A bride who was tired of waiting to get married decided to take things into her own hands by surprising her fiancé with an impromptu wedding ceremony.
In 2014, business owner Daniel Arnett got down on one knee and asked his realtor girlfriend Nicole to marry him, as he clutched his grandmother's wedding ring in an intimate proposal at their home in Columbia, Canada.
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Six years later, the couple hadn't agreed on how they'd execute their big day. They knew they didn't want a big fancy wedding; they just wanted to be married to one another, but they couldn't settle on the details.
So in 2019, Nicole, 40, came up with the idea to surprise Daniel, 39.
"We talked about so many different ideas and for one reason or another it never felt quite right when we got down to confirming it, or something happened and we pivoted away from the idea," said Nicole.
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"We realised we didn't actually want a wedding, which is why we put it off; we just wanted to be married to each other which were two very different things in our mind.
"I was out for a run with a girlfriend and I said, 'I think I'm going to surprise Daniel and get us married because it means a lot to us, and we just keep stalling on it and he knows I like to take the reins on things.'
"I thought it would be a nice surprise and really special, and my girlfriend, who knows him very well, completely agreed and thought it was a great idea."
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Nicole had the idea to disguise their wedding as the annual New Year's Day party they hosted each year on Bonnie Beach near their home, which is always closely followed by Nicole's birthday on 2nd January.
"We always host a New Year's Day party, we do the 'polar bear swim', It's my favourite day of the year."
Nicole managed to organise everything from the wedding commissioner to the catering within two weeks for less than $3,000 (£2,295) - all behind her unsuspecting fiancé's back.
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"I never for a second worried that Daniel wouldn't love this or be up for it," said Nicole.
"I booked our wedding commissioner, which was necessary, booked a caterer and told Daniel, 'I don't want to be the one cooking today. It's my 40th birthday the next day so I'm just going to do this,' and I just blamed anything out of the ordinary on that.
She continued: "We just wanted to keep it really simple and unique to us so that was how I came up with: one, the surprise and two, making it a part of our favourite day of the year anyway which felt very special and intimate."
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"I already had the dress from a friend's wedding. We had our dear friend's kids' friends as the flower kids and our son was the surprise ring bearer and two wonderful pals sang to us and played the guitar before the ceremony."
On New Year's Day 2020, with just a small congregation of 35 close friends and family, Nicole came clean to Daniel.
"I got up and said how happy I was that everyone was there and then I was mentioning that I had a long to-do list this year for resolutions and goals etc. and there was something that Daniel and I had been meaning to do for a long time but we'd never got around to which was get married," explained Nicole.
"He'd been filming me, and he just dropped his phone and he's just staring at me with his mouth hanging open."
Using placards with writing on them, she revealed the secret and beckoned her soon-to-be husband over.
Nicole added: "After the ceremony, the entire party serenaded us with the Beatles 'When I'm 64' and then we jumped into the ocean."
"Daniel said it couldn't have been more perfect or more us, which I agree with and he said he couldn't have ever planned a better event or dreamt of anything more fun.
"I think the honeymoon will be a collaborative effort - we'll plan it together this time."
Topics: Life, Real Life, Wedding