Case study · Sherry & Jake · Lyndhurst Mansion, Tarrytown
Seventy-five guests,
and a magic show.
An intimate wedding on the south lawn at Lyndhurst — a Gothic Revival landmark above the Hudson. We lit the mansion's front facade, carried the ceremony and the dinner on sound you never had to think about, and produced a reception entrance that was a full magic performance.
Lyndhurst at dusk — the mansion above the Hudson, the ceremony structure and two long tables on the south lawn
Small room,
nowhere to hide.
Seventy-five guests is not a scaled-down wedding. It is a different job. At 300 people a speaker on a stick disappears into the crowd; at 75, on an open lawn, every stand, every cable and every fixture is in somebody's eyeline all night — and in every photograph.
The venue raises the bar again. Lyndhurst is a National Historic Landmark: Alexander Jackson Davis designed it in 1838, Jay Gould lived in it, and the National Trust holds it now. You do not drill into that. You do not lean on it. The whole package had to land on the lawn, do its work, and leave the building exactly as it was found.
Sherry and Jake also had one thing in the run of show that no standard wedding format covers — and it was the centerpiece of the night.
Facade uplighting
The mansion is the backdrop, so we lit it as one. Ground-placed LED fixtures washing the Gothic Revival stone, angled to pull out the arches, the tower and the porte-cochere rather than flatten them. LED runs cool and carries no UV, and nothing was fixed to the building — every fixture sat on the grass and left with us.
Ceremony sound
An open lawn gives you no walls to work with, so coverage gets built rather than borrowed. A distributed, speech-tuned system placed to reach the back row at a conversational level, discreet mics on the officiant and the couple, and a power plan with no cable crossing the aisle and nothing bulky in frame behind them.
Reception sound & lighting
Two long tables under chandeliers and candlelight. Our lighting job was to support that, not compete with it — warm, low, and matched to the candles, so the room stayed the colour it looked. Sound covering both tables evenly, loud enough to carry a toast from either end and quiet enough that seventy-five people could still talk.
The grand entrance — a magic show
Sherry and Jake entered the reception through a full magic performance. That is a show, not a playlist. We built it like one: a cue sheet agreed with the performer in advance, sound and lighting states rehearsed against the beats of the act, and an operator watching the performer rather than a timeline — so every reveal landed on the right cue instead of a second behind it.
Dinner for 75 at blue hour — lighting matched to candlelight rather than layered on top of it
Vows at golden hour — audible to the back row, invisible in the frame
The walk from ceremony to dinner, lit end to end
The facade — washed from the ground, nothing fixed to 1838 stone
The part a DJ
format can't hold.
The standard American wedding runs on a playlist and a microphone. It works, because almost every wedding asks the same things of it. A magic performance asks something else entirely: the audio has to hit on the performer's beat, the lighting has to change state on a reveal, and nobody in the room can see it coming.
So we stopped treating it as a reception moment and started treating it as a show. We sat with the performer before the day, built a cue sheet against the act, and rehearsed the transitions — the same way we would call a keynote or a stage set. On the night it was operated live, off the performer, not off a running order.
That is the difference between a vendor who plays your entrance music and a production team who can run your entrance. For a couple who had planned something genuinely unusual, it was the whole point.
Scope delivered
Event credits
Sherry & Jake · Lyndhurst Mansion, Tarrytown, New York · 75 guests. Audiovisual production, sound, lighting and facade uplighting by Eleven AV.
Lyndhurst is a National Historic Landmark and a site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Floral, décor and tabletop by others.
Clients and venues named as a record of work rather than endorsement.
Common questions
Do you produce weddings at Lyndhurst Mansion?
Yes — sound, lighting and facade uplighting for a 75-guest wedding on the south lawn. We handle venue coordination, load-in windows, power planning for a lawn event, and the certificate of insurance a National Trust property requires.
Is uplighting safe for a historic building?
When it's specified properly, yes. LED fixtures run cool and carry no UV, and ours sit weighted on the ground — nothing drilled, clamped or leaned against historic stone. The goal is a wash that reveals the architecture, not a colour effect sitting on top of it.
Can you support a magic show or other live performance?
Yes, and we'd rather run it properly than wing it. Cue sheet agreed with the performer in advance, sound and lighting states rehearsed to the beats of the act, and an operator watching the performer rather than a timeline. The same applies to cultural ceremony, live bands and anything else that doesn't fit a standard running order.
How do you handle sound for an outdoor ceremony?
An open lawn gives you nothing to work with acoustically, so coverage is built rather than borrowed: a distributed, speech-tuned system reaching the back row at a conversational level, discreet mics on the officiant and the couple, and a power plan with no cable across the aisle.
Do you take on small weddings?
Yes. A smaller count usually raises the standard rather than lowering it — at 75 guests everything is visible from every seat, so finish and discretion matter more, not less.
How quickly can we get a proposal?
Send the venue, the date and a draft timeline and you'll have a scoped, line-item proposal within three business days. We're licensed and insured, and issue a COI to your venue — typically within 24 hours of booking.
Request a proposal
Planning something that isn't a standard wedding?
Tell us the venue, the date, and the one thing in your timeline nobody else has figured out how to run. You'll have a scoped, line-item proposal within three business days.