Chelsea & Richard | The Rockleigh | Rockleigh, NJ

“Entrées Were Amazing”

We matched on Hinge in June of 2020. This was during Covid, so for our first date we met in a park in Montclair. That first date was a picnic. He brought my favorite foods and some wine, and when we left that date we had plans for the next date and after each date, we always made a plan to see each other. On date number five I was meeting his family and on date number six he met mine. Within seven months we were living together.

A year and a half later, he brought me to that same park in Montclair. He had my friends hiding in the bushes taking photos of us. Richard got down on one knee, I said yes, and we celebrated at dinner and saw both our families. It was so special that it was in the same spot as our first date.

My sister got married at The Rockleigh and I had been to a few weddings there and every time I said, “My wedding is going to be at The Rockleigh.” After our initial visit, just by going there one time my husband loved it too and did not want to look at any other venues. Rockleigh made our planning so smooth. Since I’d been there before, I knew the food was going to be amazing. We chose to get married in January so we wanted a venue where the inside was as beautiful as the outside.

We worked with Bari Stevens Puli, our wedding coordinator. She was amazing. She designed the perfect menu for us and really went out of her way to make it extraordinary. She made the entire process so personal and special.

We had two ceremonies. My husband and I are both Catholic and he wanted to be married by his priest. We did that a week earlier at St. Augustine’s of Canterbury, in a church ceremony with our extended family and bridal party. At The Rockleigh ceremony we had our extended families and all our guests and were married by one of my dad’s friends. We were able to sit with him before the wedding and choose what we wanted for our ceremony. It was very emotional to have everyone you love in one room celebrating your marriage. That was the highlight of the night.

During cocktail hour The Rockleigh allowed us to stay in our getting-ready room for 20 minutes. We soaked in the reality of just getting married and tried a little of our foods and our signature cocktails. Mine was a tequila-based Paloma and Richard’s was a whiskey-based Old Fashioned. It was hard to choose our favorite foods because everything was so amazing. Each bite was better than the one before it!

We got married in January so we had a winter theme. We had tall white trees on some tables and other tables had big candelabras with candles and flowers all around them. For music, our First Dance was “I Guess I’m In Love” by Clinton Kane.

My husband is half Italian and half Puerto Rican, I am full Italian, so we did the Tarantella and we had some of his mom’s cultural music. We had music for those who grew up in the 70’s and 80’s and included some newer music and Motown too. That range got everybody up on the dance floor the entire night.

We had three entrée options, a chicken dish, a salmon dish, and a steak dish. We tried all three and each was amazing. Our cake was provided by A Little Cake, so we went a few weeks before the wedding and got to try all the different cakes. We ended up choosing chocolate ganache.

We want to thank our parents, because without them our wedding would not have been possible. Our brothers and sisters, for all they did along the way, our bridal party for celebrating everything with us, from bachelorette and bachelor parties to the bridal shower and the wedding. We want to thank all our vendors. It would have been impossible without them, our photographer, videographer, DJ, officiant, hair and makeup, and our signage lady were incredible and we want to especially thank The Rockleigh, from Bari to our maître d’, who did everything for us. It was truly a magical day.

The Rockleigh, Rockleigh, NJ, 201.768.7171, therockleigh.net