Photos: Amalia Osborne
In March, Lorna Riley told the Weekly this was her “time to shine”. Two breast cancer diagnoses and a marriage break-up had taken their toll, but she was optimistic that better times were ahead. Since then, not only did she meet her perfect match in Mike Wake in April, but she’s also agreed to marry him after he spontaneously proposed on a bridge in Italy.
“It’s been a crazy year!” laughs Lorna, 56. “My friend and fellow Coast FM radio host JT [Jason Tikao] told me it’s karma coming back around, and after a rough couple of years, it’s my turn to get the good stuff.”
The proposal was a dream end to a two-and-a-half week Mediterranean Odyssey cruise from Barcelona to Venice with Viking Cruises. But things got off to a rocky start before they even left the tarmac in Auckland, when Mike accidentally dropped his full, metal water bottle from the plane’s overhead locker onto Lorna’s head.
“The crew was worried I was concussed, but I was more concerned they’d delay the plane!” tells Lorna.
“I was mortified,” Mike groans.
Luckily, the accident wasn’t a precursor of what was to come. The pair had a wonderful time, visiting countries including Greece, Italy, France and Croatia. There was, however, one moment when things could have taken a turn for the worse.
“I was very excited to see the Sagrada Familia, a very famous piece of unfinished architecture in Barcelona,” explains Lorna. So Mike bought tickets online and the pair turned up at the church – only to discover he’d booked for the wrong church on the other side of town.
“I did harp on about it a bit for the next couple of weeks, didn’t I, darling?” Lorna laughs, giving a comically woeful Mike a nudge.
Happily, the rest of the trip ran smoothly and as the journey’s end drew near, Mike had an epiphany.
“I woke up one morning and knew I wanted to propose,” he says. “We were in Burano, a little island off the coast of Venice, not too far from Verona, where William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, Lorna’s favourite play, is set.
“We’d been talking about the Dire Straits song Romeo & Juliet, which has the line, ‘You and me babe, how about it?’” recalls Mike, 55. “I had no plans to propose on our trip, but as the day progressed, I started thinking, ‘This is a lovely little place, and we’re about to pack up and go home. It’d be nice to return with good news.’”
So on the spur of the moment, Mike turned to Lorna and said, ‘You and me babe, how about it?’
Lorna adds, “He suddenly quoted Dire Straits’ lyrics to me and I had no idea why! But then he said, ‘Will you marry me?’ And right there, over a canal on an Italian island, in the rain, I said yes.”
Mike admits that while the proposal was romantic, he didn’t go down on one knee.
“It was raining!” laughs Lorna.
“Maybe that’s an under-40 thing,” Mike smiles. “I’d get down there for sure – I’m just not as convinced these days I’d be able to get back up!”
The pair celebrated by taking pictures – helped by a passing tourist who took a photo for them – then popped into a bar for a toast.
“It’s kind of weird when you get engaged surrounded by strangers,” reflects Lorna. “You want to shout it out, but you can’t because everyone will think you’re mad!”
But they did call Lorna’s parents, Gavin, 88, and Doreen, 85, who’s had a few health issues this year.
“I thought it would cheer Mum up – and it did,” she says.
The pair returned to the ship for a quiet dinner, the perfect end to a wonderful cruise – something which was in itself a test of their relationship.
“It was pretty gnarly travel, including long flights and sharing a ship’s cabin, and Mike had never done a cruise before,” tells Lorna. “It could have gone either way, but we discovered we travel very well together. We had a blast.”
The pair had talked marriage early on in their whirlwind romance, however Lorna told Mike he couldn’t pop the question until 2025. But in Italy, Mike’s heart ruled his head.
“We’d agreed not to change anything until our youngest kids were past school age, as we don’t want to disrupt them,” explains Mike, 55, who lives in Auckland city suburb Kohimarama, while Lorna lives on the North Shore.
“I was worried about what people would say – particularly our children – as it’s all happened so fast,” admits Lorna. “Mike’s daughter lives overseas, so I don’t know her that well and I didn’t want to upset anybody.”
But, of course, everyone, including Lorna’s children Max, 26, Lucy, 24, and Zoe, 15, and Mike’s kids Ella, 21, Matthew, 18, and Peter, 16, are delighted.
“Zoe felt shocked, but she still thought it was really cool,” smiles Lorna. “Then Peter asked me if he had to call me stepmother now!”
Because the proposal wasn’t planned, Mike didn’t have a ring on hand in Burano, so the pair opted to find one together in Auckland.
“I was keen on a collaborative decision,” says Mike. “I had some sense of what Lorna likes, but I wouldn’t have liked the responsibility of choosing it myself.”
Not a “blingy” person, Lorna wanted a single diamond in a plain platinum setting. But even that simple design came with a plethora of choices.
“I had no idea there’d be so many options!” exclaims Lorna.
“And those diamonds look terrifyingly small when they are sitting on a little velvet pad,” adds Mike.
The pair opted for a 1.25 carat lab-grown diamond.
“Purists might take issue with it, but this way, I know its provenance. It’s just the same as a diamond created by nature, just made in a lab,” explains Lorna. “You get a bit more diamond for your money, too.”
Lorna and Mike are very much in sync, often finishing each other’s sentences. When the Weekly photographer is taking pictures of Lorna, Mike can’t take his eyes off his “beautiful woman”. The pair matches well, with soft-spoken Mike’s dry humour perfectly balancing Lorna’s more outgoing nature.
They describe their relationship as “easy love”, and despite “a storm brewing” after the Sagrada Familia booking debacle, they have still never argued.
“We’re just not those people,” muses Mike. “We’ve both experienced difficulties and tensions in previous relationships, and this is very different. We want the same things, we move at a similar pace and we travel the same way, which is important – travelling with someone can be a revelation.”
Mike even offered to “bugger off” for a bit on the cruise so Lorna could have me-time, but the radio host was happy to have Mike there as much as possible.
“I was like, ‘Why do you want to go? Stay here!’” she laughs.
“I was just checking!” rejoins Mike. “But seriously, it was a fantastic trip. Viking did such a great job of introducing me to cruising.”
There’s no doubt Lorna and Mike’s relationship has evolved at lightning speed, but the couple’s joy is obvious. And on their travels, the pair learned more about each other.
“Mike discovered espresso martinis – he’s a bit late to the party on that one!” laughs Lorna. “I also learned he’s incredibly adaptable and good at meeting new people. That’s good because there’s a lot of that in my job and not everyone is comfortable with it.
“He’s very respectful too. There were a few older people on the cruise and Mike was the first person to offer an arm to hold onto. That was lovely.”
But while they’re having a big engagement party in February, they are adamant there won’t be any surprise quick wedding.
Says Mike, “We don’t want to get married until we can live together full-time, which we can’t while we have teenage kids living with us. So I wanted to get engaged, show a commitment and put some hardware on this…”
“On this?” Lorna queries, cracking up at his choice of words. Once again, Mike backtracks, “Sorry – on this beautiful woman! God, that was bad.”
As Lorna shows off her engagement ring, she enthuses, “I love Mike so much. I keep saying I need to find a better phrase than ‘easy love’, but that’s what this is.
“At our age, we just want to be ourselves, not mold to anyone else’s expectations. We both want the same things in life…”
“… and that includes just being together,” adds Mike.
“And that’s what I mean about easy,” says Lorna as the pair’s sentences interweave seamlessly. “Mike and I – it just works.”
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