The nationwide lockdown has forced the couple to postpone their April 14 wedding and with half the guest list travelling from overseas, to be safe they have targeted Easter 2021 to finally say 'I do'.
"Being from England, a lot of my family were due to come over from overseas, so the first problem we had was, before the lockdown started, deciding if everyone should fly here or not.
"Things just progressed from there so we made the decision to postpone and it was obviously the right one but it has been a long process and now we have to organise everything all over again. We couldn't do it, it would've been around 50 per cent of the guests not here so it just wasn't worth it."
Tauranga's Dale Weller and Nicola Wolken had a romantic dinner at home on the night they were supposed to be married. Photo / Supplied
The couple were justifiably disappointed by the postponement but still marked the occasion with a backyard dinner on the day they were supposed to be married.
"We decided we might as well do something. We have a little outdoor fire pit that I built so we sat down there and had pizza, dessert and a couple of drinks.
"I think it will be more special when it does happen, even just in general, after all of this it will just be nice to see everyone again, face to face. It's a bit of a long process but it is what it is, we have to deal with it and everybody's safe - that's the important thing."
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Tauranga wedding celebrant Will Johnston was going to be the man marrying Weller and Wolken. He said he'd had several weddings postponed but most couples were level headed about the situation.
"Even if we go to level 3 and you can have a ceremony with 10 people, nobody really wants that. Most of mine have been postponements, I did a few mid-March and late March when we were still allowed to - they were a bit reduced numbers obviously, with travel bans, but people still enjoyed themselves," Johnston said.
"Once lockdown happened, quite a number of weddings were cancelled and moved to a new date. That's the thing for us, they will still happen, just at a later date. Everyone is still trying to predict when that later date will be."
Johnston said people were still getting in touch and he was busy with weddings for the coming summer.
"It sucks for people that they have to cancel but it doesn't mean they'll never get married. It's really cool to see the attitudes of the brides and grooms that I've been dealing with, they know they have no choice and they're getting on with things."
The Department of Internal Affairs has reminded people about weddings and civil unions during lockdown.
"First and foremost, the Registrar-General does not encourage nor condone marriage ceremonies taking place during the lockdown. If a couple believes, for whatever reason, that their marriage will go ahead, the Registrar-General advises that they only use a celebrant in their bubble or who lives very close by, for example across the street, and follow every aspect of the Ministry of Health distancing and sanitising guidelines.
"Under the Marriage Act, a marriage can't occur virtually and the couple, celebrant and witnesses must be physically present in the same place. The marriage licence application and return of the signed papers can be done online."
