Sheelagh Hill and Chris Ash married.
Chris proposed to Sheelagh on the 22nd of December and she accepted! Sheelagh gave high importance to having her family at her wedding. And as 29th Dec was the last time all the family would be together in Toowoomba a spontaneous, fun, family wedding party that was totally arranged.
The only dressing up was by the ‘twinklies’ for whom we bought matching ‘bridesmaid’ dresses and engraved silver bracelets. Holly proudly carried a little pouch with the silver rings that Sheelagh made last June when her daughters paid for her to go on a London ring-making workshop.
The family supplied flowers (cerise bouganvillia), a delicious chocolate wedding cake, a decorated corner of the Japanese garden and a friend led the service. We wrote our own vows. After the ceremony we trooped home for a family supper. The happiest, calmest, easiest wedding ever. Such fun and so happy.
Of course we will have to get it legally sorted when we get back to the UK but to all intents and purposes, we are now on honeymoon at Palm Cove on the North Queensland coast. It is a tiny resort on a gorgeous sandy beach with a backdrop of rain-forest mountains and a ‘foredrop’ of palms along the shore. The temperature is in the 30s and every day is sunny. Yesterday we went snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef in water that was 28 degrees even though we were way, way out to sea.
Sheelagh, 5/1/2014
Ring out the bells!
Sheelagh and Chris are one at last,
Some years ago the spell was cast;
From the ash of a green gym pyre
Rose a romance of uncommon fire.
Yet on the common they had met,
There their love was firmly set.
After cake and Diane’s cuppa
Off they went to share a supper.
An ancient proverb comes to mind,
When two hearts become entwined:
All dissent you now must shun
For two can work as well as one.
Ring out the bells!
Mike Macleod, 6/1/2014