The summer of love - Kiwi celebrities rush to tie the knot
By Monica Holt
From Stuff, 19 January 2003

Bernice Mene and Dion Nash are doing it, and so are Jane Young and lawyer David Howman.

But yesterday it seemed the only knot Adam Parore was planning on tying was in the towel around his waist.

Mene, Nash and Parore were among guests in a celebrity cricket match on Waiheke Island at the home of multi-millionaires Nancie and Bruce Plested.

For Mene and Nash, it was a chance to look over the Pie Melon Bay property where they will marry in two weeks.

Among those padding up were Parore, New Zealand selector Ross Dykes, Main-freight managing director Don Braid, director of Deutsche Bank Scott Perkins and Merv Bennett, husband of former National Party president Michelle Boag, who helped organise the day.

As Nash's Dashes squared off against Merv's World Famous XI, the rules were quickly bent and broken. Nash was dismissed after a huge swing sent the ball slamming into the Plested's palatial stone and timber home.

"I've never been out for hitting a house. I was hoping to hit one into the ocean for six."

Parore stripped off and went for a swim after smashing a few boundaries into the sand dunes. He was later recalled to the batting crease.

"It is the first time I've been for a swim between innings. It's not bad, is it?" he said of the bay. "It has a slightly different ambience to Eden Park."

Away from the celebrity cricket, David Howman, lawyer for some of our top sports stars, was preparing to marry former TV3 political editor Jane Young.

An intimate service to be followed by a cocktail party caps a perfect week for the pair after Howman was named chief executive of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada).

This evening's ceremony at their waterfront apartment will be a family affair, with Young's son Aaron and Howman's son Peter acting as the witnesses. Young's daughter Lucy, 10, "insisted" on being the flower girl, Young said yesterday.

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