By Arjun Ramachandran
Honeymooners Jason and Rachel Harvey went ahead with a rapidly reorganised wedding. Ken Magnus sent the before and after shots from Sheraton Villas.
An Australian couple in Fiji made do with makeshift nuptials in a hotel conference room yesterday, after storms and floods destroyed their plans for a perfect beach wedding.
There were to be Fijian warriors walking the bride down the aisle, music from a Fijian choir and water-sports for guests at the wedding of Jason and Rachel Harvey (formerly Jennings).
But the Broken Hill couple's dreams were dashed when severe storms and floods hit Fiji over the weekend.
Eight people have died, access roads have been cut and the Fijian Government has declared a state of emergency.
The Australian couple had planned to wed on the beach at Amunuca Island Resort, on Tokoriki Island.
"It was going to be the perfect holiday for everyone," Mr Harvey, 28, said.
The pair arrived on the island last week, ahead of their 50 Australian guests - most from Broken Hill but others from Adelaide and Sydney - who were due to arrive over the weekend.
"The boat ride [from tourist centre Nadi] was very, very rough. People were throwing up on the boat. It was pretty horrendous," Mr Harvey said.
"But while we were there the storms hit and after that none of the cruise ships could get to the islands - the ports were all under water.
"So all our guests were stuck in Nadi while we were on the island. We worked out that if we were going to get married, we'd have to come back to Nadi."
The couple took a boat ride to Nadi, carefully carrying Mrs Harvey's wedding dress as well as laptops and other equipment for the wedding music.
But before leaving Tokoriki, the couple frantically contacted hotels in Nadi to see if they could be squeezed in for a last-minute wedding.
"We got the boat ride back to Nadi on Sunday evening, but the day before we rang the Novotel and asked: 'Is there any chance of us getting married there?'
"They said it should be OK, but [when we met the next morning] they said: 'We don't know if we'll be able to do this. We can't find a priest, and we don't have enough food because supplies have cut out, and it's hard to get staff.' "
Fortunately, things fell in place and by evening Mr and Mrs Harvey were married at a wedding-cum-reception ceremony in front of their 50 guests and a Fijian minister, inside a conference centre at the Novotel.
"The resort staff here were amazing, organising the wedding from 9am and it was ready by 7pm," Mr Harvey said.
"People plan for months and years for a wedding, and we did it in 10 hours."
But the rapid planning meant some things had to be done unconventionally.
"We had to get the photos before the wedding, because it started to rain again," Mr Harvey said.
A friend who was professional photographer darted outside with the couple to take photos before the weather became too bad.
Earlier, other wedding guests went into Nadi to hunt for a wedding cake.
While the couple would have liked to have had their dream wedding, they weren't disappointed by the way things turned out, Mr Harvey said.
"All the guests were worried about us, but we were fine ourselves. We're just happy that everyone was there and that it was able to happen.
"The hardest thing for us was it was a lot of our guests' first time overseas. We thought we'd ruined everything for them."
The couple were also aware the storms had caused serious damage to the lives of residents.
"We took a bus ride. All the houses were under water, the roads were washed away and there was mud inches thick," he said.
"Some of the staff said their houses had been washed away ... some were sleeping in conference rooms.
"There was just an amazing amount of rain, 400mm in one day."
Mr and Mrs Harvey had planned to take a helicopter to a nearby island for their honeymoon.
"We can't do that now because there's another cyclone due. It's probably hitting now because it's bucketing down outside."
Instead, the couple will fly back to Australia and spend a few days in either the Gold Coast or Sydney.
The couple again paid tribute to staff at both Amunuca and Novotel hotels.
The former had allowed the couple to use the internet for free to find a venue for their wedding, and the latter had booked the newlyweds into a deluxe room, despite the hotel being fully booked by tourists evacuated from nearby islands.
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