KENNEDY & SOLLY'S ROMANTIC RACE TO THE ALTAR

The Black Ferns co-captain and her rugby star husband organised the ir nuptials in just five days!

- Suzanne McFadden

For the past 11 years, Black Ferns co-captain Kennedy Simon and Super Rugby star Solomone Tukuafu have been virtually inseparable as a couple. Drawn together by their passion for sport, the high-school sweethearts were engaged for three years, but their marriage plan was perpetually on hold.

Until it took them just five days to arrange a topsecret wedding!

The power couple were married on the edge of the tranquil Lake Karāpiro, in an intimate ceremony in front of just two guests – who’d only found out earlier that morning.

Rugby World Cup winner Kennedy wore an elegant ivory gown she’d found just days before tying the knot. Within the wedding bouquet she’d put together was the dried corsage that former Highlanders and Chiefs prop Solly had given her to wear at their high-school ball.

And just four days after their nuptials, Kennedy left her new husband behind, to lead the Black Ferns on their Northern Hemisphere tour, which will see the team taking on their toughest rivals.

While she knows she will miss him, Kennedy can’t wait to hear her new surname announced to a potential 80,000-strong crowd if she’s picked to run on to the field in one of the world’s largest rugby stadiums, Twickenham, to play England this Saturday.

Mr and Mrs Tukuafu know their bond is strong enough to withstand the tyranny of distance – especially as their respective professional rugby careers will see them living almost 20,000km apart for the next two years. It took Solly signing up to play for famous French rugby club Biarritz to speed up their marriage plans.

“When Solly got the opportunity to play in France for two years, we talked about what was going to be hardest for us,” Kennedy, 27, tells Woman’s Day. “And obviously it was the time we’d be away from each other.”