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Private gatherings, and what this place is not
Small gatherings out on the farm, some day. This is not a wedding venue and it is not going to become one.
Somewhere down the line we would like this farm to host the occasional small gathering. A family celebration, a group of friends, a company that wants an afternoon somewhere that is not a conference room.
Let us be clear about the thing everyone asks first. This is not a wedding venue. We do floral design for weddings and we travel to your venue to do it, but the farm itself does not host them and that is a settled decision rather than a capacity problem.
What follows is the kind of gathering we do have in mind. It is a long way out and it comes after most of the rest of the plan.
The kind of gathering we have in mind
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Small, and genuinely small
A group of people rather than a guest list. The scale that fits a working farm is the sort of gathering where everyone can sit at one or two tables, which is a very different thing from an event.
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Outdoors, in the season for it
Late spring through early fall, out in a field or a garden, with the farm around you. That is the whole appeal, and it also means a short list of workable dates rather than a year round offering.
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Flowers from the ground you are standing on
One of the few places this actually happens. The flowers on the table can come out of the field beside it that morning, which is a detail that only works when the growing and the design belong to the same people.
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A working farm, plainly
There will be birds, there will be mud in the spring, and something will be happening in a field nearby. That is the point rather than the compromise, and it suits some gatherings much better than others.
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Nothing that needs a venue
No dance floor, no bar, no getting ready suite, and no team who runs events for a living. If what you are planning needs any of those, a proper venue will do it far better than a farm ever could.
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A handful a year at most
This is a family home first. Whatever this becomes will be occasional and chosen carefully, because it is the one part of the plan that asks strangers to spend an afternoon where people live.
What has to happen first
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1
The rest of the plan, first
Production, storage, a store, somewhere for people to park. Gatherings come after all of it because they depend on the same infrastructure and none of them justify building it on their own.
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2
Work out what we would actually be good at
There is a version of this that fits a working farm and a version that turns it into a venue. Finding the edge between those two, and staying on the right side of it, matters more than the size of the opportunity.
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3
Try one for somebody we know
A first gathering for people who already understand what this place is and will forgive the rough edges. That is a far better way to learn than an open offer to strangers.
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Keep it rare on purpose
Whatever this becomes stays occasional. The farm is a home and a business before it is anywhere to spend an afternoon, and that order is not going to change however well gatherings go.
Why the answer on weddings is no
It comes up constantly, so it is worth being direct. A farm with flowers and a good view looks like a wedding venue to nearly everybody who sees one, and plenty of farms have gone that way. This one is not going to.
The reason is that a wedding venue is a completely different business. It is a hospitality operation with a farm attached rather than a farm, and it takes over the calendar, the buildings and most of the summer. That is not the business these two are building.
What we do offer on the wedding side is the flowers. Bronte designs them and we deliver to your venue, wherever that is, and we would rather be very good at that than mediocre at being somewhere to hold the day itself.
Private gatherings, in the small sense described above, are a different thing and they stay on the plan. A dozen people at a table in a field on a September afternoon is something a working farm can do beautifully. Two hundred people and a marquee is not.
Questions people ask
Do you host weddings at the farm?
No, and that is not going to change. We design and deliver flowers to your venue instead. The farm is a working farm and a family home rather than an event space, and a wedding venue is a different business entirely.
Can I book a private gathering?
Not yet. It sits behind most of the rest of the plan because it depends on the same parking, buildings and infrastructure that everything else is waiting on. Getting in touch to register interest is still worthwhile.
What size gathering would work?
Small. The scale that suits a working farm is a group that fits around one or two tables rather than a guest list. Anything larger needs a venue with staff who do this for a living.
What time of year would it be?
Late spring through early fall, because the whole appeal is being outside with the farm around you. That is a short list of workable dates in Iowa rather than something available year round.
Could you do the flowers for it?
Yes, and that part is already running. Floral design for events and celebrations is one of the things the floral side does today, whether the gathering happens here one day or somewhere else entirely.
What if I want something bigger?
Then a proper venue is the right answer and we will say so. What we would happily do is the flowers for it. Being honest about what a farm is not good at saves everybody a disappointing conversation later.
Elsewhere on the farm
Planning something small?
Tell us what you have in mind. Even if the farm is years off being the right place for it, the flowers are something we can do now.
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