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Wedding Forums > The Brides' Review > My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Aman...
My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Aman...
leesah85 Posted: Jul 31, 2012 01:44 PM+
leesah85 MEMBER SINCE: 1/10 TOTAL POSTS : 14485 WEDDING DATE: Nov 04, 2011
Posted: Jul 31, 2012 01:44 PM bride-minus.png

My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Amanda Leigh, Bridal Reflections, Bridal Elegance, Angela's Hair Design, St. Anthony, Bridal Styles etc!


Hi Girls!!!!

PSA. A lot of this is out of order but unfortunately I don’t have the time or the energy to revamp it to make it organized. Also, I don’t have the time to add pics, but I have included a link below with like 300 pics from my wedding for you all to enjoy. Reviews were very helpful to me when I was planning so I just wanted to give back in some way. Wishing you all the best of luck in your planning! Feel free to FM me about ANY questions at all!

Lisa & Jason Wedding - November 4, 2011 - click me for pics!

Rating System –
A+ - above and beyond – blew me away!
A – did a great job, what they were supposed to do and then some
A- – did what they were supposed to do and nothing more
B+ – did a good job, but there were some quirks
B – good job, pretty quirky, nothing to write home about
B-– good job, but some major quirks
C+ – satisfactory, got the job done, but not without issues that went unresolved
C – general disappointment
C- – general disappointment and complaint filed
D – would not recommend using
F – stay far away

liweddings.com – A+
What a great tool for brides to be. I want to thank every one of you ladies for everything, for the relationships I have made over my 23 month long engagement, and all that you have helped me with. I accidently stumbled upon this site one day when I was newly engaged by Googling “weddings & long island” and it was the best thing that could have ever happened for this wedding (and to me), but definitely not my budget. I definitely would have spent less money without this site, but my wedding definitely would not have been nearly as much fun and wonderful. For that, I thank you all for your support throughout the whole process.

DH – A+
My DH was extremely patient with me throughout our nearly 23 month engagement. He had to learn A LOT along the way. Throughout our engagement, people were CONSTANTLY buying things for me that were “cute” – like “100 days till your wedding” calendars or engagement ring shaped keychains, etc. For our “negative one year anniversary” DH and I went to Mac’s Steakhouse in Huntington and I presented him with a book just as a little “token” gift. The book was called “Groomology: What Every (Smart) Groom Needs to Know Before the Wedding” by Michael Essany. Honestly, DH read it cover to cover and I think it really helped him understand the wedding planning process. In hindsight, I probably should have read it before I gave it to him

General Advice (No Rating Needed Here!)
Pick a color scheme and stick with it. I changed mine about 6 months into planning and it was terribly difficult to undue! Don’t let anyone take away from your “vision.” If there is something you want to do, then do it. It’s your day and you only get to do it once. Don’t sweat the small stuff in the few days before your wedding. Things will inevitably NOT be perfect. Just roll with it.

Engagement Ring (Empire Diamonds, NYC) – A+
www.dialadiamond.com, 350 Fifth Avenue, #7619, New York, New York 10118, (212) 564-4777
DH had gotten a recommendation about this place from one of the guys in his office – he worked with them and he found the perfect ring for me. I had no idea I was getting engaged but since we’ve been together since we were 18, he sort of caught on to all the hints I dropped over the years. I wanted something timeless, preferably princess cut and if there are side stones, absolutely no baguette diamonds. Within a couple of weeks, one of the small stones fell out of the setting. DH contacted Empire Diamonds and they immediately directed me to someone who could repair my ring on the spot in the Diamond District. I headed over there, it was a little shady because it was like a 6’x6’ office with a desk and a workbench, but the guy replaced the small stone in my ring and you can’t even tell it was ever missing.

Engagement Night Cake (The Bakery, Albertson, NY) – A+
1014 Willis Avenue, Albertson, NY 11507-1331, (516) 625-0133
My mom and MIL were in on the engagement so they had planned to have cake and champagne ready for the night of our engagement just minutes after it happened. Our cake was BEAUTIFUL! The cakes here are DELICIOUS! And plus, I have a dairy allergy and they were able to accommodate my dietary needs because they are a Kosher bakery as well. Highly recommended!

Engagement Announcements (CVS.com) – B+
Two days after I got engaged (12/26/09), I was so excited to tell the world that I uploaded one of the photos from our engagement night to CVS.com and had engagement announcements printed. Usually I order photos from Walgreens.com when I want to print photos, but they didn’t have any nice engagement announcement backgrounds. I didn’t love the way that they came out. They were much darker than they had appeared on the screen and the text was printed off-center. They weren’t too expensive (I got 50 of them for $30), but I wasn’t thrilled with them.

Engagement Party Invites (Dollar Tree in Commack and my printer) – A
http://www.dollartree.com
We decided we wanted to have a somewhat low-key engagement party since our parents were paying for it so I didn’t care too much about invitations. We had 60 invitations sitting in our closet left over from a previous party, ready to be printed. I think they came out great, and they didn’t cost me a penny (other than shipping, of course).

Engagement Party Favors, Decorations, Card Box, Sign Board. Bridesmaid Totes, Mother/Grandmother Hankies, Wedding Day Socks for the Dads, “Just Married” Flip Flops - A
http://www.Orientaltrading.com
My mom ordered a bunch of things from orientaltrading.com for me so I could give them out at my e-party. We made huge red velvet cupcakes and put them in cute boxes as favors for our e-party. No complaints – got free shipping. Oh happy day

Engagement Party Cake (A&G Bakery, Huntington, NY – NOW CLOSED) – A+
http://www.agbakeshop.com/
This cake was basically a two-tier wedding cake. FH and I have an ongoing joke about ducks so MIL bought us ducks when we got engaged and we used them as our cake topper for our engagement party. Tasted amazing and I’m allergic to everything so they were able to accommodate my dietary needs. No complaints – we use this bakery all the time, for just about everything. Unfortunately they closed their Huntington location on 12/31/10. They have another location in North Babylon.

Dao Restaurant – Engagement Party (Centerport, NY - booked with Larry and Shirley – NOW CLOSED) – B+
http://daorestaurant.com
My grandmother had a connection at this restaurant (one of her friends was a part owner). Food was excellent. Private party space was good and perfect for the type of event I was going for. We had it on a Sunday night so we basically had the restaurant to ourselves. It wound up being a cold snowy and rainy night so we had some last minute cancellations but everyone that wanted to be there was there. I gave them an A- because it seemed as if they had never had a party there before. They were a little short-staffed and we basically had to tell them any time we wanted water refills, other drinks, or the next course to come out. All in all, no big complaints – we booked for 3 hours and were there for 5 and no one said a word. Their prices have since tripled as I they were under new ownership. However, now they are closed.

St. Anthony of Padua (Father Frank Grieco / Father James Calledo), East Northport (Not going to rate a church)
http://www.saintanthonyofpadua.org , East Northport, NY 11731
I’m not going to rate a church. Father Grieco was great to work with from the beginning. I had to change the time of my ceremony, and it was done easily. We decided to change our priest about a year before our wedding because we had grown much closer to Father Calledo and he was Filipino like my DH's family. I called Father Grieco to explain all of this and he was totally fine with allowing Father James to do the ceremony instead. We met with Father James a couple of times before the ceremony to help him prep for our ceremony. My only complaints are that the rehearsal was a little bit disorganized. They have two people who volunteer their time at the church run the rehearsals and they weren't happy that I wanted to change some aspects of the procession (e.g. having the flower girls go down first instead of last, etc.). Other than that, the day of everything went smoothly. The homily wasn't nearly as personalized as I thought it would be given our relationship with Father James, but there was no controlling that. Also, they didn't remove the flowers from the altar from the wedding earlier in the day, so there were flowers that didn't fit my color scheme up on the altar next to the ones I paid for. Not a huge deal, but just the little minor things only the Bride notices

Pre Cana – through St. Anthony of Padua in East Northport (January – March 2010) – A+
The lead couple was very welcoming and accommodating in their home. I really loved Pre Cana and I wish we would have been able to do it twice! It gave us a lot of time to learn about each other.

Crest Hollow Country Club (Sharon – banquet manager originally. Transferred to Helen. Then worked with Leo) – Overall Score B- (it pains me to give this score)
http://www.cresthollow.com - Woodbury, NY 11797-1804, (516) 692-8000

Pre-Wedding - B+/A-
Where do I begin? We booked in January 2010 for our November 2011 wedding and did EVERYTHING we could to keep the cost down. Sharon was great to work with (though she was a tough negotiator). She promised us many things including that there would be no more than two events at the same time. I really did not think anything of it when this was said and simply wrote it on my notepad. I did not get this written into my contract which proved to be an issue later on. I met with Sharon a few times throughout the almost two years before my wedding to discuss some things about the wedding - linens, chair covers, payment schedule, etc. There weren't any problems at any of these meetings along the way with Sharon. In fact, it made me feel more confident that she was 'on my side' and was actually excited about my wedding.

Weeks leading up to the wedding – D/F
About two months before my wedding, I got a call from Helen, who told me that she would now be my banquet manager because Sharon went part time and was unavailable for me. This was a shock, but I was OK with it. I set up a meeting with Helen to go through everything that Sharon already knew to familiarize Helen with all the aspects of my wedding. During this meeting (about three weeks before the wedding), it was uncovered that there were way more than 2 events going on the night of my wedding. In fact, there were 3 other events going on at the same exact time as my wedding. One was a wedding and the other two were corporate events. The banquet department lied to me time and time again about how many events they would have at one time, what types of events they would be, etc., but apparently because I didn't have any of that in my contract, they didn't care and they proceeded with their business as usual. I understand that there was no way I would have tried to limit their business opportunity as a catering hall, but the fact that I was lied to time and time again by different people was what really bothered me. At this meeting, I discovered that they justified their lying through semantics. They did absolutely nothing to accommodate me for this, but i got over it based on their promise of excellent service the day of. Apparently 'two events at the same time' means 'same start time' - e.g. they can have two weddings at 6:30pm, two weddings at 7:00pm, two weddings at 7:30pm if they want to. Logistical semantics issue. To the point where my mom asked how many bathrooms were in the hall - Leo responded - two - one men’s and one women's. Everything was semantics with them. Just bad business in my opinion and I felt extremely cheated and lied to. The week of my wedding, they knocked down, with bulldozers, the two huge retaining walls that were separating CHCC from Jericho Turnpike. These walls were a HUGE part of why DH and I booked there and not other really nice places like NRC and Jericho Terrace. We liked that CHCC was SEPARATE from Jericho Turnpike and that you couldn't even SEE Jericho Turnpike from the hall. They took down these two walls and wham, there was Jericho Turnpike. They planted trees to replace the walls, but they were baby trees, only about 3 feet tall so you could still 'see' Jericho Turnpike. They also decided to replace the name signs of the CHCC the DAY BEFORE my wedding. Talk about giving me a heart attack right before my wedding…

Day of Reception – Bridal Attendant Sandy and Maitre 'D Declan - F for Banquet Department, B+ for Service “Day Of” from Maitre ‘D and Bridal Attendant
We had about 10 people who RSVPed no to our wedding show up the day of. We also had 6 cancellations. In our minds, we should have paid for the 4 extra people from our final count. All of this was discovered during the ceremony and right before CH. My DH and I were about to walk into our CH and we were stopped by the banquet department asking us to pay for the extra 10 people that had showed up. We of course were willing to pay for 4 of them, but there was no way i was paying for the 6 no shows and then the additional 10 people. Leo, basically, gave us a really hard time, wouldn't let us leave his office, basically said if you don't give me cash now, we're closing up shop, etc. I plead with him that I was standing there in a wedding gown about to enter my reception and that this issue could/should be resolved later on in the evening. He didn't care. My DH cursed him out and stormed out of the room. I got my mom and my DOC to argue with him and in the end they made us pay for 7 additional people (instead of 4 that we should have paid for. That was the final straw with CHCC.

A big issue with me during the final meeting was that I wanted to make sure that the champagne was not poured prior to the guest's entrance into the reception. When DH and I walked in to 'inspect' the room, they had poured champagne at 3 of the tables beforehand. Thank God for my DOC. She literally made them empty out the champagne from those glasses and start over when the guests came into the room. Additionally, my memorial candle was misplaced and was found mysteriously about a minute before the reception started :roll eyes:

We had hired a cigar roller (see review below) that was supposed to be there until 1am. CHCC knew about this yet when the cigar roller left at 12am, the BA and the MD did not notify us. DH and I didn't even get a picture with him. I didn't even see the table!

The day of, however, the food was awesome, service was great. MD and BA were attentive, helpful, and very responsible. I actually fell down the outdoor stairs (I’m extremely clumsy) around 11pm at my reception while taking pictures outside and my BA was there cleaning up my bloody leg and putting bandages on it.

Code Bleu (booked through Marisa and Sean) – Overall = A+
(631) 277-7777, Great River, New York, www.skylineorchestra.com

Leading Up to Wedding =A+
Sean was easy to communicate with, gave me a little bit of a price break because we had a VH and I couldn’t afford to pay them for the extra hour, and was a really chill guy to talk to in general. My DH is a musician so we saw several bands before booking Code Bleu and DH said that they were the best musicians out of the lot of bands we saw. I highly recommend them.

Day of Wedding = A
They really kept the dance floor moving the whole night. I really can’t complain about their musicianship, performance, etc. I would recommend them 100000% over and over again. Just really remarkable talent! They hit most of the songs on our Must Play List and were just amazing throughout the whole night. One of my friends actually left our wedding, went home, cancelled her DJ and booked them the next day. We got to see them perform at her wedding in early January. It was awesome to have the opportunity! It was great to just be there listening to them play and really soak it all in.

B-Pics (Izzy Style Photography - Alice) – A
Alice was recommended to me from someone on LIW. She was easy to coordinate with and communicate with via e-mail and telephone and was very nice. Alice came to my house, was willing to work within my budget, and shot photos of me for close to an hour and a half. Another LIW-er recommended I use her and I’m happy that I did.

Photo and Video
Duet – Nick’s team (booked with Brian and Eric - Day of Photographers were Nick, Kevin and Video by David)
www.duetwedding.com
Booking – A-
Duet was the first photographer I visited. I only went to Sherwood-Triart and Fine-Art afterwards and didn’t like either of their work as much as Duet’s work. I went to the studio with my mom, DH and my MOH because I had heard great things about them on LIW. You can get a quick quote on their website but DO NOT book them online. You can get a MUCH better price if you negotiate with them in person. Their 'biggest' package included video and two photographers and 10-12 hours of coverage and I think it was around $5000 when I booked. We added about $1500 worth of extras to that package and got the whole package for about only a few hundred dollars more. A word of caution though - the price they give you is ONLY good for that one day. If you don't book on the spot, the price could go up. I learned this the hard way because the first time I went they said once price, then the next time it was $200 more for the same package. They said it was because they 'booked' my date with two other customers in the four days it took me to decide whether I was going with them. They called it their “supply and demand policy” or something. I fought tooth and nail with the owner to get my original price back, but they wouldn’t budge on price changewww.. It annoyed me a little bit, but otherwise, service from them was fine. Definitely go there and I recommend meeting with Brian - he was really nice and helpful!

Day Of – A+
Nick and Kevin were wonderful the day of and they really captured the essence of our day in photos. They were helpful, made sure that they got all the photos we requested from our must take list for the most part.

Proofs – A+
I absolutely love the way my proofs came out. I have absolutely NO COMPLAINTS about the way the pictures came out. They were wonderful. We had ordered 200 extra proofs at the time of the contract and they only gave us 60 extra. I contacted Duet and they promised to get us the extra 140 edited proofs right away. Also, the CD we received of the unedited photos was not hi-resolution. As soon as I contacted them about it, they remade the CD of the photos in hi-resolution and within two weeks they were calling me to pick up the new discs.

Video – TBD
David was our videographer and he was really great to work with. It seemed like he captured most of the huge moments from the day. Looking forward to receiving our video!

Flowers by Brian (booked with Joseph) – Overall B+
http://www.flowersbybrian.com

Booking – A+
Crest Hollow makes you use one of their four house florists because apparently they had a problem with a florist bringing in bugs a couple of years ago. I didn’t know this until we signed contract with Crest Hollow and it was too late to write it out of the contract. We were given the options of Flowers by Brian, Pedestals, Jack&Rose and Spitz&Peck. I immediately wrote off Jack&Rose because they’ve gotten some pretty bad reviews on this board and the BBB.

I went to Flowers by Brian with my MOH, dad and mom. We used to live in the neighborhood so we were very familiar with the work that FBB does. I met with Joseph who was a pleasure to deal with from the minute we walked in. I booked in February and was lucky enough that a girl was getting married the next day with a “fall themed wedding” in February! What are the odds of that?! I fell in love with her CPs and took a picture, printed it out and made Joseph attach it to my file. I wanted a warm, fall theme, but not the cliché “leaves everywhere” fall theme that some girls love – that just wasn’t what was in my mind. Joseph created exactly what I wanted and made my experience extremely pleasant.

I had an appointment with Virgil at Pedestals afterwards and they had just done Kevin Jonas’s wedding and that’s all they cared to talk about when I was there. Virgil handed me off to Rob immediately when I arrived and Rob brought three flowers out of the back for me to see. No prospect of seeing a sample centerpiece, no images of what I really wanted, or anything close for that matter. Their price was a little bit more than FBB (a couple of hundred dollars). Just not a personal feel at all. I met with Spitz&Peck and their price was almost $3000 more than the prices I got from FBB and Pedestals. They weren’t willing to show me any flowers either and it seemed like their business is really driven by wacky Bar/Bat Mitzvah and Sweet 16 CPs instead of weddings. I just didn’t get a great feeling from them and the price definitely wasn’t worth it IMO.

I met with Joseph about 4 months before my wedding to tell him that my color scheme had changed slightly and I had added a bridesmaid. There was no problem there. However, I went back in mid-September to view my sample centerpiece and a couple of things were off. The sample was BEAUTIFUL, however slightly different than we had previously discussed. Joseph made the necessary changes and the centerpiece was exactly as I envisioned it. Later on in the appointment, there was some trickery tried that I did not appreciate (e.g. we agreed to all tall CPs, and he tried to tell me that the contract price was based on ½ tall and ½ short CPs). I had to fight and get aggravated, but ultimately I got what was rightfully due to me.

I also met with Spitz&Peck and Pedestals if anyone wants info, feel free to FM me.

Day of – B+
Don’t get me wrong. My flowers were gorgeous - absolutely stunning - everything was exactly as pictured. A couple of hiccups. They forgot my flower girls flower and the boots for the dads when they delivered the personals to my house the morning of the wedding. My DOC told them of their mistake and they went back to get them and brought them back for us. They also forgot the flower petals for the cocktail hour tables. No biggie there. Unfortunately that point they couldn’t fix their mistake. The only thing I was annoyed with was that they put purple hydrangeas on my cake and around my Channa plaque, and they were supposed to be burgundy. No one noticed but me but it still annoyed me because purple was not a color in my theme. I had tipped them generously, both the delivery guys and Joseph, so I had assumed everything would be perfect, but it wasn’t perfect.

Save the Dates [Round 1] (Jean M) – B+
http://www.myjeanm.com/
I ordered my STDs from Jean M. A fellow LIW-er (Adelya21) told me that if you become a Fan of her business on Facebook, you can select one of eight designs and have 100 of them printed for free. That’s exactly what I did. I designed the STD that I wanted and submitted the order. It was only about $13 to ship them so I got 100 STDs for $13. They came out nice, though not perfect by any means – I wanted the design color to match the text and it was slightly off which looked a little strange to me (two different burgundies). But I can’t complain – they were free and I didn’t even wind up using them. Also, I thought they were cards with envelopes, but when they arrived I noticed they were postcards.

Save the Dates (Gartner Studios, bought at TJMaxx in East Northport & New Hyde Park) [Round 2] - B
5020 Jericho Tpke, Commack, NY 11725 - (631) 462-2610
2317 New Hyde Park Road, New Hyde Park, NY 11042-1212 - (516) 327-5967
www.gartnerstudios.com
I thought this was going to be simple. It became nightmare project. My sister was at TJ Maxx and saw these adorable photo mailer STDs. They were on super clearance and they had 5 boxes of them for $1.00 each! 50 STDs for a $5! I had to go to a few other TJ Maxx stores to find the other 6 boxes I needed, which was quite the journey. I wound up buying the rest at the TJ Maxx in New Hyde Park. I brought the boxes home, went on the http://gartnerstudios.com website, typed in the number on the box, and downloaded the template. Customized the text that I wanted and clicked print. This part was so easy! Then I printed photos from Walgreens.com for like $0.10 each. Also easy. Now the hard part. When I slid in the photo and the text card, they moved around A LOT. So after I inserted ALL of them, I had to take them all out and put tape on the back of each piece so that they wouldn’t move during mailing. Just a PITA. THEN, they came with these sticker seals to seal each of them shut. I put the seals on and they started popping off! It didn’t matter how much I pressed down, they just kept popping off. DH and I sat here with dueling hot glue guns to take all the seals off and close the STDs with hot glue. Then I brought them to the post office - $1.56 to mail! Thank God I got them really cheap, because this simple and easy project drove me to decide that I wasn’t going to DIY my invites.

Limos – Camelot Specialty Limos – Booked with Joe Palumbo
New Hyde Park, NY 11040, (516) 731-5466
www.camelotlimo.com
Booking - A+
It’s true, it’s true ladies! Everything that people say about Joe is true! My FH and I met with Joe late one night after work to discuss limos. We had a picture in our mind of exactly what we wanted, and when we got there, Joe told us we were all wrong! I’m so glad we went with his suggestions as everything ran really smoothly the day of and went off without a hitch! Our original plan would have (1) cost us more money (which at that point we didn’t have) and (2) would have created massive amounts of confusion. Joe was very accommodating and nice, was willing to negotiate with us to work within our budget and was just overall pleasant to deal with. I bumped into him at a bridal show months after I booked and he remembered who I was and even spoke about the cars I was getting with him. He is extremely professional and personal and that is a lot to be said for a limo company. The only thing I didn’t like was that we negotiated a “bottom line” price but then he added tax to it (to all the cars except the Limobus). I guess that’s to be expected, but brought us over budget a tad. We booked two Lincoln Navigators (one for each of our families), the white Limobus (for our BP) and the 1966 Rolls Royce “Bells” (for us). We also got a towncar to bring us home at the end of the night free of charge. I didn’t meet with other limo companies but I called Royalty and they gave me a price about $500 more than what Camelot had given me. Needless to say, I went back the next day and booked with Camelot. Also, Royalty didn’t really have the type of cars that I needed for our families so it really wasn’t even an option to use them.

Day of – A+
Wonderful service. No issues AT ALL. They were a joy to deal with the day of. We had a big bridal party and a bunch of cars to coordinate and there were no slip ups at all. Great service. Also, our car to bring us home had to wait about 20 minutes overtime for us and they didn’t charge us. And we were upgraded to an SUV for that car. Now that is what I call an awesome wedding vendor.

Morning Of Attire – A+
www.victoriassecret.com
I bought this “Bride” hoodie and sweatpants online from Victoria’s Secret. I had seen so many girls with customized ones, but this one did the trick I got to wear it throughout my honeymoon and now I wear it around the house all the time.

FG Attire (Tiara, Jewelry, Gown) A+
www.weddingfactorydirect.com
Macy’s Walt Whitman Mall
Bridal Elegance, Huntington, NY 11746 (631) 462-0323
I bought the Silver Crystal Child’s Tiara from Wedding Factory Direct (weddingfactorydirect.com). It is absolutely adorable and was perfect for our flower girl to wear. We had our FG’s gown custom made from Bridal Elegance in Huntington. Someone had posted a picture on LIW like a two years ago that I fell in love with of a flower girl dress. I don’t know what designer it was, but I loved it and for about $200 Bridal Elegance made the gown specifically for my FG, custom fit.

Bridesmaid Attire – Watters & Watters WTOO Bridesmaids Style Number 866 (color: Cherry) - Bridal Reflections (Carle Place) / Bridal Elegance (Huntington) - A
Bridal Elegance, Huntington, NY 11746
Bridal Reflections, Carle Place, NY
Brought my two MOHs to Bridal Reflections in Carle Place where I bought my gown. They offered my BMs 10% off the sale price because I was a customer of theirs. I thought this was great. Gown was listed at $219 and they were willing to give each of my 10 girls 10% off. I instantly fell in love with this dress because it looked great on both of my MOHs who are very well endowed but totally different sizes. Realizing that I didn’t want my girls to have to spend $300+ on a gown (including tax and alterations) for my wedding, I called every other LI store that carried the gown. The last one I called was one closest to my home in Huntington called Bridal Elegance. I had gone there during my own dress shopping experience because I knew they had Enzoani gowns which I loved on the website, but hated on my body. Phyllis was really great to work with and she gave me a price which was like $60 less than Bridal Reflections’ price. I brought all my girls to Huntington and they ordered their gowns from Bridal Elegance and were VERY grateful that I found a “steal” for them. That being said, I ordered my BM gowns from them and they came in 2 months later than they were supposed to (they said it was the designer's fault, but who knows). Also, their alterations are capped at $80 and they basically charged everyone $80 (plus tax) even if they just needed a little hem or taken in slightly. Overall it was a good experience (because i had the girls order in January for my November wedding - gowns came in in mid-August, when I was told they would be in in early June). They thought my wedding was the first week in October and I was annoyed that they didn’t come in until mid-August because my SIL was moving to Boston the first week in September and she had to rush her fittings.

Groomsman Attire and DH Attire – A-
Tuxedo Park, Carle Place, NY 11514-1200
(516) 294-7300
www.tuxedoparkli.com
We started looking for tuxedos in late June 2011 and made appointments at Tuxedo Park, Bonaventure and Victor’s Talbots. We went to Tuxedo Park first and fell in love, but still felt the need to hold our other appointments. When we went to Bonaventure, there was an episode going on where a groom and bride came to pick up all of their GM tuxes, and there was one pair of shoes missing and there was nothing the store could do about it. It was 6pm on a Saturday before their Sunday afternoon wedding. It left a bad taste in my mouth so even though their prices were better, I felt more confident going to Tuxedo Park. Bonaventure also made DH try on the tuxedo he chose in the middle of the store, not in a changing room. It was just a very strange experience altogether. Victor Talbots was also a very strange experience. DH picked up a $3000 tuxedo to try on and the man we were working with immediately said “that tuxedo is out of your price range.” Needless to say, we immediately left the store. I’m not quite sure what his point was in saying that it was “out of our price range.” If we really wanted to, we could have bought the $3000 tux, but that’s besides the point. I felt the need to leave because they were just too snooty for me. Since we had such a large bridal party, Tuxedo Park gave each guy a $25 discount for renting tuxes. The rental included everything the GM needed - jacket, pants, dress shirt, burgundy paisley vest, burgundy flat tie, burgundy handkerchief, cuff links, and shoes. The best part about working with Tuxedo Park was that they allowed the guys to get “fitted” together and they had a fitting party where they served DH and the GM food and a bucket of beer. This was great because it was sort of like a mini bachelor party for two GM that were too young and too old to participate in the actual bachelor party in Atlantic City. We worked with Bob McConnie at Tuxedo Park and I highly recommend him. However, the week of the fitting for the guys DH called to confirm the appointment and they told him they did not have him in the book. After a small bridezilla moment, I was able to get them in for their proper party. Apparently they got to eat left over food from the prior party and had one beer each. Oh well.

FOG Attire – A+
Karako, Westbury, NY
Looked great day of! No complaints!

FOB Attire - A+
Victor Talbots, Manhasset, NY
Looked great day of! No complaints! My parents had a good time there and were not treated inappropriately like I was.

Grandma’s Boyfriend Attire - A
Karako, East Northport, NY
My mom and grandmother brought my grandmother’s boyfriend to Karako to buy a tuxedo about 2 months before the wedding. Classic bow tie and cummerbund. He’s 89, looked great.

Church Programs (Michaels Arts & Crafts, Commack and Westbury) - A
1280 Corporate Drive, Westbury - (516) 693-0420
50 Veterans Memorial Highway, Commack - (631) 499-2408
I went to Michaels on day in April 2010 and they had a lot of the Brides wedding merchandise on sale. I wound up getting one box of programs at each location for only $9.99 each and I made them myself.

Ceremony Bubbles (DIY) - A
Dollar Tree for Bubbles, Michaels for Ribbon and Stickers. Easy peasy!

Pew Bow Clips, In Appreciation Envelopes – A-
www.consumercrafts.com
Bought these really cute “In Appreciation” envelopes for all our vendors. Was a great way to organize tips at the end of the night. Also, bought pew bow clips, but we didn’t wind up using them because they were too small for the pews. Oh well.

Weddingturtle.com - A
Got my photo cards through weddingturtle.com. You sign up, and they send you the cards. Super easy. Unfortunately no one uploaded their pics

Card Box – (LIW User Dawa, Michaels Arts & Crafts for extra supplies, even*starpaperie.com for inspiration) – A+
A former LIW bride (Dawa) was getting rid of her homemade cardbox for FREE. I decided to redo the decorations on the cardbox and modeled it after a cardbox I saw on another wedding website. I bought the supplies from Michaels and a lot of blood, sweat and tears went into it to make it beautiful.

My Gown and Veil – Eve of Milady (Style E1) – Bridal Reflections, Carle Place – Overall, A
Bridal Reflections, Carle Place, NY 11514
(516) 742-7788
www.bridalreflections.com
I searched high and low for the perfect gown. Went to The Wedding Salon in Manhasset, The Wedding Plaza in Floral Park, and Bridal Elegance in Huntington, before I wound up at Bridal Reflections in Carle Place. I found “the one” at The Wedding Plaza but actually got a better price for it at Bridal Reflections so I bought it from there. I worked with Lorraine and she was extremely knowledgeable. My seamstress was Elia and she was really great all along but I did have to repeat things a couple of times. I had three fittings and by the second fitting, the bustle was supposed to be done but it wasn’t. Not a big deal. I lied about the date of my wedding saying it was really a week before it actually was. No problems getting my dress home a week before the wedding.

DOJ – A+
Nadri at Bloomingdales (Walt Whitman Mall)
www.bloomingdales.com
www.nadrijewelry.com
My mom surprised me and bought me a beautiful pair of earrings and a bracelet from Bloomingdales. They were both from the Nadri brand and were AMAZING!

Cake Topper – A+
www.weddingfactorydirect.com
I ordered the Renaissance 3 letter monogram cake topper from Wedding Factory Direct and it GORGEOUS. It was a little bit smaller than I thought it would be, but was a great price compared to all the other places I considered buying it from.

Bouquet Cuff – A+
B&Q Trimmings, Inc., 210 West 38th Street, New York - (212) 398-0988, www.shinetrim.com
I purchased a yard of 24-line rhinestone ribbon trim from B&Q Trimming in the city for $100 (paid cash). I had three bouquet cuffs made out of it by my florist – one for me and one for each out my MOHs. They came out great!

Name Plaque – A+
www.my-sweet-memories.com – A+
What more could I possibly say about Channa that hasn’t already been said! Choosing a plaque was the easiest wedding planning decision I had to make. I went to her website, picked an image from the slideshow that I loved and told her I wanted that color combo, but with our names and wedding date. My only complaint was that I paid like $18 to ship it and it took almost 4 weeks to get it after it shipped. Maybe not her fault, but the fault of the post office. I ordered a plaque for my parents’ 30th wedding anniversary from her. She had proofs for me within 20 minutes of my inquiry and she gave me a discount because I was a repeat customer! She’s excellent. Highly recommended

Thank You Notes/Scrolls (Vistaprint) – A-
www.vistaprint.com
Ordered 100 free postcards from Vistaprint (and placed the same order twice because I needed 200 of them). We did these instead of the traditional “wedding thank you scrolls” that people put on each plate. Quality was great. They were FREE. All I paid for was shipping (about $6).

Brochures for OOT Bags (Vistaprint) – A
www.vistaprint.com
I printed free brochures on Vistaprint. 25 free brochures was the “free” offer of the day. I customized the information with information from our wedding. Did two separate orders so had to pay for shipping twice, but I got 50 brochures for free. Can’t go wrong with free! My only complaint is that the spacing was a little bit “off” from how it looked on the screen

Here Comes the Bride Sign (Vistaprint) – A-
www.vistaprint.com
Also free. Free banner on Vistaprint (only paid shipping). I wanted to have a “Here Comes the Bride” sign but didn’t want to spend a ton on it. It cost me about $7 in shipping and did the trick. We wound up gluing it to foam board because I didn’t have anyone to hold it down the aisle and just kept it propped up in the church entrance.

MOB attire - A
Bridal Elegance, Huntington, NY 11746, (631) 462-0323
www.bridaleleganceli.com
I think that my mother spent more time looking for her gown than I did. Eventually she found the one that she loved at Bridal Elegance in Huntington. She hesitated for a while deciding on the color but she eventually went with the silver which was a GORGEOUS choice. Phyllis gave her a GREAT price on this gown.

GMOB attire - A
Bridal Elegance, Huntington, NY 11746, (631) 462-0323
www.bridaleleganceli.com
My grandmother originally purchased a gown from Bloomingdales to wear, but heard there was a sample sale at Bridal Elegance so she went to take a look. She fell in love with a sample gown at Bridal Elegance and purchased it from there. She got a $1000 gown for about $200 (plus alterations).

MOG attire - A
Bridal Elegance, Huntington, NY 11746, (631) 462-0323
www.bridaleleganceli.com
Also Bridal Elegance in Huntington. She went to a sample sale and got a gorgeous gown to wear day of and looked amazing!

GMOG attire – A
Estelle’s Dressy Dresses, 1600 Broadhollow Road, Farmingdale, NY 11735, (631) 420-0890
www.estellesdressydresses.com
I wasn’t involved in this process, but MIL took GMIL to Estelle’s on Route 110 in Farmingdale and they found this dress which really worked for GMIL. She lives in Kentucky so she purchased this gown off the rack when she was visiting NY about 6 months before the wedding. She went back and forth between green and blue but eventually settled with blue to match her eyes.

Shower Attire – A+
Bloomingdales, Walt Whitman Mall- (631) 425-6700
DSW, Huntington - (631) 858-9120
I searched high and low for a shower dress that was elegant, classy and also fun. I eventually wound up finding it at Bloomingdales – it was Jessica McClintock brand which was especially meaningful for me because my Sweet 16 gown was from Jessica McClintock so it brought back lots of memories. Had bought the shoes I wore for my engagement shoot about a year before from DSW in East Northport and they were Steve Madden brand.

Rehearsal Dinner Attire – A+
www.macys.com
My mother ordered me an adorable rosette dress from XOXO on the Macy’s website. It was an adorable white dress, perfect for the Rehearsal.

Rehearsal Dinner – A-
Spuntino, 687 Old Country Rd, Dix Hills, NY 11746, 631-547-9300
www.spuntinoonline.com
This is our favorite Italian restaurant in our neighborhood. They have a great back room that is private for parties. It has its own separate set of bathrooms, doors that close completely to the rest of the restaurant and the ability to have music that is different from the rest of the restaurant piped into the room. All in all it was great, but it really annoyed me that the waitress we had working the room refused to shut the door because it was inconvenient for her to keep having to open it. The whole reason for having the private room was to have the door closed to keep it separate from the rest of the restaurant.

Wedding Bands
Romanza Jewelers – A+
Gold Star Jewelers – A+
Tri County Jewelry Exchange, 3041 Hempstead Turnpike, Levittown, NY 11756-1332, (516) 579-4500
I knew I wanted an eternity band, but I didn’t have $3000+ for one. DH and I only budgeted about $2500 for wedding bands and we both wanted some bling. We found an AWESOME ring for DH at Romanza Jewelers in Tri-County Flea Market and the 3 karat eternity band I always dreamed of having at Gold Star Jewelers in Tri-County Flea Market. We wound up going a little bit over budget, but we were both happy to get what we wanted. Hey, it’s forever!

Honeymoon – A+
We did two back to back cruises on the Explorer of the Seas through Royal Caribbean. It was an amazing trip. Feel free to FM me for any info. My DH hates flying so we left from Bayonne NJ. First cruise went to Bermuda for 5 days and the second cruise did Haiti, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas and St. Maarten.

BM Gifts (Macy’s in Huntington, Michaels in Huntington – Route 110) – A+
http://www.macys.com
http://www.michaels.com
I went to Macy’s in Huntington during a sale and got gorgeous earring and necklace sets from Charter Club for my bridesmaids. I even used a coupon on top of the sale! Bought my MOHs some extra bling with a beautiful bracelet from Charter Club. I got my FG an adorable pearl set from Charter Club as well. I went to Michaels and bought my bridesmaids all bridesmaid socks too – they were having a sale and I couldn’t resist!

GM Gifts – A+
http://www.cutlerlycorner.com
My DH collects knives – all different kinds – swords, pocket knives, katanas, etc. We thought it would be a great idea to get the guys a really nice knife as their groomsman gifts. Late night (around 3:00 am) basically the male version of HSN comes on television and it is called “Cutlery Corner.” We called (yes, at 3:00 am) and ordered a knife for each of the groomsmen. We then brought them to the engraving stand to have each guy’s initials engraved on the knives at the Roosevelt Field Mall right outside of Macy’s (near Zara). The engraving came out great! We tried to get them engraved at Things Remembered but they don’t engrave knives that aren’t purchased from them.

Bridal Shower – The Somerley Room at the Fox Hollow - A+
I was showered by my wonderful family at The Somerley Room at the Fox Hollow! Holy freaking cr@p, that room was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!! I had an inkling that my shower might be on a certain day, but it was 100% confirmed when I showed up for what was supposed to be a brunch for my aunt and was totally surprised!!!! The food was great, Marie, our maitr'd was AWESOME! For those girls booked in the Somerley, you have nothing to worry about! The room is GORGEOUS! The food was excellent, service was excellent - I truly felt like a bride! The bridal suite is spectacular - gorgeous, huge, magnificent. Centerpieces and chair/wishing well were rented from Platinum Affairs in Woodbury. The teacup cake was a gift from a friend. My only minor complaint is that there was only a one person bathroom right off of the Somerley Room so there was generally at least one person waiting for the bathroom. I could not have asked for a better day!!!

Bachelorette Party Weekend – A+ for everything except Melville Marriott. Melville Marriott gets a C+.
Friday Night – we did a girls night at my parent’s house. Cheesy pjs, chinese food, etc. Next day we had a teaparty at The Teapot in Merrick which was amazing, went to Adventureland and checked into the Melville Marriott. I go there for work functions a lot which I thought would be great, however, they really annoyed me there. First, the double charged my sister’s credit card for the rooms we got. We got two adjoining rooms and they charged her for two sets of adjoining rooms. Then, afterward, we got charged for a $250 bar tab that was not ours. It took 4 weeks to settle, but we eventually got the charged reversed. Ridiculous. We spent the night at Honu in Huntington Village which was a lot of fun and then did mani/pedis at Honey Delight in East Northport. Was an awesome weekend

Fingerprint Tree – A+
Shortrunposters.com, Michaels (for frame), my MS Paint Skills
2011 bride FutureJOC found this website called shortrunposters.com where you can print 18x24 posters for $2! I basically found a picture of a tree that I liked on Google images and then added some words to it to make it personalized. I uploaded the design to shortrunposters.com and had the poster within two weeks I think. Then I bought a similar sized frame at Michaels and just left the glass behind the poster for the day of the wedding. I studded it out with some peel and stick rhinestones and hot glued flowers and ribbon to the frame. It was a huge hit!!!

“Leaf” a Fingerprint Sign (Vistaprint.com) – A+
Who can say anything free is bad? I ordered a free sign from Vistaprint (just paid shipping). Designed it to say what I wanted it to say and put it in a frame from Michaels. Easy peasy.

Table Numbers (Zazzle and Michaels) – B+
I ordered customized postcards from zazzle.com with our names and wedding date on them. I went to Michaels during a sale on picture frames and got $9 picture frames for about $3 each. The harder part was finding 22 – 5”x7” frames in the same style. There was one I fell in love with, but they didn’t have enough of them and even calling neighboring stores, it wasn’t enough. Found these frames and they were my second choice, although I think they fit more into my theme anyway. Overall pretty happy with the project – I glued each postcard to black cardstock because they were slightly smaller than 5”x7”.

E-pics – Duet (Nick) – South Street Seaport and 200 Water Street – A-
FH and I wanted to do e-pics and we were lucky that they were part of our photography package with Duet. We loved Nick when we looked through the books so we booked him. At first, I was a little bit annoyed – they never confirmed my e-pic time, it bothered me that they only did them on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday before 6pm (I work in Suffolk and FH was working in the City then so I had to take a half day to get to the city in time for the e-pics at 6pm). Then, I called Duet right before the e-pic session because I wasn’t sure where we were meeting Nick (saying “South Street Seaport” isn’t enough when there are basically 1000 places you could meet). I had called them right before they closed so they could call Nick and tell him to meet us at 200 Water Street, a building FH and I used to live in across the street from the Seaport. Within 5 minutes, he was there, and all was right in the world again We started our e-pics at 5:55pm and we ended at 7:00pm when it was too dark to shoot anymore. Overall, was pretty happy with our pics. It took 4 1/2 weeks for me to get the proofs which I didn’t think was too bad. My only complaint was that he didn’t give us too much direction so FH and I (who never had done professional photography before in our lives) felt a little dumb and just kept laughing at each other instead. He was also a little bit too hard to hear and a bunch of our photos were taken from below so they make us look gigantic. I told him about these things because I wanted them corrected before we took our wedding photos. We were supposed to take them in August 2010, but it rained the day we had scheduled, so they got pushed back to late September 2010. Nick was very funny, professional and gave great direction. My only complaint is that he did not speak very loudly so it was difficult to hear him. Also, it was pretty windy the day we took the pics which made my hair unwieldy, but overall we had a great time and the pics came out good.

Invites - Even*Star Paperie - A
Had been hearing about her for almost a year and I finally went to her website and filled out the form to get a quote. I originally wanted pocketfolds, but settled for layers because I was doing to DIY invitations and it was costing me about $400 without addressing. She did layered invites for me for less than double that price (140 invites, four inserts, lined envelopes, all addressing services) and it was totally worth it. I had to be a little stern with her with what I wanted because my wording wasn’t very “traditional” (I didn’t want FH’s last name and my last name listed and our parents weren’t coming until after our names – see photo). A couple of other bumps in the road – she was very nice to work with, but pushed back a little bit too much on my ideas which is why she didn’t get an A+ from me. All in all, EXTREMELY happy.

Placecards – Even*Star Paperie – A+
Gorgeous work. Matched my invitations perfectly. She sent me a proof and I approved it right away. The only part of this process I didn’t like was that I had to initiate the printing and got them about 5 days before the wedding. Not a big deal, but things are just really high stress at that point.

Day Of Shoes – Steve Madden, Walt Whitman Mall (ULLTRA-G by Steve Madden) – A+
http://www.stevemadden.com
$90 at Steve Madden and IMO they were adorable. The gold in the shoes matched the gold in my gown perfectly. Heel was 2.5” which was the perfect height given I’d have to wear them for 18 hours and DH is only 2 inches taller than me. The best part was that, my sister (MOH) bought them for me My MOH found them again about a year after we bought them on sale for $20, so she bought me a “back up pair” just in case the wedding day was a wet one! It wasn’t a wet one, but at least now I have two great pairs of my wedding shoes.

Bridesmaids Day Of Shoes – SM Page Glitter from DSW – A+
http://www.dsw.com
I loved my shoes so much, I got it in my head that it would be great to have each BM wear the same ones. I didn’t want them to have to spend $90 on a pair of shoes, so I sought out to find them cheaper. Low and behold, DSW has the same EXACT shoe for half the price on their website. It could not have been more perfect. I ordered all the BM shoes on day where they were having a 20% off sale and they came to about $40 each.

Headpiece - Bridal Styles Boutique (Brooklyn) – A+
LanaB (a 2010 bride) had a gorgeous headpiece so I asked her where she got it from and she referred me to Bridal Styles Boutique. I took the trip into Brooklyn one rainy Sunday with my mom and sister and tried on probably 100 headpieces. I worked with Medina and she was AMAZING! She was so attentive, made sure to put my hair up in a similar style that I wanted the day of the wedding and knew when to give her opinion and when not to. They have a huge variety (some headpieces were $50 (for a comb or clip) and some were $2000). I wound up going with a custom piece which was a little bit more than I wanted to spend, but my godmother took care of it for me. A word of caution though - because my piece was custom, I ordered it in December and it was not ready until the end of April. Definitely give yourself some time if you’re going to buy a custom piece. The pieces that aren’t custom are bought over the counter from them and they said it would not take nearly as long to get them.

OOT Bags – Deals (Commack) / BBB (East Northport) - A
My mom bought cute wedding bags from Deals in Commack. I stuffed them with all kinds of goodies for our OOT guests.

OOT Hotel – Hampton Inn Jericho-Westbury - A
Got a great rate for a new hotel. For the nights surrounding my wedding, it was $139 per night which included a hot breakfast every morning and a shuttle to and from Crest Hollow for my guests that were staying there. They put a sign up in the lobby with the shuttle departure/return time information and they handed out my OOT bags as the guests checked in for no extra charge. Sweet deal! Definitely the nicest and most reasonable in the area. I don’t think people cared that it was 5 miles away from Crest Hollow.

Baskets for Programs/Bubbles/Cry Packs – Michaels (Melville) / Dollar Tree (East Northport) – A+
Bought them right before Halloween 2010 when they were 70% off at Michaels because they were “harvest items.” Then I bought the tulle and ribbon from Dollar Tree and just hot glued it on to make them pretty

Crypacks - Envelope Mall (online) / Michaels (Westbury) / BBB (East Northport) – A-
http://www.envelopemall.com
I ordered the clear vellum envelopes from Envelope Mall, got the stickers at Michaels and the tissues at BBB. Was really easy project that my mom and I did together on a random Tuesday night. My only complaint was that the envelopes weren’t as big as they described on the website. I basically had to squeeze one tissue into each envelope, which was fine. Just a little added touch

“Words of Wisdom for the Newlyweds” – Vistaprint (online) / Michaels (Melville) - A
I had these cards printed on Vistaprint when they had “free postcards” (only pay shipping) and bought a cute photo album on sale from Michaels to put the cards in. I had it set up next to the card box so that guests could mingle and impart us with some words of wisdom The guests filled out the cards and then placed them into the card box along with their gifts but by the end of the night only a handful of guests had actually filled them out. No biggie

DOC – Ryan and then Leane from Above and Beyond Events - A+
DH and I met with three other DOCs before meeting with Ryan (Francesca from Dazzling Affairs, Diane Lea from A Cherished Affair and Cindy from Cynthia Ross Affairs – feel free to FM me for any info about them). I met Ryan and instantly fell in love with her. She totally got my vision and also just seemed to have it all “together” – she was pushy when she needed to be, and backed off when she needed to. I booked her on the spot about 15 months before my wedding. Unfortunately (but fortunate for her of coruse), Ryan got pregnant with triplets (!) and notified me about 4 months prior to my wedding that she would no longer be able to do my wedding and instead I would be working with her assistant, Leane. Needless to say, I was NOT happy. As a lawyer, I immediately consulted my contract which only explained that Ryan could send a substitute DOC in the event of “extreme emergency or illness.” Wanting to give Leane a fair shot and willing to keep the peace (and to be honest, not wanting to have to re-interview a ton of DOCs especially since they were all booked by that point), I demanded a meeting with Leane about 4 days after I received notification from Ryan that she could no longer do my wedding. I got a great vibe from Leane and I walked away from our hour long meeting knowing that I was in good hands. In the weeks leading up to the wedding, Leane was extremely approachable, helpful and willing to respond to my emails, etc. She came to my rehearsal, was on time, and really took charge. We were dealing with the people from the church that had a problem with my ceremony because I wanted to have the flowergirls walk down first instead of last. Leane took charge and made sure everything was done appropriately. There are not enough words to describe how much I love her. Honestly, I don't know what I would have done without her. We had a bunch of minor issues at Crest Hollow straight away and then the issues with the florist, so without her, I would have been a nutcase. She took care of everything, decorated the church for us and was absolutely amazing!!! Looking back at our pro photos, I am able to notice all of the little things she did because the photographer took pictures of the room before she had her hands on it and you can tell all the work she did. Little things like Crest Hollow put the monogram cake topper on backwards (so now I have professional wedding photos with my cake topper backwards – but she fixed it so when we had cake cutting it was in the right order!). I would recommend her 10000000%. I honestly wish I could have another wedding just so I could hire her again. Highly recommended.

Unity Candle Holder - A+
Lenox.com
I wanted to buy a really nice unity candle set because the one’s I had seen before at Michaels, Target, AC Moore, online just didn’t cut it for me and seemed like too much money for “nothing” (e.g. $30 for plastic). My mom told me to check out the Lenox website and I found this gorgeous unity candle. Only thing was it was $100. I mulled it over for a few days and when I finally convinced myself to buy it despite the price, I went on the website and it was on sale for $50! It’s a gorgeous piece of Lenox china that I can use as a centerpiece for years to come.

Memory Candle Holder - A+
Candle Holder was Lenox brand to match the unity candle holder - I bought it from Ebay.com because it was discontinued.

Memory and Unity Candles - A+
Chrissi from Fairytale Events
I won a memory candle on Chrissi’s blog. I paid her to buy a unity candle that matched as well. She was great to work with – highly recommended! I embellished the candle a little more, but she did a great job!

“Thank You” Sign - A+
I got an e-mail from Vistaprint.com advertising “free” items including a lawn sign. I had a “Thank You” Sign printed and it only cost about $6 and we used it to take pictures but we didn’t wind up using it for our thank you card.

“Mrs. Aquino” Hanger - A+
2011 bride Suzie411 made it for me I think she has an etsy.com site now.

Bridesmaid “Thank You” Cards (********.mybisi.com) - J. Fowler Designs -- A+
*********paperie.com was having a special where if you bought $20 worth of goods from J.Fowler designs, you got $20 off your order. I ordered 10 “Thank You” cards for my bridesmaids and they were super cute!

“Thank You” for being a Groomsman/Bridesmaid Bags- A+
Orientaltrading.com. I was able to get bags that said “Thank You Bridesmaid” and “Thank You Groomsman” to put the gifts in. They were awesome and cheap.

Jordan Almonds / Postcards (Vistaprint, Michaels)- A+
Decided to do Jordan Almonds as a last minute favor. 2011 bride Chreesta gave me the leftover almonds she didn’t use from her wedding a few months before and I had business cards printed at vistaprint.com with a little saying about the Jordan Almonds tradition. Wrapped them up in tulle and tied a ribbon around each one with the business card attached.

Rehearsal Dinner Photographer - A+
Amanda Leigh Photography. I wish I had another event she could photograph. She is amazing and was really reasonably priced! Check her out on Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/AmandaLeighPhotographyLI

Chair Sashes and Dress Label (Etsy seller “astitchforyou”)- A+
There are not enough kind words to describe Carrie on etsy. She is amazing! I had chair sashes made for her that said “Mr. Aquino” and “Mrs. Aquino” and she also made a custom wedding dress label for me with my name and birthday and married name and wedding date. I had my grandma sew it into my slip. It was wonderful! And Carrie is awesome to work with!

Canvasondemand.com / Groupon (Canvas for Wedding Song)- A+
I had a canvas print made of the lyrics to our wedding song that my DH wrote. It came out awesome and I had it on display at the wedding.

“Game Over” T-Shirt (Etsy seller)- A-
Bought a Super Mario themed “Gave Over” t-shirt from an etsy seller. It came out great but was pretty expensive. That's why they get an A-

“I Do / Help Me” Stickers (Michaels)- A+
I bought sparkly blue stickers from Michaels and put them on my shoes saying “I Do” and DH did “Help Me”. Made for some cute pictures and cost about $3.

Food Donation (Island Harvest)- A+
I worked with Island Harvest to have all of the extra food from the reception donated to Island Harvest. Contact them for more info and make sure your RH will allow it. Island Harvest. 199 Second Street Mineola, NY 11501. (516) 294-8528. www.islandharvest.org

Post Office (Melville, Huntington Station) re: wedding invites - A-
Just a word to the wise. Go to different post offices when you are mailing your invites. I had one post office tell me it would be an extra $1 to send my invites than another post office did. One PO literally said it was going to cost $1.88 to mail the invites and instead it cost $0.88. I only had one invitation come back in the mail and it was because the person moved and didn’t tell me

Registries – Sears and BBB- A+ for BBB, B for Sears
Apparently guests had problems at Sears with the registry but no problems at BBB. We registered in Westbury. It was great and we’ve recently returned items on our registry with absolutely no problem at all.

Wedding Website – www.weddingchannel.com- A+
Easy to make the website and it was free! Woot woot.

Hampton Inn Jericho-Westbury – Hotel Block - A
No complaints. Price of the hotel included a shuttle for the guests and they allowed me to drop off the OOT bags two days before the wedding to hand out to the guests. Only one of my guests said she didn’t receive her bag and we had about 40 people staying there. The only downside is they don’t have a bar so we couldn’t have an afterparty. We wound up just hanging out in one of the hotel rooms with the best man and some of the OOT guests after the wedding.

Grandmother of the Bride Tote Bag, Mother of the Bride Tote, Just Married Long Sleeved shirt, Drink Tickets for Rehearsal Dinner, Donation Cards, Rehearsal Dinner Invitations, RD Banner, Bachelorette Party T-Shirts, etc. (Vistaprint.com) - A+
Brides, use Vistaprint and save some money! No one is going to care that your place cards had raised font. Trust me!

Hair – Angela’s Hair Design – A+ all around
http://www.siteskins.net/angelashair
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cj52514 Posted: Jul 31, 2012 02:27 PM+
cj52514 MEMBER SINCE: 4/12 TOTAL POSTS : 1642 WEDDING DATE: May 25, 2014
Posted: Jul 31, 2012 02:27 PM bride-minus.png

My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Amanda Leigh, Bridal Reflections, Bridal Elegance, Angela's Hair Design, St. Anthony, Bridal Styles etc!

Great review! Thank you! Sorry to hear about all the drama with CHCC, but I'm glad it all worked out in the end :)
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Moonmist09 Posted: Jul 31, 2012 03:31 PM+
Moonmist09 MEMBER SINCE: 1/10 TOTAL POSTS : 10598 WEDDING DATE: Jun 12, 2011
Posted: Jul 31, 2012 03:31 PM bride-minus.png

My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Amanda Leigh, Bridal Reflections, Bridal Elegance, Angela's Hair Design, St. Anthony, Bridal Styles etc!

awwwwwwwww Lisa..............your probably the last 2011 bride to post her review! LOL, better late than never! i never knew about all of your drama at the CHCC, but I'm glad it all worked out in the end...stop posting on LIW and join us 'old married ladies' on LIF!
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leesah85 Posted: Jul 31, 2012 03:37 PM+
leesah85 MEMBER SINCE: 1/10 TOTAL POSTS : 14485 WEDDING DATE: Nov 04, 2011
Posted: Jul 31, 2012 03:37 PM bride-minus.png

Re: My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Amanda Leigh, Bridal Reflections, Bridal Elegance, Angela's Hair Design, St. Anthony, Bridal Styles

i know, i've been posting there once in a while - see you on the flip side
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pinkbunny Posted: Jul 31, 2012 06:01 PM+
pinkbunny MEMBER SINCE: 12/11 TOTAL POSTS : 766 WEDDING DATE: Dec 29, 2012
Posted: Jul 31, 2012 06:01 PM bride-minus.png

My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Amanda Leigh, Bridal Reflections, Bridal Elegance, Angela's Hair Design, St. Anthony, Bridal Styles etc!

Great review! So sorry you had to deal with all that BS from your reception hall.

I'm also using Sandra!
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queenofhaerts Posted: Jul 31, 2012 09:13 PM+
queenofhaerts MEMBER SINCE: 12/09 TOTAL POSTS : 969 WEDDING DATE: Aug 10, 2012
Posted: Jul 31, 2012 09:13 PM bride-minus.png

Re: My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Amanda Leigh, Bridal Reflections, Bridal Elegance, Angela's Hair Design, St. Anthony, Bridal Styles

Great review! That groomology book is great!! I bought it for FH, read through it and added post its and comments ... he loved it and still reads it!
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kimmyg09 Posted: Jul 31, 2012 09:48 PM+
kimmyg09 MEMBER SINCE: 12/11 TOTAL POSTS : 298 WEDDING DATE: Dec 15, 2012
Posted: Jul 31, 2012 09:48 PM bride-minus.png

Re: My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Amanda Leigh, Bridal Reflections, Bridal Elegance, Angela's Hair Design, St. Anthony, Bridal Styles

wow....very detailed review. Thank you ! and congratulations
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2013Bride Posted: Aug 01, 2012 10:36 AM+
2013Bride MEMBER SINCE: 11/11 TOTAL POSTS : 3678 WEDDING DATE: May 31, 2013
Posted: Aug 01, 2012 10:36 AM bride-minus.png

Re: My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Amanda Leigh, Bridal Reflections, Bridal Elegance, Angela's Hair Design, St. Anthony, Bridal Styles


Posted by leesah85


“Leaf” a Fingerprint Sign (Vistaprint.com) – A+
Who can say anything free is bad? I ordered a free sign from Vistaprint (just paid shipping). Designed it to say what I wanted it to say and put it in a frame from Michaels. Easy peasy.


Food Donation (Island Harvest)
I worked with Island Harvest to have all of the extra food from the reception donated to Island Harvest. Contact them for more info and make sure your RH will allow it. Island Harvest. 199 Second Street Mineola, NY 11501. (516) 294-8528. www.islandharvest.org




And because of LIW you shared your 'Leaf' a fingerprint sign with me! I can tell everyone also, it is adorable & I can't wait to display it with my fingerprint tree at my wedding!

Also, I LOVE that you worked with Island Harvest & donated the extra food from your reception! I'm definitely going to talk to my RH & see if they allow us to do that as well! GREAT IDEA!

Thanks for the review!
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leesah85 Posted: Aug 01, 2012 12:32 PM+
leesah85 MEMBER SINCE: 1/10 TOTAL POSTS : 14485 WEDDING DATE: Nov 04, 2011
Posted: Aug 01, 2012 12:32 PM bride-minus.png

Re: My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Amanda Leigh, Bridal Reflections, Bridal Elegance, Angela's Hair Design, St. Anthony, Bridal Styles


Posted by 2013Bride


Posted by leesah85


“Leaf” a Fingerprint Sign (Vistaprint.com) – A+
Who can say anything free is bad? I ordered a free sign from Vistaprint (just paid shipping). Designed it to say what I wanted it to say and put it in a frame from Michaels. Easy peasy.


Food Donation (Island Harvest)
I worked with Island Harvest to have all of the extra food from the reception donated to Island Harvest. Contact them for more info and make sure your RH will allow it. Island Harvest. 199 Second Street Mineola, NY 11501. (516) 294-8528. www.islandharvest.org




And because of LIW you shared your 'Leaf' a fingerprint sign with me! I can tell everyone also, it is adorable & I can't wait to display it with my fingerprint tree at my wedding!

Also, I LOVE that you worked with Island Harvest & donated the extra food from your reception! I'm definitely going to talk to my RH & see if they allow us to do that as well! GREAT IDEA!

Thanks for the review!



Was so happy to give it to you Enjoy!
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ChristineNorah Posted: Aug 01, 2012 09:52 PM+
ChristineNorah MEMBER SINCE: 10/10 TOTAL POSTS : 2182 WEDDING DATE: Dec 28, 2012
Posted: Aug 01, 2012 09:52 PM bride-minus.png

My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Amanda Leigh, Bridal Reflections, Bridal Elegance, Angela's Hair Design, St. Anthony, Bridal Styles etc!

Great review. Thank you!
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Christina11913 Posted: Aug 01, 2012 10:27 PM+
Christina11913 MEMBER SINCE: 1/12 TOTAL POSTS : 1089 WEDDING DATE: Nov 09, 2013
Posted: Aug 01, 2012 10:27 PM bride-minus.png

My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Amanda Leigh, Bridal Reflections, Bridal Elegance, Angela's Hair Design, St. Anthony, Bridal Styles etc!

great review, thank you & congrats !!!
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MandMwedding Posted: Aug 02, 2012 12:08 PM+
MandMwedding MEMBER SINCE: 12/10 TOTAL POSTS : 1366 WEDDING DATE: Oct 08, 2011
Posted: Aug 02, 2012 12:08 PM bride-minus.png

Re: My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Amanda Leigh, Bridal Reflections, Bridal Elegance, Angela's Hair Design, St. Anthony, Bridal Styles

Great Review!!
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Bride2Be78 Posted: Aug 02, 2012 09:01 PM+
Bride2Be78 MEMBER SINCE: 9/11 TOTAL POSTS : 3213 WEDDING DATE: Nov 25, 2012
Posted: Aug 02, 2012 09:01 PM bride-minus.png

Re: My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Amanda Leigh, Bridal Reflections, Bridal Elegance, Angela's Hair Design, St. Anthony, Bridal Styles

Thanks for the review!!! Sorry to hear about CHCC. We ordered the bm dressed from Bridal Elegance & they were amazing and came fast.

Congrats again!!
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renrico Posted: Aug 02, 2012 11:44 PM+
renrico MEMBER SINCE: 11/11 TOTAL POSTS : 1029 WEDDING DATE: Sep 03, 2012
Posted: Aug 02, 2012 11:44 PM bride-minus.png

My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Amanda Leigh, Bridal Reflections, Bridal Elegance, Angela's Hair Design, St. Anthony, Bridal Styles etc!

awesome!!! Thanks for the review!!! I'm glad duet worked out for you because that is who I am using and I was getting nervous because they never respond to my messages left. It's really annoying!!!
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leesah85 Posted: Aug 03, 2012 08:58 AM+
leesah85 MEMBER SINCE: 1/10 TOTAL POSTS : 14485 WEDDING DATE: Nov 04, 2011
Posted: Aug 03, 2012 08:58 AM bride-minus.png

Re: My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Amanda Leigh, Bridal Reflections, Bridal Elegance, Angela's Hair Design, St. Anthony, Bridal Styles


Posted by renrico

awesome!!! Thanks for the review!!! I'm glad duet worked out for you because that is who I am using and I was getting nervous because they never respond to my messages left. It's really annoying!!!



they have some communication issues but they do amazing work. i would just be persistent with them!
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pixietina Posted: Aug 03, 2012 06:14 PM+
pixietina MEMBER SINCE: 3/11 TOTAL POSTS : 7732 WEDDING DATE: May 04, 2012
Posted: Aug 03, 2012 06:14 PM bride-minus.png

My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Amanda Leigh, Bridal Reflections, Bridal Elegance, Angela's Hair Design, St. Anthony, Bridal Styles etc!

Great and detailed review! Sorry you had some issues.
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SoontobeLT Posted: Aug 04, 2012 09:49 AM+
SoontobeLT MEMBER SINCE: 6/11 TOTAL POSTS : 1042 WEDDING DATE: Sep 07, 2012
Posted: Aug 04, 2012 09:49 AM bride-minus.png

My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Amanda Leigh, Bridal Reflections, Bridal Elegance, Angela's Hair Design, St. Anthony, Bridal Styles etc!

Awesome review, thank you! So sorry you had issues with CHCC, I have my final meeting tomorrow, I'm glad to know some of these in advance.
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leesah85 Posted: Aug 07, 2012 09:46 AM+
leesah85 MEMBER SINCE: 1/10 TOTAL POSTS : 14485 WEDDING DATE: Nov 04, 2011
Posted: Aug 07, 2012 09:46 AM bride-minus.png

Re: My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Amanda Leigh, Bridal Reflections, Bridal Elegance, Angela's Hair Design, St. Anthony, Bridal Styles


Posted by SoontobeLT

Awesome review, thank you! So sorry you had issues with CHCC, I have my final meeting tomorrow, I'm glad to know some of these in advance.



Hope it went well!
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KathleenAnne Posted: Aug 08, 2012 07:25 PM+
KathleenAnne MEMBER SINCE: 7/09 TOTAL POSTS : 262 WEDDING DATE: Jan 01, 1995
Posted: Aug 08, 2012 07:25 PM bride-minus.png

Re: My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Amanda Leigh, Bridal Reflections, Bridal Elegance, Angela's Hair Design, St. Anthony, Bridal Styles

Any pictures?
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leesah85 Posted: Aug 09, 2012 12:14 PM+
leesah85 MEMBER SINCE: 1/10 TOTAL POSTS : 14485 WEDDING DATE: Nov 04, 2011
Posted: Aug 09, 2012 12:14 PM bride-minus.png

Re: My 11/4/11 Review!!!! Crest Hollow, Duet, Code Bleu, Flowers by Brian, Camelot, Sandra Baldini, Amanda Leigh, Bridal Reflections, Bridal Elegance, Angela's Hair Design, St. Anthony, Bridal Styles


Posted by KathleenAnne

Any pictures?


There is a link to a shutterfly site at the top
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