EXCLUSIVE
Vikki Campion’s father – who once vowed to ‘burn Barnaby Joyce alive’ after she fell pregnant with his child – will give her away to the former deputy Prime Minister at their wedding next month.
Peter Campion has seen daughter Vikki in the ‘sensational’ ivory gown she will wear to marry Barnaby in a barn on a remote property in November and says she looks ‘beautiful’ – and is every bit as ‘hot’ as her own mother.
Ms Campion and Mr Joyce’s pink and ivory themed wedding will take place at the politician’s family property, with 80 guests attending and the couple’s young sons Sebastian and Thomas acting as page boys, Daily Mail Australia can reveal.
At the November 12 ‘bush bash’ wedding in a rural valley west of Walcha in the NSW Northern Tablelands, the male attendants will wear semi-formal country clobber of blue jackets and tan pants with pink ties and RM Williams boots.
The bride will not wear a veil and is expected to carry pink roses, while the groom may even wear his famed hat to the altar.
‘I’ve seen her in the dress, she looks sensational,’ Mr Campion said, adding he hoped Barnaby would wear a hat from his collection of signature Akubras, because ‘you wouldn’t want to see that head uncovered’.
Ms Campion, 38, who announced her engagement to Mr Joyce in January 2022, will have their two sons, Sebastian and Thomas, now aged five and four, dressing up for their formal contribution to the ceremony.
The original barbecue for around a dozen guests has now swelled to 80 and rising, with a dance floor ordered in for a barn on the property.
Vikki Campion will marry Barnaby Joyce wearing a ‘sensational ivory gown’ in November in a barn on a remote Joyce family property with the couple’s two young sons, Sebastian and Thomas, in attendance
Vikki Campion and Barnaby Joyce will be married on November 12 on a remote property with their sons, Sebastian and Thomas likely to be ring bearers and Vikki in a ‘sensational’ ivory gown
‘Barnaby is a politician, he can’t help himself,’ Mr Campion said, ‘he drives [Vikki] nuts. I don’t know how she puts up with him. Sometimes I feel like shaking him until his teeth rattle.’
Mr Campion’s initial strident opposition to his eldest child’s romance with Barnaby has mellowed. He once wanted to ‘take a shotgun’ to Barnaby but is now more likely to be seen shooting down any intrusive drones trying to snap pictures of his daughter’s big day from the skies.
The father of the bride and his wife Tracey have five children. They will travel from their Atherton Tablelands home in northern Queensland alongside two of their sons, Michael and Curtis.
Mr Campion said he was surprised at a report that one of Mr Joyce’s four daughters from his first marriage was also attending, because ‘the last we heard there were no daughters (coming)’.
It’s not clear which of Mr Joyce’s four girls Julia, Caroline, Odette and Bridgette is expected to be at the wedding, however it is unlikely to be Odette, who once posted a picture of her mum and siblings on Instagram with the caption: ‘The real Joyce family #whosbarnaby’
Mr Campion added that the happy couple had designated the wedding as a ‘no present zone’, because it would be enough that guests were paying for travel and accommodation.
Mr Campion said the couple will also have ‘no honeymoon – they have no time’. After the wedding it will be back to work between Mr Joyce’s New England electorate and Parliament House in Canberra.
‘The kids go into the creche at Parliament House – with the cleaners’ kids,’ Mr Campion said.
Vikki’s father, Peter Campion (above) said he ‘saw red and wanted to barbecue’ Barnaby Joyce but now the two are mates and he will be giving his daughter away to the ex-deputy PM
Vikki Campion is marrying Barnaby Joyce in November five years after the so-called ‘scandal’ of their relationship and first pregnancy, which the bride-to-be’s father says was
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While Peter and Tracey Campion will stay at a motel in Walcha on the night of the wedding, many attendees will take up the offer to arrive in utes or 4WDs, party long into the early hours and sleep in swags or bedding they bring with them.
The wedding is expected to be ‘very much Barnaby getting back to his country roots’ and Mr Campion said he was looking forward to walking his daughter down the aisle and giving her away.
He said along with the country-style dancing predicted in one report, he expected there would also be more conservative ‘staid waltzing’, but ‘I’m not much of a dancer, and I’ve had a knee reconstruction, so I won’t be boot scooting’.
Mr Campion explained to Daily Mail Australia that he now thought of Mr Joyce as ‘a good bloke’ and ‘one of the better ones’ among Canberra politicians.
The renowned conservative said it was media misreporting about his daughter relationship that had set him against Barnaby initially, but Vikki had assured him her relationship with the MP had begun months after Mr Joyce’s marriage had ended.
Mr Joyce had been married to his first wife Natalie when, in early 2018, news broke he was expecting a son with Vikki, his former political adviser.
Peter Campion was surprise that one of Barnaby’s adult daughters (above with their mother Natalie, Julia, Caroline, Odette and Bridgette) was coming to his daughter Vikki’s wedding to the ex-deputy PM
Peter Campion said he expected Barnaby (above with his ex-wife Natalie at Federal Parliament’s 2017 Mid Winter ball, will wear one of his Akubra hat collection when walking down the aisle
Mr Campion’s fury at what was portrayed as a scandal followed a troublesome father-daughter relationship with Vikki.
‘(Barnaby) referred to (Vikki) as “some pregnant lady”. I saw red. I wanted to barbecue the b*****d,’ Peter said, ‘but it was taken out of context … by the media. I was a bit harsh on him.’
The rift healed through getting to know Mr Joyce and and meeting his two ‘rambunctious and mischievous’ grandsons.
‘They came up to our house and Barnaby and I went on a long walk and I berated him and his responses were within the correct parameters to consider him an adequate individual,’ Mr Campion said.
‘I consider him to be a good bloke. He is one of the better ones and wasted in the Nationals.
When Barnaby Joyce and Vikki Campion visited her parents Peter and Tracey Campion, in northern Queensland, the ice thawed between Vikki and her father, who has come to see his future son-in-law as ‘a good bloke’
‘I constantly urge him to leave that party,’ said Mr Campion, a candidate against Bob Katter in last year’s Federal election on a United Australia Party ticket in the seat of Kennedy.
‘He should join One Nation. I took Vikki to meet Pauline Hansen when she was about 13 or 14.’
Mr Campion will be giving a speech as father of the bride and may be dressed in, he says, ‘steel-capped boots and a “Make Australia Great Again” cap’.
Asked what he will say about his daughter, he said: ‘I’m there to ruffle feathers. some hard truths about modern society dominated by the lunatic left.
‘Well, I’ve only got 20 minutes. It’s a rare opportunity to drop some truth bombs.’
As for media chasing photographs of the wedding ceremony, Mr Campion said paparazzi photographers’ drones were ‘what shotguns are for’.
‘I’m an enthusiastic sports shooter. Drones are so much easier than clay pigeons to shoot,’ he joked.
