Cancelling your wedding once is hard enough. Being forced to change the date as many as four times is making brides and grooms around Canberra consider eloping.
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The spring wedding season was supposed to begin this weekend, but many have been rescheduled as coronavirus uncertainty continues to give them prenuptial headaches.
Several couples are choosing a virus-forced intimate setting, deciding to elope rather than having to adhere to large-gathering restrictions in Canberra and the surrounding areas.
Stacy Otero and Vlad Diaconu have set their fourth, and hopefully final, wedding date for September next year in the hope restrictions will ease in time to party with family and friends.
"I hate crowds, and I hate people taking photos of me, and everyone starting at me, and public speaking, like most people. But I just wanted my family there to see us get married," Ms Otero said. "We're not angry or frustrated, we're just sad. We totally understand why it's not possible."
The couple will wait until they can have interstate guests join them in the Botanic Gardens, Ms Otero said they've also booked elopement expert James Harber to photograph the day.
"I look at his stuff, and I love what he does with eloping. And we thought about it. But even though we have a small wedding, for me it's about having family there that makes it special for us," she said.
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No two couples are the same and Mr Harber said the most important part of his job was to understand what each client wanted from their marriage day.
"At the end of the day, it's about having a certain point in time where you're expressing your vows and your love for one another to each other."
James Harber says his weekends are booked out for the rest of the year as Canberra couples ditch their big wedding plans in favour of a more intimate ceremony in nature.
Mr Harber, who is also a photographer, said there were countless beautiful locations within a few hours' drive from Canberra.
"I've done one where we met out near Perisher and we went for a walk in snowshoes on this frozen lake, had the ceremony, then went back to a chalet at Lake Crackenback," he said.
"If I was going to get married I'd say let's rent a helicopter, fly up the top of a mountain, crack a tinny open and then sod off to the pub with my mates, because that's who I am."
Mr Harber said his business offered couples a way to skip the stress of wedding planning and avoid a lot of debt.
"People lose their marbles over this stuff. It turns into a second job. People fight over this stuff. People put down a house deposit for one day [of their lives]. It's madness. I think the wedding industry is a bit out of control at points to be honest, I really do," Mr Harber said.
Canberra's median house value hit an all-time high in July, bucking a national downward trend, despite Australia officially entering recession this week.
Australian government statistics showed on average engaged couples spent $36,000 on their wedding, and most budgeted at least $15,000 less than that, according to a survey of more than 3,300 Australian couples conducted by Easy Weddings in 2018.
More than 80 per cent of couples dipped into their savings to pay for their wedding, 60 per cent got a loan and 18 per cent used their credit card, according to Moneysmart.gov.au.
Aaron and Casey Ellis (nee Manthey) were supposed to marry in Queensland in April and postponed until September. Five months later border closures were still an issue and the couple postponed again.
It was at that point they decided to elope, and with the help of Mr Harber and celebrant Annie Rowley they were married three weeks later.
Helping each couple choose a unique destination was part of Mr Harber's service, but Mr Ellis said it wasn't necessary.
"I'm an Aboriginal man out here [in Young], and I go out on country to a place called Koorawatha Falls, a sacred Aboriginal site. So that was the spot," he said.
On the day of the elopement they rode in on four wheel drives down a muddy track to Koorawatha, where they were met by a welcome dance and smoking ceremony.
"It was a bit of a rough ride in. But the falls themselves were flowing beautifully, you know, they were magnificent. And that's where we exchanged vows."
The couple said the intimate ceremony was perfect and surpassed the expectations they had for their planned wedding, a sentiment Mr Harber had heard before.
"I've had quite a few couples now who eloped because of COVID. But they've actually looked back and said it's what they would have done originally if they knew it was a viable thing," he said.
