For Luke Romano, 2015 is certainly going to be a hard year to top. Six weeks to the day after he held the Rugby World Cup victoriously in his hands, the All Black lock is standing at the foot of Mt Hutt where, in April, he proposed to his partner of five years, Hannah Sjoberg – this time, to exchange vows in a ceremony filled with laughter.
In front of team-mates, friends and family, this laid-back couple declare their love for one another, each promising to “share my life with you, completely, and forever“ – and both wearing ear-to-ear grins throughout their fun-filled day.
The biggest smile of all comes when Luke (29) first spots his wife-to-be, walking down the tree-lined aisle on the arm of her proud father John.
With Bryan Adam’s (Everything I Do) I Do it for You playing, and the mountain their spectacular backdrop, Hannah makes her entrance wearing a gorgeous lace and pearl gown – seizing her moment during a sunny break in the showery weather.
Luke and Hannah’s intimate ceremony, held at Terrace Downs, has come just weeks after the Canterbury Crusader’s first World Cup outing. Hannah (29) – or Coach Han as she’s known to most, thanks to her job as a personal trainer – joined the boys in London for their final three weeks. But she was uncharacteristically nervous for most of it, particularly that final match.
“I never get nervous watching Luke’s games normally, but this time it was incredibly nerve-racking,“ confides Hannah. “All the partners were together and we all felt the same – not really worrying that we’d lose, but just thinking, ’C’mon, where’s the next try?’“
For Luke, once the final whistle blew, there was just one word to describe how he felt.
“Relief,“ he admits, before adding ,“relief that we’d be allowed back in the country!” as they both crack up laughing.
Today, however, it’s hard to imagine either of these two feeling stressed or tense.
Luke starts the day playing a round of golf with his best man Justin Long, as well as his groomsmen – brother Chad and Crusader team-mates Wyatt Crockett and Kieran Read.
A beer in hand, Luke’s much too busy cooking up ways to prank Hannah in the hours leading up to the ceremony to feel nervous. Thankfully for Hannah, the Terrace Downs staff have decided not to pass on to her any of his plans – one of which is telling her the ceremony has to be moved to a tiny café. Either way, it’s likely Hannah would have laughed it off.
It’s how the couple spend the majority of their day – making jokes and sharing a giggle.
Even later on, as the wedding party poses for photographs in the surrounding hills, Hannah and Luke quite literally weather the storm. They’re unexpectedly blasted with heavy horizontal rain, causing chaos and umbrellas to turn inside out, but the bride and groom simply turn to each other and laugh.
“That’s just how we are,” tells Hannah. “We just go with whatever happens. We wouldn’t even know how to do drama. We just love to share a laugh.”
Their wedding has come five and a half years after they first met. Luke had spent the day hunting with his mate George. On the way home, George dropped in on his girlfriend to show off their prize pig – and that person happened to be Hannah’s flatmate.
“Hannah was pretty shy and didn’t talk much,“ teases Luke as outgoing Hannah laughs, knowing the opposite is true.
She recalls that it was Luke, covered from head-to-toe in mud, who didn’t say a great deal. Regardless, their friends soon set them up on their first date. They hit it off and it wasn’t long before they’d bought a home together, which they now share with Finn their fox terrier, four hunting dogs and 15 cows.
The proposal came in April, when Luke had a rare weekend off and told Hannah he was whisking her away to the South Island wilderness. True to form, he made sure she had no idea what was going on.
“He said he needed to go buy a belt and I was thinking, ’What the heck do you need to buy a belt here for, and where are you going to find one out here? There aren’t any shops!’” she recalls.
“Then he said he’d organised a helicopter ride and went and got his binoculars before we hopped in. I thought, ’Oh, no, he’s turning this into a hunting trip!’“
Instead, after earlier enlisting assistance from Kieran, who’d helped him buy the ring – telling him the engagement ring is the “sparkly one“ – Luke got down on one knee on the summit of Mt Hutt.
He managed to trip over on the way, but presented Hannah with the gorgeous ring, while she wept tears of joy.
For Luke, the timing of the proposal made perfect sense, he says. “We’d been together five years, then we had the house together – it felt right.
“I thought back to this time that Han and I had been in Rarotonga for a holiday, after we’d been together about a year. There was this old Rarotongan fella there that does these walks over the island. His name is Pa and he told Hannah that all things will happen when the time is right – if it doesn’t happen when you want it to happen, that’s because it’s going to happen later. This is definitely the right timing.“
Hannah nods her agreement, but adds that their successes together haven’t just boiled down to timing and good luck.
As a health and fitness coach, “Coach Han“ spends her time devising eating plans and workouts for her clients, but says she knows few people with the commitment and drive of Luke.
“That’s why it was so emotional watching him at the World Cup,“ says Hannah. “He put in so much hard work, so much dedication, perseverance and training – they all did. And then, for them to win and watch all that hard work pay off for them, it was an amazing experience. I really do love the way Luke works so hard, but makes it all look easy!
“He’s a good man,“ she adds, “A caring and loving man – a big, friendly giant who is always trying to make me laugh!“
Similarly, it’s her ability to be able to laugh at everything, but also work incredibly hard, that makes Luke so proud of Hannah.
“You just have to see the dedication and pride Han takes as a personal trainer, seeing other people reach their goals, to know what Hannah’s about. She really cares about others
and that’s what I love about her. We have a great relationship and a lot of fun.
“Other than that, what I love about her is that she’s easy to trick and scare, which makes my life more entertaining,“ he says, nudging Hannah as the couple again dissolve into fits of laughter.
