A wedding weekend that feels calm start to finish

Our Story! 

Our Story

We’re Allison and Jim Bansen, the owners of Bansen Farms — but long before this became a wedding venue, it was simply our home, our family, and a property we fell in love with enough to bring back to life.

A few years ago, we purchased these 20 acres as a complete fixer-upper. The house needed work. The three barns needed work. The land needed work.

Honestly, almost everything needed work.

But we could see what it could become.

So, with three young boys alongside us, we started rebuilding — one project, one garden, one structure at a time. We weren't trying to create a wedding venue. We were simply creating a beautiful place for our family to call home.

Then life changed.

In the middle of those renovations, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Suddenly, the plans, projects and timelines that had seemed so important weren't important at all.

I was a Nurse Practitioner and had built a career and practice I loved, but I was also a wife and a mom to three little boys who needed their mother. I stepped away from my career and turned my attention toward treatment, healing and being present with my family.

And somewhere in the middle of chemotherapy, surgery, radiation and all of the uncertainty that came with it, this farm became my refuge.

When so much of life felt outside of my control, I could come home and create.

I planted things.

I designed gardens.

Jim and I restored old spaces and dreamed about new ones and about a future that seemed unstable at the time.

Our boys grew up running through the fields, playing around the barns and watching this place change right alongside our family.

Little by little, Bansen Farms was being restored.

And so was I.

After six months of chemotherapy followed by surgery and radiation, I was blessed to become cancer-free.

That experience changed the trajectory of my life and ultimately became part of the story I later shared in my book, Healed From the Inside Out.

Because healing taught me something I never want to forget:

A beautiful life isn't necessarily a perfect one.

It's a life where you notice the people sitting around the table.

Where you stay a little longer.

Where you celebrate while you can.

Where you stop waiting for everything to be perfect before deciding that this moment matters.

And somewhere along the way, the place that had helped our family through one of its hardest seasons began becoming a place where other families celebrated some of their very best.

That is what Bansen Farms is today.

It's 20 private acres of gardens, woods and open fields just outside Charlotte. It's the sound of gravel beneath your feet and water moving through the fountains. It's long tables filled with the people you love. It's a sailcloth tent glowing as the sun disappears behind the trees.

It's children running through the grass.

Parents watching their daughter walk down the aisle.

Friends lingering over dinner.

Music drifting across the property after dark.

And for one weekend, it's yours.

We don't want Bansen Farms to feel like a place where weddings are simply scheduled and turned over.

We want it to feel like you've been welcomed into something personal.

Because it is.

Our fingerprints are everywhere here. Jim and I have built it together. Our boys have grown up here. We've planted the gardens, restored the buildings, changed our minds a hundred times, dreamed bigger than we probably should have, and continued adding beauty wherever we could find room for it.

This isn't a venue we purchased. It's a place our family built.

And perhaps that's why watching another family begin a new chapter here means so much to us.

We know how quickly life moves.

We know how precious the people you love really are.

And we know that years from now, you probably won't remember every tiny detail of your wedding day.

But you'll remember how it felt.

Our hope is that Bansen Farms gives you the space to slow down long enough to feel all of it.

The anticipation.

The laughter.

The people.

The celebration.

The beginning of a marriage and a family of your own.

Bansen Farms was shaped by restoration, resilience, family and a deep appreciation for the moments we don't get back.

It would be our privilege to share it with you for one of yours.

— Allison & Jim