From the Bride:
We’re both drawn to old buildings with lots of history so when we saw this venue (it was only the second place we looked at) we instantly fell in love with it and couldn’t have imagined getting married anywhere else. It has a very special quality–it’s hard to resist its charms! When we first started looking for venues, we thought we wanted to be in Manhattan, where we live and where we met, but quickly found every time we talked about our wedding, we kept reiterating we wanting to find somewhere secluded. Since Manhattan is the least secluded place in the world, we were happy to find this little nook where we could get married in an intimate ceremony with our families and friends, and not the entire city of New York!
The first thing I did for wedding planning was get my dress–even though at first I thought we might have a tented wedding on a rooftop somewhere, I always knew my heart belonged to Jenny Packham, so I secured the dress two weeks after getting engaged. It all worked out, because its 1920s Deco feel was perfect for the ambiance of Alder Manor and led the way for the rest of the planning, and that dress was so light it felt like I was wearing a t-shirt and needed absolutely no alterations. Every bride should be so comfortable.
My goal was to make the wedding feel like we lived in the house and were throwing an outlandish dinner party, complete with a family style dinner served on vintage silver and pewter platters. Some of my favorite things about my wedding were the flowers, which evoked an antique feel with an eclectic mix of garden roses and dahlias against handmade (by my mother) striped navy and white runners, the invitations, which I got from a very talented designer on Etsy, the bridesmaid dresses, which were not bridesmaid dresses at all, but cool dresses I found online. As a voracious reader, I also loved having dinner in the library room, which felt like something out of a movie. The house was such a hidden gem: with an unfilled pool on the second floor and colosseum style altar in the garden, I couldn’t have dreamt up a better venue. And of course I’m obsessed with Cappy Hotchkiss, our photographer! Without her, it would only be a passing memory. I love having so many candids in lieu of contrived posed photos.
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