1 June, 2025

New Kiwi surprises husband in ceremony ambush

A Takapuna citizenship ceremony this month had a surprise finale when the official handing out certificates realised his own wife had decided to become a fully-fledged Kiwi.
Devonport-Takapuna Local Board deputy chair Terence Harpur was ready to present the 500th and final certificate of the evening when his wife, Dr Felicity Williamson Harpur, stepped onto the stage.
“It was an absolute and complete surprise, I had no idea – she totally got me,” Harpur told the Observer.
Williamson Harpur, a medical officer of health, has held permanent resident status in New Zealand for 25 years.
Her husband said he had urged her to take up New Zealand citizenship previously, but was not aware she had the process underway. “Everyone knew except me.”
The North Shore’s local boards take turns hosting the three or four local citizenship ceremonies held each year, so Williamson Harpur ensured she could attend a DTLB-hosted event on 19 May.
Harpur’s local board colleagues and event organisers were in on the surprise, arranging for her to slip into the Westlake Girls High School event centre unnoticed and be the last on stage.
She wore a tailored vintage muumuu, in recognition of having grown up in Hawaii, and a lei on her head that she wore when the couple married..
People from 52 countries – ranging from Argentina to Zimbabwe – were welcomed to the event with a powhiri, waitata and kapa haka. Some, like Williamson Harpur, wore their native country’s national or ethnic costume.
Harpur told the Observer people from the Philippines, India and China were strongly represented among the new citizens, as were those from South Africa and the United Kingdom.
It is a path he too once followed, when his family emigrated from South Africa when he was aged 10. Three years later, he attended a citizenship ceremony at the Bruce Mason Centre.
He drew on this experience when speaking at the Westlake ceremony, saying he understood the sacrifice and the journey families attending had been on.
Harpur said his wife – whose Scottish and Australian parents worked in the United States for many years – had drawn on her Hawaiian upbringing to surprise him before. After secretly taking lessons, she performed a hula at their wedding in February last year.
In her job with the public health service, Williamson Harpur has recently been leading public health efforts to ward off a measles outbreak. The couple met on a night out eating ramen.
After the citizenship ceremony they had a quiet finish to the evening, with a babysitter having to be relieved.
“We celebrated with ice-cream, being a Monday night,” Harpur said.

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