"I mean, she still could have got married in red, but it kind of takes away the party vibe of it. Because you have to be separated with your 100 people and stay seated.
"She's a nurse, so she's thinking of other people. But I think they were just tired of it all.
"So we have a family chat on Facebook and she just put in there 'F*** it, let's get married today.'"
So yesterday lunchtime I was busy feeling sorry for myself nursing three nasty wasp stings on my foot of all places.. I...
Posted by ClaregPhotography on Sunday, January 23, 2022
As the eldest sister, Brown chimed in with a sense check.
"I said, 'Are you serious?' And she said, 'Yeah'. So were like, okay, we can do that."
The sisters banded together and pulled off the impressive feat in just six hours. Brown called her hairdresser who was able to do the make-up, luring her from her hangover with the promise of earning some cash.
There was one main dilemma, however: the dress.
The photographer, Clare Gordon, had a spare dress on hand.
But it didn't fit.
So one of Cuneen's bridesmaids came to the rescue and brought along a wedding dress that the bride ended up wearing for her special day.
And, of course, every great wedding needs a cake. A friend happened to have a spare one that was never picked up by the customer.
The wedding arch, pictured above, was found in someone's garden. Brown's husband picked it up with a trailer and hammered it into the ground.
The details were all set, including food from a local restaurant who heard about the couple's story and rallied together to feed the 50 guests able to attend.
Friends even trekked from as far as Waiheke Island when they heard the ceremony was happening.
"From a nurse's point of view, she just thought that if this is the start of the next Covid wave, then by April [their wedding date] we could be in a really bad place," Brown says.
"She made the choice and we just didn't go back."
Brown says the ceremony was emotional for everyone involved.
The best moment was "100 per cent when her husband saw her.
"There's a beautiful photo of him having a good ol' cry. He's a bit of a softy.
"But getting to actually walk down the aisle and them saying their vows - which she actually wrote on the back of a real-estate pamphlet at my mum's house because she had no paper ... "
Brown says their mum was "very overwhelmed by the whole thing".
"There was a disappointment for her at first that it wasn't going to be the wedding that she thought she was going to have for her last daughter. But she spent the afternoon in the kitchen making the buttonholes for the boys."
As the couple settle into the first day of their married lives together, Brown says she knows her sister and new brother-in-law are made for each other and is really proud of everyone who helped pull their wedding together in just a few hours.
"I know that those two are meant to be and I'm just really proud that we pulled it off for her and she got the day that she wanted."
