclair, 24, said she ‘‘bawled her eyes out’’ when they were announced the winners of the wedding prize.

‘‘I couldn’t believe it. It was seriously amazing. I bought tickets to the fair so long ago and was just hoping we would win that dream wedding because it would change our lives.’’

The power of positive thinking had paid off, she said.

‘‘I am a nurse at Dunstan Hospital and had been going around work saying ‘I’m going to win a dream wedding tomorrow’ being silly. It is super, super cool.’’

The pair had planned to get married in March 2018 but when they fell pregnant they cancelled the wedding.

‘‘With the baby due in February we cancelled everything. There was no way we could afford a wedding. We thought we might do something like a barbecue or something like that, so to win the wedding package really was like a dream come true. It was amazing.’’

The wedding would bring some joy to both their families after having each suffered loss in recent years, she said.

Sinclair lost her brother in an accident two years ago, and Beck’s father died when he was 16 years old. The pair had been together coming up three years but known each other since they were children.

‘‘It’s just really nice we have finally had something cool happen to both of us ... our families are so stoked.’’

Kai was her brother’s friend, and their love rekindled after he passed away in 2015, she said.

Wedding fair co-organiser Alyssa Drake said with a huge turnout and people attending the fair from all around the country, she was ‘‘stoked’’ a local couple won the wedding package.