Susan and James, or ‘Jimbo’ as he is affectionately known, first met in 2004 whilst indoor rock climbing. Susan was impressed with how fast Jimbo was flying up the walls, much like a monkey. Jimbo was really checking Susan out the whole time and those ‘monkey’ moves was him actually showing off trying to impress Susan – well it appears to have worked for here we were 12 years later, celebrating their wedding! On what was a beautiful spring day on the Central Coast, Susan and Jimbo exchanged vows at the Lighthouse located at Norah Heads.
They celebrated with family and friends at the Soldier’s Beach Event Centre with a fun filled Lego themed wedding. From the Lego Wishing Well, Lego Wedding Cake, Lego Bridal Bouquet, Lego Seating Chart, Lego Centrepieces, Lego bricks on every table for the guests to play with and the Giant Lego Man, who also appeared at the ceremony, it was truly a fun, vivid, colourful and beautiful wedding!
Now I could go on and tell you a little about Susan and Jimbo’s wedding and their story, but they did such a great job during their speech that I thought a transcript of it would be best so that you can all get a better feeling for the lovely and quirky personalities of this beautiful couple…
Susan & Jimbo’s Speech follows:
Susan: Well a Lego man for a celebrant. Who has the Lego man for a celebrant? Lego bouquet. Gosh. Lego on every table. What a ridiculous wedding, why would anyone have their whole wedding, based on a children’s toy?
Jimbo: It’s not a children’s toy. It’s a sophisticated interlocking brick system.
Susan: Well sophisticated or not, the good news is, it’s not our fault we like this. In fact Jimbo has made a profound discovery about this.
Jimbo: Okay so I found out that having a Lego man at a wedding is in fact tradition. Careful analysis of historical evidence shows that my parents also had a Lego man at their wedding. And it’s not just them, the Irelands, they had a lego man at their wedding. So are we really to blame?
Susan: But besides clearly being Lego fanatics, my parents are also caring and thoughtful people and they inspire me to be a better person and I want to thank my mum Leonie and my dad Peter, for the contribution and the support for today and also want to thank dad for his awesome speech and I know it’s not your cup of tea for public speaking, but it was actually really good!
Jimbo: I’d like to thank my mum for being so kind and generous and putting up with me for however many years, like 20 odd years that I had to live with her as well as everything that she does for us. Whenever we go travelling whether it be days, weeks, months, she looks after our fur babies (and Steven as well but I’m talking about my mum at the moment). So I just wanted to thank her and also Emma for that absolutely amazing speech and all the dirt and goss on my past life.
Susan: I also want to thank Julie my stylist for today for making me look like a woman, which is it’s kinda rare for me to have makeup on and hair done, so good work. And also I want to thank Meagan and Jane for their readings and Emma and Dave for witnessing and signing our marriage certificate and they had to get out their pen licenses and practice their penmanship for that.
Jimbo: And thank you to our Lego man celebrant, Mister Angry Mike. So Mike spent a lot of time trying to make that suit work and it wasn’t easy for him. So in all the time today while he was in that suit, he couldn’t see out the front so there was a phone in there for providing him with visual stimulation……and the legs also just trying to make him stay stable on the ground was a feat that he and Julie helped make work, so I thank you for that.
Susan: And thank you also to Dave for such a lovely speech and Luke for doing the music at the ceremony. And thank you also to everyone here today. Each and everyone of you have contributed something to our lives and thanks for joining in all the craziness of today and for pretending you don’t think we are completely bonkers!
Jimbo: What do you mean bonkers?! Everything today has been oozing with high class. We’ve had Lego, Wallace & Gromit. A lot of Portal. And Bill and Ted, is that not awesome!?
Susan: And that’s just what I’d expect to hear from the kind of person who when given just a couple of days to explore Paris decided that we gonna have to skip the Louvre, let’s go to Disneyland instead.
Jimbo: Ha! and you just married that guy! But what are you talking about? We saw the Louvre. We saw all three Mona Lisa’s through the window.
Susan: And finally we’d also like to thank Serge for MCing tonight as well as providing all the music and Donna also and her team for all the lovely food and the awesome venue.
Jimbo: But I guess there is one other person I really need to thank today, it’s the person I’ve shared my life with the past decade. Decade and a bit. The mother of our two beautiful fur babies, Starsky and Hutch. Someone who puts up with all the weird and wacky things I do. Someone who walks in front of me, to protect me from the giant spiders. Someone who is so patient she always waits for me at the top of the hill when we are cycling or hiking.
Susan: ….and someone who’s also patient enough to endure a three and a half year engagement. But there’s also another person I should thank as well he’s the father of out two beautiful fur babies. He tolerates my general weirdness and endures my endless terrible jokes. He endures my death marches, otherwise known as runs. He’s someone who is always up for a challenge and an adventure and is full of ideas that make life just that little bit more enjoyable and fun.
Jimbo: To Susan!
Susan: To Jimbo! And we also work very well together as a team. So a few years ago. We went on a kayaking trip to the arctic. And we were in two person kayaks, in a group and a polar bear was spotted swimming towards us, so only maybe 20 – 30 meters away. And Jimbo thoughtfully volunteers us, our kayak, to be the last one out of the water, to the safety of of the main boat. But I was in that kayak too! and I don’t want to be last! Polar bears a cute from a distance or in a zoo, but they are a lot less cute when they are swimming towards us!
Jimbo: Besides being an awesome team we also think alike on many occasions. When one of Susan’s friends was leaving for the UK they showed us all their stuff and said that we could take any of it. Of all the possible household items we could have chosen we both checked out the half size ironing board. And decided, it would be perfect for bush walking. So we took that ironing board on a 44 kilometre day walk. It took us twelve hours. But it was a great introduction to the sport of extreme ironing for us.
Susan: And we are also always very gentle with each other. So we’ve developed a game called park badminton which is like normal badminton, but in a park. We play up to wind speeds of exactly 8 kilometres per hour and the aim is not to keep the rally going, the aim is to hit each other in the head with the shuttlecock.
Jimbo: We also support and encourage each other. On many occasions while mountain biking with Susan, we would hit a hill which would drop my speed down to a crawl. Susan would casually spin her way up to the top without breaking a sweat. But being the such supportive person she was, instead of waiting for me patiently at the top, she would turn around, ride back down to the to where I was, turn round and then casually ride back up the hill again. It’s this type of encouragement that really got me focused on getting fitter.
Susan: But for what he lacks in fitness he makes up for with his impeccable sense of fashion. But also he has creative and ridiculous ideas – this one time he even had an idea to have a giant Lego man at our wedding.
Jimbo: …and we all know how that turned out! Thank you.
End of Susan & Jimbo’s Speech
Susan and Jimbo it was a huge honour to have been given the opportunity to share the journey leading up to your wedding day, be part of it and witness the beautiful relationship you share. Looking at the photos seeing the smiles on your and your guests faces throughout the whole evening made me very happy. You both wanted your day to be Awesome, Fun, Happy & Unique – I think I can safely say that this was achieved! Thank you for granting me the privilege of being your Central Coast Wedding MC & Central Coast Wedding DJ. Just like Lego, the two of you fit together perfectly. Be sure to never Lego of each other’s heart 🙂 . May love, laughter and music fill your lives forever!!!!
Songs selected by Bride and Groom;
Bride & Groom Entry: “Wallace & Gromit” by Julian Nott
Cake Cutting: “Ice Cream” by Muscles
First Dance: “Lanterns” by Birds Of Tokyo
Bouquet Toss: “Barbie Girl” by Aqua
Farewell Dance: “Birdie Dance (Chicken Dance)” by Tweets
Final Farewell Song: “Everything Is Awesome” Unplugged Version by Shawn Patterson & Sammy Allen, “Muppets Closing Theme” by The Muppets
Other Wedding Professionals
Photographer: SugarLove Weddings / SugarLove Weddings Facebook
Caterer: Exclusive Event Catering
Cake Designer: Custom Cakes By Brooke