Westbury Manor - October 9th, 2011

Hey Ladies!

We now have been married for 9 days! I wasn't a big poster on here, but I did get great advice from all you lovely ladies. So I thought I would return the favor :)

Our wedding was perfect, It went by SO SO fast..and in ways I miss it, and all the planning and the excitement of the BIG day. So word to the wise, enjoy every second of it, don't sweat the small stuff, because at the end of the day everything just seems to come together ;)

Westbury Manor was AMAZING (girls who have upcoming weddings there - you have nothing to worry about) They were so sweet, everything that I had concerns about before the wedding were totally wiped away as soon as I walked in to the manor that day. We had our ceremony in the Hill Room (upstairs) and our cocktail hour outside and our reception in the Garden Room with about 115 people. I was a bit concerned before our wedding that the room would be a little too tight for that amount of people, but since the library is where the bar is, not everyone was in the Garden room at one time. It ended up being great, and totally had that cozy, manor feeling which we wanted! The food was awesome, no complaints there! We also added on the 'sweet shoppe' to our wedding, totally recommend it. Our guests were able to bring home a baggie full of their fav candies. Especially since 50% of guests are OOT they loved the idea to have candy to go. Also, the grounds are just so beautiful I still can't get over it. I loved that our guests could walk around and tour the grounds during the wedding.

Naomi & Joel - make sure you request them, they made our day even more special then it already was. We also did get lucky with the weather, who would have thought that a Sunday in October it would have been 87 degrees and sunny lol.

We took our wedding pictures at the Old Westbury Gardens - BEAUTIFUL! I must admit before, dealing with them and trying to organize all the 'insurance' with our vendors was kind of a pain especially since our photographer was a family friend that did this for us (she is from Toronto)they were not helpful at all when it came to her needing insurance..? and they are truly not flexible with the time frame you have. We were running a bit behind that day, so we didn't get to use the full 1 hour 1/2 that we had made the appointment for, but it was totally worth it in the end.

STYLISH EVENTS - A+++++++++++++++++ - Dana from Stylish Events was the first florist we had met with, and we booked with her on the spot. She had all the visions we were looking for, and blew us away with her work the day of the wedding. She was also right in our budget, and was definitely willing to work with us. The pictures say more then words! She is so sweet as well, I felt everytime we talked or saw each other that she was an old friend and we were catching up.

FADE TO BLACK NY (Video) - A+++ - Gil from Fade to Black NY was great when we first met, he was right in our budget. Video wasn't the most important thing to us when it came to our wedding so we didn't want to spend a lot. The day of the wedding, I thought Gil was going to be the Videographer - but he wasn't. Someone else was there, his name was Jim..and he was fantastic! I have no complaints with him what so ever!! Just wish I would have known about the 'people' change before I stepped out of the limo lol.

FM ENTERTAINMENT - A+ - We booked with Frank on our first meeting as well, he was really nice exactly what we were looking for. Through our conversations (meetings, emails) I wasn't too happy, I felt like I was more the one trying to contact them/book appointments, I just felt the customer service level wasn't there as much as it had been in our first meeting. The day of the wedding he was great, even though I still didn't feel that 'connection' with him, he still played all the songs we requested, and his music selection for us was more then we could have asked for. Our guests were on the dance floor until 12:30 and had tons of fun! We are still getting phone calls complimenting us on the music lol

ETSY - MY BEST FREIND through this wedding process! I used this website to get pretty much everything we needed for the wedding. Birdcage, guest book/pens, signs, seating chart...everything! I was so impressed with all the vendors I dealt with, all the stuff I had ordered came on time, and exactly how I requested it to be. Especially for us, I am not from NY and half of the engagement we were not living here so this made it simple for me to order things instead of trying to find places to get that same 'homemade' look!

CONTI COUTURE DESERTS & ASPCA 'FAVORS' - We did a donation to the 'ASPCA' as well we did caramel apples as favors. Francine from Conti Couture was great, we only spoke over the phone and email, but she was so quick to respond and the favors looked great..she did the bows in our wedding colors (black & ivory) and even made us personalized tags that explained that we had also donated to the ASPCA. She put the logo on the tag, it was fabulous. Our guests loved the edible favor, they were all eating them before they left for the night LOL

PHOTOGRAPHER - Like I mentioned above, she was a family friend from Toronto ..she is amazing :):):) I am going to attach the link to her blog where she posted our teasers...so far I am in love, can't wait to see the rest!

RABBI ERLICH - Westbury Manor recommended him, I am Catholic, and my now husband (still weird saying that) is Jewish. So we wanted a ceremony that was going to incorporate both religions. Unfortunately last minute (3 days) before our wedding he had a family emergency and wasn't able to officiate our wedding, but he sent a replacement Rabbi Glasic (I might have spelt that wrong lol) he was great, our ceremony was beautiful even though we had never met him before 1/2 hour prior to our ceremony he just seemed to know everything lol. BUT Rabbi Erlich, is such an amazing guy. We definitely wished he could have been there. Our ceremony was so romantic, we read our own vows to each other as well.

COSMONY - Roseanna Amador A - I wanted BIG hair for my wedding, well she absolutely achieved that lol..my hair was perfect! She is a big too pricey in my opinion, but she did everyone's hair just as they had asked, and all the girls had no complaints. She was there earlier then expected, and was so calm the entire day..she even helped me get in to my dress - as all of us were confused lol

LA QUINTA GARDEN CITY & HILTON GARDEN INN WESTBURY - About a month before our wedding, the general manager from La Quinta contacted us explaining that our 30 rooms that had been blocked for our wedding were going to have to be cancelled due to a contract they had with an airline, that now needed more rooms. As you can imagine I was panicking, I am from Toronto so 50% of our guests were travelling to be here. They had already booked rooms with the La Quinta, and now they were all going to be cancelled. He was able to fit our entire 30 rooms booked in to the Hilton Garden Inn Westbury, and honor the same rate that they would have been getting at the La Quinta - so all in all it worked out in the end (thank god) but in all honesty I never had a good feeling about the La Quinta especially after all the negative reviews on them, I didn't trust that there wouldn't have been an issue - and of course my feelings were right! Anyway, the Hilton was a much better hotel, so accommodating and they just fully renovated so the hotel/rooms are beautiful and new!

ROYALTY LIMOUSINE B - We got a great deal with them because they were a preferred vendor with the Westbury Manor. BUT the day of the wedding wasn't what we were expecting. We had booked 2 limos, a princess for my dad, mom, MOH and me and a hummer limo for the rest of the bridal party and groom. The Princess, was NOT the one we chose, this one was so old and gross the seats had rips in them, and was this ugly blue leather color! I also could smell exhaust fumes the entire time I was in that thing (which made me nauseous) The hummer didn't have any AC - so as you can imagine on an 87 degree day everyone was sweating, and just not happy. The drivers I found to be rude, the hummer was supposed to go back to the Hilton (hotel) to pick up more guests after he had dropped off the bridal party at the Westbury. This never happened, even after we mentioned it to him 3 times that day! Thank god we had a shuttle service from the Hilton so all of our guests were able to make it there. We had the limos from 3:00pm - 6:00pm he basically stood around from 5:15pm - 6:00pm smoking a cigarette, talking etc. I was pretty upset, and then thought he had the right to sand outside our bridal suite expecting a tip. We did tip him, but probably not what he was expecting.

Aside from that limo experience, our day was beyond perfect! I wish I could go back, and do it all over again. It's true what they say, it's the one time in your life that you will never forget, I hope to look back in 30 years, still smiling when I think of 'our' wedding. Now our life begins..can't wait :)

Here is a link to our photographers blog about our wedding, there is a few teasers :) if you can't click on it, just copy and paste and scroll down!

Good luck to all of you, I wish you the BEST wedding ever!!!!

Wedding Teasers

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Re: Westbury Manor - October 9th, 2011

You look beautiful, Job well done on photos
Congrat's !!!!

Re: Westbury Manor - October 9th, 2011

BEAUTIFUL! I loved your pictures... Dress was amazing! Flowers--gorgeous! Congrats!

Re: Westbury Manor - October 9th, 2011

Wow, beautful!!! Love your pics!

Re: Westbury Manor - October 9th, 2011

Thank you

Re: Westbury Manor - October 9th, 2011

Wow u look GORGEOUS!!!

Congraz

Re: Westbury Manor - October 9th, 2011

you looked gorgeous and the pictures on that blog are amazing! congrats!

Re: Westbury Manor - October 9th, 2011

Congrats! Your pictures came out beautiful.

Re: Westbury Manor - October 9th, 2011

You look gorgeous!!! Congrats!

Re: Westbury Manor - October 9th, 2011

I'm booked with frank as well from FM entertainment and I don't really know if I feel the connection either, but my FH did. I mean, in more detail, were you still happy with him or would you have preferred to go elsewhere had you done it all over again?

Re: Westbury Manor - October 9th, 2011

p.s. it still seems like you had an overall great wedding, congrats!

Re: Westbury Manor - October 9th, 2011

Thank you for posting. The review's help a lot.