Annie & Neil O'Donnell
July 17, 2010
The Location: Osborn Castle at Cat Rock in Garrison, NY
We got engaged about a year earlier and we took our time getting started with the planning. We knew that we wanted something different than the standard 4-hour reception at a hotel or country club.
Since our friends and family are scattered across the country, we wanted time to talk and have a good time with everyone, and we wanted people to have a great time.
At the end of September, I was looking around the web to find a place in the Hudson Valley for a weekend trip for Neil’s birthday. A friend had recommended Cold Spring and in the web search for a place to stay, I somehow stumbled across the website for Osborn Castle.
I thought it was a stunning location and requested some information from the family who owns it. The e-mail with all of the details only made me more interested, but the clincher came when my fiancé read to the bottom of the e-mail and said, “Wait a second, I know that guy!” Turns out that Neil had been on the same rowing team with Hank Osborn at Rutgers!
We headed up the next weekend to get the tour from Hank and we decided it was perfect for our wedding.
Osborn Castle is an absolutely stunning place to hold your wedding. The views and the property are just breathtaking, the house is lovely, and Hank and Ruth (who manages the property) are an absolute pleasure to work with. I couldn’t recommend them more!
The other decision we made was to have the ceremony in a church. This felt important to both of our families, and even though I knew the ceremony would be gorgeous at Cat Rock, I really wanted to walk down a church aisle, have a beautiful pipe organ playing sacred music, and say our vows in a religious setting.
That led us to St. Philip’s Church in the Highlands, right down the road from Osborn Castle, which is a beautiful old stone church whose priest was so welcoming to us.
The Dress: Mikaella
My dress was by Mikaella, and I got it a wonderful shop in Richmond, Virginia, where my parents live. I doubt many Hudson Valley brides will venture to Richmond for dress shopping, but if they do, Bella Rosa is a wonderful place. I wore my mother-in-law’s veil, which she wore 40 years earlier when she married Neil’s father, and the antique necklace that my mother wore on her wedding day and that has been handed down her family for four generations.
Flowers
Nicole Mora is the head gardener at Cat Rock, and she did a wonderful job with our flowers. She arranged beautiful bouquets and centerpieces of deep pink garden roses and ivory peonies, lovely simple light pink peonies in a little silver bucket for the pews, and beautiful bright green spider mum wreaths for the church and the reception.
Nicole listened carefully to my ideas, added her own expertise, and was incredibly flexible right up to the week before the wedding. I also loved that Nicole used mainly locally grown flowers.
Entertainment
We had an iPod wedding, and we loved it! Neil hand-picked every single song, arranged the order very carefully, and our dance floor was on fire the entire night! We recommend it to others.
In addition to a dance floor, our guests enjoyed playing bocce, croquet, and badminton, dipping their feet in the pool, and ending the evening with fireworks on the lawn!
Photographer: Blue Sky Photography
Steven Planck (of Blue Sky Photography) is not only a talented photographer, but he is a wonderful person to work with. Our pictures are absolutely gorgeous and really captured the day from start-to-finish. The portrait shots are just beautiful, and his photojournalistic style led him to capture the event in a way that expresses the atmosphere and feel of the day perfectly.
Steve was also unobtrusive–I literally didn’t even see him during the ceremony, even though he was busy taking pictures the entire time. I recommend him completely!
Hair and Makeup
I went to Eclipse Salon in Tarrytown for my hair–they did a beautiful job, though it is a bit of a drive from Garrison. Eve Carnevalla, who owns Eve Day Spa in Cold Spring, did a wonderful job with my make-up. She came right up to Cat Rock to make me up in the bridal suite. It was ridiculously hot that day, and my makeup felt light and stayed beautiful the entire day.
Paper: Adrienne Nutter of Fandangle Events
Adrienne Nutter, who lives in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, designed all of our paper products and coordinated printing and delivery as well, and we were so pleased with her work!
Our invitations were very unique and whimsical, and she designed beautiful programs for the service and menus for the tables, and Adrienne was wonderful to work with. Even though she’s based out of Michigan, she was one of the easiest people to work with, we loved the final products, and she was very reasonably priced. I highly recommend that brides check her out.
Inspiration
We didn’t have a theme, but we knew how we wanted the day to feel. We wanted it to be beautifully casual, we wanted our guests to have fun and enjoy every moment, and we wanted to highlight the beauty of Cat Rock and the summer season with simple flowers and organic-looking table linens and place-settings. My two beautiful bridesmaids chose the dresses they liked, but they were both in a deeply saturated jade color.
Finds
At the end of the night, while our guests watched fireworks on the lawn, we served gourmet popsicles from Go Go Pops in Cold Spring. It was the perfect way to end the evening on such a hot summer night!
We named our tables after the different states that our friends and family are from, and found old postcards on the web to use to display our escort cards that directed people to their tables.
We also purchased two old-school Polaroid cameras, so our guests were able to capture many fun pictures of the day themselves and write well-wishes to share with us. These were fun elements!
Annie's Advice for Future Brides
We really wouldn’t change a thing about our wedding day; it was so meaningful and fun!
My advice to other brides is to relax and enjoy the planning and the day. Even if every last detail isn’t ironed out, it’s so much more important to be mentally present to experience and enjoy each moment than to stress about small details that no one else is going to realize.
All photos courtesy of Steven Planck of Blue Sky Photography
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Love the sky in both photos. You get lucky on that or digitally enhanced? Either way it doesn't matter, final outcome is beautiful.
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Luck has nothing to do with it. If you're interested I teach classes in photography of which you can find on my blog and I can show you how to do it. Thanks for the love,
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|173.52.101.xxx |2011-03-04 05:32:30 Susan O'Keefe - Our upcoming wedding at Osborn Castle
My daughter is getting married at Osvorn Castle in 3 months under the big tent! We are so excited and looking forward to it. Thanks for the blog and advice to help us along the way. Planning this wedding has been a wonderful journey so far and we can't wait to experience this amazing day! Best wishes to Annie and Neil!!!!
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Best wishes to Annie and Neil. Thank you for the blog post. I'm a wedding coordinator working with clients who will have their wedding at Osborn Castle in September. I just visited the site for the first time this week. It is gorgeous even with snow on the ground. I'm looking forward to coordinating the day at this spectacular wedding venue!