Wildflower Farm Winter Wedding

When a winter wedding is done to its full potential, the results are truly stunning! And that’s exactly what Charlotte and Daniel did for their wildflower farm winter wedding, captured by AP Photography. Charlotte explains, “We really wanted our wedding to be full of good things and be easygoing. We only ever toured one venue which we booked immediately! We had great food, great drinks, great music, and great company. I made a huge batch of mulled wine to warm everyone after the late August ceremony, we also had a firepit, lots of marshmallows for roasting, and blankets for guests to curl up under!” The couple tells the story of how they met, and their beautiful winter wedding day…

We met in the very modern way of online dating! We met through an app designed to find life partners and both Daniel and I were ready to find our life adventure buddy.

It was our 3rd anniversary of meeting, most of our relationship had been during the midst of pandemic panic and lockdown and it had caused the cancellation of our big international adventure to Europe together, so we decided to celebrate locally and had a few days in Kangaroo Valley wine tasting and roaming around. Dan had said he had wanted to look at the stars so he had borrowed a telescope from a good friend and then popped the question as we were drinking butterscotch schnapps on a picnic rug looking at stars. It was very romantic but really dark so I couldn’t even see the ring at first!

Dan bloody caught COVID right before the wedding! So he was in 1 week of isolation right up until the day before the wedding! It was great to have my own personal assistant (future husband) living in the back guest room answering all my emails and coordinating with all the vendors via phone while I ran around picking up supplies, hot gluing things together, and throwing an apple or hot meal into his room every now and then.

Dan wore a 3 piece suit, grey pants, and a jacket with a charcoal waistcoat. Dan runs hot so we wanted him to be able to take his jacket off and still be warm and look handsome.

My dress was awesome! It was completely different from what I had imagined, but I was so happy with it. It had a champagne-coloured lining so it wasn’t exactly the traditional white that brides wear but it worked well with my very fair complexion. I love how it fitted my form and was very flattering on my curvy body and made me feel so amazing.

Our venue GrowWild Wildflower Farm did everything for us! We had the ceremony in the Secret Valley, drinks and canapes by the barn, and dinner and dancing in the marquee.

I walked down the aisle to “Fire & the Flood” by Vance Joy. It’s one of our favourite songs and has sort of symbolised our relationship surviving fires, floods, and finally pandemics.

Our ceremony was equal parts humour and sentimentality. It wasn’t heavy; it was light and full of love and happiness. Our amazing marriage celebrant, Sarah, from Love Stories by Sarah, took the time to get to know us, and our story, and built a beautiful ceremony that was so special and unique to us.

Our reading, read by my two eldest sisters, was “The Art of Marriage” by Wilfred Arlan Peterson. The reading was special for us as it describes the little things that make a marriage last, not the large dramatic expressions but the small daily acts of love that we both treasure so much.

For our flowers, we loved the contrast of dusty blue and burgundy so our flowers by The Red Poppy Florist had beautiful deep tones of reds and vibrant rich greens while dresses, table runners, etc were dusty blue.

Our photographer Anthony from AP Photography was AWESOME! We seriously can’t rave about him enough, he was hilarious, put us at ease, had awesome banter, and was up for all the wild and hilarious pics we wanted to take. Both Dan and I are not comfortable in the spotlight, but Anthony just made it so easy and fun. He really did capture great pics of very unphotogenic introverted people, something we thought would be impossible.

We seriously appreciated our Anthony so much, he was just the best! He felt like another friend at our wedding who happened to have some awesome photography skills, he had great jokes with us, was in on the adventure, he really put us at ease.

We DIYed a few bits and pieces! We made our own table runners and dyed them blue to match the theme. We made our own table centre pieces, we ordered and glued our signage (seating chart & welcome) to wooden boards, and our own light-up chalkboard signs. We designed and ordered our invitations, menus, etc. We tried to save as much money as we could by doing some bits ourselves.

I made a huge batch of mulled wine the day before for our caterers to serve to our guests after our ceremony. It was to warm them up after the ceremony but it felt really special to us to have made this drink for our guests. We also had a fire pit with marshmallows, chocolate, and crackers to make s’mores. We also had cookies with little wooden names which were for the place setting but also a takeaway gift for our guests. For those who had children who weren’t present, we made sure we included the names of their children to take home.

There’s this set of photos from when I was doing my speech where I’m making a joke at poor Dan’s expense and I have the cheekiest grin on my face and he’s smiling back at me that I just love.

We chose a cover of “Addicted to You” which was by Jona XX. Dan and I took professional dancing classes and had our dance choreographed so we wouldn’t make fools of ourselves on our big day. At first, it was for these reasons, but then as we enjoyed our weekly time together practicing our dance the time became more special and something just for us which we looked forward to. I think we were more excited about our dance than our guests were!

I loved our guests enjoying my mulled wine, to be honest. I’m a big nurturer and have this killer mulled wine recipe so having my loved ones have a warm drink that they enjoyed with their canapes was really special. I also loved that both my mum and my dad walked me down the aisle.

Daniel said he loved not having a traditional wedding table – we sat with our friends, we joined in the party, and were amongst it rather than separate.

Daniel also loved the photos of the wedding party running around with sparklers. The photo looks absolutely amazing, the way we achieved that photo was hilarious and had us in giggles! We stood really still while our wedding party ran around us waving sparklers.

Don’t try to build a wedding based on what others do or what’s expected, make it yours and it’ll feel natural and fun. We were first looking at this really formal venue with a 3-course meal, but none of that felt authentic to us and our style. We talked and figured out what we would enjoy at a big party and didn’t try to cater to what we felt was expected.

I wore flat shoes so I could dance, we ate amazing rich American BBQ style food, we drank mulled wine to warm us, ate sticky smores, smelt like bonfire and have these amazing photos of the best day of our lives!