Fans of Bindi Irwin have watched the young wildlife conservationist grow up on television,
so it was only logical that the former Jungle Girl and husband Chandler Powell would want
to share their wedding day with the Crikey! It's the Irwins audience. However, more than
two months after the pair exchanged vows, Bindi revealed on Instagram that, despite
their happy ending, the event was not what she'd dream of her whole life.
Bindi and Powell initially decided against guests for health and safety reasons, but
Australia's sudden lockdown measures also forced the couple to change their wedding
date the evening before they were set to tie the knot. Still, they were, quote, "determined
to let love win."
Making matters even worse, the couple had to alter their plans once again when some
uninvited guests arrived. She wrote:
"On our wedding day we were finally about to get married and the paparazzi flew over
us in a helicopter scaring our wildlife. We had to leave our stunning wedding venue on
the African Savannah for their safety. I said goodbye to the place I had dreamed of getting
married for so many years."
As the helicopters began to swarm the airspace above the Australian Zoo, Bindi Irwin knew
they couldn't get married among the beloved animals as expected. She explained to Entertainment
Tonight:
"We had to entirely shift our wedding ceremony as we were about to get married. And I remember
I was in my wedding dress and we found this beautiful, old — it's like a barn where
we filmed Crocodile Hunter and Bindi the Jungle Girl — and I went, 'This is gonna work!'"
After that, the zoo's crew helped them move inside. While Bindi admitted the wedding wasn't
quite what they planned, Bindi deemed it a, quote, "extraordinary starting point" for
their marriage to "bloom." She added:
"We didn't have any of the fancy frills or anything. And it's great if you do when you
get married, but for us it was about being together no matter what happened."
It's clear that, together, these two can overcome any unforeseen obstacle that comes their way,
and it certainly seems to have helped that her new hubby kept a cool head and optimistic
outlook through the whole thing. As Bindi told Entertainment Tonight, Powell's "calming
presence" soothed her when she felt like she was "going crazy" amid the chaos. She recalled
on Instagram:
"At one point I sat on a chair in the corner doing my best not to think about how overwhelming
things seemed. [...] Chandler stopped what he was doing and sat next to me. I asked him
to list me happy things. He proceeded to remind me that love ALWAYS wins."
Bindi added:
"[Sometimes] it is so hard to find happiness, and that's why we have to have people who
love us and support us around always. During the hardest times in your life, those are
the people that are gonna lift you up and remind you that the meaning of life is unconditional
love."
They're right — love won that day. And even as the newlyweds built the foundations for
their own future together, neither forgot the memory of Bindi's father, the late Steve
Irwin. In fact, while it's customary for brides to adopt the grooms' last name after they
say "I do," Bindi Irwin chose to keep her name to honor her father. Talking to Entertainment
Tonight, she explained:
"I think that for me personally, after dad passed away it was really important for me
to feel close to him, and having his last name means so much to me."
"We're so lucky to get to continue on in his footsteps and make sure that everything he
loved and lived for carries on into the future."
Her husband Chandler Powell explained that, although they discussed her potential name
change, they both agreed that she's, quote, "an Irwin through and through" at the end
of the day.
And while Bindi hinted that Powell could assume her surname, he's just thankful that the Crocodile
Hunter essentially brought them together. After all, Powell grew up watching Steve's
wildlife documentaries. He told ET:
"[It] made me really fall in love with all forms of wildlife. So in a way, he brought
us together because when I came to Australia after watching his documentaries, I wanted
to come visit Australia Zoo and that was when we met... if it weren't for him, I don't know
how we would have met."
Crikey! Now that's a love story for the ages.
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