Nor'easter Nearly Ruined Their Wedding. Newlyweds Married At Life Time Gym

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — All last week, Grace Sepe and Francisco Weisser Vasquez kept watching the weather.

The couple are engaged and live together in Highlands. Months ago, they set a wedding date of Saturday, Sept. 26 and the wedding was to be held at Cruz Golf and Country Club in Farmingdale. Approximately 75 guests were flying in from around the world, including from as far away as Australia, Brazil and Canada.

But, as usual, Mother Nature had her own plans, as a very large, very slow-moving nor'easter started churning.

"I wanted an outdoor Tuscan-style wedding on the grounds of the country club and we were going to have it under a tent," said Sepe, 59. "So we keep watching the weather reports and we're starting to see well, that's not gonna happen. On Friday, the day before the wedding, the tent rental company called me and said they were not going to give me a tent. They said we just saw the news; the winds are over 40 MPH and they do not feel it's safe to have a tent. I said, 'You cannot do that to me. I am getting married tomorrow.'"

Sepe, who works as a professional chef, and her fiance, Vasquez, 48, who owns his own construction company, started thinking fast.

"Cruz Country Club was amazing; I cannot stress this enough. They did everything in their power to help me," said Sepe. "They have a garage where they store all their golf carts and they moved all the golf carts out and powerwashed inside the garage. But then it just started raining too hard."

"Our guests would have gotten soaked. Or, we could have held it in their banquet hall, which can only seat 45 people max. We had 75. We spent all Friday night arranging tables and trying to make it fit. Also, the country club was not going to provide the food. I had arranged to have Brazilian BBQ, homemade mozzarella and coal-oven pizza, all cooked outdoors by different companies. How were these guys gonna do all that in the pouring rain?"

By Saturday morning, Sepe still wasn't sure how she would fit everyone into the tiny banquet hall or how the food would be prepared. Also Saturday morning, her fiance, who had returned to their Highlands home with his mother and brother, who had just flown in from Brazil, called her. Their basement was flooded; their entire street was flooded and the water was up to their car doors. The groom and his mother could not leave the house.

"I am now hysterical. I was ready to cancel the wedding," said Sepe. "I was in tears. I had had enough and I was exhausted. I was fighting the storm, and every time I tried to think of a solution, I was stonewalled. I started canceling everything. I figured we could get married another day."

Sepe works at the Life Time Middletown-Red Bank on Half Mile Road. She bakes all the bakery goods in their cafe. Life Time is a high-end gym/club where members can exercise, use their sauna and steam rooms, enjoy the outdoor pools in the summer and it has a cafe and bar.

She had hired some of her Life Time co-workers to work at the wedding. Sepe called one of them, LifeTime Pilates instructor Karen Hennessy, and told her the wedding was canceled.

"She told me, 'Grace, we don't want this to happen to you. This wedding is going to happen and it's going to happen at Life Time. We're going to have this wedding.'"

Within a few hours, the staff at the Middletown Life Time hustled to transform the facility into a wedding venue. General manager Alex Armiento directed his staff to make the gym's yoga studio into an altar.

The florist, Flowers Smiling Designs in Lakewood, delivered all the flowers to the gym in the pouring rain. The tent rental company, Party Corner in Red Bank, which had denied them the tent, dropped off all the chairs, tables, plates, chafing dishes and linens. An opera singer, violinist and piano player they had hired made the trip down from New York City and performed in the yoga studio. Marcos Brazilian BBQ in Long Branch came and set up a BBQ station.

The couple still had to wait for the flood waters to recede in Highlands so the groom, his mother and brother could leave. They then told all the guests to come to the athletic club.

"With the exception of about 15 people, our guests told us they wouldn't miss it for the world," she said.

The couple married in the yoga studio at 5:00 p.m. Saturday, and the party then moved down to the lounge for the reception dinner. Nearly all their guests were able to attend, despite the weather.

"It was a dinner party with live jazz. It was perfect. It was pouring outside, but Life Time is actually the perfect venue for a wedding," said Sepe. "They have a covered parking garage and you just walk in. It was the perfect place for everyone to feel safe in the storm."

This is the first time Life Time has ever hosted a wedding.

"This is the Life Time staff that made my wedding happen: general manage Alex Armiento, Pilates instructor and head bartender Karen Hennessy, cafe staff Chris Pica and Julianne Scott, cafe supervisor Kyla O’Hare, LifeTime's head chef Megan Gandolfo and Maria Arnao. Megan and Maria made all the appetizers for the cocktail hour," said Sepe. "These are the people who worked for hours on Saturday to re-create my vision and make my wedding happen. They all also stayed and watched our wedding, even though they have their own families back home riding out the storm. These are truly people who worked hard to create something for someone else. I can't thank them enough. I wanted to cry."

The Middletown Life Time when it first opened in 2024: Sneak Peek Tour Of Middletown Life Time Luxury Health Club (Feb. 2024)