‘It’s pretty s**t’: Wedding party forced apart by border
What should have been this Gold Coast couple’s happiest day has been marred by the heartbreaking forced separation of their wedding party due to Qld’s border blockade.
QLD News
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The border bubble may be back but it hasn’t stopped tearful families being torn apart.
Hours after Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced the bubble was returning, there were emotional scenes at the border barricades, with a wedding party separated by the ‘Great Wall of Coolangatta’.
Gold Coast man Jake Jones, 23, was marrying his sweetheart Georgia Humphries at Currumbin on Friday, but what should have been the happiest days of his life was bittersweet.
His father Mark and grandmother Beverley Staunton, who live in the Tweed, were stranded on the other side of the barricades, unable to attend the wedding.
“It’s pretty s..t,” said Mr Jones, who was accompanied by groomsmen Lachie Harrison and Bryce Harwood.
Mr Jones Sr said: “It’s crap. We just hoped the lockdown might end earlier but it just wasn’t to be. The wedding’s been planned for ages and there was nothing we could do. We’ve just got to grin and bear it. We’ll celebrate it when we can.”
Dressed in her finery for wedding photos over the barricades, a tearful Mrs Staunton said she was heartbroken at not being able to watch Jake get married.
“He’s my only grandson and I can’t be there … and I love him,” she said.
“I hope the day comes when she (Premier Palaszczuk) wants to do something and she’s not allowed.”
Mr Jones Sr said even if the border bubble had been reestablished earlier, he and Mrs Staunton would probably have been unable to go to the wedding given it will only allow people to cross for essential reasons.
He said he had been unable to go to work as a chef at Currumbin Surf Club for the last month and hoped the border bubble declaration might allow him to return.
In the meantime, he and Mrs Staunton had to content themselves with watching Jake’s wedding on Zoom.
“It’s still a hard day,” he said.
“We didn’t even bother trying for an exemption. There’s people dying in hospital that families can’t come and see so there was no point.”
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Originally published as ‘It’s pretty s**t’: Wedding party forced apart by border
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