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Published: April 2nd 2015
9am and I peeled my eyes back, we overslept! But despite having gone to bed early the night before my head is still screaming the words "early" at me. It feels like 6am which of course it is in Perth.
We both venture out of bed and into the kitchen for a cup of tea, Helen, of course, is there and as usual been up for hours and no doubt probably done half a days work before we even opened our eyes.
Today is Josh and Erica's wedding, we have been looking forward to this, especially knowing that the wedding is on their property and will be our first proper country wedding, whilst we have been in Australia. But first, I need to go for a jog down the lane, I have not been doing too much exercise of late and after the journey over here and being cooped up on an aeroplane I feel the need. So I ran down the lane toward Merriville to blow some cobwebs out and shift some of those extra calories I seem to be retaining of late.
Back at the homestead I have breakfast and
then Andy and I head up to the container to have a look at our belongings that we stored in there almost 2 years ago. We were wondering how well they had fared, despite being protected, the conditions here can be harsh, cold and wet winters with the extreme heat of the summers.
I found a couple of things that I wanted straight away, but we could not resist opening up a couple of those boxes to see what was in them, it is amazing what you forget you have. We also need to take an extra suitcase back with us because we are taking some extra items back to Perth when we go, and one suitcase that we brought over is on its last wheel, so we will swap it with another case. We also have a suitcase that we borrowed from a friend so that will need to return to Perth with us.
We rummaged in our treasure trove of goodies and took out what we needed with the promise that we needed to come back up and have a sort through before heading back to the West.
It
A nice day for a White Wedding
A Rare Photo of KangarooJack togetherwas time to get ready for the big occasion and the very reason that we were back in town. We first met Josh and Erica at Woodstock when we came to help with the harvest nearly 6 years ago. We also had the pleasure of spending some camping time with them back in the winter of 2013 when we were travelling across to Perth from Canberra.
This wedding has been a dilemma for me and what to wear, I have never been to a wedding in a paddock before and I was planning on wearing a nice pair of jeans with a shirt and Akubra and some RM Williams boots but Helen suggested that she would be wearing a dress, so I thought I should do the same. That said, Andy was pretty much wearing what I described above, and despite wearing a dress I struggled with the footwear, my RM Williams boots just did not look right with the dress so I found a flat pair of sandals to wear instead, I saved the heels for the reception, I did have some silicon heel savers attached to protect the heels from the hardcore on the driveway.
Andy drove and Robert and Helen came with us, off we set across the dirt tracks to the other side of "town" where direction signs were waiting to steer us off to the site of the wedding, unfortunately we have a hire car and we had to drive across the paddock very slowly as we did not want to return the car without the front spoiler, no four wheel driving for us on this trip!
We arrived at the alter, there were bales of hay for the guests on one side and wicker chairs for guests on the other. the ground had been cleared away and a white tarpaulin had been laid down for the bride to walk up to the make shift alter where the celebrant and Erica's groom would be waiting.
Two chairs and a table were set off to one side under the shade of a tree where the marriage register would be waiting for their signatures.
The guests were gradually arriving, the heat of the day was biting so everyone was gathering under the trees for the cool shade. The celebrant and her helper were doing
the final touches to the set up and the groom drove up with his best man, his brother Daniel and his groomsmen, he parked the Landcruiser up by the alter, it was very much going to be part of this wedding.
People chatted and whiled the time away until we see another Landcruiser making its way up the track from the homestead, two bridesmaids sat in the back and you could just see the bride in the passenger seat.
Josh's dad, Andrew, made his special delivery and the bride was soon with her grandparents walking up the aisle, the other Landcruiser also found its way up to the alter where it was parked for the ceremony.
The celebrant was fairly new to this game, this was her fifth wedding and she was doing a good job keeping everyone on track with the ceremony, a little bit of humour and we all kept engaged with what was going on, a few of us continued to move around and take photos.
Soon the wedding vows were made, Josh and Erica were hitched and now for the signing of the register,
A nice day for a White Wedding
A lovely shot of Helen and Robert they made their way over to the tree where the table and chairs were waiting for them, and their signatures on the paper that made it all official.
I was busy taking photos and soaking up the atmosphere, and while the official photographer was doing her thing, the rest of us headed back to the machinery shed for some refreshment and nibbles.
Long tables were laid out with beautiful white tablecloths, wooden placemats and chairs draped in white with big blue bows. One corner was the set up for the buffet, another corner was set up with the drinks, there was wine, beer, spirits, tea, coffee, water and nearby was the cake on a beautiful carved wooden round sat on top of a large wine barrel.
Helen and I grabbed a table where the four of us could sit together, there was no huge formality at this wedding, you could sit where you liked apart from the table set for the bridal party. We chatted, drank and ate nibbles until the bridal party appeared at the door to take their seats and dinner was served, a beautiful hot buffet, plenty of
vegetables served with chicken, lamb and beef, followed by pavlova, cheesecake and fruit salad.
The speeches flowed along with the tears and the alcohol, eventually the DJ was able to get the music wound up, the shed doors opened to reveal the dance floor encased with bales of hay.
We danced under the stars to some pretty awesome music, everybody was having a good time. By now the bride's beautiful white dress was looking rather grubby from being out in the paddock and sweeping across the dirt, but she did not mind and just went with the flow of the day. I can honestly say in the years that I have known Erica, I am pretty sure I have never seen her in a dress, and today, she looked stunning!
The party was winding up, our feet were sore from the dancing, and I am pretty sure that we were one of the last ones to leave, the DJ would have been thinking about winding up, so we made our way back down to the car park where Andrew was seeing everyone off, we said our goodbyes and thanked them for
a wonderful celebration, Andrew reminded Andy to watch out for "roo's" on the way home. We needed to be mindful, we have a hire car and for a change we don't have bull bars so if we hit any wildlife it will do a lot of damage!
Arriving back at the farm it was gone 1am before we finally fell into bed, my feet were throbbing, but what a great day and well worth the pain!
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