LAB singer Joel gets hitched: 'OUR WET & WILD WEDDING’

After a heartbreaking fertility struggle, the chart-topping musician and his beautiful bride Alyssa wouldn't let the weather spoil their ‘perfect’ celebration

- Cloe Willetts

Under a lightning-struck sky and with rain pattering on the roof of a rustic farmhouse in Lake Tarawera, LAB lead singer Joel Shadbolt and his partner Alyssa Stringfellow tied the knot.

But the romantic scene hadn't exactly gone to plan for the Mount Maunganui-based couple. Just five minutes before their outdoor afternoon ceremony was set to begin at Black Barn, soaked guests were ferrying flowers and furniture off the lawn.

"It was one of those moments where you say, 'Should we do it or not?" singer, actress and screenwriter Alyssa tells Woman's Day after their picturesque 5 March wedding. "It was thunder and lightning, then 20 minutes later as the ceremony ended, and we hugged and kissed, Joel and I turned around to see a massive rainbow. It was magic."

For Joel - who met his wife at a bar in Tauranga six years ago, after she returned from living in Sydney - seeing Alyssa walk down the aisle broke him.

"I started bawling," laughs the Yes I Do singer, 31, whose band won four trophies at last year's Aotearoa Music Awards, including Album of the Year. "It was just everything. I was about to make a commitment to her in front of all these people we love and that in itself is quite full-on."

While 130 of the couple's nearest and dearest gathered to celebrate their big day, special loved ones who've passed were honoured on a memorial tree. Among them were Alyssa's beloved Nana Fay and Joel's late musician father Brian Shadbolt, who he grew up playing music with.