Prime Minister Anthony Albanese makes history in first-ever wedding for a sitting PM

Analysis: With his small target wedding, Anthony Albanese has made prime ministerial marital history for the second time. He also made the right choice using The Lodge, writes James Campbell.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and fiancee Jodie Haydon arrive for the Federal Parliamentary Press Gallery Midwinter Ball at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

• The dress, first dance: Inside PM’s big day

With his small target wedding on Saturday, Anthony Albanese has made prime ministerial marital history for the second time.

Planning for the happy day must have been occupying the minds of the PM and his staff for months.

As he found out last October when he and – now wife – Jodie Haydon spent $4.3 million on their cliff-top “mansion” at Copacabana on NSW’s Central Coast, there’s no such thing as a private life when you’re prime minister.

As for real estate, so for weddings.

An extravagant Harbourside affair on the lawns of Kirribilli House would have been quickly ruled out.

With everything coming up Albo – as it consistently has since Cyclone Alfred blew Peter Dutton off course in March – why risk bursting that bubble by risking being seen as out-of-touch?

Whereas The Lodge?

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese waves beside his partner Jodie Haydon after winning the 2025 election.

“I think we can get away with that Prime Minister,” would have been the considered advice.

It’s not as though Australians envy him having to live in Canberra.

Perhaps surprisingly, the question of what is an appropriate-sized Prime Ministerial wedding is not one anyone has had to answer before.

Albo is the first PM to get married while in office

More familiar to many Australians will be the question of how large you should go if you’re in your 60s and it’s not the first time you’ve been at the crease.

It’s not an easy question to answer either, especially if the ceremony is both a first and second wedding.

As I said, this isn’t the first marital record Albo set as PM.

When he got the job in 2019 he wasn’t the first leader of the opposition to have been divorced.

Jodie and the PM during the election campaign. Picture: NewsWire / Monique Harmer

Seven holders of that miserable office have had more than one crack at marriage.

But by winning in 2022 he managed to be the first divorcee to make it to The Lodge, breaking a losing streak in which the electorate rejected Andrew Peacock, John Hewson, Kim Beazley and Mark Latham.

(Of the other two: Brendan Nelson never made it to the barrier and Peter Dutton, well we all know what happened to him.)

Judged by the marital status of its national leaders you could be forgiven for thinking Australia is a very conservative place.

Since 1901 we’ve had 31 prime ministers, all but three of whom were married at the time they held office.

The exceptions – until Saturday – were, apart from Albo, the widower John McEwen, who was only in job three weeks and Julia Gillard who, though unmarried, had “first bloke” Tim Mathieson at home.

Back then when things were going wrong for Gillard – and when they were going right? – cynics used to wonder if she might try a wedding reset, which her friends say was a failure to grasp that as a Second Wave feminist she harboured deep suspicions of marriage as an institution.

Luckily Albo has no such misgivings which means Albo ‘n’ Jodie join Scott ‘n’ Charlene and Kath ‘n’ Kel Day-Knight as couples whose nuptials will be forever lodged in the Australian public imagination.

Originally published as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese makes history in first-ever wedding for a sitting PM