Brad and Chel's Wedding!

The only fixed date when I set off on my seven month (and counting) adventure back in January, was Brad and Chel's wedding on 8th August. The day duly arrived yesterday and glorious it was too.

The wedding ceremony took place on the Band Lawn of the Botanic Gardens. It was a beautiful setting with a pond, fountains and trees sweeping down to views of the harbour. The park was still fully open to the public and Chel arriving across the lawns in her wedding dress caused a few raised eye brows from the picnickers and tourists who were nearby. Some of the local bird life also wanted to get in on the action with a duck waddling into the middle of a ceremony and a parakeet squawking in the arrival of the vows.

I was truly honoured to be asked to do one of the readings during the ceremony. Luckily I didn't stumble on any of the words and the English accent was a winner with the crowds. The final reading, by Brad's mum, was same Dr Suess poem I read at Emily and Andrew's wedding two years ago. The slightly eccentric, but lovely, celebrant remarked on the how Diane's emphasis had brought a whole new meaning to the poem!

Once the vows were said we popped a dozen bottles of champagne and enjoyed the setting sun in the park while the wedding photos were being taken.

The reception was held at Zilver in China Town. We had a thirteen course banquet including suckling pig, lobster and lots of other delights. The stomach fish lining soup was translated simply as Maw Fish Soup so that it didn't put off the squeamish. It wasn't as much of a culture shock as the Chinese wedding I went to in Singapore. Partly because it was my second banquet and also because the guests were fifty percent Australian.


I decided to take photos of the day on my film SLR, experimenting with a black and white for the first time. I'm going to have to wait for a couple of weeks to know whether or not I managed to take any gems.