Hudson Valley Weddings | Westchester Bridal Reviews | New York

Margaret and Nick's wedding ceremony at Our Lady of the Rosary Chapel with reception following at the Grandview in Poughkeepsie, NY was an unforgettable celebration blending the couples love for food and family with personal details and inspirational Hudson Valley wedding style.

Margaret is the Banquet Manager of The Grandview and Nick is the executive chef at the Shadows restaurant next door, so choosing it as the location of their wedding reception was a cinch. It was also the ideal way to introduce their Long Island families to their work "family" here in Poughkeepsie, while treating them to the top-notch Grandview service.

The Date - 9.7.09

Margaret and Nick chose Labor Day Monday for their wedding to take advantage of greater availability and flexible pricing on a holiday Monday. Since most of their guests were bussed in from out of town, this was a convenient choice for them, too.

The Church - Our Lady of the Rosary Chapel in Poughkeepsie on the grounds of the former Hudson River Psychiatric facility.

This beautiful Catholic church was recently restored. Father James Garisto was wonderful to work with and more than willing to accommodate the weddings of non-parishoners. Highly recommended!

The Venue - The Grandview

Margaret knew from experience the excellent service at the Grandview; after all, she's been a part of that winning team for hundreds of weddings herself! As she tells it, everything she had learned from the wedding vendor side made her appreciate their stellar service that much more.

They accommodated Margaret and Nick's special requests; the couple actually made the raviolis that were served to their guests, included a wine and cheese bar, and had a outdoor grill for shish kabobs.

The Grandview offers a signature cocktail, so the couple choose a Freeport Sunrise in honor of their first date in Freeport when they talked all night until the sun rose.

Her guests experienced the royal treatment. The food was great and there was TONS of it! "They asked me, ‘What do you want it to be?' and then they made it that way." Margaret smiled. "Because I knew how hard they worked to do it, make it that much better."

The Photos - Lori O'Toole Images *All photos in this blog post are courtesy of Lori O.

Margaret had her mind set on Lori O'Toole as her wedding photographer before she was even engaged! Since Nick is a little camera shy, their engagement shoot with Lori was a comfortable warm up for the big day. Lori helped them plan a fun and unique wedding day portrait session for just the two of them on Water Street outside the piano factory.

Margaret highly recommends an engagement photo session with your photographer; you'll get to know each other and develop chemistry and comfort that will make your wedding day photos even more spectacular.

The Video - Best of Times Videography

The couple wanted a video of their wedding day, but Margaret was still surprised how important it was to her to hear her guests voices and see those moving pictures after the day was done. When her father became ill shortly after the wedding, those video memories became even more precious.

The newlyweds were surprised to find eight hours of raw footage from the wedding ready for viewing when they returned from their honeymoon. Afterwards Nick asked, "Were they really there?" That's how unobtrusive they were capturing those moments, many of which they missed on their wedding day.

The Flowers - David Anthony

The Theme - Black and White Damask with Red Accents

Margaret simply LOVES red. She bought red shoes to wear under her wedding dress (Nick's request) and found red charger plates to really tie her colors together. She even wore a red feather boa leftover from her bachelorette party for her grand entrance!

Margaret's trademark style always includes either a flower in her hair, polka dots or bows. On her wedding day, she found a way to work in all three! She wore a white gardenia in her hair (a clay accent found on Etsy), her red shoes had tiny bows on them, and the second layer of lace on her dress had Swiss polka dots.

The Cloth Connection provided the stunning linens in black and white damask for the tables and stations. If you want to work colors into your linens and plates for the wedding, Margaret suggests that you ask your caterer for help and advice. They may have connections or options available that can save you money and add style to your day.

Getting Ready Venue - Space in Highland, NY

Margaret, her bridesmaids and family got ready at Vivian Photography's Space in Highland. It's a choice she would recommend for any bride.

"Space is a serene and lovely spot to get ready for the biggest day of your life," Margaret told me. "My photos are gorgeous. And the best part of Space is Vivian. She is a godsend!" Vivian catered their breakfast and helped the morning go smoothly...especially in the midst of their hair and makeup drama.

Invitations & Programs - Wedding Paper Divas

Margaret wanted a stress-free, reasonably priced alternative for her invitations, and the Wedding Paper Divas was it. The service and price were great; they even caught a typo and brought it to her attention before printing.

Personal Details

Margaret and Nick had six of their favorite engagement photos blown up to a 34x36 size to create their own mini art show for their cocktail hour. The prints cost only cost $10 from PosterBrain.com and another $10 for frames from Target.

Margaret and her father surprised their guests by doing a Father Daughter dance to Shirley Temple's "Baby, Take a Bow." It had always been "their song," so they tap danced together to the delight of their guests.

The Dress - Maggie Sottero

Favorite Splurge - Saratoga Photo Booth

The photo booth was a bigger hit with guests than Margaret ever could have imagined. The photos were hysterical and the kids loved it; her creative seven year old nieces took a series of shots toasting (with empty glasses) then feigning surprise, fear and anger.

What would she do differently?

• Choose a different hair and makeup artist. (See Margaret's drama post for details.) Lesson learned: trust your gut if something doesn't feel right.
• Allow for more time in her wedding day schedule.

As you can see from these amazing photos, Margaret and Nick's day showcased their fun-loving personalities and signature style. Well done! (And thanks for sharing your story!)

Want to see more REAL Hudson Valley weddings?

When Marc and I decided to get married we had made a $10,000 budget for ourselves and decided that we were going to use all of our available resources to make our wedding as personal as we could. We looked at a total of hmmmm, 3 venues?

My mother then mentioned that a year back she had met a man who had hit a deer in front of her house and needed assistance and in conversation with him learned that he and his wife were in the hospitality business and owned a bed and breakfast nearby. It was important for us to get married local to where we met and were both from so we made an appointment to check this place out as per my Mother's suggestion and the rest is history. The place is called Audrey's Farmhouse and it is literally a sweet farmhouse that has been in existence since the 1700's- you can check it out here : www.audreysfarmhouse.com. Upon our meeting with the manager we were informed that they had friends who owned a vacation rental across the street that our own of town guests could stay in. Perfect.

When I had thought about a tent wedding initially it didn't phase us about all the details that had to be considered- an a-la-carte wedding. This allowed us to decide on caterer, music and décor. We could be as elaborate or as simple as we wanted. We were lucky to have selected the best of vendors, The DJ Solution and Bridge Creek Catering. Honestly, they walked us through every step and in conversation we learned about all the components that make a wedding.

The most elaborate décor we had were hanging paper lanterns in the tent, which were beautiful. The color scheme was autumnal and the creators of the lighting, Magic Lanterns, needed no direction from us- they just went with it and they were beautiful. My favorite detail.

A family friend did our floral arrangements which were lime green garden rose bouquets for the bridesmaids and gorgeous fall bounty themed for my bouquet and the tables.

Music is very important to Marc and I so we asked our guests to write their 3 favorite songs on the RSVP to the invitations and we would compile a must play list to make sure to incorporate all guests. Stephanie and Jeff worked with us every step of the way as they noted how important this was to us. Stephanie also offered to help coordinate the wedding party line-up for the ceremony as we didn't hire a coordinator and this was another detail we didn't realize took some organization! We chose songs for the ceremony that reflected our time spent together and felt were appropriate. The rest was dictated by some of our favorites from the guests input. It worked very well, we went two hours overtime on the dance floor.

Our friend Mike is an artist and he made our table numbers and also designed a stamp for us to use on our place cards to inform guests where to sit. Our favors were owl pins taken from an image that we used on our save the date. If were to choose a theme for the wedding it would be "Vintage Fall Owl Wedding" for lack of better phrasing. The theme was an afterthought- we chose what we liked and it all came together.

Thinking about it now there weren't too many snags. We were lucky to have a beautiful day- we were banking on it. All of our vendors worked so nicely together that the coordination of the day went smoothly. I'm not sure much would be different if we were to do it all over again! We were very lucky.

The only time I was concerned is when we set the date on Rosh Hoshana only to learn that most of Marc's family would be in temple, but we sent our invites and those who could make it, did. We wanted the date, September 19th because it actually fell on the day before my 30th birthday.

Any advice I would give to anyone planning a wedding is to ask questions, many questions and utilize all of your creativity to cut cost. People feel very connected to the wedding when it comes from the heart. We did end up going over budget but decided to work that out once things settled down again, which is what we are doing now.

Most of all, be true to what you want, don't let the racket of other people's opinions influence your decisions as when the day those things do not matter anymore.

Want to see more REAL Hudson Valley weddings?

Audrey's Farmhouse

Bridge Creek Caterers

The DJ Solution

Aaron Almendral Photography *All photos courtesy of Aaron Almendral.

Pandora Apuzzo Flowers

Magic Lanterns, Inc