It finally happened.
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After more than three attempts over almost two and a half years, with a multitude of vendor changes and scuppered plans, my partner Grace and I were married on July 2.
I did tease in my pre-wedding column that I would take you through the blow-by-blow of the nuptial saga — and I certainly will — but first I have to touch on the big day itself.
When you wait so long for an event, there’s always a danger that it becomes too built-up in your mind and fails to reach your lofty expectations.
But I can tell you, unequivocally, that we could not have asked for a more perfect wedding day.
The sun was shining, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and everything went to plan.
At many points throughout our saga we considered packing in our plans and just heading to the courthouse to sign a piece of paper and be done with it — but the end result was well worth the wait.
And to have Eden and Bonnie part of the day was the icing on the cake.
The journey itself, though, was certainly not a rosy one.
It was way back in March of 2020 when we first gave oxygen to the idea that we might have to postpone our wedding — at that time set for April 18.
As the world plunged head-first into the global pandemic, the decision was made for us.
Lockdowns began and our families, whether they were 4km away like most of Grace’s or 4000km away like most of mine, may as well have been on the other side of the world.
Here, though, is where I think we made our first mistake.
Like a lot of us, we underestimated the situation we found ourselves in and postponed the wedding for just seven months, to November 2020.
Because the virus couldn’t possibly last past the winter months, right?
It was around this time of year when we realised just how wrong we were.
We didn’t even bother to send out invites in the end.
The real kicker was that, after missing our initial date by around three weeks, it was only a fortnight after our second date that dance floors opened up to 100 people once again.
We still would not have been able to have our wedding as planned, however, due to another issue bubbling away in the background.
When we first postponed our wedding, we were aware that our original reception venue was planning to undergo renovations — where restrictions made it possible — during the first COVID-19 lockdowns.
But due in part to a developing VCAT dispute in the town our reception venue was operating, it became improbable — and then nigh-on impossible — for it to host us in its restaurant at any stage of our drawn-out saga.
Eventually, the restaurant ceased operations, and we were left without a reception venue as well as a wedding date.
But we soldiered on.
Plan B, in terms of the reception at least, was to book the McIntosh Centre at the Shepparton Showgrounds.
I inquired about locking in a date, with some hope that we would make a few positive strides.
I was told there were no new bookings being taken by the centre, and that they were not yet at liberty to disclose why.
It was only a few days later that the centre was announced as the looming vaccination hub for the region.
I counted that as wedding attempt 2.5, but it was that point-five that nearly broke our spirits.
It felt like everything that could go wrong, had gone wrong, and we didn’t know where to turn next.
We threw our arms in the air, focused on the expansion of our family in the form of our second child, Bonnie, and put marriage firmly on the back burner.
As more time passed and we were able to take a few deep breaths, we rallied for one last effort — booking in July 2, 2022 as our no-matter-what wedding date.
Even if it took Grace and I signing a piece of paper in hazmat suits in front of a video live-feed, we were becoming husband and wife.
Although we didn’t have any more venue troubles once we were finally able to book a local establishment, we did lose the services of two vendors to pending due dates, one to overseas travel and another to a serious back injury.
It may seem like I’m taking sizeable artistic licence with this story, but in all honesty it feels like I’m still downplaying just how scuppered every plan we had was.
At times it felt like we couldn’t even picture locking something in, lest the universe snatch it away from our imagination.
But as I have said, our wedding day was perfect, and we were glad we waited the saga out.
There was, however, one more twist in the tale.
Having booked a honeymoon in the Blue Mountains, we drove to Albury to stay the day after our wedding to take some of the sting out of the overall drive.
But due to the fresh flooding in NSW, we made the call to cancel the trip and make other arrangements.
A postponed holiday is the last thing on the list of unfortunate consequences as a result of the flooding situation.
But it definitely tied a nice bow on the saga that was our attempts to get Maherried.
Tyler Maher is the editor of the News
Shepparton News editor