On-farm weddings a growing niche business

By COLLEEN NEWVINE TEBEAU

APEx­change

Robert Pol­lock started host­ing wed­dings at his But­ter­milk Falls Inn and Spa as a fluke. He bought a 1764 house on about 100 acres in the Hud­son Val­ley, north of New York City, and one of the guys he hired to do work on the prop­erty needed a place for a wed­ding, so Pol­lock agreed.

“Of course it poured rain but we got through it,” he recalled.

Pol­lock acci­den­tally became part of a trend — cou­ples plan­ning wed­dings with locally sourced menus and tak­ing place at farms.

In Chicago, Paul Lar­son is a farm-to-table chef in the truest sense; he’s both exec­u­tive chef at Blue Plate cater­ers and owner of a farm in Cas­sopo­lis, Mich., where he grows micro­greens and heir­loom tomatoes.

“When I moved out to Michi­gan, they all laughed at me because I was a city boy want­ing to be a farmer,” Lar­son said. Now, with the grow­ing pop­u­lar­ity of loca­vore din­ing, he finds it an advan­tage to offer cater­ing clients pro­duce he’s grown, or the meat and dairy of his neighbors.

Because wed­ding clients tend to book far in advance, Lar­son can order seeds and grow an item to order. He grew but­ter­nut squash and leeks specif­i­cally for one menu last year, for example.

Lar­son esti­mates that most of the cou­ples book­ing Blue Plate for wed­dings are inter­ested in food issues on some level, from dab­blers to those seri­ous about sourc­ing the entire meal from small farms within a 100-mile radius, donat­ing left­overs, recy­cling wine corks and the like.

Blue Plate tries to accom­mo­date cou­ples wher­ever they are on that spec­trum, Lar­son said. That means com­mu­ni­cat­ing clearly about a couple’s pri­or­i­ties and about what’s in sea­son, and accept­ing the need to adapt if a par­tic­u­lar item comes in early or late.

Jane Eck­ert, who con­sults with farms on tourism as owner of Eck­ert Agri­Mar­ket­ing, in St. Louis, Mo., has seen an increase in farms want­ing to host wed­dings but says “it’s the brides who are dri­ving it.”

“Brides are look­ing for unique des­ti­na­tions and farm­ers are look­ing for ways to sup­ple­ment their income,” she said.

Wed­dings are still a niche busi­ness for farms, Eck­ert said; pump­kin patches, hay rides, apple pick­ing and corn mazes are more popular.

But once a farmer has invested in the infra­struc­ture to make vis­i­tors com­fort­able, such as putting in bath­rooms and a big park­ing lot, wed­dings can be a log­i­cal next step.

“This appeals to the next gen­er­a­tion (of farm­ers) that’s com­ing in. They have an oppor­tu­nity to build a new busi­ness on the farm,” Eck­ert said. “It takes the right per­son­al­ity,” she added, since host­ing wed­dings means work­ing with sometimes-demanding brides, work­ing into the night, and deal­ing with the com­mo­tion of big parties.

Other exam­ples of the loca­vore wed­ding trend around the United States include the Jef­fer­son Hotel in Rich­mond, Va., which uses local Rap­pa­han­nock oys­ters, Man­akin­towne Farms let­tuces, Dave and Dee’s locally grown oys­ter mush­rooms; and pro­duce from the hotel’s own gar­den on wed­ding menus. The hotel recently installed bee­hives on its roof and plans to har­vest the honey next spring.

Grande Lakes Orlando resort in Florida is prepar­ing to open an out­door farm and event space called Whis­per Creek Farm with 7,000 square feet of fruit and veg­etable gar­dens on the 500-acre Grande Lakes estate, which also includes The Ritz-Carlton and JW Mar­riott hotels.

Wed­ding guests will be encour­aged to peruse the gar­den, and even pick and taste.

Mary Ellen Mur­phy, owner of Off the Beaten Path Wed­dings, in Napa, Calif., has been a wed­ding plan­ner for about two decades. Although north­ern Cal­i­for­nia has long been a food-focused place, she said, she sees cou­ples increas­ingly inter­ested in mak­ing good food a focus of their celebrations.

Farms appeal to cou­ples get­ting mar­ried, she thinks, because so many peo­ple work indoors and are nature-deprived; it recon­nects them to the earth.

“See­ing ele­gance out in the mid­dle of nature brings back some fond mem­ory of child­hood and how good it felt to run around,” Mur­phy said. “Peo­ple want to bot­tle that feel­ing and give that to their guests.”

She recently helped her pub­li­cist, Elana Free, plan her wed­ding, with a farm-like vibe that drew on Free’s child­hood mem­o­ries of vis­it­ing her grand­par­ents’ ranch. “We would pick mul­ber­ries for hours dur­ing the sum­mer from which my grandma would make deli­cious jam and pie. We gath­ered per­sim­mons and wal­nuts, eggs from the chick­ens, pulled car­rots from the gar­den, milked the goats, and even went scout­ing for arrow­heads,” Free recalled.

Free said her wed­ding menu fea­tured local peaches and water­melon agua fresca at the wel­come table; locally sourced chicken on the family-style, build-your-own-tacos din­ner menu; locally roasted cof­fee at an espresso bar; local wine; and a dessert bar with fam­ily favorites made by relatives.

But­ter­milk Falls, in Mil­ton, N.Y., typ­i­cally hosts about 10 wed­dings a year, get­ting some menu items from its nearby Mill­stone Farm — 10 acres of organic herbs, veg­eta­bles and fruits — and its restau­rant, Henry’s Farm to Table.

Pol­lock said a wed­ding on the prop­erty is low key and natural.

“This is not a heels place,” he said. “I tell peo­ple, don’t wear your Jimmy Choos, wear your Merrills.”

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If you are con­sid­er­ing a farm wed­ding, some tips from experts:

— Keep the food fun and famil­iar. You can accom­mo­date less adven­tur­ous din­ers (and veg­e­tar­i­ans) with a baked potato bar, for example.

— Plan for the sea­son but stay flex­i­ble. If you want peaches and toma­toes on a loca­vore menu, that prob­a­bly means July, not Feb­ru­ary. But weather con­di­tions the year of your wed­ding could speed up, slow down or wipe out a par­tic­u­lar crop.

— Pre­pare for out­door con­di­tions. Have extra wraps for cool evenings, and cheap sunglasses.

— Have a bad-weather con­tin­gency plan. If you’re out­side, have a backup like a tent, and if you’re in a barn or other farm build­ing, don’t assume there’s heat or air conditioning.

— Remem­ber that guests might think of a wed­ding as dressy. Either spell out a casual dress code, or think about how you’ll keep high heels and fancy dresses clean.

Posted by Rob Treynor on Nov 21 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.