INDUSTRIAL URBAN CHIC WEDDINGS

“Memorable experience,” “authentic personal theater,” “unique wedding story…” these are phrases that come to mind when thinking about and planning perhaps the most important public celebration of your life: your wedding. 

You want an event that reflects your own personal love story, and brings you and your guests a dramatic and memorable experience. The industrial chic wedding holds much to surprise and delight your guests— satin against exposed brick, delicate blooms backlit against vaulting windows, exposed timbers and industrial artifacts— providing backdrops for distinct memories and magazine-quality photos.

The industrial urban chic wedding creates an awe-inspiring stage for the delicateness of love. Think pristine white bouquets cuddling against distressed brick walls with patinaed windows, and you get a distinct picture that artists and filmmakers might seek to communicate vulnerability and depth of feeling. Add to this the sense of place that only the most dramatic repurposed historic industrial spaces can provide, and you’ve added another layer to your wedding story. The contrast of raw industrial space surrounding white lace, and diffuse light from factory windows framing bouquets and candlelight, create a compelling palette of muted hues and surprising scale shifts…from the tiniest sparkling tea light to the most massive exposed support timbers.

A truly iconic, mixed-use industrial space is the Art Factory, located in the historic district of the first planned American industrial city of Paterson, New Jersey. Known as the “Silk City” for its dominance in silk production during the nineteenth century, Paterson has links to artists such as William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg and Jim Jarmusch. Located down the street from the Falls and at the entrance to the newly designated Great Falls National Historic Park, Art Factory comprises over 400 thousand square feet of raw and semi-finished industrial space that is home to artists, photographers and filmmakers.

The Art Factory today extends the art lineage of Paterson Arts by hosting artists such as Willie Cole and Red Grooms, and providing backdrop for music videos for artists such as Run DMC, Alice in Chains, and Bon Jovi. Curations fill its 10,000 square foot spaces during the annual Paterson Art Walk, with an outdoor sculpture park greeting visitors of both the Park and the Art Factory’s own outdoor deck garden. Private artist studios and gallery spaces are linked by cobblestone courtyards to vaults built into the mountainside. Twenty-five foot mortar and brick elevations are punctuated by huge factory windows. Vast expanses of iron and wood columns brace between hardwood floors and 200-year old ceiling timbers. At the Art Factory, industrial American history meets contemporary art scene, meets iconic event space.