It was 9:30pm on a weekday, one child in bed and the other tucked warmly under my rib cage giving me ever so loving nudges to the spleen, Brendan and I finally had some quiet time. As we lay on the floor bed we had set up sleep-over style, we reminisced on the wedding plans we left behind on our quest for a new home. We shared a collective sigh at the thought that there was no hope of making it a reality before the baby arrived. Since arriving in Newcastle we had spent our saved wedding money establishing a new home base, leaving little left over for the magical vegan woodland wedding we had meticulously planned out.
The night rolled on, turned to days, and we had all but left behind the thought of our wedding and relinquished to having a long engagement. Until one morning, while staring myself in the mirror, I had a thought. What if there was a way after all? Better yet, what if there was a way I could do it in secret. I had heard of surprise weddings where the guests were in the dark, but I decided to flip that idea on its head. This time the surprise would be for the groom to be.
OUR LOVE STORY
I had just wrapped up from school when I got a text from my friend. “I’m going camping with a couple of friends, want to join?”. Being a lover of both camping and spontaneous trips I jumped on the opportunity, quickly threw some mismatched clothes into my supre bag and sat on the curbside awaiting my lift. Arriving at the camping grounds I found myself surrounded by a friendly bunch, my friend and three boisterous boys, one of which my friends was particularly friendly with. “Damn,” I thought to myself. Fast forward four years, my memories of that fun-filled week now dusty, I receive a facebook message “Hey, was that you that I saw at the football today?” and to my surprise there I see the cool, Rayban wearing guy from years before.
We still like to joke about how I almost “friend-zoned” him (but c’mon we all know that’s not a real thing), from the very start, as corny as it sounds, we were always finishing each other’s sentences, saying things at the same time and, as we both put it, “on the same wavelength”. A mere two weeks later Brendan was packing boxes and moving in.
THE PROPOSAL
Brendan had been giving me hints that he had something planned for our one year anniversary, and after me not so slyly showing him engagement rings I liked, I pre-emptively got a manicure for “just in case”. He took me down to the beach that we had our first proper date at, where he had a beautiful picnic set up. Chocolate, strawberries, candles, the lot. After some romantic smooches came a not so romantic toilet break as he handed me a letter. I turned around to both read the note and give him some privacy and as I got to the end of the beautifully heartfelt letter I find him not in fact pulling his pants up but on one knee, he’d fooled me with a fake whizz.
What a quirky way to start a proposal eh, we sure are one for the books. My finger donned with the gorgeous white gold ring (Brendan fell in love with the first one he saw and bought it straight away, we are still deciding on if it was romantic or silly). We headed back to my parent’s house for celebratory drinks and card games. It seemed everyone was in on it, and my mother was both excited and as surprised that they all managed to keep the surprise.
THE CEREMONY
After months of whispered phone calls and secret emails, I had done it, the day before had come. With some clever planning, I had managed to convince the wedding company to go along with the surprise, created the cover of an exhibition for the family to visit, and convinced Brendan that it was paramount that the notice of intended marriage form be lodged well in advance. The stage was set. “Someone needs to go get dinner” I posed to the crowd, knowing Brendan would volunteer and leave me time to set up the reveal. “Come in” read the note on the front door, followed by arrows leading to the tv with a note saying “play me.” Hiding blindly in the other room waiting to jump out at the end of the video that revealed my master plan, I grew anxious. After all, he could still say no!
Of course that was all for naught as at the end of the video Brendan was so overjoyed, he was ready to use tonight as a bucks night!
As 5:30am dawned there was a steady stream of people getting ready. With such late notice the only slot left with the wedding company was at 9am, and we lived two hours away. Rushing of feet and hair and clothes slewn everywhere we finally hit the road. I carefully shuffled my repurposed gown into the car (being on a budget I had repurposed my debutante dress from 4 years before with a few handmade alterations). After one, then two, then four wrong turns we finally arrived at the wedding venue, the only problem was, being a pop-up wedding we only had a one hour slot… and we were half an hour late.
A few quick scribbles and I was waltzing down the aisle, my father on one side and my daughter on the other, to the sounds of an acoustic “a thousand years”. Although time was short, we took our time reading our vows (which I somehow convinced him to write as a “date night” idea), said the magic words and snapped some photos before heading to a local cafe for a celebratory brunch. In the end, it was intimate, it was wild, it was perfectly sweet, and it was totally us.
