Mitchell Gaffney and Maddy Edsell chose the beautiful Wandin Estate as the venue for their wedding day.
It’s a magical and tranquil setting in the Hunter Valley, with stands of eucalyptus trees dotted around the vineyard and estate.
Photos of the wedding, seen by 9news.com.au, show Gaffney and Edsell’s wedding unfolding on a perfect winter’s day, endless blue skies overhead and not a single cloud to be seen.
There are photographs of Gaffney and Edsell cutting into a three-layer cake, and another one of Edsell driving a convertible VW Beetle across the grass of the estate.
She is beaming. And she waves to her family and friends with one hand.
Seven self-contained villas allow some guests to stay on Wandin Estate, while others who attend weddings at the venue head off and travel to their homes or other accommodation in the area.
The large white bus that carried dozens of guests away from Gaffney and Edsell’s wedding never made it to its destination.
Ten people are dead and more than 20 in hospital, including one person in a critical condition.
The 58-year-old driver has been arrested. Charges are expected.
Police believe the bus was heading to Singleton, a road journey that would normally take around 35 minutes.
Singleton, a town of 16,000 people situated on the banks of the Hunter River, is believed to be home for many guests at the wedding, including the newlyweds.
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Gaffney and Edsell both played for the Singleton Roosters Australian Rules football team.
Gaffney had joined the club after moving north from Melbourne, the city where he and Edsell had grown up, it’s believed.
Guests at the wedding also included players from Warrandyte Cricket Club in Melbourne, where Gaffney used to play.
Gaffney and Edsell were Warrandyte locals, a suburb in the north-east of Melbourne, until they moved to NSW several years ago.
Warrandyte Cricket Club president Royce Jaksic told The Sydney Morning Herald there were up to nine current players and their partners on the bus at the time of the crash.
Jaksic said some wedding guests had suffered “some minor injuries – a broken jaw, a broken collarbone, things like that”.
“But you know, compared to the 10 people that have tragically lost their lives, I think we’ve been blessed in this one,” he said.
“If you do the math, they’ve been extremely lucky. We’ve just got fingers and toes crossed that no-one else loses their lives.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was just one of many public figures who expressed their sympathies to the victim’s loved ones.
“For a joyous day like that in a beautiful place to end with such terrible loss of life and injury is so cruel and so sad and so unfair,” Albanese said.
“People hire a bus for weddings in order to keep their guests safe, and that just adds to the unimaginable nature of this tragedy.”
Albanese described the crash, and the deep scars it will leave behind, as “horrific”, while Premier Chris Minns called it “a terrible, terrible event in the history of New South Wales”.
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