Anna's Aussie trip, Post 2: Shell & Simon's wedding

Continuing on from the previous post...

On Thursday afternoon (November 10th), I took a Greyhound bus from Dalby to Toowoomba (a one hour trip), where I was met at the bus depot by my high school best friend, Kat. We only had an hour and a half together, but we spent it chatting nonstop at a café and then back at her flat. (We forgot to take a photo, but click here to see the one we took almost exactly a year earlier!)

Then, Shelley and Zoe collected me from Kat's flat and the three of us headed to Shell's parents' farm near Gatton, half an hour away. Zoe was over from NZ for the wedding, and it was the first time I had met her - although we had both heard about each other from various mutual friends! Shell and I hadn't seen each other for a year, so it was wonderful to have that night together at Graham and Katrina's house to catch up properly before lots of other guests arrived the next day.

On Friday, various friends and relatives trickled in throughout the day. It was a fun and relaxing day of eating yummy food and catching up with good friends.

Delle and Shell
Sheralyn, Chany, Tim, Zoe and Shell
Wes, Lianna, me, Delle
Zoe trying to avoid catching an iPad addiction
That evening (the night before the wedding), about 20 of us met at the reception venue to set up the tables for the next day, practice our musical numbers, and have dinner.

At dinner, I passed my camera along the table and collected the following shots...
Valda (mother of the groom), Katrina and Graham (parents of the bride)
Tim and Chany
Zoe, Delle (sister of the bride) and Caleb (brother of the groom)
The groom
The bride
Lachlan (brother of the bride) and Sheralyn
Lianna
Lachlan
Wes
Alex (brother of the bride)
[In the early hours of the wedding day, insert here my experience with the stomach bug mentioned in the previous post. It does not need to be blogged about; suffice to say that I was very glad of some effective medicine that got me (albeit rather pale and faint) to the wedding I had travelled 12000kms for!]
And now for some photos of the wedding!
Shell and Simon's wedding ceremony was held at 3:30pm on Saturday, November 12th, at Spring Bluff Railway Station...

Shell, Graham, Lianna and Delle arriving




Lianna and Delle
Caleb and Lachlan



Graham and Katrina









Glen and Jo
And here are some photos from the reception at the Lockyer Valley Cultural Centre in Gatton...






At my table: Wes, Jo, Glen, Tim, Chany, Sheralyn, Jess



It was a thoroughly beautiful wedding - a classy vintage theme, touching vows, heartfelt and hilarious speeches, beautiful singing, delicious food, a lolly table, and departure by plane (see above). Congratulations Shell and Simon!!
The next evening, after having spent three nights at Graham and Katrina's, I headed back to Brisbane with Delle, and stayed Sunday night at her place. I spent Monday hanging out in her flat while she went to work, and that evening we had Red Rooster for dinner before she dropped me at the airport for my flight to Perth to spend six days with my parents.


To be continued!