I am back and I am married (wedding review, but no pix yet)
So I am finally a Mrs, and although my wedding was in NJ, I figured it may still be usefull for some girls here:
The hall - Tides Estate: B+/A-.
They were accomodating and the food was good, but the cake was not done the way I asked them to, and the waiters for some reason ignored the bridal table where Lenny and I sat, so I had to chase them a few times to get our water refilled.
The bridal suite was supposed to have food delivered during the cocktail hour, and not all of it was there, and I had to ask the Matre D to bring it in, even though I was told that all dishes from the cocktail hour will be in the bridal suite, just in smaller quantities. Also, I was told that there would be a key to lock the bridal suite, but the key was nowhere to be found. Luckily, nothing was stolen. On the positive note, when the MC decided to change the order of the reception, and to do the garter/bouquet toss at a wrong time, they were flexible and worked with him...
The band - Freilehs Orchestra - a 'B':
The positive note is that they made everone dance and things went smoothly and the dance floor was packed. They played the first dance, the parent dance and the last dance correctly. However, the rest of the songs were not those that we requested, the order of the garter toss/bouquet toss was screwed up (they did it about half hour before cake cutting, but were supposed to do it after cake cutting). Although they played nice dance music, I was upset that they didn't play the songs from 300+ list that I provided them with, including the 10 or so must play songs. I gave them a tip only b/c there are few russian bands around, and I didn't want to ruin a wedding for some of my friends in the future, b/c in all reality he is the only Russian MC that we liked of the ones we saw. He did not deserve a tip...
Photo/Video - Imagine - A+ for day of picture taking, but since I have not seen pictures yet, I cannot say how good they are.
All I know is that Lia Nelson and Paula were able to organize photo shoots for a very disorganized and chaotic family. They were very calm and professional, and worked well in posing us when necessary. Nelson was not obtrusive in Video taking, but I did see his light a bunch of times.
Seamstress - Karin Yngvesdotter A+:
The dress, the veil and the gloves were done perfect. Karin was the easiest vendor to deal with, very accomodating and reasonable for the huge amount of work she had to do for my dress. The cleaner that she recommends for steaming the dress afterwords was good too and I will be using him for dress preservation.
Florist - Creative Floral Concepts (NJ) - a 'B'
Bill was easy to deal with as far as planning was concerned, but my bouquet was not done correctly, and the flowers were not the freshest. He also messed up one of the mother's bouquets and had to go back and redo it on the wedding day. The bouts were done wrong too, and we had to fix them (he had a white plastic leave attached to a single rose bouts, itstead of plain rose bouts as requested, no greenery). My flowers smelled badly the next day, and were pretty much dead.
Day off planner: Elaine Deluca, from Exquisite Events - A+
I could not have been more happy with Elaine. She coordinated things calmly, made chaotic people do their job when needed and in general without her I think my wedding would have actually been messed up b/c the immdediate families had no clue how the wedding process worked.
Radisson in Fairfield: B
A good chunk of the family stayed there the day before. They were difficult to deal with while reserving rooms, the forgot to mention some important details (for example that rooms with 2 double beds are on a different floor than rooms with one queen bed), and in general I was disappointed with their service. They did provide us with champaigne and strawberries, but in general, I felt a lack of coordination on their part.
Hair Dresser - Rita from Beauti Salon in NJ: A+
Rita did mine and my sister's hair and it stayed up well all day. She was calm when I was throwing tantrums in the morning, and telling her not to do this and to do that!!! She was a bit slower than I expected, but all in all, she was great.
Make-Up - I did my own, and Lenny and my mom liked it... We'll see how it turns out in pictures.
Rabbi: Burt Aaron Siegel - A
The ceremony was good and he did his job well. No complaints.
Dance Lessons: Shall We Dance in Manhattan 'A':
John was a great dance instructor and very patient with a couple who had no music or dance abilities. We performed the first dance with some technical mistakes, but only few people noticed them (my mom is an example of those who noticed the mistakes, but few others did).
David's Bridal - I wont rate them on service, but their dress held up well on the big day. It was heavily beaded, only few beads fell off despite me stepping on them, and the dress did not wrinkle too easily.
All in all it was a good day, although both moms (his and mine) drove us crazy... We had the ceremony outside and I was glad of it, b/c the day was beautiful and it was not super duper hot. I managed to day 'I do' three times![]()
We danced too much, and are now hurting in our feet and other body parts. The wedding night was fun and I got to show off my cute lingerie...
But the biggest thank you goes to all the girls on LIW, b/c there was no way I could have done it without you![]()
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The hall - Tides Estate: B+/A-.
They were accomodating and the food was good, but the cake was not done the way I asked them to, and the waiters for some reason ignored the bridal table where Lenny and I sat, so I had to chase them a few times to get our water refilled.
The bridal suite was supposed to have food delivered during the cocktail hour, and not all of it was there, and I had to ask the Matre D to bring it in, even though I was told that all dishes from the cocktail hour will be in the bridal suite, just in smaller quantities. Also, I was told that there would be a key to lock the bridal suite, but the key was nowhere to be found. Luckily, nothing was stolen. On the positive note, when the MC decided to change the order of the reception, and to do the garter/bouquet toss at a wrong time, they were flexible and worked with him...
The band - Freilehs Orchestra - a 'B':
The positive note is that they made everone dance and things went smoothly and the dance floor was packed. They played the first dance, the parent dance and the last dance correctly. However, the rest of the songs were not those that we requested, the order of the garter toss/bouquet toss was screwed up (they did it about half hour before cake cutting, but were supposed to do it after cake cutting). Although they played nice dance music, I was upset that they didn't play the songs from 300+ list that I provided them with, including the 10 or so must play songs. I gave them a tip only b/c there are few russian bands around, and I didn't want to ruin a wedding for some of my friends in the future, b/c in all reality he is the only Russian MC that we liked of the ones we saw. He did not deserve a tip...
Photo/Video - Imagine - A+ for day of picture taking, but since I have not seen pictures yet, I cannot say how good they are.
All I know is that Lia Nelson and Paula were able to organize photo shoots for a very disorganized and chaotic family. They were very calm and professional, and worked well in posing us when necessary. Nelson was not obtrusive in Video taking, but I did see his light a bunch of times.
Seamstress - Karin Yngvesdotter A+:
The dress, the veil and the gloves were done perfect. Karin was the easiest vendor to deal with, very accomodating and reasonable for the huge amount of work she had to do for my dress. The cleaner that she recommends for steaming the dress afterwords was good too and I will be using him for dress preservation.
Florist - Creative Floral Concepts (NJ) - a 'B'
Bill was easy to deal with as far as planning was concerned, but my bouquet was not done correctly, and the flowers were not the freshest. He also messed up one of the mother's bouquets and had to go back and redo it on the wedding day. The bouts were done wrong too, and we had to fix them (he had a white plastic leave attached to a single rose bouts, itstead of plain rose bouts as requested, no greenery). My flowers smelled badly the next day, and were pretty much dead.
Day off planner: Elaine Deluca, from Exquisite Events - A+
I could not have been more happy with Elaine. She coordinated things calmly, made chaotic people do their job when needed and in general without her I think my wedding would have actually been messed up b/c the immdediate families had no clue how the wedding process worked.
Radisson in Fairfield: B
A good chunk of the family stayed there the day before. They were difficult to deal with while reserving rooms, the forgot to mention some important details (for example that rooms with 2 double beds are on a different floor than rooms with one queen bed), and in general I was disappointed with their service. They did provide us with champaigne and strawberries, but in general, I felt a lack of coordination on their part.
Hair Dresser - Rita from Beauti Salon in NJ: A+
Rita did mine and my sister's hair and it stayed up well all day. She was calm when I was throwing tantrums in the morning, and telling her not to do this and to do that!!! She was a bit slower than I expected, but all in all, she was great.
Make-Up - I did my own, and Lenny and my mom liked it... We'll see how it turns out in pictures.
Rabbi: Burt Aaron Siegel - A
The ceremony was good and he did his job well. No complaints.
Dance Lessons: Shall We Dance in Manhattan 'A':
John was a great dance instructor and very patient with a couple who had no music or dance abilities. We performed the first dance with some technical mistakes, but only few people noticed them (my mom is an example of those who noticed the mistakes, but few others did).
David's Bridal - I wont rate them on service, but their dress held up well on the big day. It was heavily beaded, only few beads fell off despite me stepping on them, and the dress did not wrinkle too easily.
All in all it was a good day, although both moms (his and mine) drove us crazy... We had the ceremony outside and I was glad of it, b/c the day was beautiful and it was not super duper hot. I managed to day 'I do' three times
But the biggest thank you goes to all the girls on LIW, b/c there was no way I could have done it without you
