By Luke Voogt
A Highton couple who originally planned to get married the day Victoria went into lockdown finally tied the knot last Friday.
Sherridan Dwyer-Reynolds had no idea lockdown was imminent on July 15 while she was out making sure everything was ready for her big day.
Until that afternoon, when her beauty salon rang and asked if she wanted to keep her appointment.
“I was like, ‘what?!’ That was the first time I had heard anything about going into lockdown,” the 27-year-old said.
She called then-fiancé Matt, 26, straight away and live-streamed Premier Daniel Andrews’ press conference on her phone after deciding to get her nails done anyway.
“I went to the appointment just to relax,” she said.
Matt had been following Victoria’s COVID-19 outbreak, which seemed under control from Monday to Wednesday.
“[The cases at that time] were all known to contract tracers,” he said.
“We started Thursday not knowing if a lockdown would happen. By the end of the day, there’s all this talk about exposure sites at the MCG and it spreading from NSW.”
Victoria plunged into ‘lockdown 5.0’ that night, postponing their plans for Friday, July 16.
“Next day, we pretty much hung out on the couch and did nothing,” Matt said.
But lockdown would prove a minor speed hump for the couple, who have been together for almost a decade.
Sherridan and Matt “knew of each other’s existence” at Belmont High School, but only began to hit it off when their friendship groups started hanging out together after their graduation in 2012.
They “nerded out” over their love of Doctor Who and Star Trek, and spent “five or six hours” talking after Matt asked Sherridan on a date the day before his 19th birthday.
They “realised we would work out in the long-term” following a big trip across the US in early 2019.
When Matt went to Bali with his mum that October, they pined for one another, deciding they “never” wanted to go on holiday without each other again.
Matt proposed the next month and the couple chose not to have an engagement party, ironically, so they could have a big wedding with all their loved ones.
“Then COVID-19 happened – so we planned a micro wedding instead,” Sherridan said.
They waited nervously until the premier last Tuesday announced that lockdown would lift, before rushing to reorganise their big day.
“We really only had Wednesday and Thursday to get ready for it,” Matt said.”
With the couple busily preparing, the occasion only hit Sherridan when she put on her dress.
“That’s when the butterflies hit,” she said.
“It was magical. I nearly cried while reading my vows.”
They got married before an arch destined for their backyard when they buy their first home.
“It’s in my parents’ garage right now, but one day it will be in our garden, and we’ll be able to say we got married in front of that arch,” Sherridan said.
She carried a bouquet made from brooches gifted by her mother and late grandmother, as loved ones threw petals gathered from their gardens.
The couple are now on honeymoon in Daylesford, and hope to travel to the Caribbean via New Orleans or Europe, together, when the world returns to normal.
“Hopefully, we’ll get to do that one day,” Sherridan said.
