A Barndiva Wedding where East Coast elegance meets Wine Country ease

When the venue whispers the dress code

The art of showing up to a beautiful wedding and enhancing the celebration with your presence can be one of life’s joys, though more often than not it’s also a challenge. And while we don’t actually know if a subtle dress code was ever suggested for Kate and Pearson’s glorious wedding in the Barndiva Gardens on June 7th, what was abundantly clear from the moment guests began to gather was a shared and ebullient understanding of them as a couple.

Women arrived in luxurious, flowing dresses, many with halter tops and peek-a-boo slits, bare shoulders catching the light as it filtered through the arched green canopies; gentlemen proffered a relaxed elegance of sockless loafers and open collars, a few carefully chosen ties, softly structured linen suits in shades of soft blues, grays, cream. Classically demure yet artfully seductive, the brides wedding dress perfectly informed the day’s aesthetic with its flowing semi-sheer, beautifully sewn panel’s of silk moiré that revealed a slimmer outline in shadows of the satin sheath below.

For us Kate and Pearson’s wedding was the perfect expression of what happens when couples with great taste allow their surroundings to inspire their wedding day. Zack Schomp’s wonderful photographs don’t just capture a tableau of stunning attire but a glorious summer day alive with beautiful jewel tones, extraordinary light, visible joy.

Kate & Pearson sealing the moment with a kiss in the Barndiva Gardens, their parents in the front row.

Every corner of Barndiva offers a romantic backdrop, every detail is curated to honor both the heritage of wine country and the beauty of Sonoma County. What we’ve discovered in our two decades hosting Healdsburg’s most memorable weddings is that when the wedding couple chooses colors and a textural palette that invites the guests to participate, those that ‘bring it’ for love of the couple they’ve come to honor don’t just attend a wedding here - they become an integral part of the beauty and art of celebration.

The depth of detail Kate planned for her wedding reflected the inherent beauty of place and space - perfectly captured in the florals she choose for her bridal bouquet and the manner in which Clementina Florals dressed the antique gates, our ‘alter’ by the wild grass verge. The table arrangements in the Studio Barndiva Gardens spilled over with native and natural flowers and grasses, including scabiosa, love in a mist, delphinium, bachelors buttons, wild mustard, fennel, and ammi (aka Queen’s Anns lace). With just a touch of yellow, all florals extended the cream and pale blues of the color pallet, drawing with elegance and ease from the surrounding landscape.

Barndiva Event Director Susan Bischoff worked closely with the excellent wedding planners from Kismet Events. Susan@barndiva.com

A quiet moment in The Hotel Healdsburg, where the wedding party stayed and prepared for the day ahead. One of the joys of a wedding at Barndiva is the promenade through the Plaza to the ceremony Gardens. We are so grateful the larger community of Healdsburg embraces family celebrations.

Fete Blanc 2023

Barndiva wine director Emily Carlson with the wonderful Féte Blanc 2023 entourage, along with the dedicated ladies from Sonoma Family Meal who directed the raffle - six cases of all the wines poured, donated by every winery attending.

Each of Barndiva’s three collaborative wine events have a different personality. Pink Party always brings a ‘Summer is Here’ festive madness to it and trends younger, while Féte Rouge is the most community centric, with a focus on harvest and the upcoming holidays. Féte Blanc is a stand out because it hits all the notes winemakers look for in a wine tasting event. Sure, Féte Blanc guests love dressing up and socializing, you could feel it in the air on Sunday. But these are serious wine lovers. When they put their heads down and inhale, then taste something special, you can just tell the winery has made a lasting connection if not a future wine club friend. It was a great crowd that left very very happy, as you can tell from these images shot by the incomparable Chad Surmick.

We wish to thank Chef Mike Degan and his crew for the divine pizza’s, Barndiva Event Manager Natalie Nelson and her incredible staff, and our Chef Erik Anderson for the platters of deviled eggs with trout roe, charcoal grilled duck skewers, salmon tartar with egg yolk jam, and very special Barndiva farm fig tartlets- summery hors d’oeuvres from our currant event menus - along with our infamous goat balls with lavender honey.

For all who joined us, especially those who participated in the raffle benefiting Sonoma Family Meal, we thank you for sharing your Sunday with us in the gardens.

Collaborating with Slo-Flower farms we admire to create extravagant floral displays has become a hallmark of our bigger wine events. This year we were thrilled to welcome Rita Bates to organize and design the arrangements that filled both gardens for Féte Blanc. In addition to her ‘day’ job at the family farm - that would be The Philo Apple Farm - she is an incredibly intuitive and talented gardener floral designer. For Féte Blanc 2023 Rita ordered some blooms from our friends at Longer Table Farm and SinglethreadFarm, but the bulk of these late summer flowers were harvested at Barndiva Farm by Misha Vega, and from The Apple Farm’s extensive gardens. If you haven’t visited this extraordinary family farm in Philo, make hast to book one of their incredible Sally Dinners and be sure to stay over in one of their cottages, set amidst the apple orchards, right now heavy with fruit.

Bittersweet: the blackberry vines that graced the main Harvest Table arrangement were a long ago gift from the late, dearly missed Myrna and Earl Fincher, who owned and ingeniously farmed Early Bird Place for many years in Healdsburg. In the first decade of Barndiva’s life, Earle and Myrna suppled vegetables and gourds and we spent memorable time with Earle at their farm. The Berries have never been prodigious producers, but I never had the heart to cut them out. Seeing how much joy they gave folks on Sunday, knowing the history, I doubt I ever will.

Celebrating our 2023 Michelin Star

We have been passionate diners and drinkers pretty much all our lives, but until we opened Barndiva nineteen years ago we never had reason to peek behind the doors of a professional kitchen except to say hello and thank you from time to time. There was never an imperative to see the whole organism of a restaurant, from chef to dishwasher, as a living breathing entity, much less learn of the many farmers and purveyors who had provided the raw materials for a meal we had just enjoyed.

If you haven’t worked in this environment you can’t fully understand how many pieces need to fall into place - the skill sets needed, the timing you have to get just right, the talent at the top that must filter down to the patience on the floor, in order to survive the long days and longer nights this profession demands. From early in the morning, when a dizzying array of product begins to arrive, to late into the night when the last ones out have cleaned every conceivable surface and locked up, this life is relentless. As the seasonal menus flash by, there is daily education of the entire staff on new dishes, cocktails and wine, service to be corrected and perfected, rooms set and polished so every piece falls into place. Then showing up the next day and no matter how tired, hung over, or personally challenged, doing it all again to the same level.

What goes on behind the scenes of a restaurant should never be obvious, or stand in the way of a wonderful fine dining experience. The promised land is that moment of sensory magic for the diner: that is the ultimate goal. But as we hurtle into a more reductive, impersonal, technologically obsessed future, knowing what we know now we’ve come to see that celebrating the human touch present at every stage of this beautiful, exacting, transitory, thoroughly human profession is an indispensable way to continue to celebrate the best in ourselves. As a family we have always been clear that knowing where our food comes from is the defining question for all human beings on the planet - exponentially a greater issue when you own a restaurant. You are what you eat, to be sure. But how you come to appreciate and respect the human endeavor that brings that food to the plate may very well hold the key to what you become, as well.

We now have, under the direction of Chef Erik Anderson, Beverage Director Scott Beattie, Wine Director Emily Carlson, Events Manager Natalie Nelson, and Restaurant Manager Cathryn Hulsman, the strongest team we have ever had the fortune to work alongside. Being awarded a Michelin Star in 2021 after 17 years in service, again in 2022, and now in 2023 is a validation of the highly coordinated talents of our entire kitchen brigade and front of house teams. We hope these remarkable photographs by Chad Surmick, a humble homage to the great Irving Penn’s ‘The Small Trades’, conveys our appreciation for their efforts this past year, and serves as an affirmation of the respect we hold for them, and the dedication, skill, and true grit they bring to Barndiva every day.