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A seasonal celebration: homegrown and beautiful

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While many brides imagine their wedding day right down to the flavor of cake and type of bouquet, the only thing Alison Zero Jones knew she wanted was to have her event in a barn.

As they began to plan their late May ceremony, Zero, a former WBFO talent producer and a native of Long Island, and her intended husband, Trevor Jones, a Rochester native who was finishing his last semester of graduate school in the School of Social Work at the University at Buffalo, scoured upstate New York for a location that could match their only requirement—the right outdoor setting. Their families were traveling from across the country and the couple wanted their out-of-town guests’ first WNY experience to be a memorable one.

The location also needed to be a reflection of who they were. “We knew we wanted a big, open, rustic space,” Zero Jones says. “We envisioned our wedding being elegant and sophisticated yet somehow homespun.”

Finding a location to fit their needs wasn’t as easy as they thought it would be. After nearly giving up on finding the perfect place, a friend told them about Hurd Orchards, a family-owned fruit and flower farm in Holley. After floating the idea around to their families, the response came back as overwhelmingly positive.

For a couple who describe themselves as always trying to eat in-season, good, local food was an imperative. Hurd Orchards fit the bill perfectly, from the rustic barn setting and the locally grown food prepared on the premises and served on antique china, to the fresh-cut flower arrangements grown on-site that provided the bride’s bouquet and decoration for the ceremony and reception. “We wanted to showcase the season and the region in order to share the freshest of the fresh ingredients with our guests—with the added bonus of knowing that what we spent on food was supporting a family farm that’s been around for nearly 200 years,” Zero Jones adds.

The right music for the setting was also a must for the couple, who met in New York City while they were both working as music publicists at the media and marketing firm Girlie Action. The couple chose two bands for their wedding: local bluegrass outfit Creek Bend as accompaniment for their ceremony and outdoor cocktail hour, and the Cajun and hillbilly-honkytonk Skiffle Minstrels for the after-dinner entertainment in the barn. As Zero Jones explains, they were a little apprehensive in telling their parents this wouldn’t be a typical wedding—right down to their selection of music. “I could tell our parents were wondering how we’d manage without Gloria Estefan cover songs, but once the day came and the band began to play, they got it,” she says.

It was also important to the couple that their guests—children and adults alike—had fun. So they provided Radio Flyer wagons and croquet sets for the day’s entertainment. During the cocktail hour and after dinner, guests scattered across the lawn for wagon races and lazy croquet matches.

For the happy couple, what began as a frustrating search for the right venue turned into an essentially perfect late spring day with more than 130 of their friends and family having a glorious time. As Jones says, “It was a small wedding and we wanted to focus on family … and let our friends just party down.”

Julie Wesolowski works at the UB News Bureau.