Photography by Andre Baranowski
Shot on location at Shadow Lawn in High Falls
Just because you’ve chosen to have your wedding in a barn doesn’t mean you have to wear cowboy boots and serve drinks out of mason jars. Four local designers take to Shadow Lawn in High Falls to show how you can be inspired by the rustic surroundings and still create a unique look for your wedding.
Country Chic
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Gigi Hudson Valley serves roasted prawn and Sardinian fregola mixed with local, seasonal vegetables (gigihudsonvalley.com). A wheat rattan tablecloth echoes the weathered wood of the barn backdrop. |
Since barn weddings are often more casual affairs, Steve and Melissa of Steven Bruce Design kept their tablescape low and drama-free—but loaded with flowers. A collection of small containers are filled with peonies, roses, succulents, hydrangea, Delphinium belladonna, scabiosa flowers and scabiosa pods, stock, allium, and kale. They also remembered the most important element to grace a table—the food—enlisting Gigi Hudson Valley’s catering services to create a dish worthy of the barn’s setting. “All of our vegetables come from Hudson Valley farms within a twenty-mile radius,” says Gigi’s Chrissy Atkinson.
Steven Bruce Design Stone Ridge (845) 687-8777; stevenbrucedesign.com
Steve and Melissa use a distressed metal container to hold their flowers—no mason jars required. Other arrangements are placed in colored bottles (above right). |
Steve and Melissa also created a coordinating bridal bouquet from the same flowers, wrapped in an embroidered ribbon. |
Garden Party
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The head-shaped planter, found in a garden shop, is filled with meadow flowers such as baby’s breath, lady’s mantle, and love-in-a-mist. |
Kelly contrasts the barn setting with elegant gold-rimmed glassware and beautifully patterned china. |
Ned Kelly of Ned Kelly & Company brings the garden into the barn, courtesy of two moss-covered candelabras filled with roses, clematis, peonies, dusty miller, hydrangea, and hanging amaranth. Cane-back chairs from Party Rental Ltd. (275 North St, Teterboro, NJ 201-727-4700; partyrentalltd.com) and an antique linen barcloth table runner underscore the barn’s more rustic elements. “My vision was to have a modern, organic-minded bride compromising with her country-club mother,” Kelly says.
Ned Kelly & Company Piermont (845) 359-4480; nedkellyandco.com
Antique, ribbon-edged milk glass pieces are used to serve strawberries or hold additional flowers, while cut-crystal hurricane candleholders anchor the table. |
The artichoke tea-light is a real, hollowed-out artichoke. A single feather is attached to each napkin with a raffia tie. |
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Modern Nature
Dempsey covers the barn’s beams with fresh-cut maple branches and hangs green amaranthus and glass globes filled with votive tealights from them. |
Multiple varieties of echeveria replace the votive tealights in some of the hanging globes. Dempsey also attaches name tags to echeveria on each plate to use as place cards. |
From the floorboards to the ceiling beams, Carolyn Dempsey of Carolyn Dempsey Design has left no corner of her tablescape unadorned. Throughout, she mixes lush greenery—maple branches, amaranthus, echeveria, and, of course, that table runner—with more modern touches, like the contrasting white chairs, table settings, and phalaenopsis. “This table is so me,” says Dempsey. “I love nature and I love modern—but not stark modern.”
Carolyn Dempsey Design
Port Chester (914) 937-7504; carolyndempseydesign.com
Different plants are actually woven into a wire mesh to create the lush table runner; holes are cut throughout to conceal clear disc tealights to give the runner an extra glow. |
Curved white modern plates and modern flatware balance out all the natural greenery. In the centerpiece, white phalaenopsis spring from silver hammered bud vases. |
De-Vine Inspiration
The vine centerpiece was “water-washed naturally,” says LaManna. All they had to do was have it mounted. LaManna also mixes amnesia roses in with the other flowers —here, adorning the backs of the chairs—for their subtler, grayer colors. |
Brenda LaManna of Damselfly Designs strives to create the feeling of a fall harvest without resorting to the usual browns and golds associated with the season. “Instead, I used a traditional purple and orange color palette, but added gray tones to create an autumnal feel,” she says. The centerpiece of the table, though it looks like a tree trunk, is actually a vine that was found in the Amazon. Mismatched chairs and silverware come from Party Rental Ltd. (275 North St, Teterboro, NJ 201-727-4700; partyrentalltd.com).
Damselfly Designs
175 Clearbrooke Rd. Suite 153
Elmsford, NY 10528
(914) 533-6500; damselflydesigns.net
Lanterns of different sizes add visual interest to a grouping of pumpkins, which are of a more uniform height. |
Eremurus bridges the gap between the height of the vine and the lower-lying gourds, hydrangea, dianthus, and roses. |