Estelle Palandjian, a founder of a shopping app, who lives in New York, decided to get married at her parents’ farm in Woodstock, Vt. “I just wanted everything to feel personal and connected,” she said.
Events for the July 5 wedding were held across the property, and guests were encouraged to explore the landscape. Horses roamed freely in the distance during cocktail hour and families gathered to make s’mores. Hand-cured meats were slung over open fires, and the menu leaned heavily on local ingredients. Cowbells served as escort cards, attached to a whitewashed barn with clean, Scandinavian lines.
Ms. Palandjian, 30, and her new husband, Francesco Falcone, 32, had their first dance to “Wildflower” by Tom Petty.
Weddings with such agrarian charm are part of a larger trend, according to the wedding website Zola, which reported in 2025 that top wedding venues include rustic ranches, farms and barns. In a similar vein, the Knot Worldwide’s 2025 Real Weddings Study data showcased a turn toward “farm-to-table” weddings, with nature and garden, seasonal and rustic and country themes at the forefront.
Augusta Cole, a wedding and event planner in New York City, said she has seen a rise in farmstay weddings and related activities with clients, partly because they are thinking a little less about the single nuptial event and more about a full weekend of experiences.
“It’s about taking your guests somewhere where everyone coexists,” she said, by “seeing each other at breakfast, overlapping at lunch and doing activities together.”
Today’s clients view farm and barn venues in a more “curated, intentional way” than before, Ms. Cole said. “It’s more residential and refined: Think pressed linens, fine china, layered textiles,” she added. “Couples are looking for something more editorial and far removed from the rustic, mason-jar-laden aesthetic of the late-2000s.”
Instead, Ms. Cole added, she has seen weddings that are more often artisan-focused, leaning into elements like clean-lined ceramics, hand-hewn furniture and carefully curated art. “Landscaping and immersion in the surrounding wildlife are also key,” she said.
And at the center of it, she said, was “sentimentality.” She explained, “There’s a sense of antiquity and generational respect in these places; farms are where families gather and pay homage to decades of shared time.”
Libby Rasmussen, 35, who was raised in Oshkosh, Wis., said it “made sense” to host her bachelorette party ahead of her wedding to David Amini in the state where she grew up. “It just tied together all the things I love and the places that made me who I am,” said Ms. Rasmussen, who comes from a family of farmers. “Plus, I really wanted to do something rooted in agriculture because supporting farmers matters to me.”
Ms. Rasmussen, a vintage shop owner who now lives in Washington, D.C., sought to make her bachelorette weekend in August 2024 easy for guests. She accomplished this by mixing unpretentious, cabin-style elements with playful, “kooky” activities, including tours of Sartori Cheese caves and a multigenerational farm in Plymouth, Wis. Activities like peppering cheese wheels, naming a newborn calf and dressing in “Midwestern dad”–inspired outfits, true to her roots.
She offered simple guidance on the weekend attire to her friends: “Just wear what you have, thrift it, borrow it — make it fun.” Guests arrived in OshKosh B’Gosh bandannas and overalls after “snagging $240 flights to Milwaukee,” making the trip affordable over all, she added.
Luxury venues like Blackberry Farm in Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains and Hudson Valley retreats like Inness in Accord and Wildflower Farms in nearby Gardiner, N.Y., are where Ms. Cole’s clients are flocking. But “we’re also seeing demand beyond the U.S. — in the English countryside, Ireland and Scotland,” she said.
America Nicholas, a 29-year-old content creator from Jupiter, Fla., had a similar vision when planning her August 2025 wedding to her husband, James Nicholas. It was one, she said her coordinator, Monica Relyea, understood completely.
Ms. Relyea, who specializes in weddings in New York’s Hudson Valley Region, said she’s seeing the rural trend. “Couples are drawn to these spaces because they let them create something uniquely their own,” she said, adding that she is especially seeing “more weddings on family-owned properties and private homes.”
America and James Nicholas’s celebration took place at her family farm in Pine Plains, N.Y., and a rehearsal dinner at the nearby Rose Hill Farms. The backdrop featured rolling pastoral fields with sunflowers. Cattle roamed freely during dinner, and foraged sapling trees added drama to their outdoor tented reception. An assortment of fresh, colorful vegetables filled tables, along with the people the couple loves most.
But one memory stands out, given that it all took place at her family farm, Ms. Nicholas said. It was the feeling of waking in her childhood bedroom on the day of her wedding, in the place where she had grown up, knowing her future awaited.
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