What a Kiwi multicultural wedding looks like

Weddings: they bring families together, giving the happy couple a chance to integrate the traditions they grew up with as well as create some of their own.

As part of the Herald's focus on superdiversity this week, we asked our online readers and Facebook audience to share their multicultural weddings. Take a look at how wonderful it can be when two people joining in matrimony create a beautiful, unique wedding:

'We aim to meet our parents' 30+ year anniversaries'

"I would call myself a New Zealander but others call me European. My parents are both European from NZ: My father's parents are Irish and my mother's parents are English; my husband is half Tongan from a Tongan father and half Maori from a Maori mother (they wed in 1978 and remain married).

I was never worried about our skin colour, ethnic differences or our cultural differences, because we respected each other enough to learn and accept our differences. We were also very lucky our family loved and supported us too.

My husband is an oldest son and the guest list would have been in the hundreds. Because of the cost, we choose to give very little notice and ran away to the country [Bethells Beach] last September.

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We wanted our cultural identity to be present: This included being blessed before the wedding in English, Tongan and Maori. We took extensive photos to share with those who were not able to attend. We also chose to respect my husband's Tongan family who could not make it from Tonga by taking a picture in traditional wedding wear to honour them.

Pita and I have been together for over 9 years and aim to follow both our parents' footsteps to be blessed in our marriage and meet their 30+ year anniversaries and more." - Stacey Fainu

'Everyone danced the night away'

"I was born in South Africa but am now a NZ citizen and my husband is Indian. Before we got married, we went to India so that I [could] meet his family who are very accepting of our relationship. Two days before our wedding, we had a 'Bollywood Night' where everyone wore traditional Punjabi outfits and all the girls got henna done on their hands. I got a traditional wedding henna done on my feet and hands.

Our wedding was more Western than Indian, but my husband wore his traditional Indo-Western wedding dress and the men in my family also wore traditional Indian clothes to support my husband. I wore a white dress. Half our guests were Indian and the other were Kiwis. We had a buffet-style dinner. A lot of the music that the DJ played was Indian songs and everyone danced the night away." - Hildy Singh

'We have a lot of love for each other's families and cultures'

"We have been married 13 years this month. We were young and wanted to travel. I had a job in Saudi Arabia, so it was only possible to go together if we got married. So we married first in a religious close family ceremony called a nikah. We then had a traditional white Kiwi wedding, held at Nathan Homestead. The caterers were Afghani so the food was AMAZING and everyone loved it. The DJ played one English song then one Afghani one. We had 140 guests: my family and Afghani friends.

Six months later while travelling, we went to Afghanistan for our Afghani wedding. That is where I met my new Afghan family. The wedding was HUGE with hundreds attending. There was a band and a singer, lots of food and dancing, and many gifts of mainly gold.

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