A Wedding Full of Relaxed Glamour at Soho Farmhouse in the English Countryside

No wedding at England’s Soho Farmhouse ever had tables full of “cows” until Nathan Woods and Chris Wilcocks said “I do.” Londoners Nathan, a production controller, and Chris, a communications director, took a playful and relaxed approach to their weekend celebration, which took place at the countryside resort in Oxfordshire. The location holds a special place in the couple’s love story as it's where they took their first getaway back in 2015. So it was only fitting to return years later—on the exact same weekend—to make it official.

The couple filled the wedding with personal touches, from readings from the series “Fleabag” to ‘90s house music and Kylie Minogue songs, as a nod to Nathan’s home country of Australia. They also included family in sweet ways, like having their nephew walk down the aisle (toy horse in hand) along with their retriever mix, Byron, and a cluster of flower girls. “We wanted to break with tradition and take a playful approach,” the couple says. “A friend coined a term for the dress code, relaxed glamour, that ended up sticking and applying to the whole wedding.”

For an entire weekend in August of 2019, the couple and their 120 guests toasted with Provençal rose, plenty of pudding, and lots of great laughs. For instance: the cows. As a play on Soho Farmhouse’s line of toiletries, which all have cheeky names, the couple decided to dub everyone “cows.” There were “Moovie Cows” for Nathan’s friends from the film industry, and “Cash Cows,” for their work colleagues, among others. “We actually loved the process,” they add of putting it all together. “We always had an excuse to visit the farm under the guise of ‘planning.’”

Read on for all the details of this relaxed but glamorous wedding in the English countryside, planned by Soho Farmhouse and photographed by Richard Skins.

Both grooms wore navy suits, with Chris in a Maison Margiela suit and shirt and Gucci loafers and Nathan in a Paul Smith suit with Tom Ford shoes. They both donned the watches they had exchanged as engagement gifts. 

Family played a central role in the pair’s wedding day. Chris and Nathan both walked down the aisle escorted by their parents, and they included younger members as attendants. Though the grooms didn’t dictate their outfits, they love how everyone naturally leaned toward navy and pink!

“Our first weekend away together was at Soho Farmhouse and we pretty much instantly fell in love with the place—as well as each other,” the couple says. They hosted the ceremony in the hay barn on the property. 

To stick with the “relaxed glamour” vibe, the grooms didn’t specify much for the décor as long as it followed that guideline. For the ceremony, that meant rustic touches, arrangements filled with wildflowers, and hay bales as seating. 

“Turning a wedding into a weekend was important as we had guests visiting from all over the world, including a big contingent from Australia,” the couple says. “We loved having everyone staying onsite.”

“We each walked down the aisle arm in arm with our parents, a string quartet playing, and all our friends and family in tears as we walked past them,” the couple recalls. “It was a goosebump moment we’ll never forget.”

The couple opened the ceremony with an unconventional yet fitting reading: The monologue from the “hot priest” on the series “Fleabag.” 

Chris and Nathan exchanged traditional vows at the ceremony, but did offer their creative chops with it came to a limerick that they co-authored for the welcome baskets. In it, they shared thoughtful details about their life as a couple and how that would translate to the wedding weekend. 

Their string quartet played a cover of Abba’s “Gimme Gimme Gimme” for the recessional as their guests cheered the newlyweds. 

Chris and Nathan pose with their pup, Byron, a retriever mix. 

“Take some time for the two of you throughout the day so you can soak in the magic of it together,” the couple says of their bicycle ride through the property after the ceremony. 

The party transitioned to the barwell barn for the reception, where Chris and Nathan made quite the entrance. “We spent a lot of time thinking about the right music for the right moment and this one definitely paid off,” they say. The reveal? They danced in to “Let’s Hear It For The Boy” by Deniece Williams.

The reception featured the same relaxed glamour aesthetic, with wood chairs and the barn venue juxtaposed against elegant tablescapes of wildflowers, taper candles, and crystal stemware. 

“We wanted things looking as rustic and natural as possible, in keeping with the farm,” the couple says. Soho Farmhouse actually handled their flowers, as well as much of their décor and planning. “Natalie Bentley at the Farmhouse is spectacular in every way. She made it a dream.”

Dinner was served family-style, with an array of puddings, farm-to-table ingredients, and trays of espresso martinis, one of the couple’s three signature cocktails. 

In fact, the couple had no shortage of drinks. They admit they skipped a few décor options to spend more on their “thirsty guests” and joke that “among their proudest achievements” is drinking through the resort’s stash of their Lady A rose on the wedding weekend. After all, the easiest part of planning was picking the wine. 

The couple cut into a red velvet cake before kicking off the “ballad-free zone” with ‘90s house music and DJ Neil Prince. 

The couple’s DJ was such a hit that Nathan’s mother wants a night out in Soho, London, to dance to his mixes again. “When it came to the first dance, we wanted to get the party started but with lyrics that would still speak to the moment,” Nathan says. “Step forward: Chris’s favorite house classic, N-Joi’s ‘Anthem.’ The title says it all.”