Rustic Weddings, Country Weddings near Saratoga, Albany Capital Region Upstate NY

December 10th, 2012 by

What is the “perfect wedding”? At Liberty Ridge Farm there are countless wedding ideas to help guide couples through the process. We suggest meeting with a wedding coordinator at our location as a useful general guideline, although checklists exist, they can hinder the imagination and they typically do not account for different styles or settings that might be important to the couple.

Many brides and grooms in the Capital Region of NY typically marry in the traditional Church setting or at least introduce elements of a traditional wedding ceremony or reception. Why not break from the norm and try incorporating country charm or rustic elegance into the wedding tradition.  It  is not only a fantastic way to share something personal with the guests, but a nice change to the standard wedding atmosphere.  Liberty Ridge Farm has several ways to infuse a little country is by utilizing non-traditional wedding decorations, wedding supplies and other

visual elements. Liberty Ridge Farm has venue selections from Blue jeans to Bow Ties that infuse charm or elegance. The farm is set on 100 acres in the rolling hills of Rensselaer County with breathtaking views, ceremony sites and settings that steal your heart. Take a beak from the traditional meal, The farmhouse kitchen has the menu that wont create limitations in the venue. If you have your mind set on having a customized menu, come sit down with us. We have settings with space for Music and entertainment that are easy areas to help set the overall mood for your special day.

Needless to say, the stars of the wedding are you,The bride and groom. It only natural to showcase your lives, and spotlight your love with the most memorable wedding that will touch the hearts of those in attendance. Liberty Ridge Farm has a way of making even the most distant relative and that friend of a friend of a friend feel as if they are welcome to join in memories that will last all their lives.

The wedding doesn’t have to be small and exclusive to be intimate and personal. Even the smallest attention to detail and thinking outside the box can turn a typical wedding into a unique experience that leaves an impression.

Posted in Albany Tent Weddings, Clifton Park Barn Weddings, News, Saratoga Barn Weddings

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Saratoga Wedding Destinations and Venues with Rustic Charm

July 2nd, 2012 by

Liberty Ridge Farm near Saratoga, NY is a premier wedding destination located in the Capital Region of Upstate NY.

From Blue Jean to Bow Ties a premier Saratoga NYwedding destination like Liberty Ridge Farm offers indoor and outdoor wedding venues with breathtaking views that dazzle and delight.  The Gifford Barn,a Dutch style barn hosts 2400 sq. ft. of reception space decorated in an equestrian theme, high ceilings, exposed beams and beautiful cherry harvest tables that offer the ultimate in rustic elegance.  The Event Tent is tailor-made to accommodate any size guest list,  from elegance to rustic charm it serves as a perfect setting for receptions.

As a wedding destination we explore topics of interest from now and then and this one always had grabbed our attention recently.  We sometimes overlook the symbol that represents all of Marriage a whole, trapped in a single item that is worn everyday.  We wanted to know more about…What was the meaning of a Wedding Ring’s shape and composition?

The wedding ring is the last present a couple will give one another before their wedding.  The very first present a lady might receive is a relationship is a promise ring – which most think of a pre-engagement ring.  Later on as a duet gets more involved, the engagement ring replaces the pre-engagement ring and confirms a bond to each other.

This wedding ring is an emblem and throughout time has symbolized love, devotion and even an agreement between families. The physical structure of the wedding ring has changed as different civilizations have changed it to look more and more beautiful. Some materials are held more dear, like precious metals and diamonds which are considered to be of greater value – hence the feeling that they might mean more.  However the meaning behind the symbol has stayed the same throughout time and over continents. A ring placed on your womans finger says many things to her “I love you” “I wish to be with you forever” and “You are mine.”Most women cherish the instant when the man slips a ring on their finger.  They gaze with enchantment into each others eyes during that instant when the ring is put on and they understand that they will be together from then on.   The ring exchange has symbolization behind the wedding bands that  is as rich and as complicated as its own love story.   It should be told so that couples understand exactly why they exchange wedding rings.

A ring in its simplest form is a circle, which means ‘forever.’ The ring stands for an unclouded wish to spend all time together. Many couples opt to have a romantic phrase engraved within their wedding rings which makes that traditional symbolism even more important for each couple. Symbols exist throughout our culture. Even the materials the wedding ring is created out of appear to be symbols of love and devotion. A great deal of couples select diamonds on their wedding rings; diamonds are literally indestructibleand are the “forever” stone you want to select to epitomize your love. Rubies are another choice representing love, keenness and grandeur. While the wedding ring itself is seen as invaluable, the metaphor of the wedding ring symbolizes that your betrothed is precious to you.

The wedding ring was adorned in past times like it is presently, on the left hand, third finger. The reason being because of the strong-held belief that the vein in this finger moves at once from the heart. This notion was endorsed as ladies commenced wearing their wedding rings closer to their hand and then their engagement ring on that same hand – affirming this notion of it being so close to your heart.  So if you are going to share your love forever, take a look at our picturesque acres of for your Next Saratoga Wedding, Albany Wedding, Clifton park Wedding or Adirondack Wedding consider our rustic elegance or refined charm for your indoor or outdoor NY Capital Region wedding.

Do you need help planning your wedding?  We have taken the leg work out of the planning process. Let us relieve the stress of arranging your wedding day. Choose the venue, catering package and floral option, right here on the farm with one of our wedding coordinators

Our experienced team is ready to help you create a memorable experience for both you and your guests. Call 518-664-1515 to reserve your date now, or contact us.

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Capital Region Weddings facilities from Liberty Ridge Farm

May 21st, 2012 by

We Grow Memories

While many people around the Capital Region are stuck in the midst of our summer, many soon to be brides are busy planning their upcoming summer and fall 2012 weddings. This puts us here at Liberty Ridge Farm in the wedding mood also, we are so happy to be getting so many calls from soon to be brides looking to speak with us while researching wedding venues. Some know exactly what they want some are in the beginning stages of their planning but all seem to welcome some guidance or sharing of resources.

We take pride in answering many questions and offering our advice in our one on one meetings make your wedding at Liberty Ridge Farm special. Our event planners have a list designed to help guide our brides to be along on their wedding planning journey. Every few days we will offer a couple more tips that will help make your wedding day at Liberty Ridge Farm a day you will cherish forever! As always we are certainly here in person to answer and questions and offer guidance to our brides to be also! We hope to create a wedding here at Liberty Ridge Farm that an bride and groom to be will know everyone who attends won’t soon forget because it will look and feel so much different from any wedding that has been attended in the past!   We will work to make your day full of unique and unforgettable moments.

Knowing some Wedding planning basics make it a whole lot easier to plan your dream wedding. It takes a lot out of you to really put your mind into planning a great wedding and as such it is always good to get as much information as you can get to assist with your planning process.

Before I even decided to plan my wedding a couple of questions were thrown out to me like, “What are your plans or ideas for your wedding? Do you know if you want to have an indoor or outdoor wedding ?  and do you have a caterer or have you made choice already about the food ?  These are basics that can assist anyone who will be providing you your wedding planning.

These questions frame out the venue, food and entertainment, most brides to be have done a lot of research and know what they  want to see in their weddings they just need assistance in how to get things done.

Wedding planning is so much fun when you have the right set of tools and information at your fingertips. All it takes is just information about your preferences and taste.

 

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Wedding Venues Albany, Wedding Venues Clifton Park, Wedding Venues Saratoga NY

May 17th, 2012 by

When planning your wedding you will see initial services with a variety of price points for florists, DJ’s and wedding bands, and caterers, unique entertainment, venues and/or destinations.
We think it is important to decide on the venue early on in the wedding decision process.

A venue has the power. The venue has the power to capture a special moment in time and enable it to be shared with a large group of friends and family. Finding the proper venue stems from the style of wedding you are seeking, from rustic to refined getting married outside under the blue sky can be a magical experience.  Choose Liberty Ridge Farm to host the reception and enjoy the benefits of getting married and celebrating your reception in the same location.  Once you have narrowed your choices to a handful, visit each venue in person to get a better feel for their style and type of service they provide. As you visit the site can see how well kept the location is and see the decor, service level and style to ensure it meets the level of your expectations

Dont be afraid to ask! Ask for samples of their work whenever possible, Ask for photographs, Ask for a taste at the bakeries and always ask for references, you will find they are more than happy to share these with you. Ask the event planning staff for any tips and referral contacts


Considering to hire a professional – Some locations offer wedding planning services, so before you hire a professional check with the wedding destination.  A wedding planner can be a godsend that is there to assist you in selecting vendors and planning the little details. In planning a wedding or large event this person can be a lifesaver or better yet a wedding day stress saver. The Liberty Ridge Farm event planning staff help with venue choices, catering options and even entertainment ad-ons.  Working with the event planners at Liberty Ridge Farm will ensure you provide a one of a kind experience to all the guests with out the stress of planning each detail yourself.they can share with you. If you are looking to have your reception at their location or another, there is a network of professionals that can assist in helping you find the perfect banquet room or a unique venue destination.  Don’t forget to ask friends opinion, check online reviews and look at the venues facebook page, these are great indicators of quality, expectations of service and level of trust.

 

These ideas for wedding reception success are just a few of the hundreds of ways one can reduce your stress in planning such a large project. Looking at wedding locations early on in the planning process will help with every part of the wedding planning process. Selecting a theme for your wedding, selecting the right space, and hiring the best vendors, can be done in one place indoors or outside under the open sky, Liberty Ridge Farm will be able to show your guests a farmtastic time.

Find out how you can have the most exciting, destination wedding ever, Vist the farm today to begin a wedding plan with us, from blue jeans to bow ties we have great venues and ideas for wedding reception success.

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Wedding flowers and their meanings Part 1

February 23rd, 2012 by

Do you know that most flowers, if not all, have a specific meaning?  That’s right, the flowers that you pick to decorate and create bouquets for your special day will not only ohh and ahh people but will speak to them as well.   Most flowers have a specific meaning or significance that has been passed down through generations.   Flower meanings can be traced back to the Victorian Era, where in those days it was considered improper of a man to say how he felt to a woman, so they would usually choose a flower with a special meaning and send it to their lady instead to let them know their feelings.  Back in that era, the meanings of flowers were so well known that the woman who received the flower would know exactly what feeling the man was trying to tell them, as clearly as if they were spoken words.

Although many in today’s era don’t know the meaning of flowers, it is still important on a day such as your wedding day that you pick flowers that you not only like, but will place a special emphasis on how you feel on that special day.  Flowers help to set the mood for your wedding.  Knowing that, before you select your flowers we believe that it is important to understand the meaning of flowers so that you can determine the type of wedding and reception event that you would like to have.  Once you do that, selecting the flowers that will say what you mean will be a breeze!

To help you out we have compiled a list of the Top 10 most popular flowers for weddings and their meanings.  This post will talk about the first 5 flowers in the Top 10 and in Wedding Flowers and their meanings Part 2 we will round out the Top 10.  In subsequent posts we plan to bring you the most popular flowers by seasons to give brides more ideas for those Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer weddings!  We hope you enjoy!

Top 10 Most Popular Wedding Flowers Part 1-5

1. The Rose - has long been thought of as the star in wedding flowers.  It has long been considered a symbol of beauty and love.  Roses are available in solid colors and bicolored.  There are striped roses and tipped roses as well.  Not all roses are scented, although when thought of, people think of their luxurious fragrance.  There are 3 main types popular as wedding flowers: hybrid tea roses (those classic, uniformly shaped roses found in florist shopes), spray roses (these are roses that have 5-10 heads on each stem and look naturally garden grown), and garden roses (these are expensive, known as the old fashioned variety with open bushy heads and luxurious scents).   Depending on which colors you pick can have different meanings.  Bridal roses mean “happy love”.  Roses in a coral color mean “desire”, lavender – “enchantment”, pale pink – “modesty”, pink – “perfect happiness”, red & white mix – “unity”, white – “innocence and purity”, tea rose – “I will remember”, “always”.

2. Tulips - can be a nice meaningful wedding choice.  They represent “consuming love” and “happy years”.  Tulips can be grown in a variety of colors including white and cream, pink, yellow, peach, magenta, red and purple.  They are available much of the year.  The tulip is very versatile and can be used for elegant or casual wedding settings, table arrangements and even bouquets and boutonnieres.  There are three common kinds of tulips used in weddings – Dutch tulips (those found easily in floral shops), French Tulips (expensive but elegant, have long stems and large blooms), and parrot tulips (have ruffled, striped petals and very intense color).

3. Calla Lily – is a popular choice for weddings, whether elegant or casual.  The calla lily symbolizes “magnificent beauty” in the flower language.  The most popular color of calla lily in weddings is a creamy ivory but can come in colors such as yellow, orange, mauve and purple.  There are two types that are commonly available: a large bloom variety with a long, smooth stem which is suitable for tall arrangements and presentation style bouquets.  There is also the miniature variety that are ideal for nosegays and boutonnieres.

4. Lily of the Valley - has bell shaped florets that dangle from a thin stem with a very distinctive fresh perfumed scent.    The Lily of  Valley means “sweetness” or “humility”, and is sometimes thought to be the tears of the Virgin Mary, also thought to mean the “return to happiness”.  These flowers are found most often in the month of May and are usually very expensive.  They do not do well with heat and are sensitive to handling and dehydration.  Not a good choice for boutonnieres or corsages.  Better used in bouquets in small amounts.  Comes mostly in white but there is a rare rosy pink variety.

5. Hydrangeas – with big bushy heads and vibrant shades of green,pink, blue, purple and burgundy it is no wonder why the hydrangea symbolizes “vanity” in the Victorian language of flowers, other meanings are frigidity and heartlessness.  Hydrangeas have a wide variation in price and quality.  Hydrangeas are in season during the summer, bought out of season the flower can be undersized and lower in quality for a much higher price tag.  A stem or two of this usually moderately priced, scentless shrub flower helps fill out arrangements and bouquets.  A few springs can make a charming boutonniere.

There are your top 5 most popular wedding flowers! Check back soon for Part 2!

 

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Wedding Traditions

February 13th, 2012 by

When wedding plans are being made we wonder if anyone gives much thought to wedding traditions? Wedding traditions are the things that we have come to expect in the course of a normal everyday wedding but do we know where they originated from, why we continue with them to this day, should we think about changing them to represent ourselves in our own ceremonies?  Virtually every wedding tradition that we know, from the engagement to the honeymoon, is steeped in a rich and vast history.  A person’s culture, religious beliefs and even traditions passed down from our ancestors goes into shaping marriages and has for hundreds if not thousands of years.  The wedding itself is one of life’s unchanged rites, a primitive tradition in which nearly all the traditions we observe today are merely echoes of the past.

Just about every tradition we think of from the wedding veil and dress, throwing of rice, flowers, something old/something new, to bridesmaids and processionals, at one time had very specific and vitally significant meanings.  Although nowadays the original meanings are often lost, we still incorporate these old world customs into weddings because they are traditional and ritualistic.  As we have been helping some brides to be plan their weddings here at Liberty Ridge and of course talking about many of the traditional things involved in weddings we thought it might be of some interest and fun to explore and give a little background on wedding traditions.

The tradition of wedding flowers

Before the creation of the bountiful and beautiful wedding bouquets of today’s times, brides of long ago often carried bunches of aromatic garlic, herbs and grains to war off evil spirits as the walked down the aisle.  Over time the use of fresh flowers began to take the place of those bunches, symbolizing fertility and everlasting love.  There are specific flowers that have special meaning in many cultures, for example, in Hawaii the bride and groom wear leis and newlyweds in India wear floral headdresses.

The wedding dress

In biblical days, wedding attire was blue, not white, which represented purity.  The bride and groom would wear a blue band around the bottom of their wedding attire, which is where the “something blue” tradition came from. The white wedding dress is believed to originate from the Greeks, they used white robes to symbolize youth, joy and purity.  White wedding dresses did fall out of wedding fashion though again and was resurrected around 1499 by Anne of Brittany, who it is believed made popular again to symbolize the brides virginity.

Wedding Rings

Back in the times when life was much harder and shorter for people, husbands would often practice a superstitious ritual to ensure their wives’ spirits wouldn’t leave them too soon.  They would wrap a bride’s ankles and wrists with ropes of grass in the belief that it would keep her spirit within her.  As religious beliefs evolved over the years, the meaning of the bonds evolved as well along with the material used for the bonds.  Today, the ring finger is the only thing that is “bound” by grooms.  Grass bonds gave way to leather, then stone, then metal, and finally to what we use today – gold and silver.  Today, wedding rings symbolize the love and bond between a husband and wife.

These are just a few of the wedding traditions that are used commonly and the backgrounds behind them.  There are so many, we could only touch on a few in this post.  Once given a little thought as to wedding traditions and the evolution of them we decided why not make another tip suggestion for our blog readers following up on the tips we have been giving to make your day the day of your dreams.  So….

Tip #5

Create a new wedding tradition.

With all the traditional wedding activities and traditions that happen at weddings we thought maybe it is time for people to start adding their own touch to those traditions.  I recently was talking to woman I know who attended her granddaughter’s very glamorous wedding in Washington, D.C. this past fall.  There were a few new spins her granddaughter took with certain traditions that she thought were different but wonderful.  She was certainly proud that in all the planning they were doing for the wedding that her granddaughter found ways to make the traditional wedding a little different in ways the attendees would never forget.  For example, the matron of honor was not the usual best friend or former college roommate but the bride’s brother, whom she has had a very close relationship with their entire lives.  The fact that the bride picked her brother for the person to stand up for her was bucking all the traditional thoughts of the “matron of honor” role but anyone who knew this brother and sister said they couldn’t imagine them doing it any different.  She also put a spin on the traditional brides bouquet tossing, instead of tossing the bridal bouquet to all the single ladies in the room she had all the married ladies stand up and then sit down when the emcee called the number of years the ladies were married for.  The last woman standing was the one who had been married the longest and hence was the winner of the bouquet, the bride said she did it to celebrate the same everlasting love she would have with her husband, the same was done for the garter.  The last thing that she mentioned that we thought was a little different was host a breakfast for family the morning following the wedding.  She said it was so nice to have a more relaxed atmosphere to celebrate the happy couple and mingle with family the morning after the wedding before everyone was on their way back home since many came from afar.

We hope this helps to give you soon to be brides some different ideas about wedding tradition and will help when planning your own weddings here on the farm!

 

 

 

 

 

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