Accidental wedding venue owners Elizabeth and John Pike move on from Tangaratta Vineyards after six years

Just 20 minutes out of town, and boasting its own small vineyard, the venue boasts some of the best views in the Tamworth region.

But the Pikes revealed that they took over the place, six-and-a-half years ago, mostly by chance.

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Mr Pike had an eye for real estate and the couple decided they wanted to invest - only to discover the estate came with the function centre and the centre came with bookings.

Elizabeth Pike had a background in teaching hospitality - though John was a plumber.

They decided to honour them and the rest is history.

Mr Pike said he never expected to own a wedding business, but they made a fair crack of it.

"There's an old plumbing saying: what you don't know, you soon learn," he said.

"We've gone from being total novices... [to a professional operation].

"It's run fairly smooth, there's always a few hiccups and a few things go wrong, but generally it's gone well."

But it's time to move on.

There are personal reasons, but the biggest reason is just to allow them to retire.

"Hospitality really is a young person's game," Mrs Pike said.

"If we were 40 or 50 even [we could get at it], but it's just constant."

"We'd like to keep going, but you've got to retire one day. And If you don't do it today you might not be able to do it tomorrow," Mr Pike said.

"We want to do a bit of travelling and spend some time with the grandkids."

Two years of pandemic have left the local wedding industry with an enormous backlog.

Many abandoned weddings altogether, waiting until the end of the crisis.

Others had a small ceremony, vowing to return for the full event.

The venue is now almost completely booked out at the beginning and end of 2022, and enquiries are still coming in.

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"It's been devastating to be truthful," Mrs Pike said.

"Last year was supposed to be the biggest year with bookings and then those poor brides and grooms put it off until this year, and again were disappointed."

Mr Pike had one piece of advice for whoever takes over the business: keep going, no matter what.

"If something goes wrong, you fix it and you keep going. We've had power failures and we've had people forget to pick the grandparents up from the airport, and we've had things like that happen, but generally it's gone pretty smooth," he said.

"But just be prepared and if it goes wrong, you just fix it to the best you can and keep going."

Aside from weddings, the venue also hosted the inaugural Tamworth Big Country BBQ in January.

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