Jarrad Garner, Katherine Cross and their 21-month-old daughter Evelyn are heading to Goulburn Mulwaree Library to record their special day. Photo: Katherine Cross.
Down almost every aisle and gaily lit room inside Goulburn Mulwaree Library, book titles, pictures and people create the perfect backdrop to record the most important day in Katherine Cross’ life.
On Sunday afternoon (29 September), after her marriage ceremony, Katherine and her new husband Jarrad Garner will leave their guests at the Railway Barracks on Braidwood Road, Goulburn, and head to the library. And this bookish bride-to-be couldn’t be more excited.
Inside the library, which will be opened especially for the occasion, photographer Kim Shirley will take them into the children’s room for some photographs, then into the fantasy section for more happy snaps, then the sci-fi and romance aisles.
Katherine has made her own bouquet from preloved Lord of the Rings books. “My partner and I have a very large love of Lord of the Rings, it’s a book we bonded over when we first started dating,” she said. “So half of my bouquet is made from Lord of the Rings books and the other half from Harry Potter.”
Jarrad will take one of his gaming consoles with him as a prop for some photos as well.
A teacher and teacher/librarian at West Goulburn Primary School, Katherine met Jarrad online when she was living in Wagga and he was in Albury. They quickly bonded over Lord of the Rings.
“We have always bonded over our ability to have him playing games while I am reading,” Katherine said.
“I’m a big book nerd, always have been for as long as I can remember,” Katherine said. “When we moved to Goulburn I fell in love with the setup at the library, the beautiful mural in the kids’ room and how lovely everyone is there,” she said.
“So when we came to planning the wedding we thought, what would be a really beautiful place to get wedding photos?
“I said to my partner, ‘Well my dream would be to get wedding photos in the library because it is so beautiful’. We have had a lot of our daughter’s big milestones happen in there,” she said.
Librarian Michelle Morris with toddler Evelyn enjoying Book Week in the children’s room at Goulburn Mulwaree Library. Photo: Katherine Cross.
Now 21 months old, their daughter Evelyn crawled for the first time in the children’s room, where Katherine is a regular at ‘toddler time’.
“So it has this significance for our family,” Katherine said. “We love it and thought it would be the perfect place to capture our photos.”
When she raised the idea with librarian Michelle Morris and library manager Erin Williams she was thrilled to discover they were as excited as her and sought permission for a commercial hire of the library space.
Katherine says her choice of a wedding photos venue is not so unusual when you consider the library is the central hub of the Goulburn community.
“Any day that I am not at work, we are down there if I can take my daughter down with me or go to all the author talks with my mother Lyn, and I have a chat with all the staff,” she said.
Lyn and Katherine regularly quote English author Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice to one another, and protagonist Elizabeth Bennet has inspired her choice of wedding dress.
“I am described as a librarian’s worst nightmare because I will read anything and everything. As long as the plot sounds somewhat interesting, I will read it,” Katherine said.
Preloved books can make an ideal wedding bouquet for a bookish bride. Lord of the Rings makes the near-perfect title. Photo: Katherine Cross.
“I will read anything from fantasy to horror, not so much realistic stories or autobiographies,” she said. “But if the plot of a contemporary romance or novel sounds interesting, I will pick it up and read it happily. I will flick between genres and styles and authors without a problem.”
So … late one Sunday afternoon, the air ripe with the scent of freshly turned pages and softly filtered sunlight farewelling a spring day, a young bride’s novel idea will become a reality.
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