Emily & Chris

I grew up on a farm, and I always appreciate going back to the country, especially to take wedding photos. I say it often enough, but I can never quite believe my luck that I’m invited to these places to do what I do.

Sometimes I shoot weddings at pretend country venues, with hay-bales hired from stylists and cow-sheds built with distressed timber, and all the extras rung-in and ordered up and manufactured – all perfectly nice and lovely for what it is, but at the end of the day, a tiny – tiny –  little bit contrived.

But this country wedding was the real deal. A bona-fide, genuine, fair-dinkum, country shin-dig. On a real, authentic, working farm, in a proper working community of people (most of whom, it seemed to me, were at the wedding).

I always learn a few things when I go to new places, and this time I learnt that I didn’t really grow up on a farm at all. We had thirty cattle and a few chickens – these guys had land that unrolled to the horizon. And it was beautiful. All of it.

And the couple were what you would expect to find in such a place – genuine, warm, friendly, and capable – the whole thing had been undertaken by them and their families.

They were high-school sweethearts, Emily a country boarder in Sydney, Chris a city-boy. They met and fell in love and were married. And the setting was always going to be Emily’s farm. I could tell every time I spoke to her that it was close to her heart, and growing very quickly in her husband’s affections as well.

I won’t go on. Below are the photos from their day (with a few extras from the day after). It was a beautiful affair, a back-tie ceremony at the local church, followed by a 200-guest reception in The Big Shed. The weather was wild in the days leading up to the wedding, but it cleared on the morning of the big day. Everything went off without a hitch.

Enjoy