Sydney Grammar students hold ‘wedding’ to beat COVID party restrictions

A pair of private school boys planned to get married last week in a bid to throw a Year 12 formal after-party with 150 guests.

A pair of private school boys planned to get “married” last week in a bid to throw a Year 12 formal after-party with 150 guests.

The two “best friends” at Sydney Grammar hatched the scheme for their nuptials during the HSC exam period after they identified a loophole in COVID-19 restrictions that meant they could increase the allowed number of guests from 30 to 150 if they were celebrating a wedding.

Under the current rules, soirees held inside must have less than 20 people and outside events must have less than 30 people. But weddings are allowed to have 150 people attend providing guests follow the four square metre social distancing rules and obtain an official exemption from NSW Health.

But the plan to host the party at one of the student’s family’s North Shore mansion was foiled after his parents, who were meant to be out of town on holiday, found out about the party and rushed back to Sydney.

The plan to skirt the restrictions by the students at the $38,000 a year private school spread on social media.

Despite images of their alleged wedding certificate surfacing on social media, the doctor father of one of the students told The Daily Telegraph that no “legally binding ceremony took place.”

“Clearly, this was a silly teenage idea,” the father said in a statement.

“However, no legally binding ceremony took place and we shut down the planned private celebratory event as soon as we found out about it, and thankfully, nobody was put at risk.

“Furthermore, we immediately engaged a security firm to ensure that if anyone tried to attend, they would be turned away — and no-one did actually turn up.

“We are fully aware of the extremely high level of importance of complying with all aspects of the Coronavirus restrictions, and we’ve made sure that our family understands this, too.

“Our son has apologised to our family, as well as to the other families who were involved, and we have made it clear to him how important compliance with the coronavirus restrictions is.”

Classmates said the pair were best friends but THAT it was not a romantic relationship. Picture: iStock

A school friend of the students yesterday explained that the pair shared a strong bond and a good sense of humour, but it was all strictly platonic and the relationship was by no means romantic.

“They were like, ‘the only way we can do this is by getting a marriage exemption’ so these two best friends got married’,” he said.

He explained the pair became unstuck after photos of the marriage certificate circulated on social media and got back to the parents who found out while on holiday.

“And it all worked out except one of their parents didn‘t know, they found out through the social media post, cancelled their holiday, came back and the after-party didn’t eventuate,” he said.

“The problem was the first social media post, their address got leaked, it didn‘t really eventuate, but it is a great story.”