Wedding season comes to an end in NZ

---

Blooming heck … what a fantastic, crazy, happy, wonderful time I had on this woorlwind trip back to New Zealand, it was 12 full on days. And as the lady at customs said as I was leaving, ´what a short stay´, little did she know how much I jammed in.

The trip back from Costa Rica took a turn for the best when I discovered I had one free entry into the Air NZ lounge in LAX, thank goodness because that airport is the worst and I had a sweet 8hrs to kill. Arriving into Auckland Thursday morning I headed straight for Petrina and Steve´s place to pick up my bridesmaids dress, after a quick chat I was on my way home. I pretty much headed straight out to get the dress altered, pick up stuff for Petrina´s hens do, visit my Nana´s, and pretty myself with a manicure and pedicure for Sarah and Rhys wedding the following day. I fell into bed that evening. But I was up early the next morning for some more prettying with hair and make up before jumping on the 1pm ferry destined for Waiheke - my bag loaded with an unseemly amount of alcohol. We arrived at Mark´s batch with time for a few pre wedding drinks before boarding our private bus to the wedding at the Dunes. We were giving Rhys and his groomsmen some woohoo´s out the window while they took some photos only to realize the entire wedding party was on the other side of the road looking at us strangely … what an entrance! The wedding was fantastic and Sarah walked out to blue skies looking beautiful, with an hour glass strapless gown. The ceremony was lovely and the reception a good laugh … loads of vino, laughter and dancing. Post wedding we had a few drinks at the ´batch´, where Ida and I took a dip in the water feature and sat in the tree, the air bed called around 3am.

A Bloody Mary was the order of the day, accompanied by a full breakfast. Happy 30th Birthday to ME!!! Took a few calls from friends and then we were off to Sarah and Rhys post wedding BBQ, ribs a plenty, it was a lovely sunny affair. Sarah was even kind enough to give us the leftovers, so the troops showed up back at the batch with an outrageous amount of meat and salad; somehow it did all get eaten over the rest of the weekend. People started to arrive for my little birthday bash - Miss Cassidy, Chloe and Nick, Petrina and Nicola and Quentin... the seen was set for antics. Bash highlights include; speeches on chairs, contemporary dance moves, cake cutting, sake, sausages, swimming, lovely gifts, a late night call from Kara and being not locked out of the second house. Clearly woke up feeling a little worse for wear, but we wound back our watches (the end of day light savings) and we had 1 more hour to prepare for Petrina´s hens do.

Another Bloody Mary to kick off the morning, this time accompanied by wedding BBQ leftovers … breakfast of champions. It was a cracking afternoon; Petrina was dressed as a fairy; tiara, tutu, wings and a wand, plus we had a 20 liter container filled with sangria. After some nibbles and a cup of sangria for the road we headed to Passage Rock vineyard for a tasting and food. The poor guy at Passage Rock really got it …. Roberto was from Hungry, porn mustache aside he was pretty cute, which of course made it worse. He didn’t come out for the last tasting as he was concerned his girlfriend, who was working inside, would get jealous, brilliant. We had a marvelous spread of food at the cafe along with some of the wines we tasted, then we headed back to the batch. Petrina picked up some fish and chips and that was dinner with the remaining sangria. Clearly everyone missed the 6.45 ferry, but we got everyone off for the 8.15. My lasting memory of the day would have to be Petrina´s continued impression of a striper some male friends use to get when we were younger, ´bad boys, bad boys, what ya gona do, what ya gona do when they come for you´. Surprisingly I didn’t feel too terrible Monday morning and it wasn’t too much of a drama cleaning up, so Ida and I headed for a nice and well deserved breakfast up the road before I jumped on the 11am ferry, thus ending the Waiheke Weekend Extravaganza

That afternoon I went for lunch with Sarah before she returned to Welly, went to a cool place on Ponsonby Road called The Living Room, only disturbing aspect was there were four TVs play sports in there, yikes. Had a nice quiet Tuesday, then Mum and Dad took me out for my birthday dinner, went to a lovely place in Birkenhead called the Gumdigger, real kiwian food, delicious. Unfortunately, I ended up at the doctors on Wednesday morning since my asthma had flared up due to all the pollen, but I got all the drugs in me and came right. From Wednesday afternoon I was out at Petrina´s doing what I could to assist with preparations for as Reay put it, the wedding of the year! With bridesmaid dress in tow, Petrina collected me from Onehunga after lunch with Nat, to discuss her up coming visit to the UK. We were back and forth to Dury, Mare´s place, Otahuhu, the cake shop, Jane Yeh´s (one too many times since the dress was not ready to be picked up when is was suppose to be!), nail appointments, dropping flowergirls dress or shoes, or both off… it was all go and Petrina was a picture of calm through out these final days. The rehearsal on Friday evening was a different matter, me having not been to a Catholic school proceeded to call the alter a stage and asked if the water feature was going to be moved, it was some kind of christening thing, whoops. The Priest was not in a very good mood, and by the end of it everyone was suitably freaked out by it, well I was and I think Petrina´s sister was as the Priest gave her a few stern words regarding her reading. We went out for a lovely dinner post rehearsal at a local Thai place, CURRY, then back to Dury, where we watched a funny BBC programme called The Longest Week of My Life. Brilliant comedy about a couple getting married a few classic quotes, will have to try and find it on DVD.

Wedding Day … everyone was up by 7am, and hair and make up started at 8am, we were on! The flowers girls arrived at 11am and it was havoc with little ones screaming around the house. Mare, mother of the bride, arrived at noon to assist Reay getting Petrina in to her dress, then we were all dressed and ready to go. We took only a few photos before Petrina jumped into the waiting limo, but we couldn’t leave as all the flower girls needed to pee. Once we jumped in the limo, one of them lost their flowers, ekkkk, but we soon located them and we were on our way. There we were cruising down the motorway, us being able to see out, others not being able to see in. We arrived early at the church, there were still many people milling around out side and arriving in taxis, so we had to hang a little longer in the limo. Game on, the Priest laid down the rules, then I was first off the mark with my flower girl… in a disastrous turn of events, my spray of orchids fell out just as I reached the front but I was able to jam them back into the bouquet. Petrina looked phenomenal walking down the isle and sitting on the alter, stage, thing, with her veil streaming out beside her. The ceremony went perfectly, of course with the usual not being able to slide the ring on scenario. And sadly since it was a proper Catholic wedding there was no kiss the bride, but we made them do that as we left in the limo. The Domain was the venue for the photos, where we all jumped out of the limo leaving the bouquets behind … I ran after, ´stop the limo!´, some passersby managed to get the drivers attention thank goodness. While we were doing that the guests jumped on the bus and headed to Dury. Disaster struck for that lot, the driver tried to go down the driveway only to get stuck, apparently they got the next door neighbors tracker to pull the bus our of the ditch … too funny. The nibbles and drinks around the pool were nice and relaxing before entering the marquee which was art itself - chandlers, fairy lights, up lights, silk lining, the works. The top table was on one hell of a slant though, and the kids running past sent it shaking. One glass of champagne smashed, so there was a warning and request of no running. 10 mins later, 5 glasses of champagne came crashing down, mainly over me. Lucky I was wearing black and lucky it wasn’t the bride! The speeches were very emotional, and Steve had the entire tent in tears, happy tears. The cake was cut and Steve twirled Petrina around the dance floor ending with a dip and kiss, lovely. So that ended the sensible part of the evening. There was much more dancing before we all headed back into town on the bus. While on the bus someone thought that rather than going to a bar in the city we should get some booze and pay the driver to drive around for longer … clearly I vetoed that idea instantly. We ended up at Tabac and then back at Mark and Ida´s. I woke up on the couch feeling very touch and go, but pulled it together and headed back out to Dury for the post wedding, photo watching, present opening, vino drinking gathering. It was very hard to say bye late that afternoon.

PHOTO LINK

My final day in Auckland was a bit of a blur getting ready to set off on my final 3 weeks before heading home, and I am now carrying two bags, one of stuff I have collected over the last 8 months. It was a long way back to Costa Rica, however I chanced it again and used an expired Qantas Club Card to get into the lounge at LAX for my 8hr stop over, I hate stop overs in LA.

Come on Panama.

---