MID-AIR WEDDING

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 87, 6 January 1940, Page 4

MID-AIR WEDDING

Night Ceremonial Over Melbourne MINISTER’S STATEMENT While thousands of theatre-goers were hurrying along the streets of Melbourne on a recent Saturday night a wedding was being celebrated 1300 feet above them in the cabin of the Lockheed Electra airliner, Ansalanta. In addition to the bride, Miss Eunice May Stewart, and the bridegroom, Mr. Rowland Carter, 20 people went aloft for the ceremony—lo in the Lockheed plane, eight in an Airspeed 1 Envoy, and four in a Wilgul plane. Long before the planes took off a large crowd had gathered outside the Essendon airport, and about 200 people watched from the hangar. The bride and her seven bridesmaids, all in white, made a charming group as they posed for photographs in-front of the airliner. The bridal party then boarded the plane, in which a special seat had been fitted for the officiating minister, the Rev. H. G. Trebilco, a retired Methodist minister now living at Elsternwiek. .Soon after the three .planes were in the air they joined up in formation and flew over the city. A few minutes later the wedding ceremony began with the roar of the Ansalanta’s engine audible only as a dull accompaniment in the plane’s soundproof cabin. Within 20 minutes the ceremony was over and the register was signed as the planes, after crossing the bay, were flying over Werribee, the future home of the bride and bridegroom. Then the planes headed back toward the airport, and landed after being little more than half an hour in the air. A battery of newsreel and other cameras greeted the members of the bridal party when they stepped from the plane as undisturbed as if the wedding had been celebrated in the quietness of a church. Living In Free Age. “We are living in a free age,” said 'the Rev. M. Trebilco, when he alighted after his first flight in a plane. “People have their preferences. The time will come, if it has not arrived already, when the Church will have to cater for the wishes, of the people. The cere-' mony was conducted reverently, and there was nothing to which anyone could take exception. Every word could be heard distinctly.” The record will show that the wedding took place “at Melbourne,” which, of course, includes the air above the city.