Planning, Wedding

Someone Else’s Wedding: Alder Manor

alder-manor-wedding-11 dan o'day

It’s been a while since my heart has swelled with so much jealousy- but stumbling across images of Alder Manor this weekend, I experienced a Grinch-like enlargement of the old ticker.

Alder Manor is an abandoned, run-down, early 20th century mansion in Yonkers, NY. And it’s perfect. Do you see that empty indoor pool in the first picture??

For everyone who’s going for a haunted Gatsby/Blank Space/Downton vibe- I don’t think it gets better than Alder Manor. I’m not a HUGE fan of mansion weddings- but dilapidated manors are, like, the ultimate.

How did I not find it before? I guess I didn’t think to search for abandoned mansions in the tri-state, but lesson learned. Lesson. Learned.

alder-manor-wedding-18Oh, you know, just tossing flower petals near the backyard ruins. NBD.

jillian bisingerI want to know what books are in that library.

jillian bMr. Carson’s ghost will great you at the front door.

The website for Alder Manor is almost comically minimal- just a contact page, a smattering of links to photos of weddings at the mansion, and a single sample menu. Online sleuthing yields very mixed results on pricing. NYMag’s Wedding Guide (my go-to for price estimates on vendors in the area) states that there’s no rental fee, and that catering starts at $120/head. If that’s true, Alder Manor could be very much in the realm of “reasonable” in terms of budget (assuming rentals, drinks, etc are included in that number). Some brides in wedding forums stated that the $120 starting price was in addition to an $8,000 site fee- which, for me at least, takes you back into “aspirational” territory.

So who knows. But damn, it’s cool.

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Photos:

1 & 2: Dan O’Day (found on 100 Layer Cake)

3 & 4: Jillian Bisinger

5 & 6: New York Social Diary