For an Elegant Wedding
Boscobel House and Gardens, Garrison
(845) 265-3638; boscobel.org
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Photo courtesy of Boscobel House & Gardens/Sarah Postma Anthony Lynch and Jen Zhang exchanged vows on Boscobel’s Belvedere, overlooking the Hudson River and its highlands. - Advertisement -
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Whether you’re strolling down the brick pathway as cherry, apple, and dogwood trees blossom in the spring; watching roses flourish in the summer; or being treated to dazzling views of vibrant fall foliage, you’ll find no shortage of elegant scenery with a wedding at Boscobel House and Gardens. It’s been home to the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival for more than 25 years, and it’s easy to see why “love comforteth like sunshine after rain”—to quote the Bard himself—on its grounds.
Located in Putnam County, this 60-acre property has special meaning for attorney Marley Guerrera and accountant Michael Atieh, who wed there in September 2011. “We had a view of the Hudson River while living together in Battery Park in Manhattan, so it worked out perfectly that this location was overlooking the Hudson,” Marley says.
The couple, who met in 2005 on a co-ed softball team, wanted an outdoor space that would allow them to set up a tent for an elegant ambience by the water. “We were looking at other nearby locations and saw a sign for Boscobel and decided to check it out,” Marley says. “Once we set foot on the property, we both knew—this was it!”
Two hundred guests watched the late-afternoon ceremony at Belvedere, an overlook built into the bluff that rests above the river. The cocktail hour was held in the Rose Garden, designed in the 1960s by renowned landscape architects Umberto Innocenti and Richard Webel, which boasts 150 varieties of roses in the warmer summer months.
The reception was held under a tent on the West Meadow, which also has a view of the river. The couple had to bring in the vendors but loved the fact that the site didn’t require excessive embellishing—the view is decoration enough.
“It gave us so many options to make it a different kind of event,” Marley says. “Guests could walk around and enjoy the views and grounds. We even set up food stations inside the tent for a few hours so people could eat when they wanted to.” Strolling is worth it: Apart from the view, the mansion, built between 1804 to 1808, is home to one of nation’s leading collections of furniture and decorative arts from the Federal period. Renting the grounds for just the ceremony costs $1,000. A ceremony and a tented reception with cocktails costs around $7,500.
