On the 16th April 2013, the New Zealand Parliament voted to legalise same sex marriage. At the same time, we convinced the NZ government to give the first two legal marriage certificates to two Australians.

• We then partnered with Australia’s leading same-sex newspaper, The Star Observer and ran the competition via their Facebook page alongside a series of editorial articles on all of the best New Zealand wedding destinations

• On 19th July we announced the winning couple and Wellington as the destination

• On 19th August we threw them a lavish wedding in Wellington and invited both Australian and New Zealand media to attend

There were 1,150 earned media articles about the campaign creating 210,000,000 media impressions across Australia. This included 15 TV features, widespread gay community news, bridal magazine front covers and live wedding footage on national TV. As a result, web searches for ‘marriages’ increased by 400% on NewZealand.com.au and Australian visitors increased by 4.7% during the period. Australian marriages now make up 30% of all same sex marriages in New Zealand and Paul and Trent, our winning couple, were invited to walk in the Sydney Mardi Gras Festival parade.