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The Shotgun Wedding Is Making A Comeback

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Whether it’s the cost of living or a cultural, aesthetic shift, a lot of brides are shrugging off grand wedding traditions in favour of something more fuss-free. Whether that be foregoing lavish wedding dresses, traditional diamond rings or a classic wedding structure, the season of the cool ‘anti bride’ is well-and-truly upon us. So, when I saw a ‘shotgun wedding’ venue was popping up in Sydney I wondered if the next iteration of ‘non-wedding’ weddings was a Vegas-esque race down the aisle. 

The new venture, dubbed Shotgin Weddings, transforms a Marrickville gin distillery into a temporary wedding venue, where six couples can get married in a cool and chic, fuss-free ceremony in roughly two month’s time. It’s cheaper than a lavish ceremony, operating more like a stylised registry where couples can get in and get out, while enjoying some complementary gin cocktails and some professional photographs in the transformed “Baz Luhrmann-esque” space. 

Shotgin Weddings is a culmination of efforts from two people already in the Australian wedding industry: Registered celebrant, Adam Seeney, and a photographer, Dane Tucker (better known to his 11k+ Instagram followers as @thesaltyshutter).

“There’s been a trend in the wedding industry post-Covid where a lot of people are opting for smaller-style affairs, in terms of elopements and registry-style weddings,” notes Adam. “And when we looked at it, there’s no offering out there for a high end, meaningful experience [that’s also fast], that’s not just going to Births, Deaths & Marriages and getting married at a registry office.”

shotgin weddings is holding shotgun weddings in australia
The Shotgin Weddings venue at Unexpected Guest gin distillery in Marrickville, Sydney. Image: Supplied

“I’ve shot weddings at the registry before,” adds Dane, “and there’s no personality, no feeling.” It’s this market that Adam and Dane seek to serve: those who don’t have the impetus or desire to plan a wedding, but who still want something stylish and meaningful. 

Shotgin weddings describes itself as “Sydney’s first pop-up premium wedding registry”, and in the week and a half since it launched, it has attracted “130 to 140 people” to its waitlist. It will operate kind-of like a Vegas chapel, marrying multiple couples in one day (or, at this stage, six couples in one day). 

This idea of the Vegas wedding certainly has an aesthetic stronghold on a certain type of bride. Cute, kitsch and, potentially, very stylish, the Vegas wedding has been seized upon by those wanting to emulate the vintage styles of Priscilla Presley, Ann Margret or Mia Farrow. While the Vegas wedding had its hey-day in the 50s and 60s, it made a return in the 90s thanks to couples like Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, Cindy Crawford and Richard Gere, and Ross and Rachel in Friends

Most recently, it’s had a 2000s revival amongst ‘cool brides’ like Sophie Turner, who wed Joe Jonas in a Vegas chapel after the 2019 Billboard Music Awards, Lily Allen, who married Stranger Things actor David Habour after two months of dating, and the recently ill-fated Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck

In Australia, the logistics of a shotgun wedding are a little trickier. Unable to walk down on a whim, you need to register your ‘intent to marry’ at least one month before your wedding, and register with your celebrant. Once that’s handled, you can pull the trigger, so to speak, on your ‘shotgun’ ceremony. 

The gentlemen at Shotgin Weddings assure me the process is completely legal. “The notice of intent to marry will be lodged with me,” says Adam, a registered celebrant. “On the day, we’ll say all the legal words, there will be two witnesses—which will probably be their friends, or if they don’t bring any friends, it will probably be Dane [the photographer] and whoever is behind the bar that day. It’s a completely legitimate civil ceremony.”

Dane clarifies the package: “You book in with us and we do everything for you. The styling is done, I take all the photographs, Adam gets you legally married, you’ll get a personalised ceremony, so it’s not some random guy saying the same six sentences over and over, and you get the space and it’s beautiful and you can have some friends and have a few cocktails—basically, you just have to turn up.

With six spots available for Shotgin weddings, the waitlist will vie for one of the six available spots currently on offer, with packages sold on a first in, first served basis when the waitlist “pre-sale” happens on September 8. After that, it will go to the general public. 

Will you be signing up for your non-traditional dream wedding?

The post The Shotgun Wedding Is Making A Comeback appeared first on ELLE.

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