The Wedding

The clouds came to meet us as we drove the last ten miles up into the Blue Mountains, the mist softening the outline of the trees and the land around us. We went as quiet as the stillness we could feel, driving more slowly now as we made our way down the lanes towards the cottage. The air was beautiful and cool, a relief from the heat of Sydney. 

When we pulled up Ellie and I leapt out of our respective cars, determined to be the first in, excited to look around, but also feeling responsible – wanting to check that the cottage was as perfect as it looked on the advert. Unbelievably, it was actually better. We had chosen it for its location mainly but it also had a room with four beds in it for the teenagers to sleep in together if they wanted to. That room turned out to be on the ground floor next to the living room, they could stay up to whatever o’clock and not disturb anyone…

There were enough bedrooms for us all and a spare which Thoma claimed, the living room was cosy, the kitchen table was just the right size, there was a working barbecue, and the decking and garden outside were lovely. Fab!
Once everyone had chosen their rooms (Ellie and Mike first) we bundled back into the cars and went to look at the “venue“ for the wedding, which was only five minutes away. The hour or so we’d taken having a cup of tea/coffee/hot water and rushing around the house, throwing our posessions everywhere, or unpacking neatly (depending on personality type), had allowed the sun a chance to fight back and we could see patches of blue sky appearing.

We parked on a street lined with bungalows on one side and forest on the other. It was hard to imagine where anyone could get married near here…? We turned right and walked off the road, down a little sandy path into the forest, and headed down the track. As the trees gave way Mike turned round grinning …ten more steps and I stopped dead, gasping as the view opened up before us. 

A valley deeper than the Grand Canyon, entirely filled with trees and meandering yellow track ways, birds soaring way below us, and a sky that took our breath away.

Absolutely stunning.

When Ellie and Mike had first decided on the Blue Mountains as a back drop for their wedding they had imagined getting married in a natural little amphitheatre they knew – a venue which cost about $150 to hire, but when they first went to meet their celebrant, Charmaine, they discovered the land had been sold recently and the hire price was now a whopping $3,000…totally out of their price range.

They had sat down with Charmaine feeling a bit miserable. When they explained she was super upbeat. ‘No worries,’ she said (Australians really do speak like that), ‘in the Blue Mountains you can literally get married anywhere in the open air if you’ve got a permit, and the permits are free.’

Like anywhere…!? (cue evil laughter) – Mike and Ellie have a brilliant sense of humour and it really was not beyond them to have picked a roundabout or the car park outside Woolworths but romance (and parking issues) won the day.

After their meeting with Charmaine they went for a walk and found their free venue only 200 metres from the one that would have cost them $3000 …’just paid for itself.’

An aside: For those of you not lucky enough to have watched the iconic Aussie film ‘The Castle’ you are missing out – it is so funny and sweet – it has a simple beauty that makes me want to watch it about five more times…’just paid for itself’ is one of many one-liners from the movie…it’s so good! ‘This timeless comic snapshot of suburban life Down Under remains absolutely un-budgeable from its perch as the most widely adored (and quoted) Australian film of all-time.’

The new wedding venue was one of two look out points right next to each other, and they were only five minutes walk from the road. The second of the two was slightly bigger and also allowed for a proper romantic entrance across a bridge. They knew it was likely that there would be some passers-by, but by 5 o’clock we reckoned most people would be heading home… and anyone who stumbled on a wedding as they walked around in the beauty of the Blue Mountains, would most likely be up for the romance and love it.

It really was a perfect place to get married (if it didn’t rain…)

We went back to the cottage and settling in began in earnest. For me that involved going for a walk and so Ellie, Theo, and I headed out into the bush for the first time. 

…and this is the point where I finally have my bush rant.

I have been feeling this ever since I got to Australia and now I can’t hold onto it any longer.

What the hell is ‘bush’?

I was too embarrassed to ask at first because I had been pretty confident that the nearly 2,000 miles worth of scrubby land from Darwin down to Adelaide – through several different bits of desert – was in fact ‘bush’ – it made sense, all the plants were scrubby and a bit stunted, they looked like ‘bushes’ …but people kept talking about bush all the time. Surely that massive forest we’d just driven through wasn’t bush? …or that shady glade of trees, or that ancient piece of 80,000-year-old rainforest?

It turns out they are in fact all ‘bush’ and when I looked for a dictionary definition I got this: ‘a colloquial term used among Australians to describe the backwoods or hinterland areas that are just outside the coastal areas of Australia.’

Which is basically everywhere…

So there you are, it’s pretty much anything green and leafy, and often there isn’t a bush in sight…my definition went on to say ‘Many Australians understand “the bush” as more of a feeling than a specific place.’
I confess to quite liking the randomness of that but I was still left with the ‘why’? 

…apparently back in the day a bunch of people came over to Australia from South Africa talking about ‘Bosch” a dutch word for forest but it seems a bit far fetched to me…why would everyone in Australia adopt a dutch word for a forest which sounds a bit like bush…why not call it what it is: ‘forest’?

I don’t think I’m going to make it my life’s work – let it go Shannon 🙂 …at least I knew what it was now. Literally anywhere can be ‘bush’, if an Aussie feels it is.

So, we went for a walk in the ‘bush’ (which to be fair was quite scrubby) and as we headed down the mountain side we saw a woman standing very still on the edge of a rocky outcrop. As we approached she put her finger to her lips. We walked as silently as we could, following her gaze, and there on the path was an echidna. It looked like a large, spiky hedgehog and moved around in the same way, rolling slightly from side to side as it shuffled and rooted around, snuffling at Theo‘s feet before it left to get back into the forest (bush!)… Wow! We were more fully in nature here than we had been so far in Australia… as we walked back up to the cottage I decided I would be getting up early each morning and meet the beauty of the day.

Lucy, Ellie and I walked to Sublime Point that next morning. The clouds were all around us as we walked – it was deliciously eerie. Everywhere was quiet and still and we saw very few birds …and when we arrived at the lookout point the entire valley was shrouded in fast moving clouds. They were stunning to watch, and within half an hour one side of the valley had completely cleared, the sunlight sparkling off the dew on the newly revealed trees. Lucy spotted a soaring eagle below us and the birds began to screech and squawk their morning welcome.

After a lazy breakfast where Mike introduced me to catbirds, and Ellie pointed out that we had a pair of rosellas in the garden (blue and red parrots), we discussed what we would do that day. Mike and Ellie had ‘things to do’ so the rest of us decided to walk into town to get some shopping. We had epic stick fighting battles most of the way there and then I bought raspberries ‘cos Ellie loves them, and face masks to do that evening as part of our wedding preparations, was the wedding really only one day away now?

Elaine, Mike‘s mum, arrived in the afternoon, and we spent a good hour steaming some of the creases out of Ellie’s dress. After we felt we really weren’t making any progress anymore we headed out to the lookout point again to show Elaine, and we also used it as a rehearsal for Thoma to practice playing his guitar as the entrance music for Ellie. 

For her birthday earlier that year, Thoma had learned a piece of music for her, and every time he plays it, both of us cry… 

Elaine loved the lookout too, it was an incredibly beautiful place to stand and look at the world.

There is a reason that most people don’t get married outside…and in Australia, in the Blue Mountains, the weather can be as unpredictable as a UK summer.

From well before Christmas Ellie had been keeping an eye on the weather predictions for the 28th and while on all other days there was a chance of rain – on her wedding day the sun steadfastly refused to give up shining. I am (almost) certain that our mother, who died when we were young, does not have any influence over the weather… but the thought did cross both our minds 🙂

We had a great conversation on the afternoon of the second day – we wanted to be able to throw confetti but what could we use? Australia as a country has learned some pretty harsh lessons about invasive species and what damages wildlife and so there would be no throwing of rice or bits of paper, we would never have been going to be chucking little packets of plasticky hearts but what could we use?

Mike looked out of the window into the garden and pointed to a small tree covered in little white flowers… ‘that’ he said.

We spent a lovely hour taking each flower off the slightly spiky twigs and making enough ‘confetti’ for one handful each…it was so lovely chatting and ‘doing’ – memory building my sister calls it…

The morning of the wedding dawned as bright as had been promised and Ellie and I headed out for our morning walk… loving the chatter of the birds, admiring the little fairy wrens and the mournful calls of the cat birds.

We sat at sublime point, not saying much, peaceful and easy in the fact that we were together. I’d had the ‘if you ever hurt my sister’ talk with Mike the day before – or at least my very gentle version of that talk. Ellie said they’d had a good chat afterwards about being better spouses the second time around.

I blew a kiss to our mum as we left and headed back, no sense of urgency, just a feeling of expectation and excitement…

We went into town after breakfast to try and find Mike a green tie, to match the girls dresses. Rosa, Lucy and Grace wandering around the op shops (Australian charity shops) enjoying the pace of the day… It really was a family affair. Everyone who was going to be at the wedding had come shopping 🙂

We got lunch in a bakery and headed home…

Ellie had a quick nap while the girls slowly started to get ready, playing with the hair curlers and trying out different make up, and then suddenly the boys and Elaine were ready to go. Thoma looking fabulous in his suit and beautiful green tie. Mike managing to look relaxed and a little nervous at the same time in his suit with an open collar (we hadn’t found a green tie) which really was the best look for him, and our Theo blending in perfectly in his lovely green shirt. 

Ellie had decided to have silk flowers for the wedding, and each of the three men had a beautiful white silk rose pinned to their lapels, and they were off. Elaine driving them and giving us a chance to get Ellie ready.

Ellie’s dress was a thing of beauty, her favourite colour – a deep burgundy, and it fitted her perfectly… ‘and not too expensive’ she told me proudly, ‘and it has pockets!’ It took us 10 minutes to lace her in. She muzzed up her hair, put on the tiniest amount of make up and she was nearly ready. Lucy helped her put on her beautiful necklace given her by a beloved friend, I put the flowers artistically in her hair and she was ready – simple and spectacular.

That was the point when I realised I had no make-up on and I had done nothing with my hair …and it was time to leave. Ellie managed to stay calm while the girls did last minute fiddles with the hair curlers, and I put my hair up… (who needs make up I was gonna be crying most of the way through it anyway!) 

A last-minute dash back inside to get some small forgotten item, and we left, the flower bouquets clutched in our hands, Ellie, looking like a beautiful rose and me …all in white 🙂 

Back when Ellie had first sent me a photo of her dress we had had lots of fun joking about me turning up in a white wedding dress….and to be fair I had spent quite some time in East Timor trying to find an actual wedding dress and when that didn’t quite come off I managed to borrow a long white dress from my cousin Daisy – Ellie’s sense of humour was just as good in real life as it was on our what’s app chats so there we were – rose red and snow white 🙂 

As we set off I thought about what would help Ellie relax and head towards this moment more fully – I suggested she maybe played some music and she put on her favourite song, ‘Dirt black track’ by the Waifs …it was beautiful, and one of the lyrics mentioned the Yellow Brick Road, I couldn’t believe it… so much of our journey had been about following the yellow brick road to get her and here we were. I felt the first tears prick my eyes…(keep it together, keep it together, keep it together!)

Whoever knew whoever knew
That dirt black track
Would lead me to you
When I was a girl
It was my yellow brick road
Who could’ve known
Who could’ve known
I’d be walking it now
With a child of my own
Feeling all the magic that it holds

It was what we all needed. We loved listening to Ellie sing along, we could feel her relaxing, and the magic coming in.

We arrived as the song ended. This was it. 

Rosa, Grace, Lucy and I went round to help Ellie get out of the car and between us we kept her dress up and off the sand as we walked down the track. We stopped just before we came into sight of the lookout point and found places for phones and stashed bags in the bush (an actual bush) …and then it was time for the wedding procession to begin. 

Rosa walked across the bridge first, in her beautiful Guilin dress and second hand shoes she had found in Dili, clutching her bouquet and trying to remember to walk slowly. Then Lucy and Grace, walking together in their floaty dark green dresses, barely holding back the tears …and finally it was time for Ellie and I to move into view.
As I glanced across to where Mike was I saw his face filled with such love my heart filled up, my sister had chosen well… 

Time to concentrate on getting down these stairs, with handfuls of dress, a floaty thing that refused to stay on my shoulders and a bouquet of flowers. We made it to the bottom and then Ellie heard Thoma’s guitar – my sister was overcome, I could see the gentle shudder in her shoulders as we walked across that bridge, and I started to cry too (…good call on the make up!)

We walked slowly across the lookout point and then they were together. Ellie and Mike holding hands, standing on the edge of the world at the beginning of their new life, smiling into each others eyes as they were asked about love and commitment.

The ceremony was simple and beautiful. Ellie and Mike sharing promises at the beginning and then Lucy, Thoma and Grace asked for their commitment too. They were invited to stand, the girls next to Ellie, and Thoma next to Mike. My sister and her Mike at the heart of the family they were all creating. 

When it was finally time for the first kiss Mike turned to Thoma first. It was quick and spontaneous, and our laughter filled the valley.

I had travelled over 10,000 miles to be here for this and those few precious moments will stay in my heart forever…everyone laughing, everyone crying – the hugeness of the sky, and the majesty of the mountains holding us all in their arms… 

It was as perfect as a wedding can be.

There was a small crowd watching by the end, but I didn’t even notice – I guess my attention was all for my sister that day…

We took tons of photos in every combination and then Ellie and Mike sealed an everlasting padlock to the fence where they had been married – a padlock that couldn’t be opened with all five names on it, and then it was time to head into town for a Korean meal! 

We were a little early so we went for a drink in a fancy hotel … It was fun, turning up all glamorous and fancy – I had a Prosecco and Ellie had a Vodka and we chatted happily about the wedding.

When we got to the restaurant there was a queue 30 people long trying to get in, but we had a table reserved in the window 🙂 …the four teenagers, my girl and her three cousins, laughing and chatting away, with the five adults beaming at each other …and then we were all stuffing our faces with the most delicious food.
After the meal we headed to a lookout point which was far too dark to see much of anything but we didn’t care, and then home for cake and more laughter.

As I remember back to that day, I am absolutely filled up to the very brim with gratitude that we were there – that we had made it… 

Grateful that the wedding was so small and intimate. Grateful for the space that created for everyone to be relaxed and themselves. Grateful that the weather was perfect.

Thanks mum …and I’m sorry you weren’t there xXx