17/10/2025
And that’s a wrap for the biggest event of my year.
On Tuesday, I left brisbane loaded with every single item for a wedding, from hand crafted bouquets and buttonholes for the bridal party, right down to Indvidually hand labelled place cards and menus for the tables. With our beautiful old car on our purpose built car wedding trailer, (my husbands design. He is amazing, just saying) with my support crew Karen and John, we set off with what felt like half a house of furniture, to head to the Crowne Plaza Hawkesbury Valley, Windsor in western Sydney, for the wedding on Thursday.
Arriving Tuesday afternoon, the real work commenced. We styled the chapel from floor to ceiling, with colour themed arbor, floor florals, lanterns adorned with fairylights, sprays of multi coloured flowers atop of white plinths to create the start of the aisle, 400 fairylights on the roof, complimented by white chiffon swags to enhance the essence of romance and elegance. The day wouldn’t have been complete without having my dad there, who had a very special relationship with his grandson, so a chair was set proudly in his honour.
A late night finish and an early rise on Wednesday had the 3 of us busy all day again, setting up and preparing for the grand reception. Washing the car to remove the dust from the travel down, prepping the guestbook telephone and stand for the guests to leave their messages for the bride and groom. More work in the chapel in preparation of the big day, and finishing off with a fun and adventurous rehearsal.
Yesterday, after spending the morning setting up the reception space, I had the absolute honor of solemnizing the marriage of my nephew to his beautiful soul mate.
The day went off perfectly. The weather was gorgeous, although a little on the hotter side, 120 people slipped into the most adorable “air conditioned” (thank the lord above) chapel at the Crowne Plaza Hawkesbury Valley for the most incredible ceremony I’ve ever been a part of.
The groom started with a cleansing of the chapel with a didgeridoo, followed by a surprize audio recording of the two littlest attendants preparing their dad and soon to be new extra dad, with some words of comfort, that was painstakingly and secretly captured over many months by his bride, and then condensed into an audio recording to be played on their entry, without him knowing. The groom wasn’t the only one with wet eyes at hearing these two little people profess their love for him, and telling him how beautiful their mum and brand new mum to be looked. After the bride arrived at the alter with her dad, her mum joined him to give their blessing for their daughter to marry this young man.
Of course, it wouldn’t have been my nephew without a little bit of hyjinx and hillarity. Although not traditional to ask for any objections these days, I was instructed to ask if anybody objected to the marriage, at which point all 7 groomsmen, (yes 7), leapt into action pulling out small black nurf guns from their backs and pointing them to the guests. It was an ideal ice breaker to settle the nerves, and happy tears, of one very nervous bride and groom. It certainly settled the room after a good laugh, which then eased the 35 minute ceremony into what felt like 10 minutes of perfection.
I love every single ceremony I perform, be it a simple legals only with a couple and closest family under a tree in the Botanical Gardens, all the way through to my recent full service wedding at Rydges Southbank, and I feel so honored and blessed to be able to do what I do. Having said that, it is a whole other level of pride being able to marry a young man you have loved and nurtured from birth, and share in the joy with his mum, my sister, on the biggest day of his life. I guess I could say that I consider every couple I marry to be like family by the big day, but to be here to share this day with my nephew and newest niece, is a high that will be very hard to top.
Congratulations again Tegan and Leha. It was the most incredible day and thank you again for allowing me the special place at the heart of it all.
