Susanna Freymark
Ashleigh Lynch and Michael Bentley met 10 years ago.
Michael proposed to Ash at the open air cathedral at Bexhill in 2017.
And they married last weekend.
They hadn’t planned to have such a lengthy engagement but covid and then bushfires delayed the wedding.
Last Saturday, September 23, Ash and Michael held their wedding at the Rappville Community Hall.
It is the first wedding at the new hall that was rebuilt after the 2019 fires. It only opened in February this year.
And it looked stunning – decorated with lots of lights.
Ash loves her fairy lights, Michael said.
Half of Michael’s family are from Rappville and during the 2019 bushfires, he drove out to the village to get his grandparents as the original Rappville Hall was burning.
Three years later, the new Rappville Community Hall was their first choice for a wedding venue.
“The timber country feel was great and everyone kept commenting on the size of the deck,” Michael said.
Michael and Ash’s boys Hudson and Cohen were part of the wedding ceremony.
Their eldest son was the last baby to be christened at the Rappville Church, next to the community hall, before it was sold.
Richmond Valley Council bought the church to complement the community space.
The council funded the rebuild with help from a $500,000 grant from the Federal Government Bushfire Recovery Grant, and $500,000 from the not-for-profit organisation BizRebuild.
The ‘newly’ married couple and their children live in Casino.
and then