Venue – Cowdray House

Why do you want to capture your wedding on video?
To be able to watch whenever we’d like, see all the moments we probably missed during the event, and to show people who weren’t able to attend the event but wanted to (most of our guests are travelling from overseas)

Why did you pick us to do your wedding videography?
We love your work!!

You guys? …What do you do?..How do you spend your days?..What’s important in life? etc etc
Adam owns a gold company (Advantage Gold) and I work there in their HR / recruitment department. We’re very proud of what we’ve built – we’re one of the top gold companies and the highest rated in the country (quite a feat given we’ve been in business 2 and a half years)
We play a lot of tennis, adore our two dogs, love going to the cinema / watching movies / tv series, etc. We constantly find ourselves laughing and enjoying each other’s company.
Adam works long hours (5am – 6pm Mon-Fri and 8am-4pm Sat) so Sunday’s are an important day for us to spend quality time together. We attend church and love to go for a long brunch afterwards, read the Sunday papers, go home and chill out with the dogs in the afternoon.
My days are a little more flexible as I mostly work part-time at the company – I find myself living the LA life of walking my dogs and working out every day. We love being healthy and strive to better ourselves every day.

The proposal? …Tell me everything (all the gushy details)
I actually would prefer to tell you about how we met as I think it really shows our character!
I was out for dinner with my cousin celebrating her last night of her holiday visiting me in LA. The restaurant has a bar area and as we were halfway through our meal, this huge group of people starting pouring in. Now, understand that the women here in LA are usually striving to be in the entertainment industry of some kind. They’re stunning, thin, etc etc. So my cousin (Jenna!) and I are sitting in this booth watching all this going on at which point I turn to her and say “There’s no way I can ever compete with the girls in this town!” Meanwhile, Adam has walked in with the group and his friend comments on the ‘talent’ in the room (!) and he points to me and says to his friend “that’s the most beautiful woman in this place”. While he’s doing that and looking at me, I meet eyes with him and tell Jenna “a guy is looking at me and smiling”, she responds “is he good looking?” I said yes and she replied “well smile back! You look like a deer in the headlights!”
We pay our bill and start heading out of the restaurant and as we near the exit I feel a tug on my arm and a voice saying “you can’t leave” and my exit is then blocked with a waiter holding a tray with two glasses of champagne. I turn to him and ask if they’re from him and he says yes! I look at Jenna and say, “he bought us champagne!” We start chatting and he asked what we’d eaten and if the food was good. I told him we’d had buratta to start and he exclaims “Baratta’s my last name!” I replied, yeah, good line and he said “no really, it’s my last name! If I prove to you it is, will you go on a date with me?” I replied “really, that’s your line?! Ok…” He shows me his driver’s licence and sure enough, his name is Baratta. Meanwhile, Jenna is trying to get my attention to tell me something but Adam says “ok, so I have to come clean – the champagne wasn’t from me, but you looked so excited when you asked if it was from me that I didn’t want to say no! I know some guy is in here giving me daggers because I took credit for his drinks!” I turn to Jenna and she tells me the champagne was from the waiter!
Adam then starts introducing me to his friends as “the woman he’s going to marry” (confident much?!) To which I exclaimed, “Marry?! You don’t even know my last name yet!” He replied “No, but I know what it’s going to be…BARATTA!”
We ended up joining their group and while in an Uber to our next location, one of his friends said “you’re English! The only thing I know that’s English is Elton John” After which, he puts “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” and we’re all belting the song out at the top of our lungs (poor uber driver!) and I turned and kissed Adam.
That was June 2014. I had pretty much moved in by end of July and he started Advantage Gold in August.
We love to travel and have gone on a few wonderful trips, most recently to South Africa for Christmas.
He proposed in Oct 2015 so it’s been a long engagement but time was need to plan it overseas and for our guests to get their travel / vacations coordinated.
We are SO excited about the wedding and everyone being there. Our families haven’t all met yet – my Step Mum has met most of Adam’s family as we flew out to Philadelphia (that’s where Adam is from and all his family live) and took 12 of them to see Adele as my Step Mum (J’Anna) was playing as part of her string section at the time. See below re why we picked venue for more info!

So, Cowdray House in West Sussex? … Why this place above anywhere else?
We wanted to pick somewhere quintessentially English and somewhere that we could book for 3 days – a descend and party type of event!
It’s good as it’s not too far from London and the two major airports. We booked all the available accommodation on site and the nearest hotel (Spread Eagle) so that everyone was taken care of from that perspective. A lot of people have either never left the US or visited the UK so it’s a major trip for a lot of people (I’ve had to do a lot of babysitting for travel itineraries!)
We’re so honoured that people are coming from so far to be there (US, Australia, Canada, South Africa, all over Europe) so we really wanted to have the three days to see everyone and for everyone to get to know each other. As mentioned before, our families (for the most part) haven’t met yet – it’s a 6 hour flight from LA to Philadelphia so quite a journey in itself! One thing is for sure – our guests will have a fab time!

What experience do you want to give to your guests?
Quintessentially English is the vibe. I can email you the moodboards our wedding planner did if that would be helpful. I’d also like to send you our invite as a description doesn’t do it justice and it’s very unique! I suppose what you should know is that Adam is from a big, loud, 3rd generation Italian family. He’s one of 5 and has 12 nieces and nephews (they’re all married with kids) Adam moved to LA to pursue acting, worked in that field for a while and then moved into producing. Following that, began in the gold industry. A big change but he went from selling himself and his entertainment projects to selling a commodity. He’s a fantastic story teller and is known among his friends as a great party host (we’ve hosted 3 70+ person parties this year with bartenders, photographers, catering etc) so we have some big expectations to meet for the wedding! We’ve picked a phenomenal band and are so excited about that element (The Kitts)
Our goal is to have all the regular wedding elements, but to have fun with it.
For example – we’re having a string quartet at the ceremony but they’ll play a mixture of classical pieces and contemporary songs. I’m hoping that our personality will come out in all the different elements of the day.
One thing that’s important for you to know is that my Mum died when I was 17. Her presence will be there for every part of the event but she will be very sorely missed and it’s an emotionally charged thing for me and my family. We’ll be honouring her and those who can’t be at the wedding through a candle lighting ceremony during the church ceremony, during which the quartet will play one of her favourite pieces. There will be lots of deep breaths, rescue remedy, and maybe a little whiskey to get through the emotions!! We’ll have a photo of her by the entrance which you’ll see when walking into Cowdray House. However, my dad, step mum, and brother are all very close and as we all now live here in LA it’s nice to be geographically close to each other. We’ve talked about this a lot and I think the balance of honouring her, and also respecting my step mum is there. We can talk more about this sort of info and detail if needed – I’m happy to have a call regarding anything that’s needed, we just need to work out the time difference!