A Garden Party in the Hudson Valley: Eva Amurri and Ian Hock at Windrift Hall
Photography by Taralynn Lawton, LUÁGO
They met at his restaurant. She was very pregnant, newly divorced, and not looking for anything at all — which is, of course, exactly when things arrive. Eva Amurri and chef Ian Hock got to know each other slowly, carefully, the way people do when they’ve learned that love is something worth being deliberate about. He proposed in the garden of the Rodin Museum in Paris, her favourite museum in the city.
For the wedding, they chose Windrift Hall in New York’s Hudson Valley — a setting that felt like a destination without the distance. Eva designed much of the celebration herself, drawing on a French garden party sensibility: natural tones that mirrored the surrounding landscape, chamomile flowers threaded through the bouquet and the cake, and gentle hints of pale green and blue. It was considered without being contrived — the kind of design language that comes from someone who knows exactly what she wants because she has already learned what she doesn’t.
LUÁGO member Taralynn Lawton photographed the day with a sensitivity that matches its scale. Her images hold the intimacy of a gathering this small — forty people is not a crowd but a room of faces you know by heart. Lawton finds the warmth in these close quarters: the hand-fasting ceremony that bound Eva, Ian, and her three children together with ribbons they had each chosen; Major, Eva’s seven-year-old son, walking his mother down the aisle; the exchange of handwritten love letters read aloud as vows.
Eva wore a Kim Kassas strapless corseted gown — vintage in feeling, feminine without excess. For the reception, she changed into a second Kim Kassas piece: a feather-trimmed mini dress with floral lace and sparkle, paired with custom pearl-embellished Nike Air Force Ones bearing their wedding date. Eva’s mother, Susan Sarandon arrived in a custom floral SuitShop suit that played perfectly against the garden setting.
Then came the food — the centrepiece of a celebration hosted by two people for whom cooking is a shared language. Grounded catering prepared a meal over open flame: Hudson Valley duck, cedar plank salmon, and vegetables and salads drawn from the local farms that surround the estate. Everything was served family style. Local wines, craft cocktails, a vanilla cake with macerated raspberries and Italian meringue buttercream dressed in chamomile.
A first dance. Then, a family dance with all three children. Then the kind of evening where no one checks the time.
As featured in PEOPLE
