Couple inseparable - even in death

Their bodies may never be found, but the families of Andrew and Belinda Welch gathered yesterday to say their final goodbyes.

More than 1000 people turned out for an emotional memorial to the couple whose lives were taken by the Asian tsunami.

Jeremy Welch, Andrew's older brother, said the waves, and the havoc they unleashed, may never yield the bodies.

"If they are found they will be laid to rest," he said.

"But they don't need them. 'The uncertainty must be hard', people say. But there is no uncertainty. They have left us."

Pictures told the story of the deeply religious couple's lives via a giant slide-show.

In one Andrew was a smiling toddler. Another showed Belinda on a rockinghorse. Yet another still showed Andrew as a young man, pulling a silly face. And there was Belinda in her graduating cap and gown.

But most of the images were of the couple together; kissing in front of the Eiffel Tower, side-by-side on a canal boat, and the picture published in New Zealand newspapers over the past two weeks, of the couple on their wedding day.

Many of the shots had been taken and sent from the extended holiday which ended on the Thai beach of Khao Lak.

"We can be assured they went together from a piece of paradise on earth straight to God's own paradise," Mr Welch said.

"Couples vow to stay together until death parts them. Once in a while a couple has the wonderful blessing of not being parted by death, but leaving together."

More than 20 people spoke about Andrew and Belinda at the Assembly of God Church service in Takapuna.

One sang a song that Andrew had written in 1982 and asked for at his funeral.

Danny Beckett, Belinda's brother, broke down several times as he spoke about his "little sister who grew into a beautiful woman".

He said it was impossible to put into words how much he loved and would miss her.

Belinda's stepfather John Croft, the man she called "dad", said: "This must be a parent's worst nightmare."

But both families had expressly wished this to be a celebration of life. And so it was.

"We've gone from disbelief, to grief, to tears, and now to joy for what they gave us," said family friend Bruce McNair.