FROM BACHELORETTE TO BRIDE LESINA'S ENGAGED!

The doctor didn't pick a man on telly, but now she's found The One!

- Leena Tailor

Five years after she went looking for love as New Zealand's first leading lady on The Bachelorette, Dr Lesina Nakhid-Schuster is getting her happy-ever-after!

During a weekend away in a dome tent in Raglan, her partner Tom Brodie popped the question.

“It was an endearing moment,” says Lesina, 37. “We both knew we'd get married, but he'd put so much effort into it - it felt loving and just right.”

Their engagement comes two years after the pair met on a dating app and one year after Lesina told us she had found her “forever person” in Tom, 39, a development manager for an industrial property firm.

Since then, the couple has put their relationship through two tough challenges. First, they travelled together on a six-week jaunt around the Middle East and Egypt.

“We learned we deal with stress differently, so it was a good test,” says Lesina. “I had a big accident in Jordan, where I gashed my head after fainting from the heat, and Tom looked after me.”

Then when they returned from their travels, they moved in together, with Tom shifting from Christchurch to join her in her Hamilton home.

“We were ready to live together after a year and a half of long distance, but it’s the little things that are hard,” says Lesina. “Figuring out who's doing the cooking was our biggest domestic challenge.”