Eternal LOVE

Aucklanders Janine and Mike share their own love story – and it’s worthy of a Hollywood rom-com!

Three whirlwind months of dating, three precious gems and three weddings … Mike and Janine’s love story is a true continental fairytale. After meeting on a tour bus in Europe – she the tour manager, he the driver – they both instantly knew they’d found The One.

Fast forward just three short months and Mike dropped to one knee, asking Janine to marry him. “He didn’t expect me to say yes!” she laughs. “It was very spur of the moment and romantic, but that’s us. He once drove 15 hours from Switzerland to London just to spend one night with me.”

“It was 16 and a half,” corrects Mike, grinning. Janine then travelled with Mike to his native Ireland to tell his family the happy news. “We told them just before we went to Midnight Mass – by the end of the service, the entire village knew,” she remembers with a smile.

Knowing the ring needed to be as special as the woman wearing it, Mike scoured Europe to find the perfect stones – two diamonds from Amsterdam and a stunning emerald from Florence. “It had to be an emerald,” Janine says. “I was marrying a man from the Emerald Isle.” Three ceremonies later – they had to have two in Ireland to convince the priest to marry them – the pair were wed and remain head over heels in love 25 years later.

“I still love my ring so much,” says Janine. “It has so many good memories – how it was crafted, the wait for it and then receiving it. Mike has a really good soul and it reminds me of that.”