Elephants & a temple SHORTY BELLA'S WEDDING EXTRAVAGANZA

Having tied the knot once, the actor and Suraj are doing it all again in style!

- Fleur Guthrie

Bella Kalolo-Suraj had been single for six years when she decided to join a dating app to take a peek at what potential love interests might be out there.

She hated it. Turns out, the online talent liked to send her, well, a barrage of photos of what they considered their best anatomical feature.

But before she deleted the app, she noted the Instagram handle of one man who caught her attention for looking "wholesome and a little goofy". He was wearing a shark t-shirt that read "Jawsome" while comically posing on tree trunks in an open forest.

At 1.30am, Bella summoned the courage and slid into his DMs. That was in October 2020. Just four months later, they were married.

Today as they share their whirlwind love story with the Weekly over lunch, talented singer and actor Bella who plays fiery nurse Selina To'a on Shortland Street and her personal trainer husband Suraj Kumar, were obviously meant to be.

In a chat filled with jokes and laughter (Bella pretends to stab Suraj's knee with a fork if he doesn't say nice things about her), the talk turns more serious when revealing his family couldn't reconcile their romance with cultural expectations.

Born in India but raised in Qatar, Suraj, a former professional swimmer, was destined for an arranged marriage. He instead chose to follow his heart.

"I respect that my parents had an arranged marriage, as did my elder brother," tells Suraj, who moved to New Zealand in 2013. "However, I told them when I was in high school that I didn't believe or was comfortable with it.

"No one in my family has ever married outside of our culture, so initially there was no support from them because Bella is not of the same religion.

"So I got engaged and married all by myself. That was really hard. I had to go through a lot of difficult moments. But now, after three years, they know she's a good person and that we're really happy."