A Romantic and Elegant Wedding at Oheka Castle in Huntington, New York

Renata Kutsyk met Taylor Russo in February of 2012, when she and her friends were visiting Belleayre Mountain in the Catskills for an impromptu snowboarding trip. Despite having no experience or interest in snowboarding, Renata’s friends from pharmacy school persuaded her to join them. Taylor, an “impressively good snowboarder,” also came along with a mutual friend.

“I first really noticed Taylor once we got to the mountain and he put on his neon green snowboarding gear,” Renata recalls. “He then proceeded to woo me with his boarding skills and we discovered our mutual obsession with electronic music. It was pretty smooth sailing from there.”

“I first noticed Renata at the rest stop on the drive to the mountain,” says Taylor. “I asked my friend Vinny about his ‘cute blonde friend’ from school. After he introduced me to her, my objective for the day quickly changed from boarding to hanging out with her. Since it was her first time on a board, I did my best to help teach her while also impressing her just a bit with my moves.”

Four and a half years later, Taylor proposed on his boat while the sun was setting in the Adirondacks. “We spent the next few hours just smiling and soaking in the overwhelming happiness of the moment,” Renata describes. “Shortly after that, we told our friends and family, and we immediately started hearing, ‘When and where is the wedding?’ And on that note, we began the planning process with no time to spare.”

Taylor wanted to get married relatively soon, so the couple decided on an October wedding at Oheka Castle in New York. “I remember walking out of there with Taylor and my parents; and for the first time in weeks, everyone was actually calm and happy,” says Renata. “We all knew that it was the perfect location and booked it the same day. The rest of the planning process (about a year) is mostly an anxious blur to me now, but boy would I love to do it all again! The thrill and excitement of planning a large wedding and having your entire family come together from all over the world is like nothing I’ve ever experienced.”

When the day arrived, the bride remembers being overwhelmed with emotion from the moment she woke. That feeling lasted throughout the celebration, until the end of the night. “The wedding was everything I’d hoped it would be,” she reflects. “It was romantic and elegant and personal and warm.”

For their honeymoon, the newlyweds chose New Zealand as their first stop, followed by some much needed relaxation in Fiji. “We honeymooned for about two weeks,” Renata shares. “Taylor and I both agreed our favorite part was without a doubt Queenstown, New Zealand. The entire town looked like a movie backdrop with a crystal blue lake enveloped by ‘the Remarkables’ – an incredible mountain range.”