My Very Small Contribution to Neighbours Wedding History!

Just over three months ago on Neighbours there was an absolutely gorgeous scene between David and Aaron at the beach where they both proposed to each other with engagement watches. A week after that aired on our tellyboxes I received what will go down in history as the most exciting text message of my life...an invitation to come back to the Nunawading Studios to work as part of the Neighbours Art Department for a couple of days!

I was planning to head on over to Sydney that week but obviously I cancelled all my existing plans because this is what my whole entire life has been leading up to, an actual real opportunity to make a small contribution to the show that has given me so much joy and laughter for as far back as I can remember.

I rocked up at Reception where I was greeted by the lady who had looked after me so well the previous time I was there. She told me they had asked me in because they needed an extra pair of hands to help set up for a wedding...as in THE wedding...as in David and Aaron's wedding...as in the first EVER same sex marriage that was going to be broadcast on an Australian drama since their government finally got their shit together and legalised it!!!

To say I was absolutely over the moon to be a part of such a historic piece of Neighbours history was putting it mildly and I was soon putting up fairy lights and festoons around the Pavilion which was where the ceremony took place.

I also made up lots of little boxes of wedding favours which comprised of the most delicious datey ball things I've ever tasted (I may have tried one or two of them as there were far too many compared with the number of boxes available. FYI, this is without a doubt the best perk of working in the Art Department...on one film I worked on, the entire Art Department had many a sit down banquet made up entirely from the left over food props that had to be eaten up before they went off!)

Day two involved blowing up hundreds and hundreds of balloons...well technically there was a machine to do the blowing up part but my poor little fingers had very little skin left on them by the end of the day due to the fact that nobody has invented a balloon tying machine yet! We made two balloon walls that went either side of the alter and a rather extensive balloon arch to go across the front beams of the Pavilion. After we'd finished we all had a new found respect for why events companies charge so much for balloon art!

So that is my little story about the two greatest days of my life...blowing up balloons for Neighbours' and Australian television's first gay marriage and assembling boxes of wedding favours. I will never forget this job as long as I live and how welcoming and friendly the rest of the team were towards me.

Watching Aaron and David getting hitched on Monday was the proudest moment of my life and I just hope that in due course they'll bring out a Births, Deaths and Marriages vol 2 on DVD so I can whip it out on all family gatherings and bore everybody to death with it just like Hannah Martin did with Scott and Charlene's wedding video!

All images in this blog post are courtesy of Fremantle Media.