Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has wed his longtime partner Jodie Haydon in a spring wedding at his official residence, the Lodge.
A huge cheer was heard around 4:20pm from guests at the wedding in Canberra.
Attendees included Labor Treasurer Jim Chalmers and his wife, News Corp editor Laura Chalmers, frontbencher Tony Burke, Health Minister Mark Butler, Finance Minister Gallagher, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and Labor ministers Tim Aryes, and Jenny McAllister.
Around 4:45 pm the sounds of Stevie Wonder’s 1970 hit Signed, Sealed, Delivered, (I’m Yours) could be heard outside the Lodge.
Other attendees at the wedding included Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Trade Minister Don Farrell, communications director Fiona Sugden, ALP secretary Paul Erickson and his partner Dimity Paul, who works in the Prime Minister’s office.
“We are absolutely delighted to share our love and commitment to spending our future lives together, in front of our family and closest friends,” the couple said in a statement.
All expenses related to this event are being paid for privately by Prime Minister and Ms Haydon.
The newly married couple were wed by a celebrant from the Central Coast of NSW and they wrote their own vows.
Ms Haydon was walked down the aisle by her parents Bill and Pauline Haydon to Ben Folds’ The Luckiest.
Her five year old niece Ella was flower girl and the Prime Minister’s dog Toto was the ring bearer.
The wedding bands are from Cerrone Jewellers in Leichhardt, Sydney.
Ms Haydon wore a dress by Sydney designer Romance was Born and the Prime Minister’s suit was from MJ Bale.
The newly marrried couples first dance was to The Way You Look Tonight by Frank Sinatra.
In a statement, his office said the Prime Minister and Ms Haydon will go on a honeymoon in Australia from Monday until Friday of next week.
They recently returned from a tropical island holiday in Palau.
Six years after the happy couple met and “just clicked from the beginning”, they have now made history as the first Australian Prime Minister to get married while in office.
And as might be expected, it all unfolded under the watchful eye of the PM’s other beloved lady — his little dog Toto.
“It’s going to be a great day in front of family and friends, pretty small and something that’s about myself and Jodie rather than a big public event,” Mr Albanese said of the nuptials.
Amid increasing threats against public officials, Mr Albanese confirmed “people will be aware once it has occurred”, with a heavy AFP security presence to protect the PM and guests.
“But it will be a wonderful day, and it’s a day primarily to celebrate and commemorate our love for each other in front of our family and friends.”
Describing his new wife as “just fantastic” he said it was a happy day.
“When you go through really long days, having someone to talk to at the end of the day and just be there and be supportive… She’s also really smart, and she has a different perspective,’’ he said.
Mr Albanese, 62, had been barely a year out of his split from his wife of 30 years, Carmel Tebbutt, which he claimed to be “blindsided” by, when he first met Jodie Haydon, 46, at an event in Melbourne in October 2019.
At the time he was leading a bachelor life with his teenage son Nathan in his famously tidy home.
Albanese likes to joke that he has a touch of OCD and is known to get into a froth if different foods touch on the plate. He definitely likes to keep his peas separate from his corn.
Addressing a crowd of 250 people, he asked whether there were any Rabbitohs supporters in the room — an unlikely call given the location.
Jodie Haydon yelled out “Up the Rabbitohs!”, and the rest is history.
Jodie sends the Labor leader a DM
It Jodie Haydon who made the next move.
She followed up with a DM on Twitter — now X — and the pair met for a beer in Sydney’s inner-west.
“I slid into his DMs,’’ Haydon told the Herald Sun a few years ago.
“He had a public profile and I didn’t, so I knew we both followed the same footy team, we both loved the inner west, and I think I said in that message, ‘Hey, we’re both single.’”
“I had been single for a long time when I met Anthony. I honestly thought love wasn’t going to happen for me… I was happy with my career and being single.”
Lonely Albo finds love — and gets papped having a pash
Covid lockdowns kept the relationship under wraps after they began dating in 2020, but the cat was soon out of the bag when they were photographed kissing after a dinner at China Doll restaurant on Sydney’s Woolloomooloo Finger Wharf in June, 2020.
The 16-year age gap was a source of intrigue.
“Did I see my life panning out this way? Absolutely not,” she said.
“I think many of my single girlfriends and I thought we’d end up like the Golden Girls one day — we’d all live together up the coast and that would be life.”
Albo’s near-death experience
In early 2021, Mr Albanese was involved in a life-threatening car crash when he was T-boned by a P-plater.
“I saw the mess of a car before I saw him and thought, ‘He couldn’t survive this,’” Ms Haydon said.
“It was very scary. In that moment you realise how much you love this person — the fear of losing them.”
A 17-year-old in a Range Rover had driven onto the wrong side of the road, colliding with the then Labor leader’s car.
Copacabana controversy
The couple’s decision to buy a $4.3 million house at Copacabana on the NSW Central Coast caused controversy last year.
Even at this week’s Christmas Party at the Lodge, Ms Haydon buried her head in her hands when the PM dropped a joke about journalists having beach houses.
The PM has previously stated the home was all about having a house as a married couple in the future near her parents.
“What you don’t do is move into the family home where Carmel and I raised [son] Nathan together,” he said.
“I won’t be prime minister into my 80s, and we bought a place close to where Jodie grew up, where her family are based.
“It is absolutely delightful to meet someone you want to spend the rest of your life with,” Mr Albanese said.
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