5 April 2003, Mount Buffalo, Victoria, Australia
In this beautiful mountain-top. I remember when Kate and Pete were discussing the location for their wedding, Kate’s wanted somewhere beautiful for romance and Pete wanted somewhere high altitude, as we all get pissed a lot quicker and it saves on grog.
No it’s a really stunning place Mount Buffalo....so quiet and secluded... enjoy it while you can Pete as it’s probably the last moment of peace you’ll ever experience.
It really came as a great surprise when I was asked to MC the marriage of Kate and Pete, mostly because so many people had dropped out before me, but I consider it a great honour. I have known them as a couple and also as individuals...and love them both...and I feel very privileged to be able to share this moment with them.
Kate and Pete met while travelling through Asia, which, having been “embedded” them on a few overseas trips myself, I think is quite poetic.
In many ways the way a couple travels together, is a good indication on how they’ll cope with life together, and Kate and Pete travel with a great sense of adventure, a tremendous respect and warmth for the people they encounter, and most of all a profound love for each other. While I’ve been overseas with them I’ve always been impressed by their remarkable energy, their generosity, and the constant stream of shit-box hotels they choose to stay in.
I met Kate in 1994 at RRR when I was contributing to the Breakfast Show. Before Kate began on RRR the breakfast show was a highly successful team, after she started we were a family. The energy and talent that became evident during those years owed a lot to the remarkable influence of Kate, she cared about us, took an interest in our lives, often broke our balls, but generated this tremendous spirit that still exists between us all today.
Kate’s friends are tremendously important to her. If you had a birthday Kate would be there. If you were depressed Kate would be there, if you owed her money, Kate would be there....remarkable. Kate has been a friend in every sense of the word to me over the last decade. She’s been supportive when I’ve been down, given very wise advice on everything from my career, relationships and dress sense, she’s acted in pilots for us for nothing, been to every show we’ve ever done, and always been there to celebrate milestones in my life. And I’m sure many others of us here would have similar stories.
You can never just be a work-mate of Kate’s, she cares too deeply about people to be that flippant, you’re part of Kate’s family, which is why we’re all gathered here tonight.
I met Pete through Kate, and we soon became close friends and have remained so ever since. Both through the time when he and Kate weren’t together, and even when moved into a house with a girl who talked about freezing sperm in the ice-box.
Having gotten to know Pete, can I just say that he’s a sensitive, gentle, beautiful person....at least I thought he was until he picked up a guitar.
I think the thing that struck me first about Pete was his really quick and clever wit. When you get paid to be funny you are sometimes shamed to meet people who are just as funny if not more, with Pete however I soon got over that shame and learnt to steal many of his jokes and broadcast them as my own however.
Pete, like Kate, also has a great family of friends around him, they’re great, I’ve met many of them, and again stolen their jokes.
And now of course Kate and Pete are beginning life together and starting a family of their own. A family that will become the core of the already extended family, us, who they have invited along tonight. And can I just say Kate and Pete, on behalf of all your friends here tonight, we’re honoured to be part of your family, we can’t wait to be there while you begin your own. Thanks for all the love you’ve shown us over the years... congrats....