Eva and Jeff met on Hinge, got engaged in the Paris rain, and then spent a year and a half turning a private lavender field in Kent into the surreal, folkloric world. To document all of it, they handed their trust to photographer Vladimir Zakharov. Both of them are openly camera shy, so Vlad worked the way he is loved for, quietly and cinematically, catching the unguarded tears and the private laughter without either of them clocking the lens.
Location: Kent, England
Style: Chic, Natural, Dreamy
Time of planning: 1.5 years
Number of guests: 30
Setting: Lavender Field
Season: Summer
Eva is a Taiwanese fashion designer in London and Jeff is a British Chinese solicitor in the same city, and a friend more or less bullied Eva into downloading Hinge after fashion school. Jeff turned out to be the very first person she met on the app, and they set the date at King’s Cross, landing on the day after his birthday and the day before hers. She led with her love of retro electronics and old cameras, he answered with meditation and personal growth, and twenty days later they were officially together.
The proposal took two tries. Jeff had planned a Malta cliff, then scrapped it when he found the decorations wedged next to a car park with music from Popeye Village blasting over everything. The real moment landed in Paris near the Eiffel Tower, on a day so cold and wet that Eva had almost cancelled the trip because she felt so ill, and they went anyway, got soaked, and dissolved into tears the second Jeff dropped to one knee. Eva had always known she wanted to marry inside a lavender field, tied to childhood memories of Hokkaido and Provence, and that certainty seeded everything that followed.
Chinese Tea Ceremony
The couple spent the night before and the morning of the wedding in a cabin in the woods nearby, and their families gathered on the lawn for the Chinese tea ceremony. In the ritual, Eva and Jeff served tea to their elders, who returned the gesture with blessings and gifts of gold jewellery. It is one of the most meaningful moments in a Chinese celebration, a formal thank you to the people who raised them and a public joining of two families.
Eva wore a qipao silhouette from Saloni‘s Year of the Dragon Lunar New Year collection, which reads as a classic red silk qipao from across the lawn until you clock that the front closes with delicate tied bows instead of the usual frog fastenings, a soft and playful rewrite of tradition.
Jeff answered in a red suit stitched with gold bamboo and finished with unexpected metal fastenings of its own. The bamboo was the clever thread running between them, since it stands for backbone, integrity and steady upward growth in Chinese symbolism rather than the romance you get from the more predictable dragon and phoenix or peony motifs.
Bride's Fashion
For the vows themselves, Eva wore the Vivienne Westwood Galaxy Cape dress, worn with a long georgette cape she chose specifically because its sheer drift mirrored the white drapes floating from the marquee ceiling. On her feet she wore white leather heels from Khaite moulded to look like gathered fabric.
Her jewellery pushed the wedding’s nature obsession all the way to the surface. The green Eucalyptus collar and matching earrings came from Michael Michaud, a house that casts realistic plant forms in metal, so Eva was essentially wearing the landscape. She finished it with Jo Malone‘s Wisteria and Lavender cologne, tying her own scent directly to the field around her.
The reception brought the boldest change, the Flower Slip Dress by Common Hours, cut with twisted straps and splashed with a lilac anemone print across the front. Its belt is printed with a poem about forbidden fruits, romantic and a little provocative all at once, and Eva had clocked the dress long before she was even engaged and instinctively filed it away as future wedding material, much to her mother’s initial alarm.
Groom’s Fashion
For the ceremony and reception Jeff wore a made to measure tuxedo from Suitsupply with his initials embroidered discreetly into the lining. Instead of the expected patent leather tuxedo shoes, Jeff reached for double monkstrap shoes from Paraboot, his favourite French shoemaker, swapping strict black tie convention for a bit of understated individuality.
A silk bow tie kept the top half in line while his feet quietly did their own thing. His watch carried the emotional weight of the outfit, a Rolex gifted to him by Eva’s father to mark the day and everything it meant.
First Look
Before the ceremony proper, Eva and Jeff stole a first look just for the two of them. After a year and a half of planning and a full day of building the venue by hand with their families, it landed as the first real exhale of the entire event.
That solo moment says a lot about how they approached the day. Both describe themselves as introverts, the sort of couple who would later skip the first dance and the formal speeches altogether, so carving out a private pause before the public part was less a photo opportunity and more a genuine need.
Ceremony
Both the ceremony and reception unfolded in the heart of the lavender field at Lower Austin Lodge Farm, with the natural grass pathway running through the centre pressed into service as the aisle. At the entrance, a large white bow with long tails spilling to the ground deliberately screened the field from view, holding the reveal back until each guest physically stepped inside. Plenty of them gasped out loud at the sight, describing it afterwards as walking into a lavender ocean.
The reception tables were arranged in a soft C shape with the aisle feeding directly into its open centre. Sculptural lavender runners, made by the bridesmaids, flowed along the tables and curled around the hollow middle of that C, and in the centre stood a silver circular stage that the bride built herself for the vows to happen on. Guests filled in between the rows of lavender, so the crowd became part of the set instead of watching it from a distance.
As things began, harpist Dorothy played the couple’s favourite Studio Ghibli melodies, music Eva had loved since she was a child, and the two of them walked the aisle together and up onto the silver stage. Jeff’s aunt hosted, and the couple threw out the scripted do you take exchanges completely in favour of handwritten vows they had each written themselves, which unravelled both of them emotionally.
After a bouquet toss, they left down the aisle to Arrietty’s song from Ghibli while guests showered them in butterfly shaped confetti that fluttered through the air like the real thing carrying blessings.
Moments Together
The welcome area set the tone for how playful the day was willing to be. A customised gashapon machine waited for arrivals, dressed in the silver wedding logo Eva designed herself, its crystal capsules each holding a handmade bundle of dried lavender tied with ribbon. Every guest got a token to work the machine and collect their own keepsake, a faintly nostalgic touch that rhymed with Eva’s real love of retro gadgets.
So much of the texture came from the couple’s own hands, from the seating plan hung on a tree to the signage and graphics, all designed by Eva, who also commissioned artist Rachelle Cunningham to turn her founding image of figures dancing in a flower field into the invitation art. Through all of it, Vlad kept working the edges of the day, and this is where his discretion earned its keep.
"When we were searching for a photographer whose aesthetic truly resonated with us, someone who felt visually aligned with our vision, Vlad immediately stood out. We knew almost instantly that we wanted him to document our wedding."
Reception
Lunch happened right after, with guests seated around that soft C of tables. Both Eva and Jeff grew up with celebrations built around round tables, where everyone you love faces everyone else, and the curved layout was a way to keep that feeling of a shared circle while holding onto the sculptural look of the space. Each place card carried a single stem of lilac clematis, a small personal signature threaded through the setting.
The marquee itself had a clear curved roof and no walls, positioned in the middle of the field so nothing interrupted the view in any direction. Sheer white drapes hung from the ceiling and moved with the wind, the palette kept to a crisp white rather than cream to sharpen the contrast against the purple, with green and silver worked in to keep everything tied back to nature. Hundreds of lavender bunches were sculpted along and through the tables until the flowers stopped being decoration and became the dining room, seating everyone inside the field rather than beside it.
Lunch was an intimate fine dining service cooked on site in the middle of the field by their chef, Alan, refined in execution but relaxed in spirit. The couple quietly binned the conventions that did not suit them, skipping the first dance and the formal speeches because neither of them dances or particularly wanted a spotlight. In their place came a single shared toast, delivered to every guest in turn with personal stories and specific gratitude, and it turned into the emotional centre of the entire wedding.
Dessert threw out the cake altogether in favour of ice cream, including a lavender and honey flavour from the Saffron Ice Cream Company as a playful wink at the setting. The clear acrylic chairs let the rows read straight through, so the seating all but vanished and left the lavender in charge to the very end. The whole reception behaved less like a performance and more like a long, warm gathering, which is exactly what Eva and Jeff had been chasing the entire time.
Advice from the couple:
• Do what genuinely feels enjoyable and authentic to you. It’s okay not to follow every tradition or expectation. A wedding should feel like a rare and valuable moment where all your loved ones are gathered in one place.
• We chose not to allow open plus-ones unless specifically invited, and only invited people we personally knew and spent time with. That decision can be controversial, but it was absolutely right for us. As introverts, we knew that expanding the guest list beyond our comfort zone would add unnecessary stress.
• We planned almost everything ourselves, which we wouldn’t necessarily recommend for everyone — but on the actual day, we consciously let go and allowed ourselves to enjoy it. Any small imperfections simply became part of the character of the day. Looking back, there isn’t a single thing we regret.
PHOTOGRAPHY Vladimir Zakharov | COORDINATION Isa.bel Wedding | VIDEO We Are The Jamess | VENUE & FLORALS Lower Austin Lodge Farm | MUAH TAN YAN | TEA CEREMONY DRESS Saloni | CEREMONY DRESS Vivienne Westwood | RECEPTION DRESS Common Hours | BRIDE’S SHOES Khaite | JEWELLERY Michael Michaud | EARRINGS Danielle Frankel | FRAGRANCE Jo Malone | TUX Suitsupply | GROOM’S SHOES Paraboot | INVITATION ART Rachelle Cunningham | MARQUEE Marquee The Events | FURNITURE Event Furniture Hire | DRAPING Drap.d | CROCKERY Duchess & Butler | CATERING Day by Alan | ICE CREAM Saffron Ice Cream Company | SOUND Patrick Cassidy Sound | HARP Dorothy | BRIDE Eva
