A Farm-to-Table Vineyard Wedding at Farmstead in St. Helena

Cocktail Hour and Portraits at This 32-Guest Napa Farm Wedding

A cocktail hour followed while family portraits happened around the property, and the couple stayed out for a sunset session as guests were seated inside for dinner. Farmstead opened in 2010 in a former nursery barn on Long Meadow Ranch, and it cooks from what the ranch grows, organic produce from its own gardens, grass-fed beef, honey and olive oil, which put the vineyard rows and the working farm in the background of every portrait.

Thirty-two guests at a farm-to-table vineyard in Napa is the size where the cocktail hour actually feels like a party: everyone knows at least half the people in the room, and the space is small enough for all of them to find each other. The barn, with its original timber and the ranch's own produce stacked near the kitchen, gives the cocktail hour a setting that is working and honest rather than dressed up.

Dinner on The Lawn

Dinner was out on The Lawn, one long table set with four centerpieces, the courses served family style. Andy announced the couple in, and toasts came spaced out between the salads and the entrees, parents and friends taking turns as the plates went around.

Riza and Derek had their first dance to 'Forever,' then cut the cake — a chocolate cheesecake, white icing and florals on top. As the night wound down, the fire pit was lit and s'mores came out. The ranch went quiet around the thirty-two of them, the November darkness past the vineyard rows, and no one was in any hurry to be the first to leave.