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Below is an excerpt of an article from the Spring/Summer 2006 Westchester Weddings
AUTUMN FANTASY Jaime Devito & Ryan Riley  Since she was a little girl, jaime Devito wanted a wedding filled with personal touches and love of family. "I always dreamed of being married at my parents' home just as they were married at my grandparents' nearby home 28 years ago," says Devito, 24. And if your parents owned Olde Orchard Hill Farm, the 40-acre Devito homestead in Somers, you'd want to be married there, too.The historic main house with its big white pillars looks like it belongs in the movies. In fact, it was in the movies. "The house belonged to Jack Cohen, producer of Gone with the Wind," says Jaime's dad, John Devito, a well-known Westchester developer. "The tree line in front of the house is said to have been used in the movie." While Jaime's dream wedding included the Tara-like property, she probably didn't imagine that her very own Rhett Butler would hail from the Pacific Northwest. "He played second base and short stop in the minor leagues for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays," Jaime says of her groom, 27-year-old Ryan Riley, who is currently a coach for East Carolina University. "We actually met in a history class at Clemson University in South Carolina, although he's originally from Seattle." Jaime and Ryan were wed on October 8, 2005, in an autumn fantasy celebration with 300 guests. Jaime's father and two brothers built a special 10-foot-tall arbor outside for Jaime and Ryan to say their vows beneath. It was covered with a mass of hydrangeas, amaranthus, roses, and dahlias. The bride wore a unique, vintage style dress designed by Monique Lhuillier purchased from Saks Fifth Avenue. (Price? The Devitos aren't telling, but we can tell you that Britney Spears wore a Lhuillier at her wedding to Kevin Federline.)  The menu, created by Sarah Bouissou Catering of Ridgefield, CT, featured butternut squash soup with pecans and Beef Wellington or grilled tournedo with salmon, and her neighbor, Michael Ottomanelli, who just happens to be a pastry chef at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, baked the luscious wedding cake. "It was a masterpiece" the bride says of the cake. "It had layers of moist chocolate mousse cake filled with fresh raspberries. He dressed the cake with white frosting and cascading chocolate colored orchids down and around it. It was magnificent."The cost of all this magnificence was also impressive, ringing in at over $100,000. "We didn't start out with this budget," says Jaime's mom, Janet Devito. "And we're not proud of the money we spent, but Jaime was so happy, we'd do it all again." According to their party planner, DJ Chain of Croton-on-Hudson, the decision to have the wedding at home added to the wedding's cost. "At-home weddings can be very expensive but very personal." "We had seven tents, twelve-thousand-square-feet of tenting in all," says Jill Cartwright, the manager and titular "daughter" of party rental company Cartwright and Daughters of Carmel, NY. "The dining tent had dramatic twenty-nine-foot-high center poles draped in white fabric and a one-thousand-square foot dance floor." The centerpieces for that tent were seven-foot-tall birch branches interspersed with autumnal orchids, aglow with votives and decorated at the base with large flowers in fall colors. Above the dance floor, 50 large hanging glass lanterns created an ethereal effect. "There was an amber glow on the ceiling with just a hint of leaf and branch textures," says Michael Boll of Robert Stark Lighting. "It created a candlelit ambiance that totally transformed the space." It also transformed the budget, since the power requirement necessitated bringing in a generator. Adding to that already burgeoning budget were outdoor bathrooms, an outdoor kitchen, a fabulous ten-piece orchestra [Kameleon Orchestras], and a 14-foot-tall "Escort Tree" adorned with ribbons holding the autumn leaf motif place cards. Of course, even top-of-the-line preparations can't foolproof an at-home wedding, especially if you're counting on an outdoor affair. "The weather was worse than I ever could have imagined," says the bride's mother of the torrential rain and strong wind that besieged them that day. The uncooperative elements forced some last-minute changes, including moving the handmade arbor into the cocktail tent. Thankfully, even a drenching rain can't drown the happiness and transformative powers of a wedding day. Jaime Devito became Jaime Riley, a former second baseman became a husband, and proud papa, John Devito, morphed into a character from the movie Father of the Bride. "I feel like I lived the movie," he says. "I've been involved with big projects, but this was something else. I had no concept of things like choosing colors and types of napkins. I couldn't comprehend things like calligraphy." But he did comprehend the most important thing. "It was a big undertaking," he says, "but Jaime and Ryan were so happy, the whole thing was priceless." Lois Podoshen thanks the three couples for sharing their stories and wishes them all the best in the future. MUSIC: Kameleon Orchestras Commack, NY (631) 269-4742 CAKE: Michael Ottomanelli, Pastry Chef Somers (914) 760-6677 FLORIST: David Beahm Design Flowers and tent décor New York City (212) 279-1344 LIGHTING: Robert Stark Lighting New York City (212) 586-2744 PHOTOGRAPHER: Bruce Plotkin Photography Weston, CT (203) 454-1143 STATIONERY: Paper Passions, Mount Kisco (914) 242-3715 TENTS: Cartwright and Daughters, Tents Carmel, NY (845) 225-9200 VENUE: The Inn at Pound Ridge: Sarah Bouissou Caterers Ridgefield, CT (203) 856-2537 WEDDING PLANNER: D. J. 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