Hitch And Famous! The Celebrants Who Will Leave You Seeing Stars

These famous faces will come to your wedding!

- Marilynn Mclachlan

ANTONIA PREBBLE, WESTSIDE ACTRESS, 35

She’s loved around New Zealand for her varied acting roles, but Antonia Prebble is probably best known as Westside’s Rita West. And it comes as no surprise that after becoming a celebrant in 2012, she’s had a number of requests to perform ceremonies as her iconic character.

“I’m not allowed to impersonate her outside of the Westside set,” the actress explains. “But I’m quite pleased because I don’t think Rita would make a particularly good celebrant. She would not be very positive – she’d be pretty grumpy and she would swear like a sailor!”

While she may not perform ceremonies in character, Antonia admits she’s often a surprise at the end of the aisle.

“I do a lot of weddings out west, so a lot of the guests are Westies or Westside fans – it’s a great moment when they realize a fellow Westie is about to officiate!”

The brunette beauty, who also regularly emcees events and conferences, thought becoming a celebrant would be a natural fit.

“Marriage is a wonderful thing for two people to want to do,” she says. “I don’t think it’s outdated like some people do. Perhaps some elements are less relevant than they used to be, but publicly declaring your love is a special and significant thing.”

But Antonia does note the irony that she’s not married yet. It’s been a tumultuous couple of years for the TV matriarch, who became engaged to fellow actor and writer Dan Musgrove, 37, in June 2018.

The couple excitingly discovered they were pregnant before the end of the year, but their lives took a devastating twist when their house caught fire, leaving it uninhabitable.

And while they still aren’t in their family home, they happily welcomed adorable baby Freddie in July.