Committment

On the 5th of February 2010, I was thrilled to be able to make a lifelong committment to my long-time friend Haidee Rich. In what was to be the biggest ritual – entirely centred around us – of my life, we got married and had a huge reception on a beautiful sunny Wellington summer’s day.

The whole experience was quite unlike anything I had ever experienced. Months of planning – planning for a huge party centered around ourselves – came to beautiful fruition as the day unfolded and unwravelled into such an awesome occassion. We were surrounded by friends and family, all looking absolutely stoked that us two 29-year olds had finally ‘tied the knot’.

I was kind of expecting some sort of euphoric state of…well…something as we walked out of the church, but all I felt was a deep sense of ‘this feels entirely natural and obvious that I should now be married to Haidee’. Quite nice indeed.

A quick low-down on the stunning Haidee: Raised in the Wellington area of New Zealand, she somehow developed a desire to head over seas. This she did in grand fashion after graduating from university with a tourism and international business degree; she headed over to Kyrgyzstan on her own for 6 months, lecturing tourism development at a school there. From there she moved to Japan and proceeded to spend the next 4 years in various jobs there. While in Japan, we met up a few times, each time leaving to follow our own paths, until eventually, after both spending close to 5 years over seas, we both arrived back to New Zealand at the end of 2008. We met up again soon after in New Zealand, and now, just over a year later, we are married. Lovely.

 It was an honour to have my younger brother, Chris, as one of my groomsmen. He has always been somewhat of an inspiration to me…I just wish I could grow as impressive a moustache as him!