There’s a misconception that country weddings are more difficult to plan due to the lack of vendors and venues. in celebration of The Country Issue, country wedding photographer Kirsten Cunningham is here with us today to dispel this myth!
Kirsten (she/her) is a full-time wedding photographer based in Orange, New South Wales. She’s had five years of experience shooting couples across Orange, Blue Mountains, Mudgee, Bathurst, and the central west. Her photography style is an extension of her personality: candid, relaxed, and very natural. She loves the outdoors and she is an absolute pro at capturing photos using natural light.
In this chat we discuss:
- All about Kirsten’s hometown of Orange, New South Wales and why you’re going to fall in love with it
- Advantages of a country wedding
- Wedding photography in natural light and scenery
- Arranging transportation for guests
- Finding the right country wedding vendors
- Perks of sourcing local vendors and materials
- Availability of country wedding venues
- Guest accommodation, information, and activities
- Other amazing places to consider for a country wedding
Country wedding vendors may not be as abundant, but they’re certainly just as talented as the ones from the city. By supporting local, you have access to produce, flowers, and wine that are unique to the region. It’s a complete farm-to-table experience that you can’t get anywhere else.
When it comes to venues, couples can get more creative in the country. Dance halls, vineyards, churches, barns, apple packing sheds – take your pick! It’s always best to book early or to book off-peak season dates so you can rent your preferred venue and hire the best vendors.
To make things easier for your guests, put all the relevant information on your wedding website. List down the available transportation, accommodation, food and activities for everyone to see.
All you really need to pull off a country wedding is an early and well-organized plan—which is key to any wedding anyway!
Links Mentioned:
The Polka Dot Wedding Country Issue
Find Kirsten:
Kirsten Cunningham Photography on Polka Dot Wedding
Kirsten Cunningham Photography
On Polka Dot Wedding: Kirsten Cunningham
On Instagram: @KirstenCunninghamPhotography
Find Dorothy & the Polka Dot Wedding team:
On Instagram: @polkadotwedding
On the website: polkadotwedding.com
This podcast was produced by Polka Dot Wedding
The Polka Dot Wedding team is honoured to conduct our work on the land of the BoonWurrung, WoiWorung, Eora and Kuring-gai people. We honour the traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders custodians of the land and pay our respects to Elders past & present.
Episode Transcript
Dorothy:
00:01
Hello and welcome. You’re listening to The Feel Good Wedding Podcast by Polka Dot Wedding. My name is Dorothy otherwise known as Miss Polka Dot, and I’m the founder and editor. We believe in seeking out content that is inclusive and diverse so that everyone can see themselves in the stories that we tell. We’ve done this for 15 years through the written word, and now we want to have those chats in voice through a podcast. Can’t wait to take you along for the ride.
The Polka Dot Wedding team is honoured to conduct our work on the land of the BoonWurrung, WoiWorung, Eora and Kuring-gai people. We honour the traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander custodians of the land and pay our respects to Elders past and present. Welcome back to another episode of The Feel Good Wedding Podcast.
I am so thrilled for today’s episode because one of my favourite parts about Polka Dot Wedding is our theme issue. We take a month, we take a theme, and we deep dive into everything to do with that theme. It might be entertainment. It might be cakes. It might be flowers. In fact, it could even be a colour. The Yellow Issue is amazing because it was all about sunshine.
But this month, we’re talking country weddings. Now a couple of us at Polka Dot Wedding have been born and bred in the country. So a country wedding is near and dear to our hearts. And it’s also near and dear to the heart of today’s guest. Kirsten Cunningham is a beloved Polka Dot Wedding member, but she’s also a country wedding photographer based out of Orange in New South Wales.
Today, Kirsten is sharing with us everything you need to know about a country wedding. From what you need to think about when catering to your guests. From what you need to think about when you’re choosing your wedding venue. Choosing your vendors, the perks, the cons, the pros, everything to do with a country wedding. And it’s a really valuable chat. If you’re thinking maybe I don’t want to get married in a city. Can’t wait for you to hear this one. So let’s get settled in, grab your favourite beverage, cup of tea, a glass of wine, and let’s do it.
Hello, Kirsten, thank you so much for joining me today.
Kirsten:
02:07
Thank you. It’s exciting to be here.
Dorothy:
02:10
I’m excited to have you. Now, for those of us that don’t know you, please introduce yourself and tell me all about what you do in the wedding industry.
Kirsten:
02:18
Amazing. Thank you. Well, my name is Kirsten Cunningham. I’m a photographer based in Orange, New South Wales, which is about four hours west of Sydney. And I specialize in wedding photography.
Dorothy:
02:29
So tell me a little bit about Orange because it is a really beautiful town, especially in autumn. So can you tell me a little bit about Orange and what you love about it?
Kirsten:
02:37
Yeah, for sure. So Orange, as they call it, “the colour city”. So we’re quite high. We’re about 900 meters above sea level. So we do get snow on Mount Canobolas in winter and lots of people come here for the high-altitude wines in the vineyards. Oh, so beautiful. I know, like surrounded by vineyards, how lucky am I, and in the country, so good. But Mount Canobolas is like an extinct volcano. So there’s like really mineral-rich soil. And that kind of supports all this amazing produce, like you know, we grow saffron and apples and there’s cider producers, wine, cheese, coffee, truffles, beer, it’s insane. It’s so beautiful. And of course, like with all of that, amazing food and wine and produce, there’s this incredible destination wedding industry that is supported by that.
My clients come in, and they often bring like a hundred people into town from all over Australia and the world, just to have that real weekend experience. And obviously, all the locals get married here too, because it’s just awesome. There’s so many cool things to do. Not a lot of Orange people get married outside and have their own destination wedding unless they’re beach-obsessed or something. So it’s a beautiful town.
Dorothy:
03:51
You sold me on it. So why would you want to go anywhere else?
Kirsten:
03:54
Exactly! Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Dorothy:
03:57
City weddings and country weddings, especially in Australia, are very different. They’re two sides of the coin. So what do you love most about country weddings?
Kirsten:
04:00
Yeah, and I guess I want to qualify that by saying I did actually work in the wedding industry in Sydney for a couple of years. That’s where I started my career. And I’ll never forget, you know, the stress of—I was second shooting. So I wasn’t the associate shooter but so I was working for another photographer. But we would have the ceremony at a church in the inner west and then we’d drive to The Rocks and try and find a car park. We had five minutes to find the car park on a busy Saturday, and they get out of the car and then get back in the car and then go to location number two for portraits. And then by the time you get to reception, you’re just so worn out and we were the photographers, you know. The couples – taking their bridal party to all of these places.
Portrait sessions are often two hours long just because you have to account for all the travel if you’re not staying on site. And I’ll just never forget the stress and the hectic-ness of it. And the other thing that really, that I absolutely love about country weddings and working in Orange, if they are two different sites between ceremony and reception, it’s a 10-minute drive between the two sites. Your stress levels are really low. But also that in the city, I just remember thinking like, it’s such a missed opportunity for guests to spend time together outside of the actual wedding day.
So yeah, like a lot of my clients, either Sydney or Canberra based or some of them have even grown up in Orange moved to Brisbane or Perth and then come back. Come back to Orange and brought all of their friends and family together. But they kind of have this beautiful sense of community around the wedding as well. So you know, there’s Friday night, there’s a beer and pizza night at one of the pubs. And then Saturday’s this beautiful wedding. Often they’ll have a breakfast with immediate family or something in the morning of the wedding. And then afterwards there’s this recovery brunch at this beautiful Airbnb with bacon and egg rolls on the barbecue or brunch at a vineyard.
I just really remember being struck by that when I started working in Orange. How being in Orange or being in the country and bringing all of your guests into a little small country town really gives them that immersive experience. But also it gives them that beautiful weekend away of chilling out and having fun but it also allows all of the guest’s friends and family to interact and so they walk away from the weekend really feeling like your community is very connected to each other and they know each other and your best friends have met your uni friends and uni friends have met your parents and you know all of that kind of stuff. And I just yeah, I’ll never forget thinking in Sydney or in the city just like there’s a real missed opportunity to bring people together because everyone kind of just disappears.
Dorothy:
06:49
And I think like so many Sydney couples choose the typical places like Southern Highlands and Hunter Valley, etc. which are beautiful, but it sounds like there’s so many more regions in New South Wales particularly and every other state obviously, that are under-loved but have so much to offer for a wedding.
Kirsten:
07:05
Yeah, definitely. So much food! And I don’t like there’s a reason that the Hunter Valley and Barrel and the beautiful venues in Sydney, particularly, you know, like Gunners Barracks and all these beautiful harbourside venues. There’s a reason that they’re popular because they’re absolutely beautiful. And they do a damn good job at what they do. But yeah, see, right, the other thing is country weddings are often a lot less expensive than city weddings because you don’t have all of those big tariffs put on there.
And country venues, venues particularly, will offer really good packages for people because they’re either just—they’re not under the pump all the time. They do their other things and weddings isn’t—it’s not a hobby. I don’t want to misrepresent it, but it’s not the core of their business. Like a lot of the vineyards here in Orange, weddings is the part of the hustle, but it’s not the main hustle if that makes sense. So they’re not stressed. They’re not charging as much as other venues who only do weddings might be.
Dorothy:
08:11
And that was going be one of my questions to you is what are the perks of city versus country weddings? Because you said costs and one of the reasons I suppose apart from the fact that it’s not the main thing is that overheads are just a little bit lower as well. You’re not contesting with Harbourside rents, etc. So it can be less of a budget hit. So what are the other perks that you think of a country wedding?
Kirsten:
08:35
Yeah, I mean, in a place like Orange, where the wedding scene at the moment really has that “best kept secret” kind of vibe. Lots of my couples come to Orange for a weekend away, discovering how awesome it is, and then deciding to get married there two years later, you know, and bringing their family and friends there.
So I remember one couple recently, they checked—and this is not the standard practice by any means—but I was just blown away at how cool it was. They literally went through all of their friends’ Instagrams to see if any of them followed the vineyard that they wanted to get married at in Orange. And when they realized that no one had, they were like yes, because we want people to have that wow feeling. We want them to have an experience, not just to watch us get married. And I think that was really eye-opening for me because that really solidified that idea that you know getting married in the country is about you having that time away from your normal life if you’re talking about a destination wedding.
Obviously, locals still get to experience everything. But also bring people that you love into a world that you want them to experience and share with them. So chilling out in Airbnbs, Orange is quite cold so like little Airbnbs with fireplaces and drinking red wine and you know all of that kind of thing. But costs are a really big one. The experience of allowing your guests to have not like a “wedstival”. Like a lot of places, and it’s so cool. Like I love that concept so much. But like a real wedding weekend, I suppose. And there are seriously talented vendors that live in the country. There’s not as many in as there is in the big cities, but they’re just as good. And it’s really exciting to see.
Like in Orange, we’ve got three or four amazing florists, three or four amazing celebrants, three or four amazing photographers, videographers, you name it. And I guess that’s the biggest challenge about getting married in the country.
Dorothy:
10:38
I was going say, that would make it hard wouldn’t it? To find the right vendors?
Kirsten:
10:42
Yes. Well, yes and no.
Dorothy:
10:44
But you have really good communities, don’t you? The vendors that we work with in the country areas are really tight-knit, and they all support each other. And they all recommend each other.
Kirsten:
10:54
Yeah, definitely. And you have to because you know, you need someone to have your back when the shit hits the fan, you know. And I think this is straight. I’m not speaking about all of country New South Wales, obviously. But Orange, particularly, particularly after COVID, we had a really high influx of people migrating, basically from Sydney out to Orange. And that’s always existed. But a lot of the main wedding vendors here are from the city. They understand city clients, they understand what expectations are, they understand the quality of work, and they’ve bought all of that experience from the city out to the country. And the industry as a whole is getting better and better. Not saying that people who haven’t lived in the city can’t do it, because that’s totally untrue. But there’s this real connection and understanding with clients from all different types of demographics, I suppose.
Dorothy:
11:48
Do you find that the country has changed the way that you shoot as a photographer? How has it influenced your work?
Kirsten:
11:55
Yes, definitely. Look, natural light is my jam. It’s my thing. I started my photography career in natural light portraiture in Sydney. Photographing preschool kids strangely, but that taught me a lot about kids and personalities and natural light. So natural light is really something that heavily influences my work. And every time I drive around Orange or I actually work in Mudgee and the Blue Mountains and Dubbo and Bathurst as well. I do travel. But there’s nothing like those—the light with huge horizons, soft pastel colours of eucalyptus. You know, cherry blossoms, as well in spring, which we’re seeing in Orange.
Those autumn colours that you mentioned before with that beautiful—the colour and the light is just absolutely spectacular. And I guess I generally am always looking for beautiful light and quite simple compositions that show off how beautiful the venues in the locations that my couples have chosen because they’re not here for the industrial architecture. They’re not here for The Rocks in Sydney, or to have the Harbour Bridge in the background. They really want to show off that experience and that immersion in the country, in these beautiful colours, in the particular season, especially with Orange or somewhere like the Blue Mountains, where quite often I’ll do tiny little elopements on the escarpment and it’s just like kilometres of beautiful valleys and eucalypt trees and cockatoos being crazy. So definitely, definitely influenced heavily by the environment and trying to really focus on the light in the simplicity of the compositions that I shoot.
Dorothy:
13:30
So you really sold me on a country wedding. You sold hopefully all the listeners on the country wedding. So let’s get into like the nitty gritty. So what’s your couples think about when they’re planning a country wedding? Because we talked about like, there may be kind of less availability with suppliers. You’ve got to think about your guests coming in, you’ve got to think about distances with venues. What are all the different things that couples should consider?
Kirsten:
13:54
Yeah, that’s a really good question. And I guess the answer might be a bit surprising to some people, particularly in terms of transport. The biggest concern with transport is actually flying people in, I feel. So you know, the regional to regional flights can be a real headache. So again, going back to that concept of having a weekend away and encouraging people—I remember guests trying to fly from Rockhampton, via Brisbane via Sydney to Orange and you know, one of those flights got delayed and they were nine hours late. So just really trying to give your guests a heads up and a little bit more information and maybe encouraging them to get here a little bit earlier, and creating that multi-day experience rather than a single day experience.
Once you’re actually here though, it’s phenomenal. You can drive from one side of town in Orange to the other in less than 10 minutes. It’s amazing. And a lot of people will get buses to get all their wedding guests to meet. Stay at the information centre in town, bus them out to the venue, which is only 15 minutes away and then offer that return bus. And most of the accommodation in town is within walking distance to the information centre. So it’s a really, really great way to keep your guests safe. But the country road fatalities are a really big thing. And you really want to take that seriously. And there’s not enough cabs in small towns.
And Uber kind of still hasn’t come into the country towns like as heavily as it has in the city. But there’s not as many cabs but there are lots of cops, if that makes sense. So you want to keep your guests safe. But organizing a bus is a really, really easy way to do that. All the school buses just turn into wedding buses on the weekends. And it’s actually not that expensive. So I guess that’s a big thing.
Dorothy:
15:50
So obviously, as a country wedding vendor, you recommend local vendors where possible over necessarily bringing city vendors in. So if there are only a couple of country vendors that are amazing, as opposed to hundreds and thousands that there might be in the city, what are your recommendations for finding those country wedding vendors and making sure that like they’re at the quality and all that kind of stuff? When it comes to maybe planning it for a week, etc? What are your tips for country wedding vendors?
Kirsten:
16:19
Yes, a really good question. Look, supporting local is always so important. Otherwise, the industry can’t exist. So local vendors have that insight and knowledge and connections and they have the community around them to problem solve and support them. But like I said, like in a community where there are handfuls of vendors in the wedding industry in each particular category, and you don’t have that oversupply like you say do in Sydney or Melbourne.
On a peak weekend, we absolutely welcome out-of-town wedding vendors, because otherwise, the industry can’t exist either. So the beautiful thing that I love about Orange is the quality of wedding vendors is really high. And on a peak weekend here, there might be 20 weddings. And if you’ve only got four local wedding photographers or three or four florists that can do a few weddings each. It’s absolutely necessary to bring in people from other parts to come in and expand and work in the wedding industry. And we’re so lucky because we’re only four hours west of Sydney. So often people from Western Sydney, the Blue Mountains, Dubbo, Mudgee, everyone’s kind of working across the region together. And we get that really beautiful, like cross-pollination, I suppose between all these little micro destination wedding areas, which is beautiful.
But look, if you absolutely want to support local wedding vendors, there’s a couple of different ways that you can do it. Obviously, booking early is a really big thing. The other thing that COVID has taught us is flexibility. So think about having your wedding on a Friday. So often a Friday, midweek, the Tuesday after a long weekend. Just get a little bit creative with your dates. And often you’ll have like your choice of vendors, if you’re getting married on a Friday instead of a peak Saturday wedding. Just some really, really simple tips there. And again, like using that as a way to get your guests to have an immersive experience in the little tiny country town that you’re bringing them to. And to have that experience there. Rather than you know, getting in on the Saturday morning, leaving on the Saturday night, getting out of there and everyone’s exhausted because they’ve just driven four hours back and forth.
Dorothy:
18:26
Gosh, exactly. Is there anything we have to really consider when it comes to availability, not just with vendors being booked out or not, but things like food or bringing in particular styling elements or flowers when you are so far? I mean, I know it’s only four hours, but it still is four hours from the city.
Kirsten:
18:42
Yeah, that’s a really good question. I always think about, you know, one of the leading wedding industries at the moment is in Perth. The things that are coming out of Perth are absolutely phenomenal. And yes, Perth is a city of 2 million people. But it’s so isolated from the rest of the world.
Dorothy:
19:03
It is, yeah.
Kirsten:
19:04
And I think about that all the time saying well, if they can do this, like leading, leading design styling florals, like such contemporary, beautiful, like wedding—everything, everything wedding, right? I absolutely love everything that’s coming out of Perth. Like if they can do it as a town—of city of 2 million people so isolated from the rest of the world. We’re four hours from Sydney. There’s absolutely no reason if we’re not doing it already, that we aren’t able to do that as well.
Dorothy:
19:34
Yes, when you put it like that.
Kirsten:
19:36
Yes. And you know, there’s all of these different elements here too. You know, like in Sydney, you’ve obviously got the flower markets, but in Orange, you have the growers. So our florists are actually going directly to the growers to get things that are in season. It’s all like farm to table or, you know, farm to farm to wedding. Not just florals, but produce as well. You’ve got the vineyards. And just thinking about also the environmental impact of that as well.
So, particularly in Orange, where there’s a lot of growers or the Blue Mountains or in Mudgee, Dubbo, anywhere, actually, you’ve got the growers that live here. Florists are sourcing things directly from the growers. You’ve got the restaurants that are sourcing things directly from the farms around here as well. And they’re producing the wine on-site. So it’s really beautiful, like low carbon footprint, and also supporting that farm to table and supporting local produce as much as possible. And the things that you can do with those combinations here. Things that you can’t see at, you know, cliffside wedding venues in Sydney because they don’t have access to the same things that we’d have access to.
Dorothy:
20:54
And that’s such a good point. Because I was thinking, “Oh, well, we’ve got to bring in everything from the major cities instead of what is around us.” And the vendors that are around us – the produce, the flowers where actually this stuff has been grown and made and being shipped off to Sydney? Like, it’s such a good point that you should just be looking very much at your local vendors and the local suppliers and the local food producers and flower producers, etc. and make the most of it.
Kirsten:
21:19
Yeah, definitely. And look, there are definitely things that you can’t get in the country that you have access to in the city. And there’s absolutely no issue with bringing those out. You know, it’s quite difficult out here to get a particular type of chair if it hasn’t already been used before for styling. So, but often everyone’s so well connected. Again, where we are, we’re only four hours from Sydney. So we have access to that. And particularly if clients are really into design or styling quite often they’ll have people bring things up or get people to bring things up for them. But often we kind of see clients and couples working with what exists already and then really putting their flair into it.
Dorothy:
22:01
Yep. What should we keep in mind when we’re booking the ultimate vendor, I suppose in the country, the venue? Because it is a little bit different, I think to booking a city venue.
Kirsten:
22:12
Oh, why is that? Why do you think it’s different?
Dorothy:
22:16
I feel like A) there’s much more availability in the city. Maybe the offerings are a little bit different. You’ve got beautiful wineries in the country, you’ve got beautiful barns, you’ve got maybe churches on one side of town to the other side, like it just there’s less around of them. So I feel like there’s a bit of a difference with booking country venues. It’s the same as booking country vendors. I suppose it’s just less availability. Is this stuff that we should keep in mind with that?
Kirsten:
22:42
Yes, that’s a really good question. Yes, definitely, I suppose. And I guess the reason I was like, “Wow, why do you say that?” is because I guess I see the variety here. Because so many of my weddings are marquees on the top of a hill in a private property or someone sheep shed, like someone that they know, or a wedshed venue, or one of the vineyards or one of the most beautiful venues here is actually like an old dance hall that people hire out that’s got like a little dock and a little lake and then all they bring all the styling and all the catering and there’s the kitchen out the back. So there’s all these really different types of venues in Orange, particularly, that suit different budgets, that suit different types of clients. You can still have your beautiful rustic country wedding, or you can have a high-end glamorous vineyard wedding. And those will all exist in exactly the same weekend, during spring and autumn as well.
So if you do have a really particular aesthetic, again, it’s just booking early and having a look around, I suppose. And if you feel like you might have missed out on the venue that you thought that you wanted, either looking at flexible dates, like again, some of the venues will actually offer tiered pricing for midweek and Friday weddings. So you might actually find that say one of the wineries, a lot of the wineries their cellar door is the busiest on a Saturday. And they’re quite reluctant to close the cellar door because long term they make more money from clients joining the wine clubs than they do from having a one-off wedding on that day. So but a lot of the cellar doors in the wineries will offer tiered pricing and so it’s cheaper for you to get married on a Friday, which means that they don’t have to close their cellar door.
So I guess it’s just about working out kind of what vibe or what style of wedding that you want. Do you want to hire a hall and get all the all the styling in there and do your own thing? Would you really want a cellar door? Are you happy to get married, say on the Sunday of a long weekend where people have got the Monday to drive back home? Or I guess just kind of really thinking a little bit outside the box if you know—not outside the box because I feel like people already do that anyway, but just thinking about things are out. Well how can we make this work? Could we get married on a Friday? Could we get married in September instead of October? What if we get married in January rather than mid-December? Or just looking at dates and different types of venues. What if we had this? Instead of hiring a vineyard cellar door, what if we hired an apple packing shed? And right next to the vineyards and did this cool thing.
Dorothy:
25:14
It seems like in some ways, we’ve actually got more choice of venues in the country. Because in the city, there aren’t as many blank canvas venues. But in the country, you can just go get married in an apple packing shed, or you’ll find the space on a lawn to do an amazing marquee, whereas you don’t quite have that same flexibility in the city because everything is so tightly packed.
Kirsten:
25:34
Yeah, and I guess I mean, I’ve seen so many beautiful creative city weddings, and I guess I am very conscious about generalizing. Because I love Sydney. I love being in the city of Melbourne. I love Brisbane, love Perth as well, I promise. Obviously, because I was raving about it before. But yes, you’re right. There’s like a different—I guess the perception is that there’s limited availability, the quality of the vendors isn’t as high as the city, there’s limited access to things, all of these things that we’ve been talking about. And I guess, I really feel like the opposite is true. And as soon as people start inquiring and really wrapping their heads around what’s going on out here and getting a bit of a feel for what they like, what’s on offer, I think people would be really pleasantly surprised about how much cool stuff is out here and what they do have access to.
Dorothy:
26:24
Yeah, and you touched on the quality of the vendors being a myth because it is obvious and it is one that floats around about well, we have to bring city vendors in because you know, we can’t get the quality. We can’t get the on-trend stuff. We can’t get you know, the latest things or that latest styling, all that kind of stuff with a country wedding if we use country vendors. So let’s dispel the myth and get rid of it. And what are some of the examples of beautiful things you’ve seen at country weddings and the amazing stuff that you’ve been like, “Yep. This is why you should book a country vendor.”
Kirsten:
26:54
Oh my gosh, there’s just so many. I guess the big thing is country vendors travel too. So some of the best country wedding photographers work all through Western Queensland, all through Western New South Wales, you know, and they service that entire area, because that’s what they’re absolutely passionate about. And they will get their rain, hail or shine and be at your wedding, you know. And that’s their client base, because the kilometres are so huge. And that’s what they specialize in. So just because you’re getting married, say in a private property out the back of a mining town that doesn’t have big wedding industry.
Yes, there might not be local, in that town, wedding vendors, but there will be a whole, like, wealth of other wedding vendors in surrounding towns that bring really high quality and a really beautiful experience to your wedding. And they will all travel because we’re in the country, we have to do lots of kilometres, and we’re used to it. That’s what we do. A lot of people as well have worked in the city before. And they’re bringing that experience and that lifestyle, or chasing the lifestyle out in the country and bringing all of their experience out here. So I guess it’s really tricky. Obviously, there’s not that really hard edge competitiveness. But that doesn’t mean that the people who are working in the industry don’t care about what they do and making sure that they’re doing the best bloody job that they can.
Dorothy:
28:22
You keep selling it to me now. No competitiveness, lots of space, all this kind of stuff.
Kirsten:
28:27
Yeah, everyone will be moving out here. Yeah, the problem and the solution, I suppose. Yes.
Dorothy:
28:39
So you mentioned earlier about making sure or encouraging couples to book a whole weekend worth of celebrations because it just makes it so much better for your guests. But what other things can we do if we are having our guests fly in for a destination wedding? Apart from maybe doing that whole weekend worth of planning? Is there anything else that we can think about with transport? You mentioned the buses and getting venues far apart? All that kind of stuff, accommodation, information? Is there anything else we can do to help our guests at a country wedding?
Kirsten:
29:09
Oh, yeah, definitely. And there are so many beautiful little micro wedding websites that people have access to these days that clients have access to. So you know, they can set up their website, literally ring quite a lot of people will literally ring the Information Centre and say, “All right, well how do I get from point A to point B? What’s open on a Monday night for dinner or a Sunday night for dinner? Can you tell me”And so then they list all of that information on this beautiful little wedding website that they have for themselves that guests have access to and then guests just go out and do their things. And I don’t want to scare clients in terms of you do not have to organize every single one of your guests for the whole weekend. I’m not suggesting that at all. You know, like booking in a pub for 50 people on the Friday nights of beer and pizza and just letting people show up if they want to. Or maybe organizing picnics or a barbecue or something out at one of the vineyards. Or if anyone’s got a big Airbnb, just inviting everyone to come over and have bacon and egg rolls on the Sunday morning. So it’s just, you’re organizing things, but it’s not a lot of work for you.
And it might be that in early wedding planning progress, really thinking about the things. Where are you actually having a ceremony? Do you want to have it in the church in town? And if so, can your guests go across the road to the pub? On the day that you’ve got it? Is the pub going to be open? Can they get some food there? And then where are they going to catch the bus from to get out to your reception venue? What time do you want the buses to come home? Do you want one to go say at 9:30 for the older people, and then another one to go at 11:00? What do you want? And just like kind of mapping that out, wacking it all up on this beautiful little website. Everyone has access to that information, and then letting your guests have the choice about where they want to engage, jump in and jump out?
Dorothy:
30:55
Yep. Do we have to do anything else? Should we think about anything to do with accommodation for guests? Or are you suggesting maybe they just book their own? Is there anything we can do to make that a little bit easier?
Kirsten:
31:05
Yes, definitely. And I guess, in Orange, there’s a wealth of accommodation. You’re always going to be able to find somewhere to stay. There’s a lot of Airbnbs. There’s a beautiful Quest Hotel with a lot of rooms. There’s a few really beautiful boutique hotels. A lot of the Airbnbs can fit like 10 people in them as well. So groups of people will go and book. We also have a few different accommodation providers like Book Orange. Obviously, there’s Airbnb, there’s Your Stays, there’s Stayz. There’s the different hotels. There’s lots of different providers and opportunities in Orange. When I work in Mudgee though, it’s different. Accommodation – is not as much accommodation. It can be quite difficult to get reasonably priced accommodation, even like a month or two out from the wedding. So I guess that’s just another question that couples want to ask, you know, the venue or their vendors, and maybe just encourage your guests if they’re getting married in Mudgee, encourage their guests to book accommodation much earlier rather than later. But in Orange, that problem doesn’t exist. I guess sometimes I work at private property weddings, where it might be, say, half an hour, 40 minutes out of town. And the town that couples are getting married at might not have a lot of accommodation options. So they’ll literally say to their guests, you have these three options.
Please make sure that you get accommodation here. If not, you’re welcome to camp at the farm, please bring you know all your camping gear or whatever. So there’s a few different options there. And often the young’uns are like, just get the swags out and you know, camp in the paddock and that kind of thing or crash in the lounge room. But particularly for guests that are flying in interstate, making that clear to their guests. And again, it’s just a couple kind of just sussing out how it’s all going to work. It’s not a ton of work. It’s just a couple of very well directed questions, getting some really good answers, and then making sure that your guests have access to that.
Dorothy:
33:04
So it sounds like the key to a really good country wedding is to make sure you do everything as early as possible when it comes to thinking out what you want, booking the vendors, telling your guests to book your accommodation, giving them all the information you need. It sounds like the key to it all is just giving plenty of time.
Kirsten:
33:20
Yeah, but I would argue like plenty of time and being organized. But aren’t they the two key things for any wedding anyway?
Dorothy:
33:29
It’s true, this is true. Finding a last minute vendor in Orange is probably a little bit like harder than maybe scrambling to find one in Melbourne. At least you know in Melbourne, you’ll probably find someone, maybe.
Kirsten:
33:44
Yes, but that’s true. But remember that Orange and the Blue Mountains and Mudgee all still have access to Sydney vendors as well. So if you’re like, oh my gosh, my florist has got COVID; she can’t. And this is happening all the time, at the moment. Because people have got COVID, we’re still restricted by government restrictions where we have to stay at home. So we’re actually also connecting with vendors in Sydney, because there is a bigger pool of vendors, and everybody’s helping each other out. And so people in Sydney that may not have been working that weekend are able to come out and fill in that gap and support the community and support the wedding industry. And it all keeps going. So there’s this really beautiful interconnectedness. But we all are also acutely aware that we need to rely on people outside of where we live, particularly on those peak wedding weekends when everybody is booked out.
Dorothy:
34:37
Yep. Yep. And want to keep in mind especially if you aren’t getting married further than four hours from Sydney, etc.—maybe you’re getting married somewhere 10 hours that you do need to keep that timing really at the top of your mind and try and get stuff done early.
Kirsten:
34:53
Definitely. Look, you can still bring styling and florals and everything from Sydney. It’s just going to cost a ton of money. That’s it.
Dorothy:
34:59
Yes, yep. Are there any hidden gems around that you, as in town wise, that you love that you think really should deserve a lot more weddings, apart from Orange, which you know, you think is amazing anyway by this chat.
Kirsten:
35:12
I know. I love Orange. Orange is beautiful. Oh, look, there’s so many. There’s lots of, I guess with the bigger regional towns. I mean, Orange is reasonably big, but there’s only 40,000 people here. There’s all these beautiful little villages around; the same with Mudgee, the same with Dubbo. You’ve got all these gorgeous villages. And there’s a little town just outside of Orange called Millthorpe. And Millthorpe’s got this beautiful country charm, gorgeous, like cobblestone kind of streets, big country pub, beautiful delicatessens, vineyards, whatever. But they also have a hatted restaurant there that does weddings, which is just phenomenal, like Tonic is beautiful. So like a little country town with a hatted restaurant that does weddings like that, that is an incredible experience. And you’re only 15 minutes away from a bigger regional centre. So you’ve got the accommodation options as well. There’s so many in some of the venues like well, Waldara out near Oberon is like a destination in itself. It’s outside of Oberon, which is a small country town, doesn’t have a lot of weddings except on private properties and out at Waldara. But Waldara is a sensational thing that is kind of like—it’s this little bubble of wedding awesomeness in the middle of nowhere. And those little pockets of awesomeness really exist everywhere. They really do.
And jumping on the Polka Dot Wedding site, and really having a look at little venues jumping on other sites like WedShed, like using all your connections like Hello May and MooVr and all of these beautiful, beautiful places that list all these incredible weddings in the country. It might just involve a little bit more digging.
Dorothy:
Yep. And I think the hidden gems are that what you find when you do. I think digging, instead of just maybe looking at the top level venue vendors that you see in every single wedding, there are such hidden vendors and venues and towns that just do amazing stuff that maybe don’t get as much fanfare.
Kirsten:
Ah, so much. So much.
And one of my favourite venues is this tiny little old historic building called Collits Inn in Hartley Vale, just on the other side of the Blue Mountains. And Collits Inn is surrounded by the Blue Mountains escarpment. It’s this gorgeous historical house with a purpose-made barn and a little lake. And when you’re out there, you feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere, but it’s only 15 minutes from Lithgow. And so people stay in the dodgy old motels in Lithgow or the Airbnbs around in Hartley Vale that are a bit more expensive. And then they come into Collits Inn and it’s this beautiful bubble experience again, I suppose. And that those are the types of things that I absolutely love.
Dorothy:
37:49
And they’re so memorable. There’s such a perfect thing for a wedding.
Kirsten:
37:54
Yeah, yeah. So good. Again, it’s just creating that experience and thinking about it as creating an opportunity to really give your guests a chance to just chill out and relax and have fun and connect with each other and party.
Dorothy:
38:09
Exactly, exactly. What do you love the most about living in a country?
Kirsten:
38:15
What do I love the most? I love that I can drive from home to work in less than 15 minutes. And I feel like I’m in another world. I used to live in the eastern suburbs in Sydney and work in the northern suburbs. And sometimes it would take me an hour to drive, you know, seven kilometres. There’s no traffic out here like none, at all. It’s amazing.
Dorothy:
38:40
What a treat after Sydney.
Kirsten:
38:42
It’s good for the soul. And I think I remember initially being worried that I wouldn’t have as much to do because you know, particularly in Sydney, you have access to everything all of the time. And there’s that overstimulation, you know, it’s almost too much choice. But out here, there’s so much to do. And it’s just a matter of doing things when they’re available, I suppose. Like making sure you go to the Saturday morning farmers markets once a month. Making sure that you go to you know, the pizza and comedy night at one of the vineyards that’s on twice a year. Open air cinema, you know, making sure that the things that are on that you engage with and kind of working that way rather than thinking you know, it’s a Saturday night, what am I going to do?
Dorothy:
39:27
Well, if every listener doesn’t pack their bags and move to the country, then I don’t know what’s going on. But after this podcast, but is there any last words of advice you have for couples considering a country wedding? Apart from all the golden advice you’ve already given us.
Kirsten:
39:41
I suppose maybe just be really open minded you know. It’s impossible to know what to expect until you start doing a bit of research, I suppose. And then once you start getting into this little tunnel of research, all of these like things will just pop up and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I never knew that we could do that. That’s so cool. Or yeah, I’m not really into that, you know, rustic type of wedding. But oh, wow, this vineyard is cool. Oh, wow, there’s these eco-cabins down by a river in the middle of nowhere. Let’s go and do that.” You know, like there’s so many ways to get married and to have a wedding. And when you start like thinking about all these different opportunities that exist and thinking about what’s important to you, you know, doing the farm to table stuff or having the full weekend experience, whatever is important to you, just like go with it and start going down that rabbit hole. And guaranteed you will be surprised at how many options there are out in the country that are going to suit exactly what you want.
Dorothy:
Well, I think it’s just—you’ve sold the country wedding through and through, which is perfect for the country issue. So I’m so thankful for you taking the time to chat to us today. Thank you so much, Kristen.
Kirsten:
Thank you for having me. It’s been so fun. I feel really passionate about what I do and excited to share it with you all.
Dorothy:
40:59
I’m really thrilled about our chat. So I’m looking forward to seeing what else you’ve got in store in beautiful country Orange, and all the rave reviews you’ve just given us. I think everyone will want to go. I want to go so you know, tick that box soon.
Kirsten:
41:13
Please come down. We’ll go out to dinner at a hatted restaurant.
Dorothy:
41:16
Yes. With the wine. With local wine, of course. Farm to table wine.
Kirsten:
41:20
Yes.
Dorothy:
41:21
Oh, thank you so much.
Kirsten:
41:23
Thank you.
Dorothy:
41:27
If there ever should be a paid ambassador for Orange, I’m pretty sure it should be Kirsten. I’m really grateful to her for spending all that time with us today for that chat. You can find more about Kirsten, including how to get to know her, how to book her and her website over on today’s show notes. You’ll be able to find them on polkadotwedding.com/podcast. You can also now find us on weddingpodcast.com.au.
We’ve also got a link over there to The Country Issue, where we’re sharing country wedding inspiration for the entire month of October and well beyond because of course, country weddings never stop. And we’ll link to that over on the show notes as well.
We would love your support as a brand new podcast. We would love your reviews. So hop on over to your favourite podcast platform and do like, write about us and write about what you thought about today’s episode because we would love to know. We’re always welcome to your feedback, your contact, your thoughts, your worries, your concerns. So drop us an email on your favourite platform. We’re pretty much everywhere, email, Instagram, etc. And we would love to hear from you. We’ll be back in two weeks with another episode.
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