Bennelong Lawn Wedding

Lauren and Alex

This was a lesson in embracing life, in choosing joy, in making lemonade out of lemons and other assorted overused but apt phrases.

Lauren and Alex were supposed to have a big wedding up the coast. Margherita kegs and tacos and all the people. This was on October 9th, a mere 48 hours before the lockdown restrictions were to lift in NSW. They realised they wouldn’t be able to have their original wedding, but decided to make the most out of the situation, to embrace the chaos, to forge ahead despite what the world threw at them and make it as joyful and meaningful as they possible could.

So after an email to NSW health, a night before trip to Bunnings for an esky and Dan Murphys for a copious amount of Veuve, they gathered with who they could on Bennelong Lawn. They made some promises after an already monumental 11 years together, handed out bottles and straws and said, both literally and metaphorically, let’s make the most out of this chaos.

In a moment of perhaps somewhat drunken admission (…most everyone had finished their bottle by the time the rangers decided they actually needed to lock the gates to the park and kick everyone out) Lauren told me that yes, she was sad that their families and a selection of their oldest friends couldn’t be there, but she was married to the man she loved and they had about a wonderful time doing it as she could imagine.

To choosing joy. To embracing chaos. To copious amounts of Veuve and generous park rangers. To Lauren and Alex. To choosing to have a lockdown wedding two days before 100 person weddings are allowed because screw waiting and what god damn story this will be to tell in 20 years.

I honestly could not have dreamt up a more glorious few hours for my first wedding back in far too long.

Enjoy

Dane

 

INSTAGRAM @THESALTYSHUTTER

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