A Late Summer River Side Wedding In New York State

Mick wrote our ceremony and we cried through the entire thing. We included a Celtic handfasting. Our officiant noted for the handfasting we should use ribbons or chords that were symbolic of our life together. Naturally, we chose our dog’s leashes to bind our hands (and hearts) together. It was also important to us to highlight Mick’s Filipino heritage and birthplace. Our ceremony used some Tagalog (the language of the Philippines) specifically the phrase, "Mahali kita," which means "I love you". The men of Mick’s family wore Barong, traditional Filipino formal wear, at our request. 

Mick and I have spent our careers working in television and film. We met while working down the hall from each other at the same post-production facility. We produced our first feature film together as we were wedding planning. We still don't know how we pulled off both the film and the wedding over the same year and a half! 

I chose a sailcloth tent to overlook the lovely Hudson River views. The supportive catering director at Main Course catering (Amanda) helped me to create a tent layout of long farm tables and food stations with a huge bar in the center. We built our menu around the end of summer favorites including peach sangria, sliders, an oyster bar, BBQ and tacos. 

Our bar featured local Hudson Valley beers. I sourced a variety of vases, table runners, and frames focusing on white and gold details. North Country Vintage provided vintage place settings, goblets, and gold flatware. North Country also provided vintage furniture placed around the cocktail hour and reception tent for our guests to lounge in. 

We focused on a color palette of gold, white, soft green, yellow and peach. As my vision took shape throughout our engagement, I started to refer to our wedding aesthetic as “Glam Grandma.” Each place setting contained an individual golden pear with a vellum name tag indicating a seating assignment. 

Two nights before my wedding, my aunts, sister and brother in law and I stayed up late eating pizza, drinking wine and painting pears and attaching the tags. It took forever. My little flower girls really tried to help, but I was mostly worried about them getting covered in gold paint! 

We were really pleased with how everything turned out; soft and feminine with hints of vintage and wild. Our florist, Mairead of Flowerkraut, built gorgeous floral centerpieces using local flowers that sealed my vision. I loved our florist’s style. Her arrangements were slightly asymmetrical and included a vast variety of blooms and herbs which added some modern balance to an otherwise antiqued tablescape.