In the middle of a prolonged disaster that had been suffocating Australia for years, Grace and David decided to get married.
Drought was tightening its grip on Crooble, a small New South Wales rural town known for growing barley, chickpeas and wheat.
It was September 2019, and Grace and David's cropping farm, Domang, had never looked worse.
About noon, family and friends started to arrive dressed in black tie, ready to party.
"My mum asked everyone what their non-negotiable was and for me it was getting married here," 32-year-old Grace Quast said.
"I wanted to point out to the jacaranda tree and say to our grandkids, that's where I married your grandfather. I just dug my heels in."
The couple celebrated for the first time in years.
In a dusty paddock next to dying wheat, Grace did the speeches.
David beamed.
Through the night, the wedding party danced in the dust until Grace's mum, Margie, shut down the bar at 2:30 in the morning.
A year since their wedding, 7.30 has asked the couple to reflect on the past 12 months.
"Seeing what David went through really affected me," Grace said.
"When your family has been on a place for 100 years and they've never seen years as bad as what you’re going through, there's no roadmap for dealing with what we were going through.
"Everything around you is dying, and there is nothing you can do.
"There were definite points I would worry about him. And I worried about us."
One of the lucky ones
NSW was the state hit hardest by a drought that began in 2017.
Data from the NSW Department of Primary Industries shows Crooble was in intense drought for 394 days, with a further 220 days in drought.
In January it rained. Then in March it poured.
Grace keeps photos on her phone of January 18, when the couple recorded an inch, which led the way to help them have a decent harvest.
2020 will mark the first time they have had any substantial crops since buying the farm.
With the drought finally breaking across large parts of Australia, Grace feels like one of the lucky ones. Other families just down the road are still struggling.
And some parts of NSW remain bone dry.
"Drought is really complex," Grace said.
"Rain isn't simple.
"I'm really scared to be optimistic, but then when you look at the paddock and you see what we've grown we'd be crazy not to get excited about our future.
"We're allowing ourselves to believe things are going to be OK. It's going to be OK."
