Oct Long Wedding Weekend
Submitted by:
Christine Pirotta
03 Dec 2009
Location: Melbourne / Eltham / Kangaroo Ground
I had a fantastic Labour long weekend in Victoria (I’m from Sydney) with one of my best friends Peta. We went down there for our friend Lauren’s wedding.
Peta and I took the day off and flew down to Melbourne on Friday lunch time. When we got there we took a cab to pick-up our Mitsubishi Outlander for the weekend. I work with Mitsubishi so they very kindly let me borrow an Outlander for the trip. The guys at Penfolds Mitsubishi were fantastic (thanks guys!).
Peta and I were so excited and impressed with having such a nice car all weekend. At first I was a bit nervous about driving it as I usually drive a small car. I was also a little nervous about driving in Melbourne. Turned out I had nothing to worry about, it was such an easy car to drive – I really enjoyed it. Peta was joking that it was better than our hotel room was going to be.
After the excitement with the car, our first stop was into town to the Stamford Hotel where we were staying for one night in Little Collins Street. We got valet parking and went up to our room which had been upgraded to a 2 bedroom suite! It was great. Easily the best hotel room I’ve ever stayed in. We felt so special.
Peta and I then went for a wander and had some tea at this cool tea cafe, and I ended up unexpectedly doing quite a bit of shopping in the CBD.
Then we went to this bar called Cookie for a drink which has an awesome rooftop with astro turf and beach chairs and great views of the city. Oh I forgot to mention though that this day was COLD! It was windy and chilly – I don’t know why I was so surprised, it was quite hilarious that we were trying to relax into this beach type scenario when the weather was completely contradictory and we were practically shivering. Then it was back to the hotel to warm up, and then out to dinner.
I love Melbourne and how fantastic the CBD is. It really is like that ad - there are heaps of laneways and little shops, restaurants and bars that you almost do need to carry a big ball of wool with you in case you lose yourself.
We went to this cool winebar restaurant type place for dinner. The food was pretty good. The wine was great. We actually did get lost going there because it was called Punch Lane Bar or something like that so we were walking up and down Punch Lane and couldn't find it. That’s because its address was actually Little Bourke St not Punch Lane. Silly us.
After dinner we were wreaked and had an early night.
The next morning we had a bit of a sleep-in, enjoyed a spa and a quick swim then had brunch in a trendy laneway cafe. After that it was off in the Outlander toward the wedding destination – Eltham/Kangaroo Ground. We thought it would take about 1 hour to get out there but it was much quicker than that – probably only around 45 minutes. We checked into the hotel but our room wasn’t ready so we went for a drive to see where the wedding was to be held and we stumbled across the Kangaroo Ground Memorial Tower site which is a lovely memorial for all of those that served in the Great war from the Shire of Eltham. I climbed to the top of the tower and peer pressured Peta into doing the same. We had a light lunch at this nice Antique Cafe and then went back to the hotel to pretty ourselves for the wedding.
The wedding was at Inglewood Estate, a beautiful vineyard type function centre. Lauren looked stunning. There were about 97 people there. The chapel was on the same premises as the reception and was just gorgeous. It was a short ceremony, afterwards champagne and congratulating took place outside the chapel before the bridal party went off for photos.
The speeches, dinner, cake and everything else were great. It was such a good night and as you do on these occasions, I couldn’t help but rip up the dance floor. Peta was designated driver and took the Outlander back to the hotel. This was the best move as we were pretty far out for taxis to come (as some wedding guests unfortunately learnt the hard way).
After kicking on for a bit with some locals, I got back to the hotel at about 3am but it was day light savings so it was really 4am! Bugger. The next morning we went to Lauren’s parents place as they put on brunch which was fantastic. Then one of Lauren’s friends drove us around the Yarra Valley for wine tasting. It was brilliant.
After the wine tasting we went back to Lauren’s parents to watch the NRL grand final of which Melbourne beat Parra. Peta wasn’t interested in the game and wanted to go back to the hotel. I wanted to watch to see who won. We joked that I was definitely wearing the pants in our weekend relationship.
After a quiet dinner, Peta and I went to bed early as we were both exhausted.
The next morning went pretty smoothly in terms of leaving on time and dropping the car back for our 11am flight etc (except for the fact that I accidently pressed ‘Yes I was carrying dangerous goods’ on the Qantas self check-in computer and we had to line up for the Service desk for ages – my bad).
All in all we had an awesome extra long weekend – I felt like I had really taken a break from the daily grind. Hope to do again soon. Maybe next time I can give the new Outlander a whirl... Hint hint...?
