Vikki Campion has hit back at “unkind” critics who mocked her wedding to Barnaby Joyce last weekend, saying it was her “perfect” day marrying the man she loves.
The high-profile Nationals MP, 56, and former staffer and Saturday Telegraph columnist, 38, tied the knot at his family’s property at Woolbrook in the NSW Northern Tablelands.
It was a good old-fashioned “bush bash” filled with Akubras, durries, beer and rum.
But the newlyweds copped flak this week with labels like “trash” and “bogan” being thrown around liberally.
Campion chose to end the week with a statement, lashing out at critics who hurled comments.
“... call it trash all you like. It will always be perfect to us,” she wrote in her Saturday Telegraph on Friday
“The unkind comments on my wedding to the man I love have no impact on me or my husband.”
The exclusive op-ed rejoiced in the couple’s love for each other, their friends and their lifestyle.
Running through the wedding of her dreams, Ms Campion explained it was the local community who were the real “treasure” of the event - painstakingly helping them to bring it all together.
“When you are getting a lift to a paddock in a ute, no one sees your Tesla or Bentley or broken Hyundai, and no one cares,” she wrote.
The newlywed went on to explain that the wedding brought together all different types of people from all over the world.
“They were Japanese and American, African and Aboriginal, conservative and progressive, urbane and rural, gay and straight, political and had never enrolled to vote, wealthy and barebones, and they not only came, but all worked together to create the day, because they had seen beyond the tarp and spotlight of the circus tent,” she said.
Pictures from the day showed the loved-up couple smiling while talking to guests at the much-anticipated event, five years after their relationship was exposed.
It caused Joyce to resign as deputy prime minister and Nationals leader.
The celebration was reportedly pink and ivory-themed, with the once-low-key event swelling to more than 80 guests.
Ms Campion was pictured wearing a strapless cream tulle dress with a long train, accessorised with gold earrings and heeled black cowboy boots.
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, one guest said it was a “very touching ceremony at a place on the property that had special meaning to Barnaby”.
“Afterwards, it was back to the Woolbrook hall for a food and drink that was very country, just like a bachelor and spinster ball,” they said.
Billed as a return to “country style”, guests arrived in 4x4s, with many of the cars parked next to the aisle.
Women overwhelmingly opted for flat shoes at the event, while broadbrimmed hats were another common sight.
A number of high-profile guests were also seen to be in attendance at the event, including Nationals MP George Christensen.
Joyce and Campion were joined by their young sons Thomas and Sebastian, aged four and five, but his four adult daughters Odette, 20, Caroline, 23, Julia, 24, and Bridgette, 26, were absent.
Mr Joyce made headlines last year when he proposed to Ms Campion, a journalist, having left his wife of more than 25 years.
After the affair became public, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull described Mr Joyce’s behaviour as “a shocking error of judgment”.
His first wife Natalie Abberfield, told news.com.au earlier this week that she had “moved on” from the heartbreak of learning her 24-year marriage to Joyce was over.
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Ms Abberfield said life was now good for her family.
“All I want to say is, I would just like to wish the happy couple all the best,” she told news.com.au.
Natalie’s gracious message came as her daughter Odette, 20, revealed she was not invited to the wedding and regarded the media circus that surrounded it as “tacky.”
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