Former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her partner Clarke Gayford at the wedding. Photo: AP.
Details of the event have been largely kept under wraps by the couple, but the ceremony is said to have been held at a luxury vineyard in the beautiful Hawke’s Bay region, 325km from New Zealand’s capital Wellington.
It is believed that only Ardern’s family, close friends and some of Ardern’s former parliamentary colleagues were invited, including Ardern’s successor and former prime minister Chris Hipkins.
Ardern, 43, and Gayford, 47, are said to have started dating in 2014 and got engaged five years later, but due to the Ardern government’s COVID-19 restrictions, gathering numbers were reduced to 100 people, the wedding scheduled for the summer of 2022 in the Southern Hemisphere has been postponed.
“Such is life,” Ardern said at the time they decided to call off their wedding. “I dare say I’m no different from thousands of other New Zealanders.”
Just 37 years old when she became leader in 2017, Ardern quickly became a global left-wing icon. She exemplifies a new style of leadership and has been praised around the world for her handling of New Zealand’s worst-ever mass shooting and the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.
In 2018, Ardern became the second elected world leader to give birth while in office. Later that year, she brought her infant daughter to speak at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
New Zealand, under Ardern’s government, had some of the strictest coronavirus regulations in the world, which prompted a number of protests during her final year as prime minister. It also led to severe difficulties that New Zealand leaders had never experienced before.
Ardern shocked New Zealanders in January 2023 when she said she would step down after five and a half years as prime minister because she was no longer “competent” to do the job fairly in a election year.
Since then, Ardern announced she would temporarily join Harvard University after being appointed to positions at the Harvard Kennedy School. She also took on a pro bono role in combating online extremism.
In June, Ardern received one of New Zealand’s highest honors for leading the country through a mass shooting and the pandemic. She has been given the title Dame Grand Companion, meaning everyone will now call her Dame Jacinda Ardern.
