Photography: Rachel Jordan, Two Little Starfish
As one of the country’s most beloved singers, a former judge on New Zealand’s Got Talent and a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to music, Jason Kerrison’s smooth, soulful voice has been a soundtrack to Kiwis’ lives for more than two decades.
And while the singer-songwriter, 53, has entertained many happy couples at weddings around the motu with the smash hit One Day, which he penned with former band Opshop in 2007, nothing could have prepared him for the moment he first saw the love of his life, Adele, at their own recent nuptials in Cambridge.
“She looked absolutely beautiful,” he says.
The wedding was a long- held dream for professional photographer Adele, 37, who met Jason in 2017 at radio station The Rock’s music festival Rock Island in Fiji. Adding to the emotion was the fact it came two years after she was diagnosed with a desmoid tumour, an aggressive but noncancerous sarcoma, in her stomach in 2023 – a week before the couple’s daughter Aurora’s first birthday.
A list that changed everything
Fortunately, surgeons removed the tumour and it hasn’t returned, but the diagnosis was frightening. During treatment, Adele wrote a secret bucket list to keep her spirits up. Then one day, Jason found it in the kitchen.
“I thought it was a shopping list until I started reading it,” he recalls.
Two of the items struck a chord – to go to France and get married.
“I realised I could make those two come true,” smiles Jason, who is of Ngāpuhi and Pākehā descent.
A plan takes shape in Switzerland
Fast-forward to October last year, when his producer friend Greg Haver called to ask Jason to be part of a recording project in Switzerland in early 2026. Realising this was the opportunity to make his partner’s dream come true, the musician agreed, and brought Adele and Aurora, now four, with him.
While they first hoped to pull off both bucket-list items on the list simultaneously by eloping to France, red tape got in the way.
When plans had to change
Adele explains, “When we started planning, we realised it couldn’t happen and we’d still have to have a ceremony in New Zealand for it to be legit.”
By this stage, the couple had already invited family and friends to what was going to be a simple barbecue after the trip to celebrate them getting married in France, so instead, they decided to turn the homecoming do into their actual wedding.
A handmade wedding
Immediately, Adele started planning, drawing on her creativity to do everything from hand-stitching the flowers on her veil, to making her own bouquet – and even baking the three-tier chocolate, banana and vanilla wedding cake!
“I didn’t have the luxury of time,” she laughs.
“We decided to keep it classic and simple, and do it ourselves. Styling and creating are very much a part of who I am. I love making things look pretty.”
“I just had the job of showing up,” jokes Jason, who has founded the MahiFlow AI agency and the PriceMap shopping app.
Friends who made it possible
Thankfully, the couple had a talented group of close friends to call on, including celebrant Mary Newton, who is Jason’s “Auckland mum”, hair and makeup artist Mary Estelle, photographer Rachel Jordan and radio legend Mike Puru, who acted as MC.
Deciding the farm they own in the Far North would be too much of a hike for Adele’s beloved grandma Honor Flavell, they settled on saying “I do” in Cambridge, where they’ve been living for more than a year.
A wish from grandma
“Grandma really wanted to see us get married and she doesn’t mince her words,” laughs Adele.
“She kept saying we’d better hurry up because her time is running out.”
Jason adds, “We knew it was really important to her and we just wanted her to witness it.”
A Paris proposal at last
However, Adele’s bucket list was never far from Jason’s mind and, in early March, during the family’s Europe trip, he pulled off the perfect Paris proposal. With the Eiffel Tower behind them, he wrangled a member of the public to take a photo, dropped to one knee and presented Adele with a moissanite engagement ring she’d admired on Etsy.
“It was really nice,” recalls Adele.
“We’d obviously planned the wedding by that stage, but I never got the proposal experience, so Jase gave me that.”
It wasn’t until seeing the photos they realised Aurora had copied her dad and knelt for the proposal too!
A walk down the aisle to remember
Just over a week later, the family was back in Cambridge, listening to the opening refrain of the Carpenters’ hit Close To You, as Adele – wearing a strapless white Rebecca Ingram-designed gown from Astra Bridal – walked down the aisle on her dad Ivan’s arm.
Yet just a few seconds after the tune started, the music died due to an issue with the sound system.
“All of a sudden, everyone just started singing the song as we continued to walk,” grins Adele.
“It couldn’t have been better. I felt so loved and supported.”
With them in spirit
Meanwhile, Jason – who wore a suit from Tarocash – was sad that his own father Frank, who passed away in 2024, couldn’t be there, but he “felt his presence” thanks to his dad’s pounamu, which his brother Brogan placed around his neck just before the ceremony.
Together, the couple each shared heartfelt vows they’d penned in secret.
Adele tells, “Jason went first and I just laughed because my vows were pretty much the same! We both talked about how we’d dreamt of meeting each other before we actually did.”
When vows come full circle
Jason adds, “It was uncanny. Even the beginnings of our vows were the same. When we first started living with each other, we were listening to a lot of Paul McCartney and Wings. My Love became our thing, so the beginning of my vows was ‘My love’ and then that’s how Adele started hers!”
Both agree the promises they made that day were simply solidifying the past eight years of what “we’d already been living”.
Jason explains, “There was a full-circle moment for me when I heard her essentially say the same things back to me and it was a reminder of just how closely aligned we are.”
A gift for Aurora and a song written just for her
After exchanging rings – Adele’s an Etsy band to match her engagement gem and his a tungsten ring from Stormbaker in Christchurch – the couple gifted Aurora a bracelet, with Jason spontaneously bursting into the song Since You Were Born, the tune he wrote after her arrival.
The family was then showered in confetti as they walked back down the aisle, followed by groomsmen Brogan, Shay Muddle and former What Now presenter Jason Fa’afoi, plus bridesmaids Charlotte Corrigall, Sharnelle Lewis and Chaz Reid, who wore sage-green dresses from By Amica.
A first dance that became a family moment
Aurora was front and centre for the rest of the festivities, including the couple’s first dance to My Love.
Adele laughs, “We always knew that once we started dancing, our daughter would join in. We had about 10 seconds and a couple of spins before she jumped in for our first dance as a family.”
As they sit together reflecting on that magical day, finishing each other’s sentences, it’s clear to see how deep the bond runs between the pair.
A family united by name and love
“There’s this happiness there that we got to get married and experience that,” enthuses Adele.
“Now we get to share the same name – all three of us. Having a daughter, it was really important to me that we had the same name and were a family unit.”
Jason concludes, “There’s something about wearing the rings, declaring it to our best friends and family, and having Aurora able to understand it and participate in it… It feels really special.”
