The most welcome of wedding crashers

Pete and Jacqui Jones' happy day, as captured by a couple of tourists from Wales. Picture / Mike and Carol Wallace

One of the highlights of a holiday in New Zealand for a Welsh couple was a wedding on the foreshore in Russell. They weren't invited - they were simply in the right place at the right time - but they couldn't resist taking photos.

And now Mike and Carol Wallace have shared those photos with the happy couple.

Mike and Carol contacted the Northland Age, hoping they could identify the bride and groom, and it did not take much detective work to find Pete and Jacqui Jones, courtesy of Russell resident Sue Western.

Mike and Carol said they had spent eight weeks in New Zealand, something they had wanted to do since they met 13 years ago, their itinerary including five days in the Bay of Islands, staying just outside Paihia.

"At our age neither of us are up to the wonderful treks and hikes, so we took the ferry across to Russell, and enjoyed the day so much that we took two further trips just to bask in the ambience of the place," they said.

"On our final day in Russell we were walking along the harbour front when we came across a wedding being held in a large garden, and, being tourists, we took a few pictures to remind ourselves of the day in Russell.

"On our return to North Wales we purchased a digital frame so we could relive the wonderful times in New Zealand through a rolling display of the photographs (all 958 of them), and every time the pictures of the wedding appeared we thought we should somehow share them with the bride and groom, so we set out on a quest to see if we could locate the happy couple."

It had been a "a bit of a mission," but eventually the Northland Age pointed them in Pete and Jacqui's direction, and contact between photographers and subjects was made this week.

Pete and Jacqui were delighted to hear from the Wallaces, and to see their photographs.

"I live in Russell, and have done so for some 15 years," Pete said.

"Jacqui still has her own house at a beach west of Auckland, but we're locked down in Russell. That is no great hardship. In fact we returned here from honeymoon half an hour before the Prime Minister declared the lockdown commencing, so in a way it's been a soft landing from honeymoon."

The honeymoon had not been without a small glitch or two. The 38ft keelboat they had borrowed from a friend developed some electrical issues that forced them to return to the marina, but they compensated for that by taking a couple of Pete's motorbikes on a slow tour of Northland for the rest of their planned time away.

And the two couples made an instant connection.

"Jacqui is English herself, and every couple of years we go to the UK to stay with family and do a bit of travelling (well, as much as anything to go to the Goodwood Revival. Jacqui's a motoring writer by occupation, and I'm as keen on cars and motorbikes as she is). Last year we also hired a boat and spent six days cruising the Thames," Pete said.

And there was more.

"My own family is from North Wales," he added.

"My paternal grandfather was from Welshpool; he went across the border to secondary school in Shrewsbury, and later served his apprenticeship there. One of my fonder memories from a few years ago was spending an evening singing my heart out in a pub in Welshpool."

Meanwhile, Mike and Carol got home just before their lockdown began.

"We are now in a three-week, soon to be extended, stay-at-home period," Mike said.

"I have noted with great pleasure that the (Covid-19) death rate in New Zealand is currently quite low compared to ours, about 250 in Wales, although our area in the north of Wales seems to have relatively few cases."