My name is Kristen Bland, I am a recent bride of the wonderful South Pond Farms.

After moving to a small town that was predominantly a retirement community I decided to join Match.com, after six months of dating I became tired of the “matches” they were sending me and decided to do a search myself.

That’s when I found Aaron’s profile!

After our first coffee date, I knew this time was different. After almost 4 years of dating, Aaron proposed to me. We were on a walk on the beach in New Brunswick in front of my grandparent’s cottage. He said “I just have one more piece of beach glass….” and then got down on one knee. My Nana, who likes to capture every moment, exclaimed: “Wait let me grab my camera!!” After a few moments, and tears of joy, Nana was back in time to capture me saying “yes!”

I had never been one to think or plan my wedding, but after meeting Aaron, I knew things were heading in that direction. Slowly, I started to think about our wedding (aka create a secret Pinterest wedding planning board). After seeing farm photography, I fell in love with the idea of having our wedding on a farm and in a barn! We looked at a few venues online but felt that South Pond was the right fit based on its location the initial information package.

After we had our tour, with Danielle French, we knew this was the place for us and we didn’t look at any other venues.

My favourite part of planning was Christine and the wedding planning portal. It allowed me to update our vision and plan for the day on my own time. Christine was great to work with- I could book 30-minute phone call meetings with her to finalize ideas or ask questions. I felt organized, not too stressed during wedding planning; but just before the wedding, it was hard to turn my brain off. I suggest getting everything done one week prior to walking down the aisle so that in the days leading up to your wedding, you can just enjoy the love and excitement.

My advice to newly engaged couples is to make a budget and decide what’s important to each of you. I bought the wedding planning binder from the Knot.com and it had a few helpful tools and a great planning timeline (many tools are on Pinterest too). We wanted a more relaxed day in terms of the schedule, décor, and experience for our guests. As I said above, I grew up with my Nana taking pictures of everything, capturing our wedding day was very important to us. To ensure that every moment was recorded, we hired our photographer and videographer right after we paid the deposit for the venue. Another tip I have for engaged couples is: don’t get lost in all the tiny details. South Pond keeps planning easy with all the support from Christine, Danielle and the rest of the team. The property is so beautiful you do not need to add much. Remember the big picture.

Our wedding day was Saturday, June 3rd, 2017, it was such an amazing day – I want to do it again! We stayed at the beautiful Iron Horse Ranch for my bachelorette party, rehearsal dinner and the night of the wedding. It was fun to have a few days leading up to the wedding our at the Iron Horse Ranch. It was so relaxing and felt like we had a destination wedding that was only 30 minutes away from our house.

One of my favourite details of our wedding day has to be the way we included our grandparents. Instead of having flower girls and a ring bearer, we had our grandparents walk down the aisle before our bridesmaids just to show how special they were to us. Another stand out moment was the time I shared with Aaron prior to the reception. One my friends said they only time she had with her husband on her wedding day was the drive from the ceremony to the reception. I wanted to have just a few minutes with my new husband before we headed to celebrate with everyone else. We did a few photos with our amazing photographers (Agatha Rowland and Liam Rowland) and then my mom helped me pack a picnic for us which we enjoyed down at the pond. It was so special to have a few moments alone to celebrate the fact that we were finally married! It was also very relaxing to take in the pond and sunshine on the farm. The day goes by so fast but I remember thinking- “take this all in!”

Looking back, I wouldn’t change anything. Our day was so wonderful, it was incredible to see all our friends and family together to celebrate our love.