Gam and Sarah's wedding, part 2

We've so been there! Probably somewhere, in some random person's wedding album is a picture of Sarah and Gam in the background rubbernecking the wedding...

Continued from part 1.

Mum looked like she needed some champagne almost as much as I did!

Well, the last wedding post took me so much time that I've been procrastinating when it came to making this one. Plus we still haven't looked at all the photos. This post covers everything after the actual ceremony, and while something this long is going to be irrelevant to most of our readers, this blog is something we hope to show our kids one day, so the two wedding posts are effectively our wedding album!

With Mum & Dad

Mummy and Uncle Richard chatting

Snap 2!

Gam and Mummy

After the signing we ran around having our photo taken with as many of our guests as we possibly could, and trying to make sure we talked to everyone. We had figured that one of the beautiful things about inviting mostly very close friends (and a few new friends) rather than everyone we'd ever met would be that we'd get to talk to everyone. With only an hour from the end of the ceremony until we had to head off and catch the boat, that proved almost impossible, but we had a great time.

Me biffing Gam with my bouquet- that thing weighed about 2kg! Our unit complex managers Richard and Bernadette came to our wedding- they've become almost like parents to us. I particularly liked what Bernadette was wearing :)

As far as I know, no-one mooned us, but from the expressions on my Mum and Auntie Anne's faces, you'd think that was the case!

Our friend Hayley has been living in Mexico for the last year or so and brought back this fantastic mask for our friend Tim!

Delali after the ceremony

The two photos of Tim were pinched from Victor's facebook page, btw...

My brother Richard with our Grandma- she looks happy enough, no?

I made a point of trying a vege samosa from the UQ Staff and Graduate's Club catering even though I wasn't hungry, as I'm forever on a search for the perfect samosa... It was nice enough, but could scarcely be called a samosa: the filling consisted of slightly spicy pumpkin, and the pastry was filo. My chomping a samosa probably put paid to a few photo ops, but I finished it anyway, then opted for more champagne. Gam had insisted on a platter of mini sausage rolls and party pies, and the Staff and Graduates Club also managed to stick in some mini quiches- I wonder if they thought mini sausage rolls were too unsophisticated for a wedding and we simply must have forgotten to ask for quiches? Nonetheless, I saw several people eating the quiches, so they can't have been too bad. Neither was the booze!

Rach and 'Cil getting a refill from Michael, the S&G Club manager.

Me chatting with Dad.

Gam with Mummy and Delali

... and me

... and Mum and Dad

... and Grandma, Richard and Priscilla

... and then Natalie, Rachelle, Auntie Anne and Uncle James
-looks like we're about to enter some kind of race!

Richard and Priscilla

Richard, Uncle Richard and me

I was so incredibly happy, and having so much fun, despite having embarrassed myself by tearing up during the ceremony... the hour full of photos, food and drink went by so quickly- a happy blur! I only remember thinking during the family group photos that it was all a bit like herding cats... I really dislike overtly posed photos, but if you're trying to get a certain bunch of people all in the same photo it's impossible to do it without some kind of instruction, so that was where Uncle James' experience at professional wedding photography came in handy. He's also had plenty of practice stalking people with his camera at family gatherings, so he managed some nice candid shots too, which was something I was hoping he'd get.

The requisite group shot... (L-R):
Erin, Luke, Victor, Nic, Amelia, Liz, Danny, Joel, Leslie, Tim, Hayley, Gam & I, Mike, Bek, Delali, Bernadette, Richard, Auntie Anne, Grandma, Mum, Nicole, Rob, Natalie, Rach, Dad, 'Cil, Uncle James, Uncle Richard, Mummy, David, Ben, Desmond, Richard.

Me with Rach and Gam

Gam and I with my uni mates Rob and Nicole and our random mates Mike and Bek (obscured). God knows what we were looking at...

Leslie and Uncle Richard- clearly you don't need to be married to be in love :)

With Desmond- awesome guy, awesome musician.

We made a point of getting a few photos with Desmond, the 'steel drums guy' who busks outside the Treasury Casino in the CBD and who played at our wedding. He's an awesome musician. We'd been hoping his wife and baby son would be able to come along to the ceremony too, but apparently the bub was sleeping when Desmond was ready to head off.

Looking at the camera this time!

We'd booked a nice vintage car to transport my 91 year-old grandmother and anyone else who didn't want to walk to the UQ CityCat stop- the car was the business of the husband of the lady who made our wedding cake, and I'd booked it 2 days before the wedding, not having decided what to do about transport. Gam was keen to have something nice done for Grandma, thinking he needed to get himself in her good books, and even though we'd thought a fair few more people might avail themselves of the option of a ride in a fancy car, everyone except Grandma, Auntie Anne, my cousin Natalie and Mummy and Delali decided to walk! I didn't blame them- the weather was absolutely stunning: not a typical stinking hot January day, nor a horrid cold and wet day typical of this so-called Summer we've been having in Brisbane.

Gam wasn't very successful at hiding his beer...

Gam and I opted to walk too, after posing for some more photos by ourselves with Uncle James. I'm not sure if I realised it at the time, but our faces in those photos really say that we were rather sick of posing. Gam especially! We're both terribly uncooperative subjects, and all things considered we didn't do too badly on the day, but at that particular point the strain of being in front of the camera really started to show!

One of the only photos from this time where we don't look totally bored at having our photo taken...

The walk to the CityCat was lovely. Gam noticed that somewhere along the line I'd gotten duck poo on the hem of my dress (not really a surprise given that the ceremony was held at the duck ponds- unfortunately I didn't get a photo of the duck poo!), while I kicked off my shoes so I could enjoy the nice lawn underfoot... It might sound weird, but ever since living in a unit and not having a backyard to enjoy, I take off my shoes and walk barefoot whenever I encounter a nice cushy stretch of lawn... am I a freak, or do other lawn-deprived souls do this too? Uncle James snapped a few rather clichéd shots of me with my dress hitched up, trotting along the grass in my bare feet.


I also rather liked the picture he took of us walking along the road behind the UQ pool toward the CityCat stop... Gam and I regularly go for walks along that road, and it's kind of fun to have a photo of us all dressed up doing something we do practically every day.



When we arrived at the CityCat stop, our little putt-putt ferry (the sort used on the inner-city routes) was just pulling in to the pontoon. Our captain, an American who introduced himself as Marshall, figured straight away that we were his charter, but was expecting me to have a printout of the charter confirmation, something I hadn't been told we needed. Besides, I wasn't carrying anything- not a purse, no makeup (I think I had Gam carting around a lipstick in his pocket), no toiletries- nothing! I didn't expect there to be any problem, and there wasn't one- we were allowed on the dinky little boat right away, and it was as perfect as we could have hoped for.

An old house that looks prettier at a distance than up close. Mum said "if I had the money, I'd buy it for you". Awww :)

Our friends Hayley and Nic- don't know if they'd even met before the wedding, actually!

With my beautiful Mum

And my beautiful Gam...

A couple of days before the wedding, my dentist put something on my temporary crowns to make them look less grey- it seems to have worked!

A CityCat that passed us.

Brisbane... this picture may soon be a piece of history if that Northbank monstrosity goes ahead- that piece of river will be totally built over.

More Brisbane...

The top deck... the only photos we took of the bottom turned out blurry :(

We were given one of the ferries with a top deck, and thankfully it didn't have a canopy, meaning we could enjoy the beautiful evening sunshine and all the views of the river unhindered. The City Ferries are so cute, and it was a much nicer way to enjoy the river than on the much faster CityCat.

Erin, photographed from the top of the stairs.

Victor, out the back of the boat with the naughty kids...

Rach and I- I don't know if it's the light or just the fact that Rach is uber-pale, but I look really tanned in this picture!

We get the "I thought you were sisters" thing a lot. We don't actually look that much alike, but we are just about the same height and have really similar mannerisms, which is probably what does it. She's the closest thing to a sister I've got, and I love her :)

Top deck again!

Wild Boys Afloat!

With my cousin David and Leslie's son Ben.

We particularly wanted to have the ferry as transport rather than cars not only because I detest car travel but also because it was a good way of showcasing Brisbane to our families. Apart from my parents, none of them are really familiar with the place (unless we count Mummy's time here 27 years ago, before the CityCats and ferries existed). And because the trip was at such a sedate pace compared with a CityCat ride, Gam and I got to take in a lot more of the views than we usually do. I can actually see us doing that again someday... It's a lot more expensive than a taxi, but a really beautiful way to travel. Plus it had cute old fire buckets.



We spent a lot of the hour-long trip running up and down the stairs and talking to various people and generally having fun. We arrived almost exactly one hour after we'd left, but the little ferry had to give priority to two CityCats serving as public transport that were arriving at the terminal just as we got there. We took the opportunity to have our picture taken with our captain as he bid us goodbye, and then headed down the path to Watt. Like any couple dressed up for their wedding we turned out to be a bit of a spectacle for all the people enjoying the sunset in the park, which was a little odd, but nice all the same.





When we arrived at Watt, Gam and I had a brief moment of looking at each other and holding our breath on how our totally unplanned seating would go. Thankfully, everyone just took a seat wherever- there was no hierarchy, no 'bridal table' or any such shit. Gam and I were the last to sit down, and we sat opposite our friends Bek and Mike and next to my Dad. My uni pals Nicole and Rob were further down the table, along with my Uncle Richard and his partner. I'm not even sure if Mum was at our stretch of tables or someone else's.

Amelia and Victor

Priscilla and Richard

Nic and his partner Liz- the wonderful person who helped me choose my honours topic.

Luke and Erin... and Nic's 'rabbit ears'

Rachelle and Natalie

My only regret with the seating is that our good friends Tim and Hayley got stuck at a table with my cousin Natalie, who has a thing about boats. She was fine for a good half an hour after arriving at the restaurant, but then grew hysterical and started crying about feeling sick. The thing is, she didn't really feel sick, but she just gets worked up about certain things for no reason. Rach spent quite a while trying to soothe her, and when I went over to talk to Hayley and Tim I wound up not talking to them at all and spent a good 15 minutes trying to talk her out of her little episode while my delicious dinner of barramundi got cold (was still frigging awesome- Watt can never be faulted on the food!). To no avail. I got her to laugh, but as soon as I stopped the funny stuff she'd start grizzling again. The staff handled her really well, taking her seriously and bringing ice and stuff, but after the dinner when she hadn't stopped her nonsense Uncle James took her home in a taxi. I felt bad for Uncle James (and Nat- it's not like she can help it), but I felt worse for Hayley and Tim... being confronted with one of Nat's episodes can be a bit weird for anyone who's not used to her, and the fact that she looks fairly normal leads everyone to expect normal behaviour from her, which is not always the case. I suppose that was the only low point of the day, and it wasn't so much a low point for Gam and I as a worry on our part that it might have lessened Hayley and Tim's enjoyment of the evening. Or Uncle James'. But Rach said once he went home he was probably straight on his laptop to go through all the pictures he'd taken!

View from Watt

Not long after we arrived, Mummy left her seat to go and phone Daddy in Botswana, so we got to have a chat to him. He sounded like he wished he was there with us, and apologised for not being able to come- not his fault, but we wished he was there too. I would have liked to have both people responsible for raising the most wonderful man in the world there with us, but it was enough to know that they are both fantastic parents-in-law who I get along with really well and who treated me like a daughter even before I married their son. Not everyone is so lucky.

Delali on the phone to Daddy while Gam and I chat with Mummy

By the river at Watt.

One thing we had done when arranging our wedding reception at Watt was pay for an extra staff member to attend to our group. Good move. All the staff who attended to us were great, but it was really handy having someone right there when anyone needed something, and constantly going around and topping up glasses of wine or fetching cocktails.

Priscilla- has known Mum long enough to know she would like the cocktails!

Ah, the cocktails. What better excuse to have a menu that included every single cocktail on Watt's list than a wedding? I had a vague aim of trying every single cocktail on the menu, but after my Watt Sunset (which, while good, wasn't as good as I'd remembered- maybe they forgot the alcohol... it tasted far too healthy!) I started stealing Gam's cocktail- the 'Naughty but Nice'. Damn that was nice. It was like eating a delicious dessert, but boy did the effects of the alcohol creep up on us. Our friend Mike had also ordered one of these, and when he and Gam liked them so much they wanted to order another they decided that the name 'Naughty but Nice' was far too sissy to be able to ask a waiter for one.

The cocktail menu... mmmm...

Bek and I decided that 'Chocolate Mantail' was appropriately masculine, if not a tad gay porn-ish (but that was the point, really). So once I got to the Chocolate Mantail, I got stuck in a loop of ordering and re-ordering and never managed to order something else. Dammit. Why did they have to be so good? Gam even photographed the cocktail menu so we could steal the recipe and make them at home, but he didn't like the name 'Chocolate Mantail', and desperately kept trying to come up with something that sounded less gay-porno. Without success.

Hayley and Tim

Luke, Erin, Nic, Liz, Danny, Amelia and Victor

Rob and Nicole.

Gam, Dad, Uncle Richard, Leslie, Mum, Rob, Nicole, Bek and Mike.

The food I totally forgot to photograph- not like me at all, but when I was Nat-wrangling earlier my dinner sat around getting cold so I tucked into it as soon as I returned to my seat. For starters we had ciabatta, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and dukkah. Mains were a choice of barramundi with asparagus and something else (I can't remember even though I ate it, but it was absolutely perfect), and lamb rump with black lentils. Of course, they probably had fancier names on the menu, but that's pretty much it.

Auntie Anne and Uncle James

Our little episode with Watt in the planning phase of the wedding turned out to be worthwhile, as I got my Watt ice-cream terrine (thanks to Gam) and it was so so soooo good. The other option was an apple frangipane with toasted coconut ice-cream, and while I received reports it was fantastically good I didn't photograph it either. Silly me. Blame the cocktails.

Uncle Richard and Leslie

The serve of ice-cream terrine seemed so huge, but I managed to eat most of it, then hopped up from the table for a second, and when I came back the overly-efficient staff had cleared it away. That was almost worth shedding tears over, but I consoled myself with more sips of Chocolate Mantail. At some point I think I wound up talking politics with my Dad (I was drunk- usually I know better!) but miraculously it didn't dissolve into a fight. I'm not sure if we actually agreed on something for once or if Dad was just being agreeable because it was our wedding day, but I did have a momentary thought of "I can't believe I'm talking politics at our wedding" flash across my mind.

David and Grandma

Dad and Mum

My parents seemed insanely happy, both at the ceremony and at the reception later. I expected them to be happy, of course, but I didn't know how much! I think it was obvious to them that this was a wedding that meant a lot. We didn't bow to anyone's demands for various religious trappings, or hints that it would somehow be better if it were held in a different location, and in the end we were vindicated. But while Gam and I did the running around, my parents made it happen. The whole thing only cost around $5000, not including the dress, which we paid for out of our own savings, but even that amount would have been too much for Gam and I to do by ourselves. We had almost everyone we held dear present, and the people that couldn't be there knew we were thinking of them on the day, and I think it was plain on our faces how much the whole thing meant, and that seemed to mean a lot to my parents. It was a really happy day.


After all the dessert plates had been cleared away, Gam and I and a few others snuck into a back room at Watt (with permission, of course) where our cake had been delivered- we hadn't actually seen it prior to that point, but it was pretty much exactly as we had envisaged it- nice and fun, and hopefully tasty.


The cake was soon carted out in front of everyone, and it sat there while people made speeches. I'm not quite sure why we had speeches, as Gam and I never really planned anything (aside from asking my brother to shout directions if they were needed at any point, and that's because he's loud!). But there were speeches: first (if I remember correctly), my brother. He probably tried to embarrass me, but only a little bit- truthfully, I can't remember, but I didn't have to kick his arse, so it must have been okay. Then my Dad, and then Mummy. I'm ashamed to say I can't remember anything except that my Dad used a word- I think it was 'fidelity' and I couldn't help thinking "Hang on, where does that leave all the swingers parties we've got planned for when we're old and crusty?". I hope there were no profound life lessons to be learned from anyone's speeches, because if there were I really missed out. Damn cocktails.

Dad doing his speech

Mummy doing her speech- looks like she gained another son into the bargain!

Mum with Bernadette

Gam replying to the speeches. Obviously I'm interjecting with something incredibly intelligent and/or witty, but I can't remember what it was...

Gam made a bit of a speech thanking everyone for coming, but I don't really remember much of that either. Not long after that we were served a little bit of wedding cake- the bottom tier, which was marble cake- and I didn't finish mine because I was so full. My Uncle Richard dragged a chair around to sit with Gam and I and have a chat. He gave me his necklace, and he and I had a cry when he started talking about Grannie, his and Dad's mother, and how she would have loved to have been there. She died in 2005, and despite being incredibly eager to meet Gam from the minute she heard about him, only met him 3 years later when she was on her deathbed, her brain mostly gone as a result of several sudden major strokes, her body an emaciated shell of the sturdy, slightly plump Grannie I remembered. I had been devastated when told of her stroke, as she was then in a coma I was told it would be unlikely she would ever come out of- I'd promised her she would meet the love of my life and it looked as if that would now never happen. Gam and I flew down to Sydney and travelled by train to Bowral. When we arrived she was out of her coma but barely aware of her surroundings, though she could still recognise her family when she was conscious, but when she met Gam for the first time she recognised him instantly, and her eyes shone with happiness. It's a memory that still makes me cry- I've had to stop writing several times and read something else in order to get this out- but despite the awful circumstances, something became complete when she met Gam. I don't think I ever would have got over it if the grandmother who didn't care what colour Gam was as long as he made me happy died without ever getting to meet him. Her death hit both Dad and Uncle Richard very hard, as their father died when Dad was 13 and Uncle Richard 15, and she'd always been a rock of sorts, if a somewhat grizzly rock as the years wore on (in temperament, my Dad definitely takes after Grannie!). Her death definitely made me look on spending time with family as being incredibly important- no matter how much the people you love might get on your nerves at times, you never know when someone will be taken from you. Uncle James got a reminder of that the night before the wedding: he received a phonecall to say that his 40-something, fit, healthy cousin had died suddenly of a heart attack. I didn't know the guy, but I think I know how Uncle James must have felt.

I don't mean to suggest that our conversation with Uncle Richard was anything less than a happy one, even with the sad memories, because during Grannie's last days we were able to say our goodbyes. And we talked about other stuff too. My brother Richard and I are like children to Uncle Richard, as he never had kids of his own (even though he's now sort of a parent to his partner's teenage son), and Uncle Richard has really clicked with Gam, which means a lot to me.

That's just about where our reception ended, as we hadn't really planned on what to do about transport home. Someone pointed out that the next CityCat heading toward the uni would be the last one for the night, so en masse we all hopped up and headed down to the CityCat stop to wait for it. Everyone seemed happy, so I took it as a sign that they'd all had a good time- which was all we'd ever wanted from the wedding regardless of what we did. Just for everyone to have fun.

Erin with Luke's brother Danny at the CityCat stop- I really like this photo.

After we got on, the ticket seller on the CityCat recognised us- we'd seen her when we caught one a few days earlier- and gave us her congratulations. The CityCat was surprisingly full, probably in part because we'd got on with at least 20 of our guests, but also because there were quite a lot of other people trying to get the last one home. We felt like a bit of a novelty in our wedding gear, plonking ourselves in some seats like we've done a million times before... the spectacle continued when we had to change CityCats at Riverside and walk past everyone who'd got off the other 'Cat: two young women about my age stopped us on our way past to say congratulations and how nice we looked and how pretty my dress was- I joked that we did it every weekend just for the attention. I think I was actually looking a bit scruffy by that point. My hair had started coming out of its 'do only a short time after the ceremony, and I had a multi-coloured ribbon from the bombonniere tied around my head. But even at that point Gam and I were still having a ball. The CityCat is our absolute favourite mode of transport, and we weren't too posh to catch it just because it was our wedding day. I don't think we could have picked a better way to get home.

When we got home, everything seemed so surreal- as if the wedding had happened years ago, not just hours ago. I put up a post, we drank as much water as we could handle, and then we crawled off to bed. Happy. We'd do it all again in a heartbeat.

I think we had the ultimate compliment from the UQ Staff and Graduates Club functions manager (they did a brilliant job, by the way, as did Watt- seamless service, nice booze, nice food): I went in a few days after the wedding to pay our drinks tab, and the girl at the counter asked if we'd had a nice time. I replied that everything had gone perfectly and we'd had a really fun day, and she told me about how she'd recently been to her sister's wedding and it was fairly awful because her sister was stressed out of her mind and hell-bent on having everything perfect right down to the last little detail. Then she said "Yours sounded really nice. Michael [the manager] said that if he was to ever get married again [!] he'd do it exactly the same as you guys did it".

~JUST MARRIED~