The first day I met Thomas and Naomi at Misty Clover I told them, “I want to dance under the stars at my wedding!” I’d done it at another bride’s and it was pretty magical looking ...up through the pitch dark trees to see the sky alight with twinkling stars.
Well, instead of having to rent a dance floor, and since the lodge was still being built, Thomas felt he needed to ‘make it up to me’ by building an enormous circular wooden dance floor with matching DJ hut in their forest clearing. Yes they built a dance floor for my wedding.
Thomas and Naomi are the type of warm, supportive, hard working people who work from their gut. They’ve got the kinda guts that give you guts; big dreamers who inspire you. I just knew they were going to do everything they said they’d do, both for my wedding and for their own ambitions that they have for Misty Clover.
Additionally, Thomas’ decades of experience as a head chef, both locally and abroad, means you benefit from his extensive network of food-adjacent professionals–the cooking talent, the suppliers, the farmers (did I mention Thomas and Naomi founded a collective of trusted local wedding professionals–florists, photographers, bakers, et al in their spare time?) He knows a guy or gal for anything you could want served at your wedding, or he’ll know the right person to ask.
For my wedding, he brought in his former pastry chef, along with his brisket expert who, alongside Thomas, sat up with our blessed beef, all through the night, stoking the smoker and working whatever other unknowable magic happens between a chef and his brisket, roasting it to near perfection, for us to enjoy on Saturday at dinner (and again in Sunday’s breakfast hash). I hate bragging, these are all just facts about my wedding at Misty Clover.
I received countless comments on the quality of the food and service: ”Best Wellington I’ve ever had,” obviously “Best wedding food ever,” “Gourmet cooking in the woods!” you get the idea. You’ll just have to believe me when I tell you I always assumed I'd have catering at my wedding, not a head chef, and especially not one with his whole family and team giving all their talents to produce from scratch my little dream wedding in the woods.
I'll tell you one more story. On Friday, I realized that one of our guests wasn't sitting at a table at dinner. He couldn't comfortably sit on the chairs we’d provided. When I texted Thomas that night, ‘Do you have a larger chair; a metal chair?’ He told me not to worry, they’d figure something out. Well the next day, there at my guest’s table setting, was a freshly hewn custom-made throne of cedar.
Yes they had taken a (previously) fallen tree and had cut into it a comfortable and discreet chair for my guest that, placed as it was on the far side of the open tent, blended seamlessly with every other table. I can't tell you how much that meant to me, as a bride who just wanted all of her guests to feel so loved, that he and his team could make that happen overnight, without a second thought. I still cry when I tell that story.
P.S. this is only half my review. they capped me out at 3500 characters. SOrry!