Rabbitohs love leads to Lodge wedding for PM and Haydon

Like many modern relationships, it started with a slide into DMs on social media.

More than six years after the South Sydney Rabbis introduced Anthony Albanese to Jodie Haydon, the pair declared their love for each other in an intimate wedding ceremony at The Lodge in Canberra on Saturday.

Mr Albanese, then opposition leader, was the keynote speaker at a national union conference in Melbourne in 2019 when a joke about Rabbis during his speech led him to introduce Ms Haydon.

Ms Haydon shouted “Call the rabbis” after referring to South Sydney during her speech, which later sparked messages on social media.

“I went into his messages,” Ms Haydon told News Corp in 2022.

“He had a public profile but I didn’t, so I knew we both followed the same football team, we were both in love with the inner west, and I think in that direct message I said ‘hey, we’re both single’.”

Speaking about the 2024 hookup, Mr Albanese told a Brisbane radio station it was a “very strange way” to meet someone.

“Who would have thought that romance would begin there?” he said.

Messages on Twitter led to first dates over craft beer at a Newtown brewery and soon a relationship.

When Mr Albanese was involved in a serious car crash in 2021, Ms Haydon said it clarified many of the feelings she had about him.

“It was very scary and in that moment you realize how much you love this person, the fear of losing them. When I jumped into the ambulance and saw Anthony, I realized the depth of my feelings for him,” she told Australian Women’s Weekly.

The couple have been regularly seen in public with each other ahead of the 2022 elections; During her victory speech on election night, Ms. Haydon was front and center with Mr. Albanese.

He regularly appeared with the Prime Minister on his foreign visits, including US and world summits.

The couple’s wedding at the Lodge was at the same location where Mr Albanese popped the question to Ms Haydon on Valentine’s Day 2024.

Mr Albanese proposed with a ring he designed after dinner that night at an Italian restaurant in the Canberra suburb of Braddon.

“We are thrilled to share this news and look forward to spending the rest of our lives together,” the couple said in a statement.

“We are so lucky to have found each other.”

Mr Albanese became the first prime minister to become engaged while in office and the first prime minister to marry while in office.

From the moment the couple got engaged, there was speculation about where and when the wedding would take place and what would happen on the big day.

Mr Albanese said he was considering getting married in the second half of the year after the May election, but said marriages were being considered on their engagement anniversaries.

“I have to say, we thought about it on the anniversary, we did it really quietly, just to stop the speculation,” Mr Albanese told B105 Brisbane in March.

“But we decided that that might also lead to some speculation, so we didn’t do that. (But) I thought about doing it really quietly.”

The couple had not revealed many details about what the wedding would be like, except that the prime minister’s dog, Toto, would be included in the ceremony as a ring bearer and that it would be smaller.

Mr Albanese told ABC Radio: “It’s going to be a great day out in front of family and friends. It’s pretty small and more about me and Jodie than a big public event.”

After several months of political honeymoon following his massive election victory in May, Mr Albanese and his wife are about to enjoy a honeymoon of their own.