If rain on your wedding day is meant to be a sign of good luck, what does it mean if the fire service shows up?

Instead of ruining their special day, a fire which broke out during Kathleen and Matthew Poole's wedding on Saturday has given the Tauranga couple a funny story to tell their grandkids someday.

Kathleen says they'd just finished the wedding ceremony at Lifechurch Tauranga on Cameron Road when the excitement kicked-off.

'We were in the middle of taking group photos inside the church when someone opened a door and we caught a whiff of the fire. I asked what the smell was, someone said it was just the pig cooking on a spit behind the building and it was all good.”

The pig was far from all good.

Capturing Kathleen and Matthew's special day was professional photographer Sharon Taylor, who explains the pig had fallen off the spike holding it onto the frame of the spit and was lying on top of the hotplates at the bottom.

'The pigfat had caught on fire. Flames were leaping high, and people at the church used the fire extinguishers to try and control the flames, but ended up having to ring for the fire brigade,” says Sharon.

'After using the sprays in their tank bottles, the long fire hose was brought round to dampen everything down.”

Kathleen says she hadn't even realised firefighters had been dispatched to the church until Sharon told the couple moments after crews had extinguished the fire.

'Sharon came rushing up to us saying the fire trucks were out front and we we're going to go get photos. I was like, ‘There's a fire truck here? Why is there a fire truck here?'” she says with a laugh.

'The firefighters were pretty chill, they wanted to take off all their gear before Sharon took the photo but we wouldn't let them because it would look better for the photo.”

All-in-all, what could have been a disastrous turn of events ended up being a funny feature of Kathleen and Matthew's special day and something they'll long remember.

'The fire didn't ruin anything in the end, everything panned out and flowed really well, and the kitchen staff were awesome at getting a backup plan sorted for our reception.”

The remains of the spit cooker following the fire on Saturday.