Sophie & Thomas

Sophie and Thomas came to us with a single sentence: “We want it to feel like a very good dinner that happens to have a ceremony in it.” Everything else grew from there. We took a working farm — barn, orchard, a field that had just been cut — and treated it as the only decor the day needed.

The ceremony was held at seven in the evening, when the light comes low across the meadow. Twenty-two guests stood in a loose half circle; there were no rows, no aisle runner, no microphone. A cellist played from under the oak, and Thomas’s brother read a short passage he had written that morning.

Dinner followed twelve steps away, at one twenty-metre table built from boards borrowed from the barn. We dressed it in unbleached linen, beeswax tapers and amber glass, with wildflowers cut that same day. Courses came out family style — the couple wanted people passing plates, not waiting on service.

The day ended without a formal exit. Guests stayed until the candles ran down, and Sophie and Thomas walked back through the field to the farmhouse.