Yvonne & Will’s Monteverde at Oldstone Wedding

Monteverde at Oldstone was the setting for Yvonne and William’s romantic garden tent wedding. It’s a stunning venue located just over an hour outside of NYC. The ceremony backdrop was like something out of a fairytale. It is filled with lush beautiful trees, gorgeous stonework, and stunning mountain views. In addition, there’s quite a bit of history to the property. While I could go on and on about our favorite details, I’ll let Yvonne tell the story.

How did you meet?

Even though we went to the same college, William and I didn’t meet until we ended up at the same company a few years after graduation. We were friends at first, but then one day, he threw a note over to my desk asking me to dinner. It read “Dinner Friday?” and had three check boxes – one for Yes, one for No, and one for Maybe. I checked the Maybe box and threw it back over to his desk. And the rest of is history!

How did he propose?

William lured me to Brooklyn from Manhattan saying that we were going to visit a friend. As we waited by the water enjoying the beautiful view, he got down on one knee and proposed. As I said screamed yes, I saw that he had hired a professional photographer to capture the moment. Then we spent the next hour taking photos around Dumbo, and then I was surprised again when our families were waiting for us at dinner!

What was your favorite part of the planning process?

My favorite part of the whole process was at the very end, when I saw everything that I had been working for come to life. It was such an amazing feeling to see the tent lit up when we walked in and just be in awe of how beautiful everything was. It felt like the countless hours of planning and being detail oriented really paid off!

Tell us about one personalized or cultural detail of your wedding and what it meant?

In addition to my white ceremony dress, I wore two other dresses for my wedding. One was dedicated to my father and the other was dedicated to my mother. I wore a long red dress for my father-daughter dance as an homage to my Chinese heritage. And then I wore a sparkled strapless dress – that was actually the same dress I had worn over fifteen years ago when I competed in the Miss New York pageant and had placed in the top 10. My mom had gone above and beyond and bought that dress for me, and I told her even back then that I’d wear it again on my wedding day. She didn’t believe that I was actually going to wear it again, but I actually didn’t tell her that I was going to, and I surprised her with wearing the dress! It was very heartwarming to see how thrilled she was seeing me in that dress again.

Any advice you would share with other brides?

When wedding planning, there are going to be hundreds of options for every little detail and decision you have to make. To save yourself time and lots of headaches, my advice would be to just go with your gut, make a decision, and try to stick to it. Otherwise you will just go down a rabbit hole of too many options and it can be very overwhelming. Just keep in mind what is most important – your guests are there celebrate your love!

How did Elite help make your day special and stress free? The Elite team was seriously the best decision I made for the wedding. Angela was there to answer any and every question I had throughout the whole planning process, and her team made my wedding day absolutely perfect. On the day of, I did not have to worry about a thing, everything was just taken care of. When I needed anything throughout the entire day and night, they were there to make sure my needs were met. I could not have done it without Angela and her team!