Chris and I met in an emo club on Mardi Gras 2011. That first night involved lots of dance floor antics, 4 AM kick-ons and Sausage and Egg McMuffins culminating in a shared train trip home with numbers exchanged.

Our first date was held at the newly opened Sushi Train. I got lost on the way to meet Chris and was very late and nervous which meant I ended up dropping sushi everywhere. Luckily Chris found that very amusing. Since then we’ve been pretty much inseparable. In the following seven years we’ve bought our first home together and adopted our fur baby Archie the cat.

We finally got engaged on a trip to the US and Canada in June last year. Chris carried the ring around for half the trip, desperately trying to find the perfect opportunity to propose. He thought he’d finally lucked out when we first arrived at a spectacular lookout in Death Valley and was ready to drop the knee but was quickly thwarted by 5 cars pulling up and someone yelling to ask us if we knew where the bathroom was. Two minutes down the road he veered in to another lookout, much to my confusion since we’d just stopped to see this view! Having learned his lesson, he wasted no time in dragging me to the edge of the lookout and whipping out the ring.

Chris and I were both determined to have a wedding that felt more like a weekend-long party instead of a traditional wedding. We chose Bawley Bush Retreat as our venue because of its beautiful surroundings and so that we could stay on-site with our guests.

It became a running joke between our families about how meticulously Chris and I planned our wedding. We were prepared for absolutely anything. Or so we thought. After spending all day Friday setting up our ceremony and reception under an absolutely stunning double Kata, I was awoken at 6 am on the morning of our wedding by the sound of rain pelting the sides of our cabin. Putting on our gumboots and trudging down to the wedding site we found the Kata completely flooded! Our meticulous planning had not covered this scenario. I am a little ashamed to admit that I burst in to tears. Luckily for us, our amazing group of family and friends that were staying on-site sent me off to get ready with a bottle of champagne and packed up our entire wedding and set it back up in the function room just up the hill. They did such an incredible job and Chris and I will be forever thankful for what they did for us that day.

Everything looked to be back on track and I was just about to sit down to get my hair finished when suddenly the power went out for the entire suburb! Someone arrived with a generator to save the day and the power returned an hour before the ceremony was due to start.

Thankfully, the rain cleared 45 minutes before our ceremony and stayed dry for the rest of the night allowing us to hold our ceremony in the Kata. Nicky our celebrant wrote a ceremony that was absolutely hilarious and uniquely us. She also supported us in writing our own vows (which I cried through).

Our reception in the function space was cozy with 80+ guests squeezed in but it just added to the fun. We cried from laughter through the speeches followed by a relaxed (and delicious) buffet dinner from Duck Duck Goose and gaytime ice-creams for dessert! Tables were removed and rather than the traditional first dance, Chris and I opted for a ‘first pinata’ followed by forcing every single one of our guests to get up and dance to some killer tunes from our DJ Adam from the Vintage Stylus. He mixed in songs for every generation and he ensured that everyone had a great time dancing until late into the night!