Flood of wedding applications - NZ

New Zealand is getting a flood of wedding applications from overseas at it's Births, Deaths, and Marriages register. Although the numbers include straight couples, the number of applications is unusual for this time of year, being winter down under. About half of them are from Australia.

But by then the Newcastle couple, who became engaged two years ago, were already about to wing their way to New Zealand. 

They felt sure many other Australians would follow in their footsteps down the aisle, regardless of law changes at home. 

The threefold leap in the number of marriage licence application forms downloaded abroad in just four days has taken Department of Internal Affairs staff by surprise. 

A total of 172 application forms had been downloaded by people from all over the globe between Monday and Thursday this week, including 19 for civil unions. 

Almost half came from Australia, but interest also came from as far abroad as Moscow, Texas and Hong Kong. 

The increase is being attributed to changes to the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Act, which comes into force on Monday and will allow gay, lesbian and transgender couples to wed on our shores. more

Still a very proud Kiwi here.