KEY POINTS:
Chantelle Swanson and Paul Court met and married in Auckland today.
In a promotion by The Edge radio station, the couple met for the first time only moments before Invercargill mayor and marriage celebrant Tim Shadbolt conducted a short ceremony and pronounced them husband and wife.
The "3 Strangers and a Wedding" promotion began seven weeks ago and attracted nationwide interest, with more than 100 women applying to be the bride and "a generous number of eligible bachelors".
The bride and two potential grooms were chosen by a panel of experts, friends and listeners.
Today at the Floating Pavilion on Auckland's viaduct harbour Ms Swanson, a 25-year-old Canadian school teacher living in Auckland, chose Paul Court, 28, a Christchurch horse trainer, as her new husband.
He was picked ahead of Christchurch man Dave Logan, 29.
Dominic Harvey from the station's morning show said the two were from totally different walks of life, "yet they have so much in common".
Part of the prize package was a honeymoon at the Edgewater Resort in Rarotonga.
It was the station's third promotional wedding between strangers. Both couples, the first married in 1999 and the second in 2003, were still together and had children.
- NZPA
