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The last words that the groom at the center of Bluff’s infamous Covid-19 wedding group said to his father before he died were going to be strong.
Their wedding had been an “incredible day,” bride Betty told Newshub’s national correspondent Patrick Gower in her new documentary: Patrick Gower: On lockdown.
But it was at the March wedding that the groom’s father, Chrissanthos Tzanoudakis, caught Covid-19.
The 87-year-old man died within a month.
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Betty and Manoli’s wedding was the focus of the Bluff group.
“It was an amazing day with our entire family around us,” said Betty. “Then everything changed.”
Betty had proposed to Manoli on a hunting trip to Stewart Island.
They spent months planning their wedding reception at the Oyster Cove restaurant in Bluff on March 21.
Manoli’s father, originally from Greece, had lived in Wellington for more than 50 years. He worked on the docks and owned a fish and chip shop. He planned to return to Greece after the wedding.
But in the days after the wedding, a guest tested positive for Covid-19.
Then the bride and groom tested positive.
“One of the guests called me to ask how we were doing,” Betty said.
“He said that he was not feeling well and that they had tested him for Covid-19 and it came back positive.
“So it was like, ‘wow.’
Up to 98 people related to the wedding contracted the virus and two people died, including Manoli’s father.
Manoli described his father as his best friend and said they were very close.
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Manoli and her father Chrissanthos Tzanoudakis on their wedding day, where Chrissanthos would catch Covid-19.
The Thursday after the wedding, her father was very ill, Manoli said.
“They rushed him to the hospital. It was going up and down, and then it started to deteriorate. “
His father was put on an oxygen mask, but he was taking it off because he was in so much pain.
Speaking in Greek, Manoli told him to “be strong and we will get through it.”
It was the last thing he said to his father, who passed away on April 10.
One of his guests, a flight attendant, was identified as the one who brought the virus to the country.
But Manoli said he would not blame anyone for his father’s death. He blames the virus.
