So today is a momentous day, it is our 25^th Wedding Anniversary!

Karen and I were married at the Tatra Hut in Melbourne’s Dandenongs way back on the 5^th July 1986 at 4pm.

Heck, I am not that old, Karen and I were so young, excited about life ahead, we knew we had found the right partner. Married life has been a blast, lots of good times, happy moments, some sad times, ordinary times, but you get that, this is real life after all.

Our wedding day was so emotional, it was bitterly cold for a Queenslander, my three piece light grey suit was no match for the Dandenongs in July. So many Queenslanders travelled down and all stayed in the one hotel. I prepared with my mates, for brunch, we had a genuine hamburger, the type that dribbles down all over your hands. It was soon time to prep and drive up the Dandeongs for the ceremony. Greeting guests was fabulous, a touch of the surreal, it was a blur.

Karen prepped at her Aunty’s house before arriving in a Rolls Royce with her dad. She told me later negotiating the mountain bends on the shiny leather meant lots of slipping from side to side.

The ceremony hadn’t even started and we were crying, Karen first as she stood at the top of the aisle, then me. Tears were so plentiful that our Minister gave us his hanky, we still have it in our wedding box. We finally managed to get our vows out, what a relief. Greeting guests after was another blur, it all happened so quickly.

Our photographer, (someone we met on the day and not the one we booked) did some family photos and then some bridal party photos around the grounds including the bridge. It was so cold!  All our photos were posed, look at the camera type photos, sadly none of the emotion of the day was captured.

Our reception was fabulous, I remember the warmth of the fire against our back. I can’t remember what we ate, I didn’t drink much, in those days, you drove your own car away. Speeches went well and entertained everyone at my expense. It was soon time to change into our “going away” outfits. Yes, we had only just arrived and we were told it was time to change to leave. We had a goodbye circle, an excuse for more tears and then we were off to the car park to find our car. We had driven our car down from Queensland as our honeymoon was to be in Tasmania. During the course of the reception, my “mates” went missing for a while and decorated our car with all sorts of stuff to announce to the world we were newlyweds. I never did get all that crap out of the car, we kept finding confetti in our suitcases and blowing form the car’s air vents many years later.

Two weeks honeymoon in Tassie was fabulous, top marks to the water who served us dinner on Tuesday evening after the wedding who said “You’ve been married 4 days haven’t you!” I asked how he knew, he said our shiny wedding rings were a giveaway.

Seeing our photos was a major disappointment. The photographer we booked didn’t turn up, he just sent someone else without telling us. The photos we have don’t share what happened, they just show what we looked like. Sadly, we have had to live with this for 25 years, if we had our time again…

So what has 25 years of married life taught me? You need to have patience, the same values, be able to listen, be independent at times and be there to support each other. It took me many years to learn that Karen is always right! 🙂

Sometimes, life gives you great moments, sometimes the opposite, what’s important is how you deal with these together.

So it is exactly 25 years to the minute that Karen walked down the aisle to join me. Thank you so much for being part of my life Kaz, I have learnt so much from you about love and life. Together, we have experienced so many wonderful things, bring on many more years of wonderful times!

How do you celebrate your 25^th Anniversary? We decided to spend a few days together in Melbourne reacquainting ourselves with this great city (will post photos soon) and visit where we were married. The photos here are a bit of a way back then and now… we went back to the Tatra Hut for a look at how things have changed. We have never ventured back since our wedding so we were quite keen to see everything. The bridge is still there, the Chapel has been renovated, the grounds are more leafy.

To take you right back to the time when we were married, here are some totally random facts from 1986:

• The Number One song when we got married was Robert Palmer’s Addicted to Love.
• Alain Prost won the F1 World Championship in his Marlboro McLaren
• The Brisbane Broncos were still two years away…the King, Wally Lewis was playing for Wynnum Manly.
• Parramatta won the lowest scoring Sydney Rugby Grand Final in history defeating Canterbury 4-2. Karen and I watched this game at a BBQ with friends, it was her first experience of rugby league.
• Alan Grice won the Bathurst in his Chickadee VK Commodore…I was cheering for Peter Brock who finished fifth, at least a Holden won.
• Ronald Reagan was US President.
• On July 7, two days after our wedding, Australian drug smugglers Kevin Barlow and Brian Chambers executed in Malaysia.
• The two top grossing films in the US were Top Gun and Crocodile Dundee. Platoon won best film.
• Brad Pitt’s movie career was yet to get underway.
• A litre of petrol in Brisbane the week we got married average 47.4 cents per litre.
• Top selling books of 1986 included Hollywood Husbands by Jackie Collins and The Bourne Supremacy by Robert Ludlum
• Sallyanne Atkinson was Brisbane Lord Mayor, Joh Bjelke-Petersen was Queensland Premier and Bob Hawke was Prime Minister.
• The Fitzgerald enquiry was 10 months away…
• Mobile phones were pretty new and like a brick, check this crazy video!
• The internet was still 4 years away…
• Dynasty was on the small screen and influenced fashions of the time, shoulder pads were all the go!
• Canon released their T90 model, their last manual focus film SLR.
• A return flight to Melbourne cost me more than $600.00, with Ansett and Qantas saying NO discount for you!
• If you wanted to treat your lady and dine out somewhere nice, Brisbane choices included Baguette, Faces, Raphaels, Dennisons, the Clansman, Chevalliers and Cloak and Dagger. I remember the stuffed mushroom caps at the Cloak and Dagger. Deep fried camembert is something from that era as well.
• Two months before our wedding, the Treasurer, Paul Keating, issued his said “banana republic” warning to Australia.
• The weeks after our wedding saw the Aussie dollar slip to be worth less than half one US dollar. A far cry from today…