Wedding photographers Brad and Louise Madison have shoveled sidewalks outside wedding venues during snowstorms, handed out food when caterers were short-staffed, and once ran a mile to collect a computer cable that the groom needed for a slideshow. The couple were so hands-on at weddings that many guests assumed they owned the venue. They didn’t … but now they do. The Madisons recently purchased the bankrupt Historic John P. Furber Farm wedding venue in Old Cottage Grove and renamed it The Madison. “We’re not just vendors,” Brad Madison said. “We don’t just rock up on the day of a wedding and just stand in our place and do our job. We get to know our clients really well. If they need anything done on their wedding day, we do it. It’s ‘Team Bride and Groom’ all the way. We don’t want them to worry about anything.” The Madisons, owners of Mad Love Photography, purchased Furber Farm for $2.2 million from Wayne and Angela Butt, who declared bankruptcy earlier this year. The Butts also used to own Circle B Wedding Barn in Isanti, which closed suddenly last spring, leaving some couples scrambling to find new wedding venues within a week or two – and out their deposits. Couples who put down deposits at the Historic John P. Furber Farm wedding venue fared better. The Madisons say they are honoring all of the contracts – even though they did not receive any financial compensation from the Butts to do so. “It’s the right thing to do,” Louise Madison said. “I couldn’t imagine being a bride and finding this out three weeks before my wedding. It would be devastating. Absolutely devastating.” Said Brad Madison: “We want nothing more than just to serve our clients and to treat them the absolute best that we can. We want to treat them the way they should be treated and the way they deserve to be treated. Any relationships out there that are damaged, our goal is to try and repair them.” Brad Madison and Louise Dominy met as actors in Germany in 2000. “We always say in our former lives, we were Broadway performers,” said Louise Madison, who grew up in England. “Singer. Dancer. Actress. Actor. We were doing a show called ‘Saturday Night Fever’ in Cologne and fell in love. He proposed within three months of us meeting, and we got married within seven months to the day of us meeting.” The couple married in 2001 in Mauritius and lived in London and New York City before moving in 2012 to Chisago City, which is Brad Madison’s hometown. Moving to Minnesota “was tough at first,” Louise Madison said. “But now it’s great. It’s home. It was a learning curve, that’s for sure. Brad told me the winters would be only two months long, and then the first winter that we were here, it was like 20 below in January. And then it snowed in May.” “It was a little bait-and-switch there,” he said. Brad Madison started a photography business – Brad Madison Photography – in 2010. When Louise Madison joined the company in 2017, the couple rebranded the business as Mad Love Photography. In addition to photography, the Madisons also provide DJ and emcee services. Getting into the wedding-venue business was a natural progression, Louise Madison said, after working close to 100 wedding venues over the years. Strangely enough, they had never shot a wedding at Furber Farm. “When we first saw it, it was with fresh eyes, and we were just, like, ‘Wow,’” Louise Madison said. The bride’s changing area is a “photographer’s dream,” she said. “And then we saw the rest of the venue, and it was the same.” The 8,000-square-foot renovated 1947 Gothic arched dairy barn and its 3,000-square-foot addition can host 500 wedding guests – one of the largest wedding venues in Minnesota, according to the Madisons. The barn’s bars – one on the upper, and one on the lower level – were built from the original silo that was used for storing grain, Brad Madison said. The head table was built from the same silo lumber. The wood floor of the hayloft was removed and used as paneling on the first-floor wall; the dessert table is the original workbench that was used in the milk room, he said. The venue is open year-round and has heating and air conditioning. There is an elevator to the second level of the barn. The groom’s changing area features a Foosball table, poker table, TVs, video games and other “high-tech gadgetry,” Brad Madison said. A major bonus: main-level accessible bathrooms in the barn. “I’ve shot at some of these wedding-barn venues, and they have to bring trailers in for outhouses, or people have to use porta-potties and things like that,” Brad Madison said. “Our bathrooms are basically like hotel bathrooms. They’re super-nice.” Packages start at $7,500 for a Sunday-Thursday wedding, and $10,300 for a Friday or Saturday wedding. Brad Madison said 90 percent of their wedding-photography business came from referrals, and he expects the same to happen with The Madison. “We’re going to treat our clients and our vendors the way that we would want to be treated because we’ve been on this side of the table,” he said. “We’re going to be hands-on and be part of the wedding day, whereas I think many venue owners sort of unlock the doors, let their clients have their way with the venue and do whatever they need. … We don’t want to be a phone call away. We want to be a shout away or a shoulder tap away.” Related Articles Local News | Washington County races: Willernie City Council Local News | Washington County races: Oakdale City Council Local News | Washington County races: Oak Park Heights City Council Local News | Washington County races: Newport City Council Local News | Stillwater Lift Bridge to keep lifting until Tuesday The Madisons, who live on the 5-acre property with their two children, say they can’t imagine not working together. “It’s just how it’s always been, and it just feels good,” Louise Madison said. “When Brad’s not here, and if I’m doing a tour by myself, something feels off. It’s like we’re each other’s sidekicks.” Said Brad Madison: “I would tell people, ‘I’m the funny, and she’s the money.’ It’s kind of like an old vaudeville term. But I had a client stop and say, ‘No. Don’t say that. What you should say is, “You’re the balloon, and she’s the string.”’ And so that’s what we tell people now, because I’m sort of the very extroverted, you know, creative person. And it’s not that she’s not a dreamer as well, but she definitely brings me down to earth.” The Butts did 30 weddings at Furber Farm in 2023; the Madisons hope to double that in 2025. “We plan to do that just by providing good service, putting good news out there, and letting people know that we’re a good place to get married,” he said. “So many people are excited that it’s under new ownership, and that we could just bring new life to here. I think it had kind of gotten a little stale. We just can’t wait to put our hands into it and make it ours.” Related Articles Local News | St. Paul: After inaugural season, Como Ball looks ahead Local News | Obituary: Jerry Fearing, prolific cartoonist for the Pioneer Press and illustrator, was mentor to other artists Local News | Neighborhood foes file suit to stop work on St. Thomas arena construction Local News | St. Paul breaks ground on state’s largest networked geothermal energy system at The Heights Local News | World’s largest loon statue — ‘The Calling’ — is unveiled outside Allianz Field in St. Paul