Beautifully dressed in matching white pantsuits, Chloe and Elly finally make it down the aisle in Neighbours, where they vow to love each other forever.
With Chloe’s (April Rose Pengilly) symptoms becoming more acute – she has Huntington’s disease, which causes the progressive degeneration of nerve cells in the brain – there’s no-one she wants more by her side to support her than Elly (Jodi Gordon).
But as Ellie readies for the big day, she learns something shocking: grandma Liz has been leaving her six-year-old daughter, Aster (Amelia Gavin), at home alone for hours when she’s meant to be babysitting her.
A furious Ellie promptly uninvites her from the wedding.
“To have that level of trust broken is devastating,” Jodi, 38, tells TV WEEK. “It impacts the wedding too.”
Now, however, Aster is left without a babysitter, meaning the honeymoon is off unless someone can help out.
“Elly will forgive her mum one day, when she shows her and Aster she’s doing something about her behaviour,” Jodi says. “But at this point, she’s firm about her decision.”
Elsewhere in Erinsborough, as bride-to-be Chloe gets ready with Terese (Rebekah Elmaloglou), the reality of her illness sinks in when, because her symptoms have become more severe, she can’t walk in her wedding heels.
“The wedding was about celebrating authentic love and partnership and what it has taken to get to this point,” Jodi says. “At the end of the day, the girls come together and meet each other on that level and footwear becomes irrelevant.”
With Chloe devastated she can’t look the way she wants to, Elly makes a romantic gesture to lessen her partner’s disappointment. In doing so, it proves she will love her in sickness and in health, and ends the magical day on a high.