Bride and groom bare their affection
IT WAS a wedding like any other, except that the bride and groom, as well as half the guests, were naked.
Naturists Nick and Wendy Lowe tied the knot at the Wellington Naturist Club yesterday, the first naturist wedding to be held at the site.
More than 120 attended the wedding, about half of them wearing clothing, while others watched on completely naked, except for hats sheltering their faces from the searing sunshine.
Lowe said being a naturist was the biggest part of his life, so it was natural for the pair to marry that way. Some invited guests declined their invitation, many more arrived in whatever they felt comfortable in, he said.
Following the ceremony, both naked and clothed photos were taken. Guests were then requested to dress for dinner, before a live band kicked off the dancing, where clothing was optional.
Wendy took to nudity ‘‘ like a duck to water’’ after Andrew intro- duced her to the naturism about six years ago, she said. ‘‘It was one of the first things he said to me: ‘I’m a naturist, how do you feel about it?’ I knew at some point I’d have to at least try it.’’
Her first time at a naturist club in Hawke’s Bay was ‘‘a little nerveracking [but] you quickly realise that people don’t really look. They’re more interested in the person than the body they wear. It becomes more odd wearing clothes.’’
Last month, a Tauranga man’s right to go jogging in the nude was upheld in the High Court after a second appeal. In 2010, Mr Lowe was fined $200 for cycling while nude, but his conviction and sentence was also overturned in the High Court.
‘‘We’ve now got two decisions that have made the point that being naked is not illegal, but you’ve still got to consider time and place,’’ she said. ‘‘ People needn’t be worried that naturists are going to start walking down the main streets of Wellington or Auckland just because they feel like it.’’