By the time Kim and Steven got married on September 10th, the light at Burlap and Bells in Black River Falls had already gone late-summer gold — softer and lower than the flat overhead glare of July. It’s the kind of light that makes the pine forest on that property feel like the Northwoods, even though geographically it’s a lot closer to home than that.

Before Kim and Steven ever booked the venue, they’d already found us. Kim had been searching up and down for the perfect outdoor wedding venue in Wisconsin, and somewhere in that search she landed on our photos before she’d landed on a location. “I love your eye for details,” she told us, “from the simplistic photos to the candid photos, you guys have something really special.” Then she found Burlap and Bells, and the two searches turned into one wedding.

Kim is a hairstylist who’d gone out on her own just a few months before the wedding, running her own little studio after six years in the business. Steven works in real estate, born and raised in Milwaukee, the kind of guy who disappears into his fantasy football league in a way that drives Kim a little crazy. They’d been together four years, living in Milwaukee with an English bulldog named Winston who, by Kim’s own math, has probably cost them more in vet bills than the wedding did. Worth every penny, she said, and after meeting him, we believe her.

They got married up on the hill — a ceremony site that was brand new to Burlap and Bells the year Kim and Steven booked it, which made them some of the first couples to stand up there. It’s a bit of a drive from the rest of the property, which turns getting to your own ceremony into a small adventure, but what’s waiting at the top is worth it: big aspens at your back, guests facing a cliff wall in front of them, and a tambourine waiting on every chair for people to shake instead of clap. The bridal getting-ready area sits down by the pine forest, the venue’s original ceremony spot, which meant Kim and her bridesmaids had those pines as a backdrop before anyone ever walked up the hill.

Kim’s flowers, and the flowers throughout the day, ran roses, protea, scabiosa, ferns, and dahlias — loose, textured, not too matched, which fits a boho forest wedding a lot better than anything out of a cooler case. Dinner was farm-to-table and came down to tacos, genuinely some of the best either of us can remember eating at a wedding. Dessert wasn’t just cake — doughnuts and macarons showed up too, though Steven wants it on the record that the cake was still a very big deal. Later, Kim changed into a second dress built for actually moving, because there were yard games going in the dance area, and she and Steven danced on and on.

Ask Kim and Steven what actually mattered about the day, though, and they don’t lead with flowers or dessert. They talk about their families. Both of them come from small, close circles — Kim’s mom and her sister Ashley, who stood up as maid of honor; Steven’s mom, dad, stepdad Mark, and his sister Amy — and neither had ever had all the people they love most in the same room, or in this case, the same forest. That was the whole point: one big party, as Steven put it, for an amazing cause. Congratulations, Kim and Steven — thank you for finding us before you’d even found your venue.

Thinking about this venue for your own day? We wrote up everything we know about it in our Burlap and Bells wedding venue guide — all three ceremony sites, the light, the Cliff Top logistics, and what we’d tell a friend before they booked. Kim and Steven’s engagement session at Doctor’s Park is worth a look too.