Diners at The Old Salt Bush Restaurant were surprised to learn they were part of a wedding reception held at the venue. Sue and Mick travelled from Sydney to Broken Hill, got married in Silverton at the Mundi Mundi Plains, before coming back for dinner. Though, not even the newlyweds knew the extent that head chef and owner, Lee Cecchin, would go to to celebrate.
After speaking with the couple in September last year when she was in Sydney, and learning they were looking for somewhere special to have a wedding and were coming to Broken Hill, Ms Cecchin took the lead and offered her restaurant as an option, vowing to make it a special occasion for them.
“We organised a cake for them, they did the bridal waltz (to U2’s One), and all the customers in the restaurant were really great because they really helped them celebrate,” Ms Cecchin told us.
“We said we’d booked out the restaurant for their reception for them as a “rent a crowd” as a joke. And they were just blown away by the hospitality from everybody in Broken Hill and on what we did. We gave them the drive home as a “limo” – in my car, home to their place after dinner.
“They didn’t expect to even be doing any of that, they were just happy to have dinner. And she wore a wedding dress, and they more or less came straight from the ceremony [with] the photographer taking photos, to the restaurant.”
It marked the beginning of a sold-out weekend at the restaurant, as Australian actor Brian Brown contributed to a night where his wife, Rachael Ward – who’s currently in town to direct episodes of RFDS: Royal Flying Doctor Service.
“Members from the Flying Doctor team, they came in for dinner and were pleasantly surprised to find our little place here in the outback. It became a bit of a big night with those guys coming in and really enjoying themselves. I don’t want to say too much because privacy is important to us when we have people like that – I hadn’t even told the staff that he was coming in for that reason, just for privacy. You want people to come here and feel that they can come here and have their privacy.”
