The Real Wedding Of Kristel & David – Bawley Vale Estate, NSW

THE PROPOSAL //

It was a belated birthday/anniversary weekend away to the Hunter Valley. Dave organised most of it and there was no sign that it was going to be anything other than just another weekend away. We booked a room at the Convent, a gorgeous building with a fountain in the courtyard and a long driveway lined with trees.

We checked in on the Thursday and spent the afternoon beer and cider tasting. We had dinner booked at the restaurant onsite – Circa 1876, so we hung around the room and had a bath and a nap before getting ready for dinner. I did my hair and makeup and was paying no attention to Dave who was already dressed and ready and pacing around the room. We got the hotel to drop us to dinner in their golf buggy and the restaurant was beautiful. We ate and drank until we could barely move and then decided to head back to the room to turn in for the night as we had a wine tour booked the next day. It was probably around 10pm and I told Dave to ask the waiter to arrange the golf buggy to cart us home cause I was too full to move.

He kept saying no and then finally convinced me it was a nice night and we should just make the short walk back to the accommodation as it would be “good for our digestion”. We started our short walk back and we had to walk the long driveway lined with trees. We got to the courtyard at the end of the driveway, and the gorgeous fountain was lit up with pretty lights and the building also looked particularly beautiful. Dave whipped his phone out and started taking pics of the fountain, so I followed suit. I couldn’t get my camera to focus properly on the lights so I was calling out to Dave to help me fix it. I knew that he was behind me and I thought he was taking photos of the tree-lined driveway so when I turned around to find out why he wasn’t answering me it was safe to say I was well and truly shocked to see him kneeling in front of me with a box in his hand. He looked like a deer-in-headlights and blurted out “will you marry me” and then I started crying. I said something along the lines of, are you serious or is this real.

Then he stood up and we kissed and he gave me the ring and then he was like, wait did you even say yes? Haha. And then I was like, yes yes yes a million times yes. Because it was late at night on a Thursday, all of our family and friends were in bed asleep so I couldn’t call anyone to tell them. I barely slept and woke at 5:30am and waited until 6am to start calling everyone. It was so lovely hearing all their congratulations. Then we got to celebrate the whole next day on the wine tour.