Welcome to the beautiful surrounds of Grow Wild Wildflower Farm. We’re here to celebrate a significant moment in the lives of Hayley and Zach. And the brief is for a fun and relaxed ceremony.

Today is a celebration of the story of Hayley and Zach, their love, commitment, friendship and family, and of two people who found their forever person.

Hayley and Zach are here today to get married and are perfect for each other. But how did we end up here today? How did these two wonderful people not only meet but also fall in love and choose to spend their forever together?

Well, I’d like to spend the next few minutes telling you one of the true stories of how they got here today. Our story begins in 2015 with something old and something new, the age-old romantic setting of high school and modern-day technological advances, such as Tinder.

It’s love at first sight for our heroine, Hayley and soccer superstar Zach, who, unbeknownst to each other, attended the same high school when they met on Tinder at the tender ages of 16 and 15. They meet face to face. In August 2015 and became terrific friends straight away. Hayley thinks Zach is one good-looking and funny Aussie guy, the type of guy her family will love and approve of.

Zach thinks Hayley is the most beautiful girl in school and perhaps out of his league, so he’s happy to wait it out in the friend zone for now. It’s not long before he asks her on a date to the movies in a barrel where being on a tight teenage budget, they buy a container of Coles ice cream. They smuggle it into the cinema to share as their movie snack.

For whatever reason, they can’t remember the movie. Still, it turns out to be Zach’s favourite and most memorable date with Hayley. They’re not long after that with Christmas’s warm and fuzzy fields looming. Zach Pops, they will you be my girlfriend? Question by text. As a side note, everyone is just one month shy today of seven years since they started their forever journey.

Date one leads to date two some years past, and they leave school and are out in the big old world of adulthood. Hayley becomes a childcare worker and pretty soon realizes they’re in this thing called life together. Zach can see how great Hayley is with kids; he knows she’s going to make a great mom one day and falls even deeper in love with her.

He gets excited about a future with Hayley so soon. They are building that life and future together. After five years of bonding and growing together as a couple. Zach’s thoughts turn to propose, so he decides to pop the big question on a little getaway they have in the city to celebrate their five years together. The Sydney Harbor Bridge climb is the main event on the day’s agenda. Zach decides that proposing 100 meters up on a steel arch coat hanger with a small, expensive ring could be dangerous.

So he reverts to a plan B and enlists the help of trusted friend Kaylee to create a magical picnic befitting a proposal in Observatory Park, which still involves the Harbor Bridge, but as a beautiful backdrop. And as they stroll along through the park with Kaylee and her friend waiting in the wings and in the rain to pounce with camera in hand, Zach leads a very excited and shocked Hayley to the intimate pop up picnic, pours two glasses of champers, spends the night, asks her to marry him.

And not having registered a word of Zach’s proposal speech, she says yes, followed by clapping and cheering from a big group of random nearby strangers with Kaylee, capturing that moment. This also ends up being Hayley’s favourite date, by the way. And here we are today. They did it.

Some love stories are just so epic. They deserve to be told as proof that love is real. For instance, this story of childhood romance is heartwarming. It’s a story of two people who met as teenagers and bonded over a love of four-wheel driving, camping and country music. Then became CMC married in Ipswich just this year. That’s a country music channel festival.

It’s because of the moments in this story and many others that Zac can say of Hayley. Zac says what he loves about her. He said I love Hayley’s smile, and her laugh brightens my day. She’s passionate about everything she undertakes and has a great sense of humour to boot. 

Hayley says of Zac. She said I love that although our personalities are different, we’ve developed a lot of similar interests over the last seven years. Sometimes we like oil and water, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.