A week-long wedding celebration in the Top End
A couple, originally from Sydney, have had a seven-day wedding bonanza, inviting 90 interstate guests to celebrate with them in some of the Northern Territory’s best locations. SEE THE PHOTOS.
Lifestyle
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‘A seven-day wedding in the Top End’ is how Jocelyn Ellero and Haydn Brown from Sydney got 90 guests from all over Australia to visit the Northern Territory.
The pair planned an entire week of festivities - jam-packed with fishing, nature and sailing, in a bid to convince their guests to move to the NT with them.
Wedding guests from Queensland, NSW, Victoria and Western Australia flew in to celebrate with the couple.
Ms Ellero, 30, and Mr Brown, 32, both engineers, fell in love with Darwin and relocated to the Territory capital three and a half years ago.
The majority of their family and friends still reside in Sydney, so they wanted to showcase the Northern Territory and give their guests an experience they would never forget.
Instead of wedding invites, the couple created a set of personalised wedding brochures for Darwin, Litchfield, Kakadu and Katherine.
They were surprised how many of the invited guests agreed to the “full package” - seven days worth of NT activities that culminated in the wedding ceremony.
“We had a Berry Springs day trip, we did the Sail Darwin champagne cruise, we had a Litchfield day trip, a housewarming party at our new home, a fishing charter with two boats, the iconic sailing boat club sunset drinks, the wedding itself at Pee Wee’s, and on the last day the recovery at the infinity pool at the Casino,” Ms Ellero said.
“Everyone loved it and were saying things like how Darwin was not what they expected.
“I think they were expecting it to be a really rural town.
“People don’t see Darwin as a city.
“I think they thought it would be a lot more red dust.”
After the wedding itself, the young couple continued to enjoy the beauty of the Top End by having their honeymoon in the Kimberley region of WA.
“I couldn’t stand the idea of boxing up my dress and putting it in storage and wanted to give it another whirl,” Ms Ellero said.
“We flew into a really remote part of the Kimberley Top End and asked our chopper pilot to take some photos of us.”
Although the wedding guests have now flown home, they will have memories of the Northern Territory to last them a lifetime.
“Darwin Harbour put on an amazing show for our guests,” Ms Elleroy said.
“Our best man caught his first ever fish – which just happened to be a giant jewfish over 1m long.
“The champagne cruise was one of the highlights of the week - after the wedding of course.”
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