Cruel end for bride

By Sarah Schwager
STACEY Leah Marsland was a happy, fun-loving woman to be married next month and with her whole life in front of her.
However, the Cranbourne bride-to-be’s life was tragically cut short last week after a truck collided into the back of her car as she sat waiting to turn right into a veterinary clinic on Thompsons Road.
Amid their devastation, Stacey’s family and friends urged people to be careful when driving to stop tragedies such as theirs occurring.
Mum Donna Wheater remembered Stacey as an outgoing and much loved part of the family with a large network of friends.
“She wasn’t just a road fatality, she was a very special person,” she said.
“She was a girl who had a fantastic life in front of her. She was to pick up her wedding dress (on Monday). Now she’ll never get to wear it.”
Stacey, 23, was accepted into nursing at university after leaving school but decided her passion lay in becoming an electrician.
Her fiancé Chris Newman was her boss but family members say she was the boss at home.
She and Chris met six years ago through mutual friends and had not looked back.
“In my eyes Chris and Stacey have been married for years,” Ms Wheater said. “The wedding was just Stacey’s way of having a party to celebrate it.”
The wedding Stacey had organised reflected her fun-loving personality. She had arranged for the bridal party to wear shorts and thongs and had already finished making diamante thongs to go with her dress.
Her friend Simon was to be her matron of honour and the formalities were to take place on a golf course.
“I think the main thing she was looking forward to was going around in the golf cart,” Chris said, laughing.
“She just wanted everybody to wear thongs and be comfortable and enjoy it. She didn’t want to put anyone out.”
The combined hen’s and buck’s night was also to be an affair to remember with a joint celebration go-karting and with both a male and a female topless waiter.
Dad Noel Marsland said Stacey loved her horses, her dogs, played sport, and was always keeping herself busy.
“She lived her life to the fullest. She was just one of those enjoyable, lovable people,” he said.
“If the place was on a downer she could walk in the door and lift (the mood) up.”
Chris’s dad Alan Newman, who originally employed Stacey as an apprentice, said there would be a couple of factories shut down on the day of her funeral.
Her older brother Shaun said so many people wanted to say their final farewells that the family was having difficulty finding a venue big enough.
Ms Wheater said Stacey would be sorely missed.
“She never got to have the kids she wanted to have. The world for us is never going to be the same.”