Gold Coast Marathon: Amanda Dann and Lee Pratt, the couple who married on the starting line in 1996

The Gold Coast Marathon has had many amazing moments, few more memorable than when a couple tied the knot on the starting line. THEIR CHARMING STORY

The Gold Coast is well known today as an events and sporting city.

Its credentials have been bolstered by hosting the 2018 Commonwealth Games and the cavalcade of big-ticket events since secured, including the co-hosting of the 2032 Olympic Games.

The seeds of this reputation were planted decades ago with the Gold Coast Marathon in 1970.

It was founded by the members of the Surfers Paradise Central Rotary Club as part of a health awareness campaign.

While today’s marathon weekend is based at the Southport Broadwater Parklands, the original 42.2km course began and finished at Bundall’s Evandale precinct, which had been developed into the city’s civic centre a handful of years earlier.

Start of Gold Coast Marathon in 1991

The 1980 event was not just the first of the decade but also showed the strength of the Gold Coast Marathon, which had such a large surge in participation that it immediately became Australia’s second-largest marathon. That year the men’s race was won by British-born Andrew Lloyd, who was at the beginning of his career as a distance runner.

To take advantage of the Gold Coast’s iconic beachfront, the marathon’s course was moved to Surfers Paradise, with runners tracking along the coastline.

This proved so successful that its course was used as the basis for the 2018 Commonwealth Games event.

Throughout the decades of competition, there have been many memorable moments but one of the greatest was when the starting line played host to an event in its own right – a wedding.

The 1996 marathon weekend set the scene for the nuptials of Bundaberg couple Amanda Dann and Lee Pratt.

Amanda Dann and Lee Pratt tied the knot at the start of the Gold Coast Marathon in 1996.

The couple were married in Southport on the starting line on the Saturday by wedding celebrant Robyn Dark in front of a small crowd, including their children Bryben and Justin, and family and friends.

Mr Pratt, a pastry chef, said he had always wanted to get married on the Gold Coast but the ceremony itself was a “spur of the moment” idea.

“We were going to the Gold Coast for the marathon and as I had already bought the wedding ring, we decided we may as well combine the wedding with the marathon,’’ he said.

“The Gold Coast is definitely the more romantic place to get married and honeymoon.’’

Mr Pratt was doing the 42km marathon as a “practice” for his dream of taking part in the Ironman competition in 1997.

“I love exercising. It’s like an addiction. Once you do it you can’t stop,’’ he said.

“I have always done sport, athletics, indoor soccer and skirmish and it has just continued from there.’’

Ms Dunn said the wedding was “very exciting”.

“We have been talking about getting married for four years, but because of our son’s medical condition [reversed internal organs], we have had to put our money into his health.

The marathon in the late 1990s.

“We have read in magazines where couples have married on the sporting field and we have always thought it would be fun and quite outrageous.’’

The end of the 1990s saw the event struggle financially, despite its popular success as it drew more than 10,000 competitors annually.

It fell into debt by the year 2000, as longtime name sponsor JAL withdrew.

Then-Queensland premier Peter Beattie threw the event a lifeline, with his government allowing Gold Coast Events Management, a subsidiary of the government’s Queensland Events Corporation, to take over.

By 2008, the event had swelled so significantly it had more than 20,000 competitors.