A couple who found love on Farmer Wants a Wife have completed a four-year project to open a French-inspired wedding venue on their family’s apple farm in Queensland, hoping the new enterprise will help protect the agricultural business from difficult seasons.
David and Emily McMahon met on the Stanthorpe property during the 2023 series of the Australian dating show. Since then, they have married, welcomed a daughter and begun building a new chapter for the fourth-generation family farm.
Their venue, Lagnicourt, is located at Pozieres, about 20 minutes north of Stanthorpe in Queensland’s Granite Belt. It has been designed as a destination wedding setting, combining rural farmland with French-inspired interiors and landscaped grounds. ([lagnicourt.com.au](https://www.lagnicourt.com.au/?utm_source=openai))
David said the project was intended to diversify the family business without taking attention away from farming, which remains its central focus.
“Farming is still very much at the heart of what we do,” he said.
“Looking long term, diversification has always been a big part of our business and we all love the idea of bringing people to the farm.”
The McMahons have worked through the unpredictability of agricultural life for generations, with weather and seasonal conditions capable of having a major impact on the farm’s fortunes.
“You have good years and bad years,” David said. “So the wedding venue will hopefully help us ride out the tougher times a little bit.”
Lagnicourt can accommodate up to 150 guests and includes two outdoor ceremony spaces surrounded by orchards, farmland, pine forests, native gum trees and a 600-metre dam. The family designed the venue themselves, without employing an external architect or interior designer.
The first wedding is scheduled for September, with seven more bookings already secured for the year. The family expects the venue to generate an estimated profit of between $200,000 and $300,000 in its first year.
David said the venture could also bring more visitors to the region and create extra work for local suppliers, businesses and accommodation providers.
“The venue will bring in a new crowd and it’s going to be an exciting future as well to see how that all unfolds,” he said.
“But it’s really a long-term project with farming still at the heart of it.”
The name Lagnicourt was chosen in tribute to David’s great-grandfather, Clyde McMahon, who served on the Western Front during the First World War and fought at Lagnicourt in France. The family’s farming operation dates back to 1925 and has continued on the Granite Belt through four generations. ([australiandesignreview.com](https://www.australiandesignreview.com/interiors/mcmahon-family-farm-wedding-venue/?utm_source=openai))
David is now working alongside his parents, Jeff and Rosemary, and his brother Paul. The family has also drawn on its own experience of celebrating weddings on the property: David and Emily married there in October 2024, while Paul married his wife, Megan, at the farm.
“The farm is so special to us, so that definitely triggered some ideas,” David said. “But the big basis behind it is having a diversification project that will hopefully strengthen our future in farming as well.”
For Emily, the relationship that began on television led to a permanent move from Brisbane to Stanthorpe. She relocated to the farm two weeks after the show ended in 2023 and found work at a local dance school within her first month.
“The experience is very unique because it’s not a scenario that a lot of people are put in in their lifetime,” she said. “I found I was able to open up and become more confident along the way.”
The couple welcomed their daughter, Willa, in April 2026. Emily said the family was enjoying the demands and rewards of first-time parenthood.
“Willa is just in a really smiley, enjoyable stage,” she said. “Everything’s new and can be challenging, but we just love it more and more every day.”
As the first couples prepare to marry at Lagnicourt, David and Emily will see other people celebrate in the same setting where their own relationship began.
David said the venue would remain a supporting part of the wider operation, particularly if the farm faced severe weather or other setbacks.
“It’s always going to be a supporting act,” he said. “We’re obviously going to continue to try and grow it, but we’re very conscious that we don’t want to start doing farming in less of a way because of it.”
