Grace & Cameron

If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that love moves mountains. And love? It lets bride to be make it to their wedding! The Elopement Issue is all about elopements in all their forms, and this story? So worthy of being told.

You see, Grace and Cameron, like everyone else in 2020 had planned a gloriously beautiful wedding day, and while COVID-19, border closures and restrictions forced them into other plans, even then, with twenty-four hours to go until the “I do’s” there was still no certainty that this wedding was going to go ahead.

Remembers bride Grace “I was stuck in Melbourne awaiting my exemption to be granted to enter Brisbane and so it was right down to the wire to organise our celebrant, photographer and the park!” But the wedding gods shone their brightest and this wedding? It went ahead and it was bathed in the most golden of sunlight. Grace laughing “Everything on our wedding day was completely different from what we planned from 150 guests to 4 guests, no white dress, no music and no honeymoon! Just hilarious……what do they say about the “best-laid plans”?”

Let’s start with the tale of how the pair met. “We met through a mutual friend at the Canberra RSL doing some advocacy work for community pharmacy with the Pharmacy Guild of Australia.
There is a lot of conjecture as to who made the first move but we decided to start our long-distance relationship across Melbourne and Brisbane.”

A Melbourne staycation was just the push Cameron needed to pop the question. “On one of our regular catch up trips, Cameron flew into Melbourne early and met with my parents to ask for permission to marry me. This meant the world to me and then he organised a city staycation in Melbourne, dinner at one of our favourite restaurants (Rosetta at Crown Melbourne) and dinners to the AFL semi finals where my beloved Collingwood Pies were playing. It was just very “us” when he fumbled in his jacket pocket and asked me to marry him.”

There was no big formal meeting moment for these two, instead, they spent the morning together, and drove to the ceremony together. Grace reminiscing  “Believe of not – the favourite part of our day was my husband and I driving ourselves to the wedding and just walking down the aisle together to the celebrant. It was just “real”, simple and meaningful. Just “us”.”

Says Grace “The most emotional thing for me for our wedding was not having any of my friends and family there. Due to my family being stuck in Melbourne, I was lucky to have my family zoom in for the ceremony. That was special to just let them witness a part of the day.”

Jamie + Cara – Brisbane City Celebrants officiated the ceremony. “Our ceremony was really simple with our celebrant Jamie Eastgate. We wrote our vows and that is what I will remember of the day.”

Grace and Cameron chose Outlook Reserve Howard Smith Wharves as their elopement spot.  Grace says “With COVID 19 restrictions and the fact that we didn’t know if we were going to get married at all – we had to wing it and had our ceremony at Outlook reserve near Howard Smith Wharves.”

Grace says “I never imagined my wedding day to be so “unplanned” and totally different from what was “planned”. COVID 19 sure changed everything as up till the day before our wedding, I was still waiting to enter QLD due to COVID. I never imagined that I would just get 2 days after our wedding with my husband as the QLD border closed right after our wedding to all Victorians. It sure makes the day even more special to our memory trove.”

Grace wore a beaded gown from Asos. She tells  “My real “white” wedding dress is still to be worn and is a Jennifer Wu couture but my elopement dress was a nude, beaded dress with nude blush tulle at the bottom. It was a little vintage, Gatsby like dress themed with a beaded birdcage veil.” The groom donned a black suit with a textured necktie.

The couple wandered locally for photographs, saying of their photographer “Trang from Still Wild Love was just so bubbly and energetic on our day. We didn’t get to meet her before the wedding and we just went on faith that she would be perfect and Trang captured a very special day. Trang was special as I could not confirm the wedding till the night before and she was so flexible through it all. Amazing!”

The newlyweds, once the sun had set, headed to Spicers Balfour Hotel for a romantic dinner.

A big thank you to you Grace and Cameron! Thank you for sharing the story of your elopement with us. Thank you also to Still Wild Love for sharing today’s celebration.