Kiwi singer Jamie McDell 'I MARRIED MY BIGGEST FAN!'

The local music darling wouldn’t let a cyclone or a pandemic ruin her special day

- Leena Tailor

It was a scene Kiwi singing sensation Jamie McDell describes as something out of Baywatch – a teenage beach babe smitten by a hunky, shirtless lifeguard at Pauanui Beach every summer.

“I was 15 and we had one of those magical, passionate, love-at-first-sight summers – sunset walks and awkward kisses,” she giggles to Woman’s Day after returning from her Kawau Island honeymoon with her teen crushturned-husband Jake Smith.

The same Coromandel beach set the scene for the couple’s adulthood reunion and later their engagement, but when it came to tying the knot, they chose a different waterside spot, near Jamie’s parents’ place in Mangawhai – and neither pandemicfuelled postponements nor a cyclone could dampen their special day!

Construction worker Jake, 30, who has taken his wife’s surname, even duetted with his bride at the reception as a nod to their first meeting, when Jamie was on the cusp of an incredible music career, which saw her signed to a record label at 16, before the release of her hit single You’ll Never Take That Away and the best-selling album Six Strings And A Sailboat.

“My first impressions involved him running out of the ocean rescuing people,” recalls Jamie. “But I also recall him sitting in this old rec hall, playing guitar and writing songs, so there was this connection through music. Of course, I then took the guitar off him and played an original, which he was stoked about.”