MP’s beach (re)union
Invercargill-based Labour list MP Liz Craig married Department of Conservation staffer Philip Melgren at the weekend, on the beach where they first met.
The two have known each other since they were teenagers hanging out with the same group of friends in New Plymouth. He had a teal-green Volkswagen Mini they used to knock about in.
A date to Pizza Hut didn’t exactly escalate things.
‘‘We were both so shy it got really awkward and so went back to just being friends,’’ Craig said.
They reconnected after her marriage of 27 years to David Craig ended, shortly after she moved to Invercargill.
Melgren had been living in the city for 16 years and was working as a senior DOC ranger.
His longstanding title – this bodes well – is DOC Murihiku’s partnerships manager.
He proposed while they were lying under a toetoe bush after a long day cutting grass at her property in the Catlins. ‘‘I was in my gumboots, covered in grass clippings, and my hair was a complete wreck,’’ Craig said.
Will you marry me? he asked. Yes, she said. ‘‘And then we went back to the house and cleaned the Weed Eaters.’’
She has two sons, Nick (23) and Jack (20), and he has a daughter, Katie (14).
They couple married at Onaero Beach, just outside New Plymouth, where her mother and grandmother grew up. It is also where they first met.
Just their immediate families and a few old friends from back in the day were with them.
The couple were married by Ross Bay, Phil’s cousin, but perhaps more widely known as the Anglican Bishop of Auckland.