Philipa’s Dream Wedding in Tonga

Philipa Charlesworth had been married too many times beforehand to ever be a Bridezilla when she married her fifth husband Bruce Pattullo on an idyllic beach in Tonga.

“Because I have had many weddings I had an enlightening moment on the day of my wedding when I thought “This is wonderful…I have never married when I haven’t been running around like a blue-arsed fly, but here I am sipping wine at lunchtime and I am getting married at four o’clock,’’ she recalls with a chuckle.

However, Philipa spent 12 months planning every detail of her romantic Polynesian wedding from her riverside home at Goolwa, South Australia where she has lived with Bruce since she left her old life in New Zealand 18 months ago. (See my previous writings on Philipa in Women’s Lives).

She had visited the Fafa Island Resort on the small island of Nukualofa, Tonga a few times before and had taken Bruce there 12 months ago – and he had proposed to her there.

“We hired a wedding package which included Willy, a gay Fijian, who was in charge of the wedding and he did all the flowers – leis for all the men and we women had floral hair pieces,’’ recalls Philipa.

In a way she had carried the dream of this day in her mind since they promised to marry each other 45 years ago when they were both teenagers in New Zealand. But Bruce broke up the romance and they each married other people.

The couple arrived two days before the wedding with four couples from South Australia, but within hours Philipa’s
matron-of-honor, a best friend from New Zealand, cancelled her flight because another earthquake in Christchurch had badly damaged their funeral home business.

“My dearest friends for so long, the only New Zealanders, who knew the person
I was and the evolution of my middle age, weren’t going to be with me,’’ she says.

“But Suzanne telephoned my son Dan and proposed that he go in their stead. So, Don and my grandson, Archie arrived completely by surprise.’’

On her wedding day, a native Tongan girl did Philipa’s makeup and adorned her hair with a garland of frangipani. It was June 15, her 63^rd birthday. She slipped on her beautiful two-piece wedding dress made in an Hawaiian fabric which she bought on-line and had made to her own design by a local dressmaker in Goolwa. Then, she left her little grass hut and walked alone to meet her groom.

“We had planned to meet at the bar and as I walked in in my pink wedding dress, the look on Bruce’s said it all; his eyes opened so wide and his smile showed how happy he was and so proud and I thought “Yes, this is our lovely wedding day,’’ she recalls.

“He took my hand and we walked out from the bar to the beach through the three archways formed by palms and dotted with flowers.

“At the end of the archways the Catholic priest, in his Tongan skirt and his crisp white shirt, stood at the little table waiting for us.’’

On the beach, their guests were joined by the 14 other guests of the resort, who were invited to join the wedding ceremony where they all enjoyed canapés and Moet champagne.

The island boys sat around their Kava bowl and sang local Tongan music for the Christian marriage as Philipa and Bruce made their vows.

“We had canapés for a while with the other island guests and when it grew dark, the island staff escorted us and our bridal party through a pathway lit by flares to our wedding table.’’

They honeymooned sailing for three days around the islands with their Australian friends.

However, the one hovering question now that life has returned to normal in Goolwa is “Will this marriage last?’’

“Oh yes, this marriage will last because I have so many comparisons to make. Bruce has made me the happiest in my life. I
am so full of love and lust and friendship for him – and thankful for all that he brings to me and my life.’’