Wows and vows

t took Laura Schriver 11 years to persuade the previous owner of her house to sell it. And, once she and her husband, Eugene Schriver III, finally purchased the Huntingdon Valley home in 2000, they spent several more years lovingly restoring and expanding it to its current 12,000 square feet.

Yet the proudest day in the long and storied life of this centuries-old stone colonial was the wedding of the Schrivers' daughter, Victoria, to Jamie Luteman."To invite people to your home for a wedding is very fulfilling," Laura says. "It fills you with pride to know that your daughter wants to get married in your house."

Yet the deteriorating house, documented on county maps as early as 1752, needed a little work.

When they purchased it, "Everything was overgrown and the walls were caving in. It was like a spookhouse. But I loved it, because I always saw the vision of what it could be," says Laura.

In addition to restoring the house and rewiring it with high-tech upgrades like geothermal heat, a music system, and skylights that automatically close if it rains, they expanded the home's footprint.

The additions sprang up in two directions, forming a wing with a great room, two bedrooms (bringing the total to seven), and two bathrooms, and, on the other side, a spacious master bath, a porch, and a sunroom. They also added a three-car garage, although Gene's car collection is housed in nine stalls in the barn.

The new wings were planned with sympathetic rooflines so as not to overwhelm the original core of the house, says Rene Hoffman of R.A. Hoffman Architects in Paoli. He also had to work around protected historic elements, such as original stone sluices once used for drainage. He incorporated old external stone walls into the internal structure, and redirected the flow of traffic through the house, designing breezy hallways so people didn't have to pass through one room to get to another.

The one running alongside the dining room and kitchen is lined on one side with old exterior stone, and on the other with sunny French doors.

Outdoors, the Schrivers redesigned the 14-acre grounds, including patios, manicured lawns, a pond, and woods, for frequent entertaining. They carved terraces into the hillside for cocktail parties.

All that forethought proved useful when daughter Victoria, a fashion designer, decided on a backyard wedding in June 2007.

"It was pretty close to exactly what we wanted," Victoria said.

On the wedding day, 200 guests were led through the rose garden, where in the courtyard Victoria's and Jamie's initials were spelled out in white rose petals. Guests were offered glasses of wine, champagne or a signature watermelon mojito at a cocktail reception on the several patio areas surrounding the house.

Later, guests followed stone staircases - or caught a ride in a golf cart - down the hillside to the tent, the heart of the party, lit by crystal chandeliers. In addition to the long trestle tables, Victoria designed five living-room areas within the tent, complete with outdoor carpets and sofas.

She also utilized features of the landscape, hanging paper lanterns from tree branches and arranging lounge chairs and an oversize ottoman by the pond. Even the portable restrooms were downright "regal," according to Laura, who booked a trailer with marble bathrooms.

To accommodate the cocktail reception and seated dinner, Callahan Catering constructed two commercial kitchens, one in the carriage house to churn out mini-cheeseburgers, cones of frites, and pigs in a blanket, and a second in the barn for the formal dinner.

After the wedding band finished its set, a DJ took over - for about 20 minutes, until the police came. "Apparently they could hear it over a mile away," sighed Victoria.. I