For Tanya and Tom their wedding was centred around spending quality time with their family and friends, which is why they chose Minimbah Farm Cottages in Kangaroo Valley as their ceremony and reception venue. Minimbah Farm is a private property just 1.5 kilometres away from the village of Kangaroo Valley, with four self contained cottages for accommodation. You can’t find a more picturesque venue for a relaxed country wedding, than the scenic views that Minimbah Farm offer of rolling green hills, mountain escarpments and misty valleys. Booking the farm for the entire weekend meant that Tanya and Tom were able to maximise the time they had with their guests. They shared dinner at the local pub the night before the wedding, and organised a picnic and games on the beach for the following day. This was particularly important because most of Tom’s family had travelled from England to be there, and for some it was their first time in Australia.
The reception space was a perfectly positioned marquee, with stunning views north towards the beautiful golden escarpments of Upper Kangaroo River. When you hold your wedding on a farm, it’s important to consider what facilities, catering and entertainment you need to bring in with you. Tanya and Tom (with lots of help!) organised portable toilets, tables and chairs, bus transport to and from the venue for guests, lighting, integrated wooden flooring, outdoor games and everything else you need to run a big event. South Coast catering company Duck Duck Goose provided dinner for their guests using fresh produce from their own vegetable garden. Duck Duck Goose also hand make all their own pastry, bread and icecream.
With help from family and friends, Tanya and Tom styled the marquee with Edison light globes rather than the traditional festoon lighting, a hanging greenery and foliage installation and DIY floral arrangements for the table decorations. A dedicated road trip to the Sydney flower markets at 4:30am the day before the wedding meant that they had beautiful, fresh and long lasting flowers for their wedding. Vickie from Go Girls made the bouquets for Tanya and her bridesmaids. Tanya and Tom nervously transported their rustic style naked wedding cake from Sweet Bones Bakery in Canberra up to Kangaroo Valley. Cairns R&B, soul and reggae band The NightShift did an amazing job at getting the party started, and finished the night with a seriously awesome rendition of Whitney Houston’s ‘I will always love you’. Tanya and Tom incorporated Tanya’s Samoan heritage into their wedding through traditional dance performances with their family, before they wowed us all with their performance of Dirty Dancing’s final scene to ‘Time of My Life’. We had no idea that they’d been taking dance lessons for months, and they nailed the dirty dancing lift with a little help from their friends.
We loved that Tanya and Tom knew the property well and had suggested a few locations for photographs, including an enormous lone gum tree – probably the biggest one we’ve ever seen, the poplar tree lined driveway up to the property and a beautiful little creek. We’re always open to ideas and we love collaborating on the day, so we enjoyed adventuring around the property with the two of them.
Here are a few of our favourite’s from Tom and Tanya’s Kangaroo Valley wedding, and you can see the full highlights from the day below.
Here’s the full story in pictures…
