Fiji has another celebrity proposal to its name. Leroy Carter, the 27-year-old winger who has gone from Bay of Plenty club rugby to the All Blacks via the Chiefs and the Sevens circuit, got down on one knee on a white-sand beach during a last-minute trip with his partner, police officer Anika Russell. The resort staff didn't know what was coming, but they still laid on private Fijian cooking classes and a dinner for two in a beachside cabana — which turned out to be the perfect stage. Carter waited until Anika stood up to take photos, dropped to one knee, and she turned around to the question. Ten minutes after she said yes, the sky lit up with the only sunset of their entire trip.
The ring had already travelled further than most passengers. Carter picked it up in South Africa on tour, then decided a spontaneous Fijian escape beat sitting on it at home in Pāpāmoa — partly because his dog Remis has a documented habit of chewing passports, and he wasn't taking chances with small valuables.
The couple, who met at a bar in Mount Maunganui in 2022, know a thing or two about long-distance. Carter's Sevens years meant monthly trips away, and Super Rugby now keeps him in Hamilton while All Blacks duty sends him overseas for weeks. Anika, 24, works full-time on the police front line and shrugs off the WAG label: 'I'm still doing my own journey while supporting him.'
So where's the wedding? Not before late 2028 — the couple want to get next year's World Cup out of the way first — and Rarotonga tops the wish list. Anika's mum was born on the Cook Island, much of her family still lives there, and her parents are retiring to the island. On a visit earlier this year they were already pointing out wedding venues over dinner. 'I love Raro,' says Carter, who celebrated his first All Blacks call-up last year with a $500 emergency passport after his dog struck again.
For travellers, it's a timely nudge towards two of the Pacific's most reliable romantic escapes. Fiji's resort islands have long specialised in exactly this kind of set-up: cabana dinners, cooking classes, beach proposals with staff only too happy to help pull off a surprise. Rarotonga offers a more low-key, family-friendly version of the same — a ring road around the island, lagoons you can swim in at high tide, and a tight-knit local community that makes destination weddings feel personal rather than staged.
Whether you're planning a proposal, a wedding or just an engagement-style celebration of your own, both destinations deliver the sunset-on-cue formula — though as Carter and Russell learned, even a perfect Fijian evening only gets one sunset. Timing is everything.
NZ Herald Travel
