The Big Day

The Rarotongan wedding day of Anthea Hurst and Mike Henry (as told by the groom)

March 28 2011, 4pm….well….4:30pm…… to be exact

It started off with nerves for both of us.  But as the time drew closer we were quite relaxed.  We last saw each other at 1pm before heading into different rooms to get ready.

At 3:30 our wedding photograph man arrives. Potini was his name and he was very lovely to work with.  He understood that he needed to take millions of pictures just to get a few good ones of Anthea.

My future father-in-law Frank and myself headed to the bar to have a last singles drink of bourbon and coke, along with Anthea’s brother in-law. We men then headed to the ceremony at 3:55pm, not realising that Anthea’s makeup and hair was taking a lot longer than expected and she arrived 30 minutes late to the ceremony.

But all was well when the music started and Anthea, been pushed in her beach wheelchair by her father arrived in front of my eyes and I saw how beautiful she was, not only in her wedding dress, but with her hair and makeup done up as well.

We said our “I Dos”, and then after a speech by our lovely minister John  - whose niece also has CP - we both said our self written vows.  I said my vows first, and then Anthea’s vows were read out loud by her spokesperson.

Then came the nice (and wet) part.  It was time to kiss the bride; hehe.  After the ceremony we ran away and poised for our wedding photos which were taken all over the resort, and included shots of the sunset.

Afterwards we all sat down to our 4 course meal, by which time we were both feeling quiet tired.  After going through the first 3 courses and while waiting for our desserts to arrive, Anthea in particular was more or less falling asleep. 

I had to admit it was a very long day for her.  After only a few mouthfuls of desserts we both called it a night. After we thanked the family and guests for coming and making our day special, we ran off to our room, where I put Anthea to bed, and within seconds she was out to the world.  After 10 minutes I joined her and nodded off.