Couples Who Booked Weddings at Waveny House Say Late Notice of Scaffolding Project Has Left Them Scrambling

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Couples who booked their weddings at Waveny House for 2027 say they were caught off guard this summer when the town informed them that the historic mansion will be covered in scaffolding during an exterior masonry restoration project scheduled to run from April through December of next year, leaving them scrambling to decide whether to upend months of wedding planning or proceed with construction surrounding their ceremony.

The town sent letters to affected couples in June signed by the head of Parks & Recreation, telling them the facility would remain open and available for scheduled events, but that “there may be scaffolding and construction activity present on portions of the exterior of the building” during their event date. The letter offered couples a full refund if they cancel in writing by Aug. 15.

Couples say the deadline is arriving too soon.

Megan DiMattio, a Darien resident whose wedding is scheduled for June 5, 2027, said she and her fiancé booked Waveny in July 2025, and that choosing the venue was deeply personal.

“My grandmother was hospitalized at a facility close by, and I would always visit her and then stroll around Waveny,” DiMattio said. “It always reminds me of her. After she passed, my fiancé and I started coming to the park whenever we were in town to bring the dogs and enjoy the scenery. It became a very sentimental location for us.”

DiMattio said she and her fiancé extended their engagement by a full year when they learned no 2026 dates were available, specifically in order to secure Waveny.

When the couple received the town’s first letter in June 2026, DiMattio said it was vague. A clearer second letter arrived in July, but she said it created more alarm than reassurance.

“It depicted the entire house covered in scaffolding, with incorrect dates—starting April 2026 instead of April 2027—listed, and misspellings galore,” DiMattio said.

On contacting Parks and Rec, she said, “we were met with further misinformation and moving around of dates,” stating the work actually will begin in March, “as well as a general insensitivity or any flexibility around our cause.”

The town’s “biggest piece of advice was suggesting telling our photographer to use artificial intelligence to remove the scaffolding from the photos,” DiMattio said.

“We were dumbfounded by the general lack of information around this project, let alone the complete lack of integrity around the contracts that were signed years in advance,” she said.

Asked about the work planned for Waveny House, Public Works Director Tiger Mann said it’s the second phase of a project that started in 2025 (costing nearly $2 million total) and involves the “installation of through wall flashing at all sky facing copping stones and various repairs at other areas of known water infiltration.”

“The work is needed to stop the water infiltration into the building and or manage water / moisture that naturally enters traditional masonry buildings,” he said in an email. “Buildings of this construction type are designed to absorb some moisture and then dry out. Water is the biggest long term threat to masonry structures. This work is being done to preserve Waveny House, the ‘Crown Jewel of New Canaan,’ for future generations.”

The work is expected to run April to December of 2027, Mann said, with crews on site 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Fridays, he said.

“The scaffolding will be a permanent fixture for the entire duration of the project regardless of whether crews are working on the site or not,” Mann said.

He confirmed that the town sent a letter mid-June for booked events and said the mid-July letter included a diagram showing where the scaffolding would be.

DiMattio was critical of the town’s overall handling of the situation, saying her experience “has been completely inconsiderate, unprofessional, and utterly unhelpful.”

“It took us two full days to finally get someone on the phone after receiving the letter,” she said, and when they finally did, “there were no clear answers to any of our questions.”

“There was no sense of wanting to help our cause or come to some kind of middle ground,” DiMattio said. “We have already invested a significant amount of time, money, and emotion into our event at Waveny. This struggle has been met by the town with a sort of shrug and ‘figure it out’ mentality.”

Waveny House has already presented challenges for weddings held this year, as a widely anticipated elevator installation project—originally projected to wrap up in April—has stretched out through the summer.

DiMattio said the scaffolding is expected to go up in places that were central to wedding plans. 

“Without sounding entirely dramatic, the entire experience on all fronts will be ruined with the scaffolding up,” she said. “We had planned for the ceremony to be held in the side garden, within where the scaffolding will be present, and the cocktail hour/reception to be held on the back terrace, which will be completely inundated by scaffolding. We were promised the entire use of the full premises of the property, including the side garden. With the scaffolding present, the only usable part of the house is indoors.”

In the year since booking, the couple has already printed their invitation suite, booked a photographer, catering, a band and florists, and arranged a hotel room block in Stamford for out-of-town guests. DiMattio said she also believes the couple had a verbal assurance from the then-wedding coordinator at Waveny House, who has since left her position, that no construction would be present on the property on their date.

The town “actually informed us of the elevator construction that I understand is taking place now,” DiMattio said. 

“We were reassured that since we were booking so far out in advance, that all of that construction would be completed prior to our day,” she said.

Cameron Busch, another bride-to-be affected by the project whose wedding is scheduled for Sept. 12, 2027 at Waveny House, said she learned about the scaffolding roughly five weeks ago.

“We were devastated,” Busch said. “We toured Waveny House and completely fell in love with the venue, so all of a sudden finding out it would be under construction was devastating.”

Busch said she has had difficulty reaching Parks & Rec and found town officials non-responsive and “emotionless” when she did connect. She said she reached out to 10 or 12 other venues after learning of the scaffolding and that several did not have her date available. She said she plans to cancel but called the Aug. 15 deadline unrealistic.

Busch said she even asked the town whether it could add vines or other decorative elements to the scaffolding to soften its appearance, and was told she could not.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty,” she said. “Since we don’t know what venue we’ll be using, there are definitely vendors we might not be able to keep, and I don’t know if we’ll be able to get those deposits back.”

Asked whether she felt the town had been transparent, Busch was direct. “Absolutely not,” she said.

The Board of Selectmen approved a contract in early July for G.L. Capasso Inc. to perform masonry repairs at Waveny House in the amount of $189,488, plus a $20,000 contingency. The project is scheduled to run from July through Thanksgiving.

The town’s presentation to couples included AI-generated images of what the front facade and rear patio of Waveny House would look like with scaffolding on all sides.

DiMattio’s message to other couples considering Waveny was unambiguous.

“I would tell other couples to avoid this property at all costs,” she said. “We have not heard any word from them outside of our initial booking apart from this devastating news that they just dropped on us with no solution offered other than canceling. Why is this project scheduled now when there are binding contracts? None of this is logical to us.”