A celebrity love story that's truly worth celebrating.

A diamond ring and an announcement in a glossy magazine. But that’s where any similarities between Turia Pitt’s engagement and many other celebrity unions end.

You know who should really, really get married? Turia Pitt and Michael Hoskin.

You know who should never have bothered? Geoffrey Edlestein and Gabi Grecko.

You know who else? Katy Perry and Russell Brand.

You know who else? Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson.

I could go on. I won’t.

Turia and Michael have been together for years. Years that have seen challenges that most of us could barely entertain. They live quietly in Ulladulla on the far south coast of New South Wales. They share a love of the outdoors, a passion for a life less ordinary, for risk-taking and do-gooding and adventure and refusing to conform to the expectations of them that are all around.

They met at school and Michael was a police officer who moved to WA to be with mining engineer and athlete Turia before she took part in the 2011 Ultra Marathon that changed everything. The race became engulfed in a bush fire and Turia suffered burns to 64 per cent of her body. Afterwards, he stopped working for a time to look after his partner, who endured over 100 operations, and needed to learn to walk again, to live again, to do anything on her own again.

Michael has told the Australian Women’s Weekly that he bought the diamond ring for Turia when she was lying in intensive care four years ago. The fact that she has only accepted it now says a great deal about them both.

It’s not a symbol, it’s not a gesture, it’s not a hurried display of commitment to reassure a suffering partner, or to sure up a wobbly deal. It’s an engagement that comes from a deep understanding of what commitment means.

Click through for a gallery of Michael and Turia… (Post continues after gallery).

Marriage is fashionable again. Any 20-something can tell you that, as they spend chunks of salary and all of their free weekends attending the their best friend’s happy events. Relentless enthusiasm is required, not just for a ceremony, but for an engagement party, a hens’ weekend, a spa day, a kitchen tea and three nights in a country B&B within a mini-bus’s distance of an Instagram-worthy rustic barn.

Celebrities have everything to do with this.

The people who fill our feeds are constantly chasing milestones to tick off. Engaged! House! Married! Baby!

And the need for news, for something to share, for spectacle, is valued much more highly than the relationship itself. Katy Perry married Russell Brand on an elephant in India in the shadow of the Taj Mahal. Amazing.

But he divorced her by text message on New Year’s Eve.

Kim Kardashian sold her second wedding to People magazine for a reported six figures. Wore three different dresses. Made sure her mum had a facelift to look great in the photos. Had a black and white party that splashed out $2m just in flowers. The couple earned a rumoured $17m from the whole event.

They announced their split 72 days later.

Still, Kardashian’s next wedding obsessed the Internet for a full week of celebrations across Europe. Our hunger for the spectacle was not dulled in the least by the fact we all knew it meant little.
Click through for a gallery of Kimye’s wedding… And ‘pre-wedding…’ (post continues after gallery)

So much drama. So much money.

How far away from a couple holidaying together on a tropical island. A couple who have spent four years reinventing their lives to absorb an event so nightmarish, and an aftermath so challenging, it defies imagination.

A couple who do really know what better or worse means. And for a woman who has had to learn to do so much that so many of us take for granted, Turia Pitt’s words about her fiance remind us that our partners are what many of us take for granted.

“Going to sleep next to my partner, I never thought of anything before,” Turia told magazine DMA. “Now I think [how] lucky am I to get to sleep next to this beautiful man. He’s a good guy and I’m very lucky to have him,” she said.

“Every day I wake up beside Michael is a great day.”

Yes, we will doubtless see this wedding in the pages of the Weekly, just as we have the engagement pictures today. But this is a celebrity union worth celebrating.

A couple worth aspiring to. A commitment worth emulating.

We wish you all the luck and love in the world, Michael and Turia.

Nobody knows what will come, but the odds are in your favour.

And that has nothing to do with chance.

Share a message of congratulations to Turia and Michael, below.

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For more on Turia Pitt and her inspirational story, take a look through these:

Beautiful, happy news for Turia Pitt.

Turia Pitt: “When people say they feel sorry for me, I don’t really get it.”

Turia Pitt: ‘I thought I’d wake up in the burns unit. Instead I woke up in the ICU.’

Finally, justice for burns victim and ultra marathon runner Turia Pitt.