Winter Wedding at Rowlee Wines Orange

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Real Weddings

For some couples, finding and booking a wedding venue can be quite a daunting task. But for Lisa and Alex, it made sense for their celebration to take place at Rowlee Wines - a picturesque winery and restaurant in Orange, NSW. As well as being local, it was where there got engaged. Bringing their people back there to get married felt like a natural full circle.

Leaning into Orange’s crisp winter, they built the day around a cosy but glam vibe. Think fur coats and boots, candlelight, pizza, and a relaxed pace that left plenty of room to actually enjoy it all. There were a few unconventional moments thrown in too (including a classic Oprah Winfrey moment), but at its core, this was a day about keeping things personal, low-pressure and genuinely fun.

How did you and Lisa meet? The merging of two friends groups.

The venue: Rowlee Wines. This is where we spent a lot of time visiting in the early parts of our relationship. It was also where I proposed to Lisa.

The vibe: We knew it was going to be freezing mid winter in Orange so wanted winter glam and to see everyone in their glamorous fur coats and boots. We also ramped up the cozy vibes with pizza and kept the day pretty laid back.

Best wedding planning resources? The Wedshed speadsheet!!! And our incredible planner Charlotte. She kept us on track and made us feel relaxed. Wedshed website and blogs helped guide us and we went ham on the Pinterest boards of course.

Expectations vs. reality: First and foremost we had a beautiful family friend Pamela as a celebrant so we were lucky in that she would go wherever we wanted to go. We did initially want to get married in the south coast, but then travel and accomodation for guests got out of hand and we decided we would elope - then we put everything on hold for six months.

Finally we decided to get married locally at a place that had our hearts in Orange, where we got engaged. Once we did the hard stuff (although we knew which awesome vendors we would have if we married locally including celebrant, venue, food, music, photographer, florist) everything else fell into place really easily. It was difficult to stick to a budget but we made it work!

Hit (or near) miss: Absolutely not. The day ran like clockwork and we honestly can’t remember any mishaps because we wanted to remain calm and enjoy it all, whether something went wrong or not.

Best thing you did? Tiramisu wedding cake!!! And trust our florist to use her own creative control. Also hiding our rings under a random guests ceremony chair - a true Oprah Winfrey moment, and then scissors paper rock our vows for who goes first.