It was love at first swipe for a Mid North couple who tied the knot on the farm earlier in the month.
Jennifer Rowlson was living in Victor Harbor when her co-workers at Bunnings downloaded Tinder for her 30th birthday.
She had swiped everyone within a 20 kilometre radius and puts her match to Ben Ritchie, Appila, down to a glitch.
"When we first started talking Ben asked me what I did for work and I said I worked in retail and he said "oh that's cool, I work in de-tail"," she said.
"At the time he was tailing lambs."
She said they spoke for three weeks on the phone due to lockdowns and when they finally got to meet it was the typical Farmer Wants a Wife arrangement with a date at Hungry Jacks, followed by a beer at the pub and being put to work in the baler the next day.
"So we spent lots of time talking and the first night we met up, before we even spoke, we kissed and I just said to him "this is gonna sound crazy, but I think I love you" and he said "you know what, I think I love you too," and the rest has just fallen into place," she said.
"Like Ben says, if you know, you know.
"I was the concrete cowgirl, I was from Victor Harbor and worked on dairy farms."
She said she had no idea about sheep and was out of her comfort zone.
"I was a surfer on the south coast so I gave up the surf for the red dirt and I haven't looked back," she said.
On Christmas day in 2021 Ben handed Jennifer a ring and said "How's about you become my wife?" to which Jennifer combatted with her own proposal "How about we have a child?" and handed him the positive test she took that morning.
"We got engaged and we found out we were having a child and in July two years ago, we had our little girl Georgia," she said.
Five years on and the couple married on April 6 in Appila with no significant meaning to the date but went with it due to six multiplied by four equaled 24.
"I arrived stock standard in the Landcruiser," she said.
"Our wedding was as country put together as you can get it.
"We had the hay bales for shelter at Stacey Park to bring it all in, at the reception we had Enviro drums with wood tops for the bar stands, and the boys on the day decided to make the arbour from bits of wood around the farm."
The Ritchies, better known as Dover's in the region had little mentions of their new name through trucker hats Ben and his groomsmen wore as well as the stenciled woolpack draped over their signing table.
Jennifer said they had a guest appearance officiate their wedding from Farmer Wants a Wife.
"Funnily enough Ben's friend Liz Jelléy who got the farmer on Farmer Wants a Wife officiated our wedding," she said.
"She was on season 10 and was our celebrity status for the wedding."
She said they even served their guests farm grown lamb and beef.
"We had the butcher from Booleroo (Centre) do all our sheep and beef for the wedding," she said.
"Everyone said they had full bellies and sore heads the next day."
Kiara Stacey
Journalist for Stock Journal. Kiara was in classified sales at Stock Journal before joining the editorial team in 2021. Kiara completed a Bachelor of Communication (journalism) at Deakin University the year prior.
Journalist for Stock Journal. Kiara was in classified sales at Stock Journal before joining the editorial team in 2021. Kiara completed a Bachelor of Communication (journalism) at Deakin University the year prior.
