Bindi Irwin has revealed that the design of her wedding dress had a very special meaning behind it.
WATCH: Bindi Irwin addresses public after getting married in coronavirus crisis
The 21-year-old Animal Planet star wed longtime boyfriend Chandler Powell on March 25 in a long-sleeve gown, inspired by the one her mum Terri wore to marry Bindi’s late father, Crocodile Hunter star Steve Irwin, in 1992.
“I wanted something very similar because I’ve admired [my mom’s] dress since I was tiny,” Bindi told PEOPLE.
“When I was about 12 years old, I put on mum’s wedding dress and it was a really, really special… it’s over 50 years old because it’s been in the family for that long.”

Unfortunately wearing Terri’s dress wasn’t possible as it didn’t quite fit and the gown was considered too old and delicate to be tailored. However luckily, Bindi was able to find a Paddington Weddings design that “mimicked” the family heirloom, with the animal activist gushing that the sunflower lace sleeves on the dress, “reminded me of my family and my dad.”
“When we would go on projects and drives together, we’d often drive through these huge sunflower fields in the middle of nowhere and we always stopped to take them in,” she explains. “[The dress] was really special and beautiful.”
Bindi also spoke about the last-minute changes she and Chandler were forced to make to their wedding amidst the global coronavirus pandemic.
“We had been planning for almost a year,” Bindi says. “But as soon as this all started happening, we had to look at different options to make sure everyone was safe.”
Just days before the couple’s big day, the Australian government enforced new laws in a bid to slow the spread of the virus which restricted weddings to a maximum of five people.
So Bindi and Powell, 23, cancelled the 200-guest event they had planned, and instead, married in an intimate ceremony in the garden at the Australia Zoo. “It was a tough decision but absolutely the right one,” says Bindi.
“We thought about postponing, because you want to share this day with everyone, but when it boiled down to it, we both just said, ‘Look, we desperately want to get married, and no matter what the future holds, at least we’ll be husband and wife. We can take on the world together,’” Bindi shares.
The couple ended up exchanging their vows in a ceremony attended by “lots of animals” and just three guests: Terri, Bindi’s younger brother, Robert; and Steve’s best friend, Wes Mannion.