Throwback Thursday Our Wedding Day

Usually for Throwback Thursday I go back to a quilt or group of quilts that I have made but today it is totally self absorbent. Today is our wedding anniversary.

The photos are from my facebook so reduced resolution. They are also scans of the original so sorry for lack of quality.

 Fixit Guy and I had met on Groote Eylandt which is in the Gulf of Carpentaria, off the Northern Territory Coast in May 1981. He was a graduate engineer with GEMCo and I went there to teach Gd 2 at the school in the mining town (as opposed to the schools on the Aboriginal settlements)

The A shows Groote Eylandt

We decided to get married when he was notified he was being transferred to Sydney. He was a bush boy - born and brought up in Northern Qld on isolated properties. The idea of moving to the city did NOT fill him with much enthusiasm. The city he was transferred to happened to be the one most of my family were living in so it made planning the wedding so much easier. I resigned my teaching position and followed him back to Sydney.

We had only been in Sydney for a couple of months so didn't have our "own" church. We were married in the chapel that was attached to the Baptist Theological College. At the time my wonderful Dad was the business manager there and he and my Mum lived in a flat (unit/apartment) on the grounds of the college. There was quite a bit of married and single accommodation provided for staff and students at the college.

We asked an very dear friend of my family to officiate at the wedding. He had been our minister when I was baptised as a 13 year old and our families had remained in close contact over the years.

My oldest niece (at the time only) was my flower girl. She was just 7. 2 of my sisters, the 2 closest in age to me, were my other attendants. One of them had a 6 weeks old baby and the other was just pregnant. (another sister and a sister in law were also pregnant... it was quite a year for my family) When choosing outfits we had to make sure that the new mum could safely feed in it and also that it was flexible in design to fit her unpredictable waist line. Initially I had thought I would be teaching on Groote till just 2 weeks before the wedding so had told them to go choose something that they all liked - burgundy would be nice. They ended up buying reddish blouses and then had skirts made. My niece had a dress made in the same fabric as the skirts.

Patricia, Dorothy and Belinda. My attendants. Our mum's did the flowers from flowers we bought at the Sydney markets. They also did the flowers at the church

My dress I had bought on my own in Townsville. I had one day to shop (thinking that I would only have 2 weeks before the wedding in civilization) I went on my own and went to the 3 or 4 bridal shops that Townsville had. I chose one from a small boutique although they had to make it in my size. I got them to make it in the heaviest suitable fabrics since I was being married mid winter in Sydney.  The original outfit was a dress but I had it made as a skirt and blouse with a cumberbund. It worked very well. In retrospect I am not sure why I didn't ask my Mother-in-Law to come shopping with me, or my aunt or cousin with whom I was staying. Mind you I had only met my MIL once at this stage and only then for half an hour or so. I wasn't to know she was to become one of the most special people that I have ever met, one whom I was honoured to call Mum for the rest of her life.

The necklace I am wearing was worn by my MIL and her mother at their weddings. It is one of my special possessions as I inherited it from Mum when she died.

My veil was set from the beginning. In 1969 my oldest sister Beth had bought a veil for her wedding. Each of her sisters had borrowed it for their subsequent weddings over the next  13 years (all 6 sisters wore that veil. Isn't that wonderful) The first 4 used the same head piece but the for the last 2 of us... well it had become rather dated. Dorothy had been able to borrow the lovely head dress of orange blossom, made from wax that our mum had worn, which had been borrowed from Mum's cousin. Me... I ended up buying 2 or 3 sprays of silk flowers and twisted them together to make a coronet. Simple, cheap and effective.

with my darling dad

Fixit Guy had very few friends or family at the wedding. We were married in Sydney and most of his family were from North Queensland and weren't able to make it down. There were a sprinkling of friends and family who did come, and few work mates and some NSW based cousins. The rest of the guests were my extended family and friends. We had a lovely day. We chose a morning wedding. We didn't need wedding cars as we just walked across the lawns of the college to the chapel. We had photos in the college grounds and then walked back across the lawns to the college dining room where the reception was held.

For our honeymoon we had a driving holiday, in my parents car as Fixit Guys car had an electrical fire in it just days before hand. Fixit Guy loves driving, and had never been south of Sydney so this was our chance to explore. We drove South along the NSW coast and back over the Snowy Mountains, through Canberra and back to Sydney. We stayed in not particularly flash motels and its all my fault cause I booked them but I have always felt a bit "done in" over the honeymoon, especially when my friend Sophie who was married a few weeks later had 10 days in Fiji. We are going to have a lovely holiday on a pacific island one day. I have promised myself that. (32 years later I'm still saying it)