When news broke of Victoria’s five-day lockdown last Friday afternoon, Seville East’s Cristie and Jordan were not willing to cancel their wedding for a third time.
Instead, the mad scramble began, with the pair pulling the entire wedding together within just three hours, in a race to tie the knot before the state faced its third lockdown.
Cristie and Jordan, now Mr & Mrs Holland, were meant to get married in Coldstream on Saturday 13 February – a date they had set their hearts on after having to postpone in both May and October last year.
Under the lockdown restrictions, weddings are banned unless they need to be held on compassionate grounds. The restrictions came into force at 11.59pm on Friday 12 February, just hours after Cristie and Jordan said ’I do’.
“As it was announced we were watching it live and we all just looked at each other and said, yep, it’s happening tonight,” Mrs Holland said.
“My friend called me Friday morning to let me know they were thinking of a lockdown and I was like, I just can’t do it again. I was pretty emotional and stressed out,” she said.
The first person Mrs Holland contacted was her celebrant.
“I was on duty of calling all the people we needed for the wedding. I called the celebrant then the photographer while pretty much everyone else was calling the guest list,” she said.
“The make-up artist managed to clear her schedule to help us out. The hairstylist couldn’t make it, so we all ended up doing our own hair. The musician cleared his gigs for the night and said ‘yep, I’ll be there’,” she said.
Luckily for Cristie and Jordan, things “just fell into place”.
While the caterer was unsure at first, they rang within half an hour and said they could make it.
The original photographer couldn’t attend at late notice, but found the couple a replacement photographer who could, and the florist drove specially from Collingwood to Seville East to deliver the bouquets that weren’t supposed to be picked up until Saturday morning.
With the wedding venue being at a family friends Coldstream farm, the couple said they were “very lucky” to have been able to bring the ceremony forward a day.
The bride’s four bridesmaids and the grooms four groomsmen all scrambled together – some leaving work early in the city in order to make the special occasion.
“Once we got back to the house we had two hours for hair, makeup and to get our dresses on. We had a full day planned for that if the wedding was to go ahead as normal, I was pretty amazed,” Mrs Holland said.
“Of the 85 to 90 guests on the list, only four didn’t make it,” she said.
Guests travelled from as far as McCrae and Rosebud with minimal notice, and the bride was relieved her parents from Tasmania were already in Victoria when the announcement was made.
Celebrant Lisa Hunt-Wotton said the wedding was a “huge success“ and a great testament to the wedding industry.
“I was in the CBD when Cristie called at 2.30pm asking if I could get to Coldstream for a 5.30pm wedding. I flew home, grabbed all the legal work, threw on a dress and ran out the door,“ Ms Hunt-Wotton said.
Despite the mad rush, Mrs Holland said her wedding “turned out pretty much perfect“.
“It was all I could of wished for it to be,” she said.
“I am just very appreciative of everyone that managed to get it to happen. We couldn’t of got it done without everyone. Just seeing everyone step up was amazing, it made you feel very loved,” Mrs Holland said.
