Kim and Randie in Hudson, NY Two city gals go country for their rustic chic wedding at a pictorial property in upstate New York.
By Brittny Drye | Photography by Dina Kantor and Bre Sessions
With panoramic views of the Catskill Mountains painting an idyllic backdrop for the rustic retreat, 40 acres of pastoral land, a bucolic barnyard housing guest suites and a menagerie of friendly farm animals, The Kaaterskill provided Kim and Randie exactly what they were looking for in a venue.
Nestled in the charming town of Hudson, NY, where rich Georgian and Federal architecture trickles through the slow-paced, antique shop-lined streets, the magnificent property boasts the very best of what the Catskills have to offer. In fact, the blushing brides fell so in love with the area during the planning process, they moved to the town from their urban Queens, NY, home just two weeks before the wedding.
The Arcadian allure of the property called to the girls, helping them sculpt a detailed day that reveled in yesteryear. “We were really inspired by mid-century Americana and images of farms from the ‘40s and ‘50s,” said Kim. Inspiration married with sentimentality created a day that was deeply personal and reflected the couple. “We worked hard to make sure everything felt cohesive, and most important, that our guests felt well cared for.”
The festivities began with a very private ketubah signing, officiated by Kim’s childhood friend and witnessed by two very special couples in their lives. Meanwhile, guests began arriving and were greeted downstairs on the landscaped lawn with welcoming snacks and beverages.
While the soon-to-be wives were signing the ketubah, guests were kept cool and comfortable with bags of homemade rosemary cashews, ice tea and lemonade awaiting them, as well as vintage handkerchiefs silkscreened with the brides’ initials and wedding date.
Upon arrival, guests were given pieces of vintage ribbon and asked to write a blessing on each and tie to the chuppah, some of which were later read by the officiant during the ceremony.
A canopy made from Kim’s mother’s wedding gown brought sentimental, antiquarian charm to their white wooden chuppah, which was decorated in 36 vases of alstroemerias, representing the 36 Righteous Ones in Judaism. Vintage ribbons were tied to the ceremony centerpiece, each composed of handwritten blessings by their guests.
Featuring a myriad of rituals, the festivities began with a private ketubah, followed by the ceremony. To respectably decide which bride would be the first to walk down the aisle, one of their flower girls flipped a coin—Randie won. Following their bridal party procession, Randie walked down the aisle with her parents, followed by Kim and hers to the tune of Songbird sang by their friend.
Once they arrived beneath the chuppah, Kim’s stepmother gently placed rosemary remembrance wreaths atop each bride’s head. The symbolic wreaths were hand woven by Randie’s mother and sister and made with minty herbs plucked from Kim’s grandmother’s garden. Remembrances and traditional Jewish blessings were read by loved ones, with impromptu participation from guests, creating unexpected memorable moments.
Once pronounced wife and wife, they shared a kiss and traditionally marked the end of the ceremony by stomping on the wine glass. Afterwards, to kick start the party, their band lured guests to the cocktail hour, pied-piper style, as the brides initiated a sing-a-long down the aisle.
The women viewed their witnesses as the binding force for their nuptials, so it was only fitting to have their loved ones write and recite their marriage vows. “We identified what we wanted to be the pillars of our marriage and asked four pairs of people to write us vows based on these pillars,” explains Kim. “We did not hear them until our wedding, which not only kept us very present and in the moment, but also made for lots of laughter and tears. Our community then vowed to hold us accountable to the vows we made.”
Closing out the ceremony, a friend sang the traditional Seven Marriage Blessings in Hebrew while their officiant, Elisabeth Snell, interjected seven random readings from their guests’ ribbon blessings. In an effort to shed light on the equality battle, they added an eighth blessing, spilling wine to represent their cup will not be full until marriage equality is recognized in all states and nations.
Because the guest list featured approximately 20 youngsters, special kid-friendly activities were planned. Each miniature attendee received an individualized box filled with farm-related toys and stickers. “The kids ran around the farm all night, playing croquet and bocce ball, and petting the animals,” says Randie. “It was great!”
The reception was held in the property’s magnificently restored Dutch barn. Long tables were brought in, covered in burlap tablecloths and layered with runners made from vintage fabric found at an antique armory in the nearby downtown area.
Vintage bottles collected by Kim’s dad over the years were filled with wildflowers, hand-plucked earlier that day by a friend of the brides. Candles glimmered from quilted mason jars, casting a romantic glow throughout the room while table numbers were constructed of frames, vintage fabric and hand-cut numerals.
Despite caterer concerns, Kim was insistent on using her inherited family china at the reception, and the aesthetic outcome was well worth the worry. The mix-matched pieces paid homage to her ancestral lineage, while creating individualistic, shabby chic table settings that paired effortlessly with the overall vintage theme.
To the delight of guests (especially the 10-and-under crowd), an ice cream truck pulled up to serve sprinkle-covered confections. “Our flower girl came running into the barn, her face already covered in ice cream, yelling ‘There’s ice cream and it’s free!’” says Randie with a laugh.
After cutting the cake, the brides were asked to choose from one of two shot glasses—one was filled with water, the other vodka—and toss them back in celebration. According to the game’s rules, the one who was surprised with the spirit was deemed as the girl who would wear the pants in the marriage. “I got the vodka, but Kim made it clear that while I will literally wear the pants in our relationship, she will figuratively wear them,” jokes Randie. “We’ll see!”
To go along with their rural setting, they served up casual fare at cocktail hour consisting of pigs in the blanket, mini beef sliders and crab cakes, followed by a buffet-style dinner catered by Bridge Creek Catering. The dinner included a variety of options such as Carolina pulled pork with ancho honey barbecue sauce, Cajun spiced pulled seitan, grilled marinated lemon chicken breasts, Double Dutch macaroni and cheese with buttery crumbs, roasted corn on the cob with chili lime butter, and fire cracker cabbage slaw with poblano vinaigrette.
There’s something to be said about family recipes that have trickled down throughout the generations, beloved by every palate that it flavors touched, and Kim wanted to give their guests a taste of her grandmother’s claim to fame: Grandma Pat’s Peanut Butter Fudge. With the pressure for perfection (“If you’re using my name, you better not mess up my recipe,” her grandmother had previously told her, only half-jokingly), Kim’s plan was to spend the week before the wedding making and bagging homemade fudge for guests. Unfortunately, unexpected rainfall—which causes humidity and makes it impossible for fudge to cook correctly—threw a wrench into the prep plans. With two days to go, the bride called in the troops for a mass production of Grandma’s delectable dessert.
“My stepmother taught everyone around how to make Grandma’s peanut butter fudge,” says Kim. “Every time I came in the kitchen another member of the bridal party was stirring a pot of fudge. Somehow 125 bags of fudge made it to the wedding, but Grandma’s recipe is no longer a secret.”
Along with the fudge, guests received vintage silkscreened handkerchiefs from the ceremony, gummy bears and nuts in pretty packaging, and mason jars inscribed with their names.
While vacationing in Israel, Sweet Lord by George Harrison played in their hotel elevator and they immediately knew it was the right choice for their first dance song. “We both shared a memory of singing the song to each other in bed,” reminisces Kim. “We wondered if people would think we were crazy for picking a song that is about God, but to us it didn’t matter. The song was about us and love and wanting to know and be close to and part of something bigger than you.”
Astrograss, a band that has flourished in the Brooklyn bluegrass acoustic scene, provided refreshingly unique harmonies throughout the evening as well as learned the couple’s first dance song, along with many others, for the big day.
Because many guests arrived to the destination early, they held a “Beer, Billiards and Brides Night” the Friday before the wedding. Local beer was consumed while family and friends challenged each other in The Kaaterskill’s billiards room.
The next evening played host to a barbecue rehearsal dinner, followed by a movie outside under the stars, a bonfire and s’mores. While a fictitious (and fittingly) barn-raising love story played out on the big screen in the 1950s flick Seven Brides for Seven Brothers—the first film Kim and Randie watched together—guests snacked on buttered popcorn produced from the rented popcorn machine and sipped on old-fashioned sodas. “It was very relaxed and just a good time,” says Randie.
Kim struggled with wearing a wedding dress. “It felt too traditional for a queer wedding, even though every childhood dream I had of my wedding included this traditional aspect,” she says. Finally, coaxed by her friends, she began trying on dresses that struck her fancy, regardless of their formality. While at a bridal salon, her worries were set to rest when a fellow bride-to-be turned to her and asked for her opinion. When Kim replied with an honest answer that she looked amazing, the bride said, “But I’m marrying a woman. Is it too much?” Upon these words, a weight was lifted. “I was so relieved to hear someone else say this aloud and to realize that, no it wasn’t too much, it was just right,” says Kim. Soon after, she purchased Ivy and Aster’s flowing Sweetpea gown, featuring a sweetheart starburst bodice, low back and soft full ball gown skirt—the perfect mix of sweetness and romance for a playful soul.
Refusing to cave to the “bride” and “groom” stereotypes, they swapped the original men’s blue and teal sports coat they had originally picked out for Randie with a white suit from Ann Taylor. “We didn’t want it to look like she was the groom and I was the bride,” says Kim. “Plus, her mom was pushing her to wear a dress—which was never going to happen, so a white woman’s suit was a compromise. And she looked amazing.”
In pure ’50s fashion, the bridal party ladies wore vintage dresses in blues and greens, featuring playful crinolines while the men donned dapper plaid button-ups and bowties.
Though the designs beg to differ, the floral accents were created by their friend Nicole and Kim’s mother, amateurs to fleur design. Using only white roses and white and pink Alstroemerias ordered through Sam’s Club, the dynamic duo set out to create the bouquets and décor. Mason jars filled with flowers hung from ceremony chairs with shepherd’s hooks, adding shabby chic charm to the aisle, and tiny shot glasses doubled as bud vases and hung on the arbor with gold wire to complete the chuppah. The day of, Nicole woke up early to pick wildflowers, arranging them in vintage bottles to create a stunning centerpiece scene for the reception tables.
In a world filled with flavors, it’s nearly impossible to select one mouthwatering main event. Going for the gusto, the brides had five wedding cakes, featuring a variety of flavors whipped up by Maxine from Bittersweet Bakers in New York. Their cutting cake was chocolate with raspberry chocolate ganache filling, detailed with an intricate replica pattern from Kim’s wedding dress and topped with fabric lovebirds bought on Etsy. Others that dressed the dessert table included a rustic carrot cake, a lemon poppyseed cake, strawberry shortcake cake, and a yellow cake with blackberry and buttercream filling. Each elegantly crowned vintage cake stands that the couple had collected.
Each bride’s engagement ring illustrated the vintage vibe they both adore. Kim’s is a 1950s platinum cocktail ballerina ring, which features a center diamond and a swirl of diamond banquettes, spiraling outward from the center diamond. She inherited her grandmother’s wedding band—a vibrant gold asymmetrical with a band of diamonds cutting across. Kim selected Randie’s vintage engagement ring from Doyle and Doyle’s highly curated collection in New York City—a platinum band lined with a row of diamond banquettes. Her wedding band was passed down from her father, featuring an intricate and unique pattern pressed into the gold band.
Meticulous attention to detail and sentimental touches peppered throughout resulted in a day that was deeply personal and a crowd of guests that felt cared for.
Overwhelming support for marriage equality poured from their guests. “What really made it special was that so many of the people at our wedding, many of whom are not political or activists, had taken the time in the months previous to call and write their Senators to make same-sex marriage legal in New York,” says Kim. “There were several moments during our ceremony when the guests burst into applause and hoots at the mention of our marriage being legal or our hope for further equality.”
As their wedding date approached, they received a not-so-welcome guest in Hurricane Irene. The Category 1 storm hit upstate New York just weeks before their wedding, flooding the venue, destroying area homes and wiping out bridges and roads. “When we arrived to see the venue, it was covered in mud, everything was three feet under water and the farm’s pig had not survived,” says Randie. Working tirelessly over the next few weeks, The Kaaterskill’s crew turned the swamp-like scene into its original picturesque state. “We ended up having a beautiful wedding, and most people had no idea the condition the property was in only days before.”
With panoramic views of the Catskill Mountains painting an idyllic backdrop for the rustic retreat, 40 acres of pastoral land, a bucolic barnyard housing guest suites and a menagerie of friendly farm animals, The Kaaterskill provided Kim and Randie exactly what they were looking for in a venue.
Nestled in the charming town of Hudson, NY, where rich Georgian and Federal architecture trickles through the slow-paced, antique shop-lined streets, the magnificent property boasts the very best of what the Catskills have to offer. In fact, the blushing brides fell so in love with the area during the planning process, they moved to the town from their urban Queens, NY, home just two weeks before the wedding.
The Arcadian allure of the property called to the girls, helping them sculpt a detailed day that reveled in yesteryear. “We were really inspired by mid-century Americana and images of farms from the ‘40s and ‘50s,” said Kim. Inspiration married with sentimentality created a day that was deeply personal and reflected the couple. “We worked hard to make sure everything felt cohesive, and most important, that our guests felt well cared for.”
The festivities began with a very private ketubah signing, officiated by Kim’s childhood friend and witnessed by two very special couples in their lives. Meanwhile, guests began arriving and were greeted downstairs on the landscaped lawn with welcoming snacks and beverages.
While the soon-to-be wives were signing the ketubah, guests were kept cool and comfortable with bags of homemade rosemary cashews, ice tea and lemonade awaiting them, as well as vintage handkerchiefs silkscreened with the brides’ initials and wedding date.
Upon arrival, guests were given pieces of vintage ribbon and asked to write a blessing on each and tie to the chuppah, some of which were later read by the officiant during the ceremony.
A canopy made from Kim’s mother’s wedding gown brought sentimental, antiquarian charm to their white wooden chuppah, which was decorated in 36 vases of alstroemerias, representing the 36 Righteous Ones in Judaism. Vintage ribbons were tied to the ceremony centerpiece, each composed of handwritten blessings by their guests.
Featuring a myriad of rituals, the festivities began with a private ketubah, followed by the ceremony. To respectably decide which bride would be the first to walk down the aisle, one of their flower girls flipped a coin—Randie won. Following their bridal party procession, Randie walked down the aisle with her parents, followed by Kim and hers to the tune of Songbird sang by their friend.
Once they arrived beneath the chuppah, Kim’s stepmother gently placed rosemary remembrance wreaths atop each bride’s head. The symbolic wreaths were hand woven by Randie’s mother and sister and made with minty herbs plucked from Kim’s grandmother’s garden. Remembrances and traditional Jewish blessings were read by loved ones, with impromptu participation from guests, creating unexpected memorable moments.
Once pronounced wife and wife, they shared a kiss and traditionally marked the end of the ceremony by stomping on the wine glass. Afterwards, to kick start the party, their band lured guests to the cocktail hour, pied-piper style, as the brides initiated a sing-a-long down the aisle.
The women viewed their witnesses as the binding force for their nuptials, so it was only fitting to have their loved ones write and recite their marriage vows. “We identified what we wanted to be the pillars of our marriage and asked four pairs of people to write us vows based on these pillars,” explains Kim. “We did not hear them until our wedding, which not only kept us very present and in the moment, but also made for lots of laughter and tears. Our community then vowed to hold us accountable to the vows we made.”
Closing out the ceremony, a friend sang the traditional Seven Marriage Blessings in Hebrew while their officiant, Elisabeth Snell, interjected seven random readings from their guests’ ribbon blessings. In an effort to shed light on the equality battle, they added an eighth blessing, spilling wine to represent their cup will not be full until marriage equality is recognized in all states and nations.
Because the guest list featured approximately 20 youngsters, special kid-friendly activities were planned. Each miniature attendee received an individualized box filled with farm-related toys and stickers. “The kids ran around the farm all night, playing croquet and bocce ball, and petting the animals,” says Randie. “It was great!”
The reception was held in the property’s magnificently restored Dutch barn. Long tables were brought in, covered in burlap tablecloths and layered with runners made from vintage fabric found at an antique armory in the nearby downtown area.
Vintage bottles collected by Kim’s dad over the years were filled with wildflowers, hand-plucked earlier that day by a friend of the brides. Candles glimmered from quilted mason jars, casting a romantic glow throughout the room while table numbers were constructed of frames, vintage fabric and hand-cut numerals.
Despite caterer concerns, Kim was insistent on using her inherited family china at the reception, and the aesthetic outcome was well worth the worry. The mix-matched pieces paid homage to her ancestral lineage, while creating individualistic, shabby chic table settings that paired effortlessly with the overall vintage theme.
To the delight of guests (especially the 10-and-under crowd), an ice cream truck pulled up to serve sprinkle-covered confections. “Our flower girl came running into the barn, her face already covered in ice cream, yelling ‘There’s ice cream and it’s free!’” says Randie with a laugh.
After cutting the cake, the brides were asked to choose from one of two shot glasses—one was filled with water, the other vodka—and toss them back in celebration. According to the game’s rules, the one who was surprised with the spirit was deemed as the girl who would wear the pants in the marriage. “I got the vodka, but Kim made it clear that while I will literally wear the pants in our relationship, she will figuratively wear them,” jokes Randie. “We’ll see!”
To go along with their rural setting, they served up casual fare at cocktail hour consisting of pigs in the blanket, mini beef sliders and crab cakes, followed by a buffet-style dinner catered by Bridge Creek Catering. The dinner included a variety of options such as Carolina pulled pork with ancho honey barbecue sauce, Cajun spiced pulled seitan, grilled marinated lemon chicken breasts, Double Dutch macaroni and cheese with buttery crumbs, roasted corn on the cob with chili lime butter, and fire cracker cabbage slaw with poblano vinaigrette.
There’s something to be said about family recipes that have trickled down throughout the generations, beloved by every palate that it flavors touched, and Kim wanted to give their guests a taste of her grandmother’s claim to fame: Grandma Pat’s Peanut Butter Fudge. With the pressure for perfection (“If you’re using my name, you better not mess up my recipe,” her grandmother had previously told her, only half-jokingly), Kim’s plan was to spend the week before the wedding making and bagging homemade fudge for guests. Unfortunately, unexpected rainfall—which causes humidity and makes it impossible for fudge to cook correctly—threw a wrench into the prep plans. With two days to go, the bride called in the troops for a mass production of Grandma’s delectable dessert.
“My stepmother taught everyone around how to make Grandma’s peanut butter fudge,” says Kim. “Every time I came in the kitchen another member of the bridal party was stirring a pot of fudge. Somehow 125 bags of fudge made it to the wedding, but Grandma’s recipe is no longer a secret.”
Along with the fudge, guests received vintage silkscreened handkerchiefs from the ceremony, gummy bears and nuts in pretty packaging, and mason jars inscribed with their names.
While vacationing in Israel, Sweet Lord by George Harrison played in their hotel elevator and they immediately knew it was the right choice for their first dance song. “We both shared a memory of singing the song to each other in bed,” reminisces Kim. “We wondered if people would think we were crazy for picking a song that is about God, but to us it didn’t matter. The song was about us and love and wanting to know and be close to and part of something bigger than you.”
Astrograss, a band that has flourished in the Brooklyn bluegrass acoustic scene, provided refreshingly unique harmonies throughout the evening as well as learned the couple’s first dance song, along with many others, for the big day.
Because many guests arrived to the destination early, they held a “Beer, Billiards and Brides Night” the Friday before the wedding. Local beer was consumed while family and friends challenged each other in The Kaaterskill’s billiards room.
The next evening played host to a barbecue rehearsal dinner, followed by a movie outside under the stars, a bonfire and s’mores. While a fictitious (and fittingly) barn-raising love story played out on the big screen in the 1950s flick Seven Brides for Seven Brothers—the first film Kim and Randie watched together—guests snacked on buttered popcorn produced from the rented popcorn machine and sipped on old-fashioned sodas. “It was very relaxed and just a good time,” says Randie.
Kim struggled with wearing a wedding dress. “It felt too traditional for a queer wedding, even though every childhood dream I had of my wedding included this traditional aspect,” she says. Finally, coaxed by her friends, she began trying on dresses that struck her fancy, regardless of their formality. While at a bridal salon, her worries were set to rest when a fellow bride-to-be turned to her and asked for her opinion. When Kim replied with an honest answer that she looked amazing, the bride said, “But I’m marrying a woman. Is it too much?” Upon these words, a weight was lifted. “I was so relieved to hear someone else say this aloud and to realize that, no it wasn’t too much, it was just right,” says Kim. Soon after, she purchased Ivy and Aster’s flowing Sweetpea gown, featuring a sweetheart starburst bodice, low back and soft full ball gown skirt—the perfect mix of sweetness and romance for a playful soul.
Refusing to cave to the “bride” and “groom” stereotypes, they swapped the original men’s blue and teal sports coat they had originally picked out for Randie with a white suit from Ann Taylor. “We didn’t want it to look like she was the groom and I was the bride,” says Kim. “Plus, her mom was pushing her to wear a dress—which was never going to happen, so a white woman’s suit was a compromise. And she looked amazing.”
In pure ’50s fashion, the bridal party ladies wore vintage dresses in blues and greens, featuring playful crinolines while the men donned dapper plaid button-ups and bowties.
Though the designs beg to differ, the floral accents were created by their friend Nicole and Kim’s mother, amateurs to fleur design. Using only white roses and white and pink Alstroemerias ordered through Sam’s Club, the dynamic duo set out to create the bouquets and décor. Mason jars filled with flowers hung from ceremony chairs with shepherd’s hooks, adding shabby chic charm to the aisle, and tiny shot glasses doubled as bud vases and hung on the arbor with gold wire to complete the chuppah. The day of, Nicole woke up early to pick wildflowers, arranging them in vintage bottles to create a stunning centerpiece scene for the reception tables.
In a world filled with flavors, it’s nearly impossible to select one mouthwatering main event. Going for the gusto, the brides had five wedding cakes, featuring a variety of flavors whipped up by Maxine from Bittersweet Bakers in New York. Their cutting cake was chocolate with raspberry chocolate ganache filling, detailed with an intricate replica pattern from Kim’s wedding dress and topped with fabric lovebirds bought on Etsy. Others that dressed the dessert table included a rustic carrot cake, a lemon poppyseed cake, strawberry shortcake cake, and a yellow cake with blackberry and buttercream filling. Each elegantly crowned vintage cake stands that the couple had collected.
Each bride’s engagement ring illustrated the vintage vibe they both adore. Kim’s is a 1950s platinum cocktail ballerina ring, which features a center diamond and a swirl of diamond banquettes, spiraling outward from the center diamond. She inherited her grandmother’s wedding band—a vibrant gold asymmetrical with a band of diamonds cutting across. Kim selected Randie’s vintage engagement ring from Doyle and Doyle’s highly curated collection in New York City—a platinum band lined with a row of diamond banquettes. Her wedding band was passed down from her father, featuring an intricate and unique pattern pressed into the gold band.
Meticulous attention to detail and sentimental touches peppered throughout resulted in a day that was deeply personal and a crowd of guests that felt cared for.
Overwhelming support for marriage equality poured from their guests. “What really made it special was that so many of the people at our wedding, many of whom are not political or activists, had taken the time in the months previous to call and write their Senators to make same-sex marriage legal in New York,” says Kim. “There were several moments during our ceremony when the guests burst into applause and hoots at the mention of our marriage being legal or our hope for further equality.”
As their wedding date approached, they received a not-so-welcome guest in Hurricane Irene. The Category 1 storm hit upstate New York just weeks before their wedding, flooding the venue, destroying area homes and wiping out bridges and roads. “When we arrived to see the venue, it was covered in mud, everything was three feet under water and the farm’s pig had not survived,” says Randie. Working tirelessly over the next few weeks, The Kaaterskill’s crew turned the swamp-like scene into its original picturesque state. “We ended up having a beautiful wedding, and most people had no idea the condition the property was in only days before.”
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