The Wedding

It was so beautiful – the day was warm and sunny and the lawn we’d chosen was gorgeous. The overhead marquees looked great and the sun sparkled on the water like a newly polished gold coin.

Friday April 20, 2007, will go down as the happiest day in my life by such a large margin. I imagine that the only thing that will ever contend for the title will be when my children are born, whenever that may be.

It was unlike anything else I’d ever felt, or anything I thought was even possible to feel. As E’lise walked down the aisle, and during the ceremony, I felt such pure happiness, so intensely in love and so very grateful that I’d found my one true and lifelong love. Such as it was, I felt a little light-headed and almost like it was too much; how is it possible that such a good thing could happen and that it could all be so right, and involve me?

The whole day was amazing. I spent the previous night, my last as an unmarried man, with my best mate Cam, brothers Rusty and Thomas, and my mother. We stayed in an apartment not too far from the Botanic Gardens. We went out to dinner, had some drinks and generally just hung out. I had a great night and was glad to be sharing it with whom I did.

The next morning I woke up and felt a little weird – good weird. I was so excited about marrying E’lise and didn’t want to wait the five hours until we were due at the Gardens for photos and then the ceremony. I was a little anxious about it all, about the amount of time I had to wait and try and be calm. The wait was pretty painful, but we just lounged around, had some breakfast and got ready at our own pace. Leaving the apartment and driving to the Gardens, I knew that I didn’t want to wait much longer, which was good as it was only an hour and a half further away.

We pulled up, parked, put our jackets on, dusted them off and then walked down to the place I would get married. Everything was pretty well set up and the celebrant was waiting there for us. We walked around a bit, I practiced my vows some more and took it all in. We had photos taken of us groomsmen and some family shots with Mum and my brothers, and people started arriving. I made a conscious effort to walk around and say hello to people whilst we waited for E’lise to arrive and I’m glad I did as the reception flew by and I could relax knowing I’d spoken to everybody at least once already.

My bride was a little late arriving, though as I learned it was because the gardens staff were waiting at the wrong gate and the wedding cars had to pull back out and drive on some more, making the walk in a little longer, but she got there in the end. I heard the car coming and wiped the sweat form my forehead for the fifteenth time in a minute (it was warm!). The bridesmaids then walked down the aisle, followed by E’lise and her father. I was so excited but also shitting myself, as I forgot my vows as soon as I saw her. I wanted to grab her and give her big wet one but knew I’d have to wait, so I brushed her arm to tide me over.

I don’t remember all of the ceremony, it went too quick and I was just looking at E’lise and grinning like an idiot! I do remember saying “I do!” when asked some questions, then quickly correcting myself and saying “I will” as the ceremony called for. At least I had my movie moment!

Quick as a flash, it was over and I was now a married man. It was quite surreal but also felt natural, like nothing had changed but that the love we share had been formalised, or something like that anyway. We walked down the aisle, gave handshakes and kisses to about a million people, and then had a glass of champers. After being warned by the photographer that I was likely to burn in the sunshine, I stepped under a marquee and tried to take it all in – hard to do when 120 people are taking photos of you and all demanding your eyes face their camera…

A week and a half of photos later (an hour in reality), we hopped in the beautiful car and drove to the reception venue. I remember it was a fairly quiet sort of a trip, we were just happy, smiling and holding each other’s hands. I swear that if the car had autopilot, the driver would have been out on his rear and the curtains would have been pulled down!

More photos were taken, at Gem Pier in Williamstown, and then we headed to the reception for all that. The venue was just beautiful and the night went so smoothly. My speech went down better than I thought it would, though I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to the bridesmaids for overlooking my thanks to them… sorry ladies, you looked great! And did great, too.

I managed to pull off something resembling a slow dance and then the night was practically over. We bade farewell, headed upstairs to the penthouse we were staying in, where, I hoped, we’d get to spend some alone time. But, the wife had other ideas. We ended up walking across the road to the pub where all the guests had toddled off to and joining them for some more drinks. It was really fun though and I’m glad we did.

There were so many people who helped make the day the fabulous one that it was, and the below list is a directory of endorsed and recommended suppliers:

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne – the gorgeous venue for the ceremony
InstantShade – fantastic providers of marquees, chairs and red carpet
Classic Rolls – classy transportation
Pelicans Landing – beautiful reception venue, with city and water views
Paul Sulovski – the best photographer we could have hoped for
Flik Film – superb wedding videographers
Esstee Big Band – great music and great fun (the drummer’s pretty good!)

My wife (hehe) had a million people help her with her dress, hair, make-up, flowers, skin tone and so on, but to be truthful I’ve slipped into husband mode already and don’t know who they all were so no mentions and links for those people, sorry!

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It’s almost been four weeks, but in some ways it feels much longer. Shorter in others though. I’m so happy, so in love and really excited about our future. You, dear readers, will get to hear all about it over what I hope will be a 50+ year marriage, filled with all sorts of celebrations and creations.