|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By Abigail Caspari
Chatterboxes Janey Bowick (formerly Kyle) and her husband Dean plan to be online forever.
They married in Rotorua at the weekend almost two years since they met via the internet.
Janey, 36, (JaneyK, internet chat name) logged into the internet almost two years ago and started chatting to Dean, 36 (Pendragon).
About the same time Janey travelled to Auckland to meet up with other internet chatters at a lunch.
"It was a bit of a fluke but I met Dean in person at about the same time I started chatting (via the internet) to him Janey said.
Six months later Dean, who lived in Auckland at the time, and Janey started spending weekends together.
The couple soon tired of that and Janey's daughters Alisha, 14, and Dianne, 12, thought they would get in on the act and started sending faxes to Dean.
"They told him that if he wanted to come down he had to pay a bed tax.
"They gave him two years to decide if he wanted to marry me," Janey said.
In August last year Dean popped the question and all their chat room friends were online for the big moment when Janey said yes.
"I was zapping off messages to every-body asking them what I should do," Janey said.
There was lots of cheering and cat calls.
"One said don't pick him, pick me," she said.
Dean moved to Rotorua a month later and on Saturday They married at the Government Gardens.
Fifteen members of the Western
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Heights High School Concert Band played at the couple's wedding including two of Janey's children Riki on the tuba and Alisha on the saxophone.
Janey is a food and beverage lecturer at Waiariki Institute of Technology and one of her colleagues Jim Schuster put on a hangi for 130 guests that night
Family members and friends from Asia and Australia as well as some of their internet chat room friends from throughout New Zealand were at the couple's big day.
Their wedding coincided with Janey's parents Tony and Barbara Smith's 40th wedding anniversary which they celebrated yesterday.
A champagne breakfast was held for them organised and catered for by Janey.
A highlight of the day was that her friend Kay Baird could be there. She recently had a quadruple bypass heart operation and Janey supported her through it.
"She is just the most wonderful, helpful person I have ever known," Kay says.
Janey recommends the internet for meeting friends or perhaps a future partner but has a few tips.
"You need to exercise caution. Don't take any risks. The internet is full of really cool people.
"We have got some lifelong friends from all around the country."
And what place will the internet have in their relationship now that they can see each other in person every day?
"We still go into different rooms and talk to each other via the internet.
"That sounds real sick but it's a great way of communicating," Janey says.
|
|
|
|
|
