Amy Risk and Mark Hodder are looking forward to finally getting married after coronavirus lockdowns, restrictions and a surprise pregnancy forced them to reorganise their wedding plans five times.
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The pair were set to tie the knot last Saturday in front of a small group of family and friends, but the Victorian snap lockdown called on Thursday, the same day they finalised all their wedding plans, saw that attempt fail as well.
The first wedding was booked for November last year, but COVID forced them to reschedule and they rebooked for November 2021.
Then Ms Risk fell pregnant, with their daughter due on Christmas Eve, so they decided to bring the date forward.
They chose August 7 and had finalised the arrangements for a backyard wedding at a friend's house.
But when restrictions permitted only 15 people at a private gathering, they decided to move the celebration of their love to a venue so more family and friends could be part of the big day.
They booked at a Ballarat hotel, in the Victorian Central Highlands, but when the state's fifth lockdown hit, that booking was cancelled.
And just as they finished making their fifth set of wedding arrangements, planning to hold their ceremony at Craig's Hotel and a reception at Pipers by the Lake, another snap lockdown was called.
"I think with this last one we are both feeling a little bit like maybe it's bad luck if we get married," Ms Risk laughed.
"Everything was running smoothly but I was just stressed last week. My sister-in-law and everyone was trying to calm me down because I was nervous it wasn't going to happen, then I started to get excited and three days before we finished organising everything and I could relax, then lockdown happened."
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But they're hoping it will be sixth time lucky, with plans to marry in front of Ms Risk's father and Mr Hodder's mother this weekend at a winery belonging to a friend of their celebrant.
"We will probably just do a ceremony and will leave the reception until a later date so we can plan it with everyone," she said.
Despite the disappointment of again cancelling their nuptials last weekend, the couple decided to turn a negative in to a positive.
Passionate about supporting small local businesses, they decided to go through with their wedding cake order from The Little Cupcake, picking up their ordered cupcakes on what would have been the biggest day of their lives and delivering them to family and members of the bridal party.
It was only on Thursday, hours before the lockdown was called, that the couple had ordered the cakes and they had joked at the time with The Little Cupcake owner Madeleine Witham that there "surely can't be a lock down between Thursday and Saturday."
"We went in with three days notice before the wedding for the cake because Mark changed his mind and wanted cake," Ms Risk said.
Instead of feeling sorry for themselves they were looking after other people affected and that's one of the really good things we are seeing out of these situations there's bad but there's always some good.
- Madeleine Witham
"We didn't expect them to be able to do anything but they're the most lovely people and said they could do a cake - we were just going to do cupcakes but they wanted to make it special for me."
When the lockdown was announced late Thursday afternoon, the couple knew they could still bring some happiness to their friends and family with cake.
"Mark and I said we might as well keep the order with them and support a small business because there's not a lot of people going to go get cupcakes in lockdown. We'll support them because they supported us."
On Saturday they picked up their cake and cupcakes and delivered them to their family and bridal party.
"Everyone was quite upset as well so we thought we may as well share happiness and give them cupcakes," she said.
Ms Witham welcomed the support of their business and other small businesses during the pandemic.
"Instead of feeling sorry for themselves they were looking after other people affected and that's one of the really good things we are seeing out of these situations there's bad but there's always some good," she said.
"We are lucky because we can stay open as a takeaway food business, however it's been very draining and we've got a whole folder full of postponements and refunds," she said.
Weddings and large events have been cancelled but small boxes and deliveries of cupcakes have been popular.
"It's really hard for us to know what we're doing from week to week. You've got to plan, and often cakes are made a couple of days earlier because you can't just do everything on the one morning."
