The bride and groom at the centre of a COVID-19 cluster that formed at their wedding have broken their silence about the heartache the event now dredges up for them.
The cluster, which started at their Oyster Cove Restaurant ceremony in Bluff on March 21, would eventually cause at least 98 people to contract the virus.
The couple, Betty and Manoli, caught COVID-19 themselves, and Manoli's father died as a result of his infection within a month of the event.
They had never spoken about what happened publicly before, but agreed to appear on Newshub journalist Patrick Gower's coronavirus documentary On Lockdown, which aired on Three on Monday night.
The pair look back fondly at the wedding, remembering it and the days that followed as "amazing".
"It was happy times, great times having all our family around us," Betty recounted. "But then it all changed."
One of the guests rang Betty and Manoli to ask how they were, revealing that he'd felt unwell and had returned a positive COVID-19 test.
The couple then got tested, and were shocked to discover they were both positive cases themselves.
"It just felt like a normal flu," Betty said.
But for Manoli it was much worse - something he'd "never felt in [his] life". He had moments where he worried that he would never recover.
Tragically, the same disease Manoli suffered so much with would ultimately end his father's life.
Christos, who Manoli describes as his "best friend", had planned to return to Greece and live out the rest of his life there after the wedding.
But the 87-year-old Wellington local never got the chance.
"He was very, very sick and got rushed to hospital. He was going up and down, and then just started deteriorating."
Manoli told his father in Greek to to be strong, promising that he'd get through it. Those were the last words he'd ever say to him.
"The next couple of days after that, he passed away," Manoli explained through tears.
"He lived a great life."
Watch the excerpt of Patrick Gower: On Lockdown in the video above.
