Maritime Parc | Elegance on the Hudson

“What is your priority as a couple?” asks Jette Starniri, VP of operations at Maritime Parc. “It can be very difficult when you have so many suggestions from social media, your family and friends, and your religious or cultural traditions and you’re trying to combine them all. It’s really important to instead focus on what you want to express as a couple to your friends and families.”

Choosing Your Menu

To create weddings that present what is most important to their wedding couples, Jette and her team first help them create their menu. “A lot of our guests come to us because of our views, but mainly they come for our food and service, which is over the top outstanding. That’s where we like to start. We can find out a lot about our couples through their food and beverage choices.

“We had a bride and groom last weekend with roots from Italy. They had a lot of family coming into town to celebrate and wanted to show off their city style, which was very modern. We created a gorgeous, metallic, hand-painted cake for them. They picked gold flatware and rented gold chairs to complete the modern look they wanted. They also wanted to have a very Italian menu, but on the modern side, so we created a custom menu for them. They had a beautiful Tuscan table for cocktails and a five-course seated dinner, which is unusual, but their family was looking forward to sitting down and eating all together.

“They also wanted something really fun for their younger friends from the city, but which would also complement their Italian side, so we made an Amaro liqueur station with 10 to 12 Italian cordials they could try, with lemon and orange twists and biscotti to dip or eat with them. It was fun for us too. We love to create different stations for our new clients.

“Over the holidays, it’s great when couples and guests are celebrating the season they’re getting married in. This winter, one couple did a white winter wedding. They wanted a peppermint station, so we had all different types of peppermint; candies, marshmallows, and cakes. It was great.”

Jette tells us many families come to Maritime Parc looking for a Viennese table, for example, or a long 50-foot table of desserts. “But that’s not really what we do,” she tells us. “So I might say, ‘Maybe it’s not the table we should focus on, maybe it’s your favorite dessert.’ If it’s pie, for example, we’ll create different kinds of pies, including mini pies, and try to gear the experience toward the couple. We prefer to offer quality over quantity.”

Recently they’ve been hosting very large parties, up to 500. “We do seated dinners for 500, but having a dance floor for a group that large becomes more complicated. If they want that many people, maybe they are better off scaling back seating and dinner tables and instead having a cocktail style reception with cocktail tables and food available throughout the night, both at stations and  passed among their guests.”

Décor: New & Traditional

Open for nine years, with two floors of event space and a restaurant, Maritime Parc’s space is all white. “It’s sort of a blank canvas for our wedding couples. In a white space like ours, bright colors and a lot of greenery work very well. We’ve had a lot of fun with the new retro, tropical theme. Our airy, breezy, terraces wrap around the room and go well with this theme, which uses a lot of palm trees.

“We’ve also been seeing a lot of people using circular wreaths which hang from the ceiling. It’s very unique and this is the first time we’re seeing this trend.

“It’s been fun over the last few years to see a trend toward couples wanting to keep their guests entertained. We’ve been seeing all types of performances.

“We recently had a beautiful Indian wedding with eight dancers who came to perform for their guests. It was about 20 minutes of dancing, and it was beautiful. It’s a great way to tie their traditions in. That culture really focuses on family and their traditions, and it’s reflected in how they style each party.”

One couple who really loved the outdoors created a log cabin for cocktails. “It was gorgeous. They brought in all lodge furniture and we had s’mores stations for them. Everything had to be indoors because it was freezing, but it was very unique and we had big blankets everywhere.”

Full Service

Jette and the Maritime Parc team try to do everything in house, providing all needed tables, chairs, linens, and china. “We also have an event planning team on-site that plans every aspect of your event. We have maître d’s who, before your wedding day, get handed all the details and walk you through everything. We take care of you from beginning to end. We want you to feel your wedding is unique and uniquely important to us.

“If you have a favorite drink, say it’s a bloody mary, we’ll have a bloody mary station for you. We want to make sure you’re presenting to your guests who you are as a couple.”

Wonderful Couples

Jette got into the business when she was in college, in Seattle. “I was doing catering part time. I got into, and even now, I love being  in this business because every day is a different challenge. Trends are always changing and I get to meet wonderful couples. I wouldn’t change a thing!”

Jette tells us that what’s most exciting is the challenge of  meeting so many different families and creating weddings that incorporate their unique culture and wedding traditions.

“Because of where we are located, we see people from all over the world, like some of our recent couples, who are planning their wedding from Asia and Italy. They’re coming here to celebrate because they want a destination wedding, and that’s been fun.“The months, sometimes even years, of planning these events takes a great deal of teamwork. It’s not just one person.“It’s a huge team of coordinators, maître d’s, operations, the kitchen, and everyone has to work together to make everything happen. I think that’s very special. You need a strong team to be able to pull that off.”

Maritime Parc 84 Audrey Zapp Drive, Jersey City, NJ 07305
201.413.0050, [email protected], www.maritimeparc.com