Ylia & Meg
Te Arai,
New Zealand

My brother and his wife live in Melbourne and got engaged in mid 2020 while the NZ-Australia borders were still closed.

He grew up in Mangawhai and during his teenage years surfed most days at Te Arai beach.

They planned their wedding for early March 2021, making the entirely reasonable assumption that the borders would open by that time. Meg’s family lives in Melbourne and that seemed like more than enough time for COVID to settle down and free travel between the two countries to return.

In December they spent two weeks in managed isolation, then further weeks preparing our parents’ Mangawhai property, booking wedding vendors, and of course getting very excited. 

As weeks passed, the anticipated travel bubble started to seem less and less likely.

They were forced to postpone their big wedding, pushing it back to December 2021. But instead of letting covid entirely spoil the plans, they decided to get married anyway. Make it official now. Party later.

So it was decided. 4th March would be their wedding day. 4th December would be their other wedding day.

Then to everyone’s surprise and dismay, Auckland entered its third lockdown on 28th of February.

FFS.

Luckily Mangawhai was in level 3, so as much as it tried, COVID did not foil Meg and Ylia’s wedding plans.

They set up on an empty Te Arai beach, invited their favourite pastor, video called Meg’s family in Melbourne and said their vows.  

It was magical. 

Bittersweet for the absence of her family, but still, it was really something special.

Meg and Ylia are back in Melbourne and have just had to postpone their big wedding again. It’ll happen one day, and when it does, it’ll be the party for the ages. 

But that’s all good. They got married that day and it was perfect.