When I proposed to Andrea on August 2, 2009, talk quickly turned to where, when and what. The conversation went something like this:

"So what do you wanna do?"

"How about a musical?"

"OK."

It couldn't have been a simpler beginning to what has ended up being a complicated beast.

After talk about the bare bones of a story, a very loose first draft script was written within a month. The premise was to tell our lives through music, song and dance, both together and apart. The first question was the date. After many mathematical permutations we decided on 8/8/09, which of course is what happens when two people born on 4/4/72 become one. The fact that it was on a Saturday was a bonus.

Then find the venue. Obviously a traditional wedding venue was out of the question. We dabbled in alternative function venues but none quite seemed to work. We both agreed it had to be a theatre.

We checked out almost a dozen theatres with varying price tags. The goal was to find a venue which had a theatre big enough for what we wanted, but not too big and was also able to handle the food and beverage requirements for all our guests and had the size to do that. We found the perfect venue in Darebin Arts and Entertainment Centre.

Once the venue was decided and locked in, there was only six months left until the wedding! It was time to deal with all the other requirements.

The bridal party was selected and we are very happy everyone asked was able to make it. Invitations were sent out after a website was created which incorporated the plan for the weekend as well as coordinating all the interstate flights and accommodation at Rydges. We were lucky it worked out the theatre was very close to the accommodation and we're extremely happy there are around 120 friends and family staying overnight. The catering was locked in after it was decided we would have a stand up reception at the theatre's venue. A DJ was booked, Andrea decided on a dress and I picked out an outfit.

So the food, the venue, the date, the invitations, the accommodation, the day after and the clothing were all organised, but now we had to construct a show!

Music was the first point of call. We needed to select songs to form the backbone of the show, using the same premise as the Gershwin musical "Crazy for You". There, a couple of dozen songs were specially selected from various Gershwin musicals to form the basis of the show. After that a narrative was constructed to tie all the songs together.

The music had to reflect Andrea and I, songs that show our character, songs that are special to us and songs that will be able to move the story forward. Most of the ones we came up with originally have stayed in the show and obviously during the process the songlist has been tweaked.

"Living in the seventies" had to be the first one. Born and growing up in the seventies the lyrics don't necessarily reflect our early childhood, but were a great way to kick off the show and set a tone of fun for the evening. A montage of photos up until the age of 12 or so had to be reflected in a semi film-clip. We wanted to move fairly quickly into the time we met and finally decided on two songs which we actually performed in the Rose Bay High School Grade 9 Rock Band: "The Heat is On" and "Material Girl". Others considered but thrown out were "Footloose", "Turn Up The Beat" and "Touch Me".

The rest of Act 1 really needed to reflect our time apart, now known as The Wilderness Years. The purposeful underlying comedy of "All By Myself" really had to be tackled which reflected my singleness throughout my lifetime. This also marked the time where we'd up the ante with our background and have live-action film clips playing on the big screen.

Next came the more seriously approached "Soul Mate" telling Andrea's position: she hadn't found her true love, her soul mate and maybe the one out there for her is someone she already knows. Then we're at the age of 30 and I'm trying to catch up with people from my past. I wondered what they were up to, where they had gone, what they had done. In amongst this I try to track down Andrea Davison and attack this Private Investigator style in "Private Eyes". This becomes our equivalent of a cliffhanger in TV drama where the first interval is what would have been the TV commercial. The audience are sent out to eat and drink wondering what will happen next.

Act 2 brings "Together in Electric Dreams" which really is a way for us to reflect on knowing each other all those years ago, but also fast forwards to our mid thirties as we try to arrange to catch up. Carole King's "You've Got A Friend" has never sounded better as the lyrics have been replaced by Andrea's version titled "Smells Like Beer" which she wrote soon after catching up with me on August 4, 2006. Love was on the horizon but the word wasn't said. We fall in love during "Head Over Heels" but then actually move from like to love in "September".

Things settle into routine and everything comes back to the L word: Love. "Love Will Keep Us Together" tells this story. "Pop Goes My Heart" tells the story of me getting sick and figuring out that my life has just been a series of thousands of film clips strung together to tell the story of my life. We then concentrate on an unofficial slogan which really sums up how Andrea and I work: it doesn't matter what we're doing, as long as we're together. "Take Me With U" completes Act 2.

The proper ceremony begins in Act 3 with a special song that Andrea and her father shared when Andrea was a young girl. "To A Sleeping Beauty", a spoken piece by Kamahl is about a father who watches his daughter grow up. Then the organ cranks up as we move into a special song between Andrea and I: "Childhood Dreams". Joined by the celebrant, we exchange vows but can't seem to find the right words. We decide it's best to put our vows into song and is duly captured by "I Promise".

Pronounced husband and wife, Andrea dedicates a song to me: "Let Me Be There". Bridal waltz time with "Love Is In The Air" before I dedicate a song to Andrea. The lyrics of "Xanadu" have been changed to "Andrea". The crowd leaves for the reception with the strains of "This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)".

So the songs were in place, film clips were invented, but what was going to happen in the space between the songs? Obviously in Act 3 we had an official legal wedding to do so most of that was covered, but what about Act 1 and Act 2?

We finally decided we'd have a narrator to help move the narrative forward. This went with the fairytale tradition and also drew on the musical "Into The Woods" where the narrator not only helped tell the story, but become involved in the action himself. But we needed something extra. We needed other people to help tell our story through their eyes. This would usually happen in the form of various speeches at the reception but how could we do this without parading dozens of people on stage? The answer came like a lightning bolt: reality TV show style sound bites.

In all, I interviewed almost 40 family and friends throughout Australia. It was done in three sections: a 6,500km road trip over a fortnight going to Adelaide, Port Lincoln and all the way over to Noosa before heading down the East Coast through Sydney and Canberra. The second section was for the Melbourne based people and the third off to Tasmania.

I waded through about 30 hours of raw footage to then construct the various sound bites appearing throughout the show. This was great as we were able to allow a big bunch of people who have been involved in various parts of our lives, individually and jointly.

At the same time, the musical elements were falling into place. I had commissioned the services of a band made up of fantastic musicians from Andrea's workplace at the music school of Presbyterian Ladies' College. After around 128 emails to choirs in and around Melbourne, we had interest from about a dozen or so. The first choir I visited I knew I didn't have to look any further: the wonderful Northern Voice. We needed to find a male and a female lead singer who could take the lead vocals within our story, a song to share and the rest to do backing vocals on. We found our male and female and they are superb. Last but not least there were the dancers to cast. There were a handful of songs that required specialised dancers and these musical numbers were enhanced incredibly when we found our magnificent choreographer and dancers.

One of the last elements that came together was the animated film clips and with a tight deadline our fantastic animator came through with incredible work. Along the same tight timeline were the film clips which were shot in a very short timeframe by our wonderful director, often on the hop and edited together very quickly by our incredible editor.

With six weeks to go, rehearsals commenced for the dancers and the singers, with the choir starting about five weeks prior. We arranged T-Shirts for the crew and started the task of putting together this program as a keepsake. Lastly we confirmed our talented kids and started rehearsals with them in earnest.

In the lead-up to "opening night", the journey has been amazing. We've both learnt an incredible amount in putting this spectacle together and although very different from a traditional wedding it has allowed us to put our own individual stamp on our special day.

We trust you've enjoyed August 8, 2009 as much as we've enjoyed putting the events of the day together. We are so happy that so many family and friends have decided to join us for what is the most important day of our lives.


Luke and Andrea
August, 2009