Diego and Cameron’s Wedding
Mt Vernon Lodge
Images by Robin + Andie
‘We both lived in Queenstown at the time, but it took us around six months to actually meet in person, because I moved for a couple of months to Dunedin and Cameron went to Japan for work. But we managed to reconnect when we were both back in Queenstown.
‘We went on our first date to the Walter Peak Station, and we started dating officially the next day.
‘The proposal was Cameron’s idea. We had been together for two years already and were planning our first overseas trip together, to Vanuatu. We were very excited. We were due to fly on 19 March 2020, but that week we started hearing rumours about Covid-19. I still remember when we were at the Auckland Airport ready to check in and we heard on the speakers that New Zealand would enter into lockdown at 11.59 pm that day.
‘After a couple of minutes’ discussing the pros and cons of whether to go or not, we decided we deserved a holiday, and against all the odds we flew to Vanuatu. Our trip was supposed to be for 10 days, then on day two we received a notification that due to Covid-19 our flights had been brought forward, meaning we would need to cut our trip short, so we got busy doing more stuff on the island.
‘While relaxing on Champagne Beach near our accommodation, drinking beers before sunset, suddenly I looked at Cameron and there he was holding the rings. He asked, “Will you marry me?” Of course I said yes! Then, the wedding planning began.
‘As we planned our sunset wedding, we knew we had to ditch the traditional formal wear and opt for something more relaxed and casual. But we also knew we didn’t want to be matchy-matchy. After finalising our wedding vision and colour palette, we started hunting for our outfits.
‘Our ceremony was the most beautiful wedding I’ve ever been to, not because it was ours, but because it was just how we’d planned and dreamed it would be. We got married at sunset.
‘We both wrote our vows in secret. The only person that read our vows prior was our celebrant, who said, “It’s impressive how you guys are so connected, your vows have a similar tone and are just perfect.” Todd, our celebrant, was amazing. He listened to history and put together a beautiful ceremony. It was a masterpiece.
‘We designed our wedding to be as casual as possible. We opted for long tables (like in a big family dinner) and for a buffet service, so our guests could serve themselves at their leisure.
‘The most memorable moments were the speeches, in which Cameron’s dad was the first one up. It was amazing and he even managed to speak a full sentence in Portuguese, followed by friends. Then Cameron delivered an amazing thank you speech. Lastly, I thanked everyone who helped us, and apologised and told everyone I would speak a bit of Portuguese to my mum and my sister as they don’t speak English. And then the tears came out, but pretty much everyone at the wedding cried too, and told me afterwards that it was super emotional hearing me speak in Portuguese even though they couldn’t understand a word I was saying!’
