A Vineyard Wedding That Basked in the Glow of Honeyed Stone

A Closer Look

Emma and Hunter planned a black-tie wedding and set it somewhere that would wear it lightly. Sunstone Villa rises from the vineyards and olive groves of the Santa Ynez Valley in rough-cut stone in shades of sand and wheat, with an outdoor staircase angling up its façade and old wood doors opening onto the courtyard. Wilde & Sage Co. built the palette from that stone, a range of sun-soaked neutrals in ivory, champagne, taupe and soft green, and let the day keep trading formality for ease and back again.

Emma's look held the same balance. Her Varca Studio gown was strapless ivory satin, folded across the bodice and swept into a full train. A scalloped lace mantilla framed her face and fell well down her back. Beneath all that formality, she wore Miu Miu ballet flats instead of heels, ready for a day spent on stone and grass. Hunter answered in an ivory dinner jacket and black bow tie, with stone etched cufflinks that echoed the villa's walls, and a simple gold circular pendant pinned at his lapel.

The ceremony used the villa's angled staircase as its backdrop. Its hard diagonal cut across the stone, and ivory drapery swagged down beside it and spilled to the ground, turning that sharp line into something fluid. White plinths of lilies and loose greenery from Thistle + Oak Floral Co. stood at either side, and bentwood chairs with linen cushions filled the courtyard. Emma carried a cascade of calla lilies and white tulips. Her bridesmaids wore a mix of ivory pleats, mocha knit, champagne satin and taupe, each with a single calla tied in ribbon, and together the dresses pulled their lights and darks from the stone itself.

After the vows, guests gathered under a sprawling oak at the edge of the vines. A little three-wheeled Italian truck poured drinks from its taps beside a grazing table heaped with crusty bread, melons, artichokes and pears. Servers in cream aprons passed crostini on silver trays, and the linen napkin over each arm was embroidered with the name of the dish it accompanied. Beer chilled in an old enamel tub on iron legs. It was black tie served like a long lunch at a friend's country house.

Dinner moved to tables on the lawn beneath café lights, where the same tension continued. White linen, embossed china and ornate silver dressed the table up, but the candlelight came from the warmer side of the palette. Champagne pillar candles glowed in tall glass, and amber-tinted glasses caught the light and echoed the honey wood of the bentwood chairs. Calla lilies rose from loose tangles of grasses and trailing amaranthus. And then there was the pizza, blistered from a wood-fired oven and carried straight to the tables, the kind of comfort food that turned dinner into a family meal. For the reception, Emma let her hair down and layered a lace top with a high neck and sleeves to the wrist over her gown, trading the mantilla's drama for something closer and softer.

When the party started, a tower of espresso martinis went up against the villa's wall, each glass a layer of dark coffee under pale foam, in the same browns and creams as the stone behind it. It was stacked with all the ceremony of a black-tie toast and poured with the ease of coffee at the end of dinner. Even the nightcap managed to be both.