The excitement all began on 24th March with the hen party. We set off in a coach on a wine tasting day around the Yarra Valley with Zoe's Australian friends and family plus some new arrivals from England in various stages of jet lag. It was an excellent day and nobody succumbed to their tiredness in spite of only having flown in the night before. The most heroic effort was by Conor who landed in Melbourne at 5am on the morning of the hen do and was still up dancing with the hens until 3am! After a quick flight home, I was back down in Berwick the following weekend to help with the wedding preparations. There was actually not much to do as Zoe had been very organised, so we ended up having a nice week of outings with the English visitors which was a brilliant way of avoiding major stress build up.
The wedding itself was on Phillip Island, so we transferred from Zoe and Shaun's house to The Silverwater Resort on the Thursday where we met up with our dear friends The Spooner family from the UK. I cannot express how much it meant to us and Zoe that the Spooners, Conor, Sophie and Peter, Carla and Joel and family members came all this way for the wedding, their presence made it all the more special.Phillip Island can have quite changeable weather and we saw a bit of rain and some grey skies on the days before the wedding but the big day itself was glorious, perfect blue skies and about 24 degrees so not too hot either.
The wedding was at The Shearing Shed on the island and the ceremony took place by a charming little lake. Zoe looked beautiful, as did the bridesmaids, and the whole day was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone.
The new Mr and Mrs Kent had decided they wanted to spend as much time with the UK visitors as possible so they, along with a large contingent of Brits, all flew up to Port Stephens to spend a week in our little town.
The weather was kind again with cloudless skies and sunshine. We managed to fit in a 4WD sand dune trip, sandboarding, surfing, plenty of Red Ned's pies and much playing on the beach before waving a sad farewell to everyone as they either set off for home or, in Conor's case, carried on up the coast on his Australian adventure.
