A Wedding in Three Movements, from Red Silk to Blue Velvet

A Closer Look

Beini and Evan's day at Winvian Farm, a working farm in Morris, Connecticut, known for its whimsical cottage architecture, played out like a piece of music in three movements. Each had its own key color, and Sarah Brehant Events let a few notes from each one drift into the next, so the mood shifted without ever breaking. A hundred guests came from Singapore, China, Canada, Switzerland, Vietnam, India and Korea, plus more than ten states, to be part of it.

The first movement was red. For the Chinese tea ceremony, double happiness characters hung in red paper against blue walls and marked every cup of the tea set. Beini wore a red qipao with a gold bangle and gold tasseled pins in her hair. Evan answered in a bronze silk jacket woven with clouds and mountains and fastened with frog closures. It was the most saturated moment of the day and the only time the couple dressed in color. That red was the day's opening theme, and it would come back.

The second was ivory. Rain fell right up until the processional, then stopped, and a pocket of blue sky opened directly overhead as Beini walked down the aisle to a piano recording of a song Evan had composed and played himself. The ceremony leaned into warm minimalism. Two freestanding arches in a limestone-like finish stood one behind the other in the open meadow, wooden benches lined the aisle, and Lilyish planted calla lilies, olive branches and white wildflowers at their feet. Set against the tree line, the arches gave the field its only hard edges.

Beini's custom Danielle Frankel gown followed the same clean lines, strapless with a smooth bodice, a full textured skirt and a cathedral-length veil edged in lace. She paired it with Manolo Blahnik heels. Garlic scapes curled out of her bouquet of white orchids. Her bridesmaids wore powder-blue gowns in mixed silhouettes and carried blue cornflowers bound with the same loops. Under all that ivory, they played a quiet countermelody in the shade that would lead the night. Evan wore a black tuxedo with an orchid on the lapel. Those scapes became the day's through-line, and they followed guests from the meadow straight into the party.

In the third movement, blue took the lead. Outside the barn, escort cards in coral, rose and red stood in curved wooden holders that echoed the arches. Inside, teal velvet drapery fell from the timber rafters and pooled on the floor, and cool blue carried down to the scalloped, blue-rimmed plates and blue flatware. Sculptural accents in yellow, orange and red ran through the room. Marigolds sat in low stone-colored cubes on long white tables, scapes looped above them past the candlelight, and yellow rings cinched each napkin. Holly Winnie Calligraphy printed every menu with a guest's name inside a red geometric border. Against all that teal, the marigold and red accents picked up the tea ceremony's palette again, louder this time, and the day's first movement returned in its last.

At the martini bar, a brass cat sat beneath a fringed green lamp in a burst of marigolds, a nod to Amber, the couple's Siberian cat. Ana Parzy Cakes set a white cake on a fluted column, with sugar ruffles sweeping up one side like a wave.

Beini changed into a strapless column dress to dance in front of a live band with a saxophone, under swags of ivory drapery and a disco ball, and later into a lace mini. Their DJ turned out to be a former Harvard classmate of Evan's, and he carried the day's warmth straight through to its final minutes. The day had opened with a melody only Evan could play, and it ended with the whole room singing.