The Kerri LaGrutta And Justin Otto Wedding

A European-inspired affair for an experience to last a lifetime.

September 8, 2014 |By Anna Hobart

Working with events for her job, Kerri already had an idea of where she wanted her reception to take place: “The Castle Hotel and Spa in Tarrytown has always been breathtaking, and my favorite place in all of Westchester for events.”

Stained-glass windows, romantic gray brick walls, and several ballrooms made the perfect setting for a European-inspired wedding. Designing a lot of the wedding herself, Kerri didn’t want the wedding to feel like it belonged to any specific time period. A mix of French-inspired lounge furniture, contemporary white furniture pieces, lanterns, mercury glass, and other elements mixed different the time periods into a single event.

Working in event planning, Kerri knew from the very beginning that she wanted her wedding at the Castle. “You can’t take a bad picture there,” she says.

The Castle’s General Manager Gilbert Baeriswil helped Justin and Kerri create a menu that would fit perfectly with their European-influenced event, creating dishes like pork Wellington wrapped in pastry with mushroom duxelle. A Viennese table offered a feast of desserts, ranging from small chocolates to éclairs.

Bouquets were created by Perfect Surroundings International of Newport, Rhode Island. Flower centerpieces featured hydrangeas and peonies of different heights.

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The perfect venue needed the perfect dress, so Kerri created her own Lazaro gown. “Everyone that knows me knows I’m so intricate when it comes to design, style, and fashion," she says. "It meant the world to me to have that dress. To have my footprint on it, and have it be me and not something that everyone has. I spent a lot of time on that. Even my girls’ dresses, I wanted them to be unique in every way. They all had their own dress that suited their style, and I had everyone have custom jewelry that best matched the style of their dress.”

"I wanted everyone to have a unique dress that they loved but all in the same color palette of a romantic blush," Kerri says. "My maid-of-honor wore a Monique Lhuillier blush tulle gown, and the other bridesmaids all wore Jim Helm gowns—some with chiffon and some with some lace detailing."

In the end, all of Kerri's attention to detail paid off. “After everything was over, that’s when the emotion hit me," she says. "Right at the end, it was bliss and peace and knowing it was the perfect night of my life and this is my husband.”