GOING TO THE CHAPEL, yes but not the one we planned.

Most wedding stories start well before the actual day and ours was no exception,.

I was first asked out in April on my future brother in laws birthday when a small party was held as a celebration the room was really full and there was was only 1 seat left for the last person to arrive to sit. So the last person arrived and sat next to me, I almost thought that by the look on my sisters face that it was planned that way, I still think it was.

That was April, in September we were engaged, and had decided to marry in February the next year, but before our wedding my sister was getting married just 7 weeks before our date in Feb.

Then this is how things continued, my sister had her wedding invitations printed that went ok and because the printer was going to be closed for a while over Christmas we ordered ours at the same time. Both lots of invitations arrived my sisters were great and were quickly put in the post, no problem.

We opened ours and instead of my future husbands name was another name and I had no clue why or who, we checked the proof we had approved and the 2 bore no resemblance to each other, even the design was wrong, so we had to quickly contact the printer and deliver them back to them to be reprinted, it was then they said you wont get them before next year now! and we charge a reprint fee! after some very serious words they withdrew the order and were paid nothing at all. We dashed to the nearest news agent and purchased every wedding invitation they had which was just enough to send out.  So spent the next day writing out the invitations and sending them out.

then another disaster struck at the end of October the church we were to be married in and have our reception in was burnt down after a theft and break in, this meant a hurried arrangement of both my sisters wedding and ours, so more letters were sent out as not everyone had the telephone connected, so that we could let them know of the change of venue.

after this everything seemed to be going well and then just after my sisters wedding my future mother in law got a bee in her bonnet that neither of her girls were included in our wedding, so I asked the youngest if she would like to be a junior bridesmaid that way we didn’t need a partner for her, but there was a problem I had purchased enough material to make 3 dresses one for my sister who was to be matron of honour, one for a young girl as junior bridesmaid, and just enough for a dress later for my self as i really liked the material. I had to try and make enough material for a size 8 to stretch out to a size 12 or 14 for the extra junior bridesmaid, somehow I made that small piece of material go far enough. It turned out she actually only took part because her mother made her she didn’t want to take part and on the day my sister spent the time just keeping her in line.

Mum and Dad drove from one side of Melbourne to Ballarat to pick up the 3 tier cake, coming back home a very large kangaroo jumped into the front of the car, the sudden stop caused the top tier, the smallest to shoot through the air hit the windscreen and fall into a dozen pieces, I was told they calmly turned around and went back to the lady who had decorated it and asked what she could do? She did a lovely job of repair so well in fact that after the wedding when we packed the top cake away to break open a year later it was duly well sealed but when it was opened there was just a mushy mess that smelt terrible as it had been repaired with icing and cake under the outer layer. that really put a damper on our 1st anniversary.

I had booked the hairdresser for all 4 of us and I had a trial hair set that was great so made my veil and head gear to go on the lovely hair do, on the Thursday at lunch time 2 days before our wedding I went to the shop to make sure she had sufficient ribbon for the bridesmaids hair, the shop was closed she had closed the shop and eloped and was on her honeymoon in Tasmania, none of the neighbouring shops had any idea when she would return and reopen, so I had to find a new hairdresser. problem was the new hairdresser said she could not do my hair the way I wanted, but really I had no choice. So very early on the Saturday we went to the hairdresser but the problems continued it had been extremely hot and there were rolling blackouts, just as I was having my hair dried the power went out it was not coming back on for over an hour, we had to leave before my hair was dried, in the heat of the car it dried very quickly but the curls fell out!

I had sent all our clothing to my parents house ready for us to change to leave for the wedding, the others dressed without a problem I got my dress on and then realised I had to redo the way the veil attached to my hair as my hair was a totally different style and it looked weird the way it was, so quickly fixed that and then noticed that my lace top was no where to be seen, it had long sleeves and a crop top that just hooked together at the front, I never found it and could not find any alternative in my parents house as they had just moved house a few weeks before and not much had been unpacked, so I left for my wedding without my lace jacket and just a short sleeved white dress that really looked unfinished.

It was a terribly hot day and as my car came to a gated railway crossing the power went out and the train stopped in the middle of the road, we sat for a long time and as we had joked about the bride being traditionally late, we decided he would not need to cruise slowly round the block after all, I would just be really late for a genuine reason. Finally the power came back on and the train moved but the gates would not open so we sat and waited for the gates to be manually opened.

everything went smoothly during the actual wedding service, but a message arrived to tell Wayne that his aunt and uncle were sorry they had missed our wedding, but the uncle had been rushed into hospital and very quickly diagnosed with Leukaemia the message said his Uncle was dying.

I didn’t know before the wedding but Wayne had slipped the day before at work and badly sprained his ankle he could not do up his shoe and could barely walk on his very bruised ankle and foot, so he sort of hobbled out of the church and had a terrible time standing while photos were taken.

That evening we went to a motel and were headed for Queensland the next day, and that’s when it started to rain, we didn’t think it would last but believe me it did, roads were closed and we had to take an alternate route to reach Sydney, we arrived at the outskirts of Sydney and were told that we would not get to Queensland as the main highways were closed due to wash aways. The rain took visibility down to just a few feet there was no chance to do any of the tourist things, we decided the best thing to do was head back to Melbourne, which we did, on the return journey we heard that the basement of Myers in Melbourne had been flooded and water had even come through the walls of other basements in the city, many shops had to close while they were checked for structural defects.

We arrived home and drove up our unmade dead end street and parked the car where it would not be seen, but the mother of a friend who was a real sticky beak told our families were were home she must have driven up the street got out of her car and checked the yard to see if our car was there! that was the end of our solitude. I had wanted to go and pick up my clothes and my big ginger cat so we headed across to pick him up, apparently he had been quite happy but the minute I went in to get him he raced out the back door and I was never able to find him, so never saw him again.

I fully expected my white lace top to turn up but it never did.

That was our wedding and honeymoon not exactly the best time I have ever had and some people who realised how bad the time had been, declared our marriage would not last, that was 46  years ago so if it is not going to last it is a bit late now!