With the cost of weddings soaring, couples are turning to fast-paced celebrations as an affordable but personal alternative
It’s 11 am on a Sunday in Unexpected Guest, one of many new warehouses turned gin distilleries in Sydney’s inner west. The mood is chaotic joy and the place looks like a scene from Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet – red velvet and candles, an altar decked out with bright flowers and a giant neon crucifix fallen on its side.
The Darkness’s I Believe in a Thing Called Love is blaring, and John and Amanda, conspicuously overdressed for mid-morning in a gin joint, are doing shots at the bar – laughing and kissing. Are they starting a bender early or finishing one late?
Someone hands Amanda a pen and a piece of paper while someone else hands John a baby. They take turns holding the infant and signing the gin-stained document as a professional photographer captures everything.
“Drink up,” shouts one of the few others present. “We’ve only got an hour!”
Welcome to ShotGin Weddings.
Adam Seeney and Dane Tucker love weddings. So much so they have each made the ancient rituals their life’s purpose. Once a caterer and drama teacher, Seeney is now an in-demand wedding celebrant, while former engineer Tucker was recently named one of the world’s top 30 emerging wedding photographers by Rangefinder, a leading American industry publication.Together, they have more than 700 nuptials under their belts.
Since entering the industry, the pair have watched the cost of weddings soar as interest rates and cost-of-living pressures rise. This has priced many couples out of the market, prompting elopements, indefinite engagements and sometimes even wedding debt.
Easy Weddings’ 2024 Australian Wedding Industry Report shows the average wedding costs $35,315, 29% more than the betrotheds’ original budget. The report also showed that average wedding spends dropped 2.5% year-on-year as couples incorporate DIY elements and forgo pricey traditions.Seeney and Tucker have seen first-hand that, when it comes to weddings, bigger rarely means better, many “must-have” trends and traditions are redundant, and some couples crave something stress-lite, with less pomp and more party. They heard the cries for something “more personal, flexible, and, frankly, easier”, and they rallied.
Seeney says they started the event to “give couples something meaningful without the overwhelming logistics or expense”. It’s about creating a space “where love is celebrated in its purest form – joyful, authentic and surrounded by the people who matter most”.
It was exactly as we had both imagined our big day – none of the pretence but all of the positivity
Alice
The concept is simple: one day, one venue, six weddings.
John and Amanda were the first couple to get hitched that day. Then every hour for the next five hours, two people said “I do” in front of 10 of their ride-or-dies, for roughly the cost of two tickets to Las Vegas.
There were no Elvis impersonators – though Seeney probably wouldn’t need much convincing – but each couple received a customised wedding ceremony, professional photos, cocktails on arrival and full use of the space for an hour. Light catering and other add-ons were available at extra cost.
The final timeslot, The Last Supper, allowed the couple to invite up to 60 guests and enjoy several hours in the venue.

That Sunday in November was ShotGin’s maiden run but pop-up weddings aren’t new.
Since the early 2010s, variations have been available to Australian couples seeking a low-key, cost-effective alternative to traditional weddings, with more personalisation and gravitas than a registry ceremony.
Already growing in popularity before Covid-19, lockdowns forced couples to adapt their wedding plans and vendors to pivot to reduced, more flexible offerings. Post-lockdowns, the challenging economic environment has seen pop-up weddings flourish. However, they are more than a financial imperative, representing a cultural shift towards more conscious and small-scale celebrations.
So, while Seeney and Tucker didn’t invent pop-up weddings, they did put them in a gin bar. Sydney couples are on board. More than 200 have now registered interest, while more than 50 vied to win the final – free – spot at the inaugural event.
While the giveaway winners were randomly chosen, the first five couples nabbed their spots on a first-in-best-dressed basis.
“When bookings opened,” Tucker says, “John and Amanda swooped in and booked their spot in about three minutes. It was wild!”

John and Amanda met on Tinder in Myanmar in March 2020. During their ceremony Seeney described it as “some kind of romcom”. After an epic 12-hour date, they waited almost two years to see each other again.
The wait was worth it.
Engaged in 2023, with a newborn soon after, they dreamed of a small Tuscan wedding but struggled to make the logistics work. When they heard about ShotGin Weddings, Amanda was on board immediately. John needed convincing. “I thought it would take away from what we wanted,” he says. “But, as I discovered, it added to the day we thought we would have.”
Highlights for the couple included seeing each other as Amanda walked down the aisle, dancing with their baby girl, and Seeney’s deeply considered and hilarious ceremony, which included telling their proposal story as an original sonnet.
“I’m just so thrilled with how everything feels very us,” Amanda says. “While I’m looking forward to having a party with more people down the line, I wouldn’t have changed a thing about the day.”
Their hour at Unexpected Guest flew by, followed by champagne, caviar and a three-course meal at Bennelong. Wed in a gin distillery and fed at the Opera House? “Pretty iconic,” said one happy guest.

When conceiving ShotGin Weddings, Seeney and Tucker set out to create a stylish, intimate space that didn’t take itself too seriously. As John and his guests entered Unexpected Guest that morning, Seeney knew they’d nailed it.
“Who could go past the moment when everyone walked into space for the first time?” he says. “Jaws on the floor, audible gasps – you name it. It made it all worth it.”
For Tucker, that moment came a smidge later.
“There was a moment during the first ceremony where I looked around for emotional people to capture. Amanda was crying, and a number of the guests were tearing up. As was Charlotte, our publicist, and yourself, Nadine – two people who had only met the couple moments before.”