Rhythm & Vines founder's perfect proposal - ‘WE'RE SO IN TUNE!'

It’s been a globetrotting whirlwind romance for music man Hamish Pinkham and his fiancée Roma Bhola

Music promoter Hamish Pinkham has staged some of the hottest events in New Zealand, rung in the New Year with Calvin Harris, hung out with a Backstreet Boy and helped save his business as it tinkered on the edge of bankruptcy.

But it was popping the question to girlfriend Roma Bhola in the picturesque surrounds of Milford Sound that ignited such potent nerves that she wondered if the Rhythm & Vines co-founder/ director was sick with COVID-19.

“I was so nervous all week with anticipation,” says Hamish, 39, whose event-planning skills are now being put to the test with a spectacular three-day wedding that will merge Indian and Kiwi culture at Gisborne’s Waiohika Estate.

“I’d taken this ring around, waiting for that magic moment, but had my heart set on Milford Sound. I compare it to how the All Blacks must feel leading up to game day. I couldn’t even eat dinner the night before.”

Adds Roma, “We’d had a three-course meal at Milford Sound Lodge and I was all excited to be dining in this beautiful lodge by a stunning waterfall, but he didn’t eat a thing. I said, ‘Are you alright? Are you sure you don’t have COVID?’”

If it weren’t for the pandemic, Hamish would have proposed during a family holiday in Fiji, where Roma, 35, was born before moving to Aotearoa following the 1987 coup.

The businessman hails from Hawke’s Bay, where concerts at wineries like Mission Estate instilled an early love for music. Eager to throw an epic party to mark completing his law degree, he booked bands like the Black Seeds to play at a friend’s vineyard in 2002. The bash became the annual New Year’s Eve festival Rhythm & Vines, which has since been headlined by Franz Ferdinand, Moby and Chance the Rapper.