This was published 8 months ago
Penny Wong ties knot with long-time partner Sophie Allouache
By James Massola and Olivia Ireland
Senator Penny Wong married her long-time partner Sophie Allouache on Saturday.Credit: Cath Leo
Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong and Sophie Allouache, partners for nearly two decades, were married on Saturday in a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and senior ministers.
The wedding was held at the Bird in Hand Winery in the Adelaide Hills. Invitations were sent out late last year and details of the ceremony remained a closely guarded secret.
In addition to Albanese and his partner Jodie Haydon, the guest list was said to include senior ministers including Health Minister Mark Butler, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, as well as former South Australian premier Jay Weatherill.
Several of Wong’s senior staffers were also invited.
Guests were asked to wear their dancing shoes and told the event would be held outside, where cocktails would be served.
The couple’s two daughters, Alexandra, 12, and Hannah, 8, were flower girls at the ceremony.
Entertainment for the evening included a traditional lion dance in a nod to Wong’s Malaysian-Chinese heritage.
The weather forecast for the Adelaide Hills was mostly fine with temperatures of 30 degrees. The menu at the restaurant of the wedding venue gives guests the option of a $195-a-head, three-hour degustation.
Wong and Allouache – who is a public servant – met in 2007. After initially toeing the Labor line opposing the legalisation of same-sex marriage in 2010, Wong became one of the strongest champions of the legal change, which took effect in 2017.
Having entered parliament in 2002, Wong recently made history as Australia’s longest-serving female cabinet minister.
Penny Wong and Sophie Allouache at Parliament House in 2013.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
She is regarded as one of Albanese’s closest political allies and confidantes and has been described as the unofficial co-deputy prime minister, alongside Gallagher.
Before becoming foreign affairs minister, she served as climate change and finance minister in the Rudd and Gillard governments.
The couple’s wedding will be the first of four ministerial weddings this year. Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones is expected to marry his partner in Canberra in a matter of weeks.
Industry, Innovation and Science Minister Ed Husic will wed his partner Fiona Scott later this year, but a date has not yet been set. Scott is a former Labor staffer to Kim Carr and Martin Ferguson, and now works as chief of staff to independent senator David Pocock.
Penny Wong and Sophie Allouache with their daughter Alexandra, when she was born in 2011.
After their February engagement, Albanese and Haydon are also expected to marry later this year. The PM told ABC Canberra earlier this week that he and Haydon had not settled on a date.
“We’re going to have a chat over Easter about timeframes and about possible venues and all of that,” he said.
“And we’ll see what evolves from that. We’re trying to look for gaps in the diary, of course.”
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