Newspaper Article 2015 – Mayor celebrates ‘sweet amalgamation’

Mayor celebrates ‘sweet amalgamation’

By Doug Laing
[email protected]

Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule yesterday clinched the first leg of an amalgamation double when he married Napier woman Kerryn Jones, in Napier.

The second leg is just under eight weeks away, when Hastings and Napier, along with Central Hawke’s Bay and Wairoa, vote on whether their councils should merge.

Mr Yule indicated his “I do” to the latter union at least six years ago.

While there was a measure of the private, family-type of wedding in the service conducted by Dean of Waiapu Dr Michael Godfrey in Napier’s St John’s Cathedral, there was a hint of municipal romance on the last side of the wedding sheet for the busy local body politician. In italics, it read: “Sweet Amalgamation.”

It was the second marriage for Mr Yule, who earlier in the week returned from the annual conference of Local Government New Zealand, of which he is president.

He and his bride, who was getting married for the first time and dressed in traditional white wedding gown with veil, will honeymoon “a couple of days at the Chateau” before returning to work later in the week.

Former Napier Mayor Barbara Arnott was among those at the wedding, affirming afterwards it was the only amalgamation of which she would approve this year. Hawke’s Bay Regional Council chairman Fenton Wilson was also present, as was Hastings-based Tukituki MP Craig Foss, and most of the Hastings District Council.

Three of Mr Yule’s four offspring were present for the wedding in which his best man was brother Andrew Yule, of Invercargill.

The new Mrs Yule, daughter of Ross and Beth Jones, of Napier, had one bridesmaid, sister Kelly Jones.

Following a “convivial glass or two” with wellwishers in the Baptistry at the rear of Cathedral, the Mayor and the new Mayoress were driven from the church in a 1967 Daimler 250 V8 for the wedding breakfast at Mission Estate . . . Napier.

Photo caption – AMALGAMATION: The Mayor of Hastings District Council, Lawrence Yule, married Napier woman Kerryn Jones in Napier last night.
Photo / JOHN COWPLAND, ALPHAPIX