Southall Meadows in Franklin, Tennessee is exactly what the name promises: a real open meadow, a ceremony site out under a huge oak, and sky in every direction. We’ve photographed two full weddings there — Presley + Jack in late May and Katie + Zach in August — and it’s become one of our favorite places to work in Middle Tennessee. This is the guide we’d hand any couple who just booked it.
What the meadow gives you
Most venues give you a backdrop. Southall Meadows gives you space — and space is what big, romantic photographs are made of. A ceremony in the open field means no walls crowding your guest photos, clean horizons behind the vows, and room for the kind of wide, cinematic frames that make a wedding look the way it felt. When the evening light comes across that field, it comes uninterrupted, and the last hour before sunset there is genuinely special.
The big oak earns its role. It anchors the ceremony without boxing it in, throws real shade — worth remembering for summer dates — and reads beautifully in photographs from every direction we’ve tried.
One word of planning advice: wind
An open meadow means moving air, and moving air has opinions about veils. Both of our Southall brides wore long veils, and both veils spent the portrait hour airborne. Here’s the thing — lean into it. The single most-loved photograph from Presley and Jack’s wedding is the two of them completely wrapped in her wind-caught veil. If your veil is pinned like it’s bolted down, you lose the best accident the meadow offers. Pin it secure enough to survive the ceremony, loose enough to fly for portraits.
Timeline notes from our two weddings there
- Save portraits for the last light. The field at golden hour is the whole reason to book this venue. Build your reception so you can slip out for fifteen minutes when it happens — we’ll come get you.
- Summer dates: use the oak. Katie and Zach’s August day was a hot one. Shade for the ceremony matters for your guests and for the photographs — squinting shows.
- Plan a real exit. The open field makes exits look enormous. Katie and Zach’s sparkler exit is still one of our favorite frames we’ve ever shot — it’s the hero image on our films page.
- Let the party cross the field. After Presley and Jack’s ceremony, the whole wedding party ran — not walked — back across the meadow to the reception. Unstaged, and better than anything we could have posed.
See the complete days
Don’t take our word from a handful of frames — both weddings are documented start to finish, with vendor teams credited: Presley + Jack’s full day and Katie + Zach’s full day, each linking the complete delivered gallery.
And if you’ve booked Southall Meadows for your own wedding — first, excellent taste. Second, come say hi. We know where the light goes.
