My Very Late 4/17 Wedding Review!
I finally have my wedding review! We moved to NJ after the wedding so it’s been a little crazy. We’re finally a little bit settled in so I’ve gotten a chance to get my review together. We had an amazing day and had such a great time. I’ll try to add some pictures at some point, but for now here’s my review:
Hair-Anthony Cole Salon
I’ve been going to Anthony Cole for a few years and I knew that I could completely trust my regular stylist Vivian with my hair. I really wanted someone who could come to my house so I had one other trial with another vendor, but I wasn’t happy with it at all so I ended up going to Anthony Cole. They opened up the salon at 6am just for us and Vivian had a 2nd person come in so we could get all of my bridesmaids and my mom done in time. I loved my hair and it stayed perfect all day. All of the girls looked gorgeous too!
Makeup-Jillian from Gorgeous Faces
I loved my makeup and it looked great all day. Jillian is such a sweetheart and was so nice to work with. I highly recommend her. She also did my mom’s makeup. My mom usually wears hardly any makeup and when it was all done she looked so beautiful, but not unnatural. After seeing my mom’s makeup, my MIL decided she wanted to get hers done too and Jillian had time so she stayed and did hers too.
Florist-Jack and Rose
I was very happy with the way my flowers came out. They looked exactly like what I described to Jack. I loved my bouquet so much! I was also really pleased with my centerpieces. I wasn’t sure if they would look full enough because they only had 2 dozen roses in them, but they looked great! I just had one little problem with J&R, which ended up working out in the end. When I had originally placed my order, I had forgotten to add in 2 corsages for the readers. When I went to make my final payment about a month before the wedding I added them in, but apparently they never made it on to the computerized print out of the contract so I didn’t get them the morning of the wedding. When the delivery guy dropped off all of the flowers we went over the whole print out together and I okayed that everything was there, but since the 2 corsages were never on the list I didn’t realize they were missing until later. Luckily we had an extra corsage for our reader because my DH’s grandmother was too ill to attend the wedding so we took hers and we didn’t need the 2nd one because we made a last minute decision to have my MOH do the other reading. When I got to the Fox Hollow the delivery guy was there again and I told him about the missing flowers and even though I told him I didn’t need them anymore he came back a little while later with 2 corsages and some extra boutonnieres for some of the groomsman whose boutonnieres had gotten a little wilted by that time. I’m sure if I had let them know earlier in the morning they would have fixed the mistake then. Mistakes do happen and I was happy that they quickly tried to fix the mistake. I guess I would recommend that if you make any changes make sure that you get a revised contract. One thing that was annoying though was that the delivery guy kept insisting that I personally go down to the reception room to make sure that I was happy with the flowers. I know they want to make sure that the bride is happy, but I was in the middle of having my dress bustled and the maitre d was getting everyone ready to be introduced and this guy was hounding me to go look at the flowers. Finally, I had my DH go down to look at them and I signed off that I was happy with them. Overall, I was very happy with J&R and would recommend them. Oh yeah, Jack also surprised us by throwing in a beautiful flower arrangement for the dais.
Limos-Royalty
I’ll start off by saying that I was happy with the limo drivers. But, that’s about it. We were supposed to have 2 10 passenger Lincolns, but the sent 2 Cadillacs instead, which didn’t really matter to me, but still they were not the cars I had wanted. It was a pretty warm day and the AC in both of the cars was not working. Even though they said it was on, the vents were blowing out warm air. The radio also didn’t work in one of the cars. However, my real problem with Royalty was that as my DH and I are standing in the doorway of the church about to walk out after the wedding, my photographer comes up to me and says that the limos can’t go into overtime because they have another wedding to go to. The limo drivers said we had to be at the Fox Hollow by 1:30. Mind you it’s now at least 12:00 and we are in Bellmore. So she says that we won’t have time for everyone to go to Old Westbury Gardens for pics. She suggested that just DH and I could go so we could at least get a few pictures of us. Having just gotten married a few minutes before I was so happy that they could have told me anything and it wouldn’t have mattered, but later on when I realized what had happened, I was pissed. Especially since we were contracted to have one of the limos until 2:00 even without going into OT. We also spent an extra $275 to go to OWG and we ended up taking most of our pictures at the Fox Hollow. I was told from the beginning that I would be able to go into overtime and that I would just be charged extra, which was fine with me. A few days before the wedding I even spoke to Royalty and we discussed the OT and I told them I would probably need the limos until at least 2:00-2:15. Since only DH and I along with my MOH and the BM who came along for the ride went to OWG, there wasn’t enough room in the other limo for everyone to get back. I’m still not sure how our parents got to the Fox Hollow. Our bridal party had no idea what was going on and were surprised to say the least to show up at the Fox Hollow instead of OWG. In spite of how unhappy I am with Royalty, I have to say that my limo driver was excellent. As we arrived at OWG, I got a sudden nosebleed right before I was about to get out of the car (probably because it was so hot in there) and she took complete control of the situation and took care of me and told everyone else what to do. She sent someone to the trunk to get a runner to bundle up on top of me so my dress wouldn’t get blood on it, sent someone else to make an ice pack to put on my neck, all the while pinching the bridge of my nose to stop the bleeding.
Photo/Video-Imagine Studios
Imagine was the one vendor that I never had a doubt in my mind about. They were absolutely wonderful. Even my guests and family raved about how great they were to work with and how nice all of them were. Lia, Nelson, and Paula are all so incredibly sweet and nice to work with. They work so quickly and unobtrusively and are just so enjoyable to be around. I absolutely LOVE all of my proofs! We told Lia that we wanted a lot of B&W and photojournalistic and that’s what we got. We have the unedited video, but we haven’t really watched it yet. I’m sure the final video will come out great.
DJ-Get In Tune
Having an afternoon wedding, I was worried that people wouldn’t be dancing. Boy was I wrong! The dance floor was packed the whole time. Glenn, our MC was terrific. He came up to the bridal suite right before the reception started to quickly go over everything and to make sure everything went as planned. We gave them a list of about 10 songs that we wanted played and they played every one of them. I am still amazed at how much people danced.
Reception-Fox Hollow
Everything was perfect! As much as I loved the Fox Hollow, I think my guests loved it even more. Everyone has had nothing but great things to say about the FH. We never made it to the cocktail hour, but from what I hear it was awesome. Our maitre‘d was excellent and made sure that everything ran smoothly. My bridal attendant was terrific too and was always around to make sure that we had everything that we needed. I didn’t eat much, but I did try the filet mignon and the chicken (poulet de la princess) and they were both excellent. Our maitre’d had a combination plate made for me and DH so we could try a little of everything. Our CH was supposed to start at 1:30, but since a lot of our guests got there early they opened it at 1:00 instead. We had our reception in the Winter Garden Pavilion and everyone thought it was such a beautiful room.
Wedding Night Hotel-Inn at Fox Hollow
The room was beautiful. We had the honeymoon suite with rose petals, champagne, and chocolates. Breakfast was included, which was great because I barely ate anything the day before and I was starving. When we booked the room though we got a discounted rate because we got married at the Fox Hollow, but when my DH paid the bill when we checked out it was $249 instead of $209. He didn’t realize it was the wrong amount though. I don’t think we ever followed up with them so I guess we’re out $40. Oh well. Another thing-I left my veil in the room and you would think they could give you a call to let you know they have it since they obviously know who left it in the room. When I realized I had left it there I called and housekeeping had it in their lost and found.
Bridesmaid Dresses-Netbride
We got my BMs Bill Levkoff dresses from Netbride and I think they only cost $110 each. The dresses even came in early. We ordered based on the size charts and all of the girls’ dresses were a little too big when they arrived, but I guess that’s better than too small.
My gown-Lillettes
Everyone there was so friendly and I can’t say enough about Gerri who helped me find my dress. She is wonderful. If you are having trouble finding a dress, I highly recommend you go see Gerri. She will find the perfect one for you. I had no problems with getting the dress or getting the alterations done at all.
Veil-Barrons at Tri-County
Excellent to work with. They custom made my veil to be exactly what I wanted. And you can’t beat $45 for a veil. I didn’t find Barron’s until after I had already bought my tiara, but they have a great selection of headpieces too.
Tiara-Glamgal.com
I found my Bel Aire tiara at Lillettes, but ordered it through glamgal.com for much less. They have a huge selection and even though she didn’t have the tiara in stock I got it very quickly-I think it was less than 2 weeks.
Tuxes-Bonaventure in Garden City
Everything was perfect. Such a pleasure to work with.
Invitations-Gaddis Design
I LOVED my invitations. I spent more than I had originally planned, but I was so happy with the way they turned out. I couldn’t find anything in any of the tons of invitation books I looked through that I liked. I didn't want traditional looking invitations, but I still wanted them to be formal and elegant and I think they came out just perfect! Melissa custom designs your invitation and will keep making changes until you are satisfied. I have to admit I am a paper snob and I was very pleased with the quality of the invitations. I even sent Melissa a swatch of my BM dresses and she matched it to the color of the invites. I got sooo many compliments on the invitations.
Honeymoon-Royal Hideaway
This place is amazing!! Supposedly it is the only 5 star all inclusive resort in the world. They treat you like royalty. The food is excellent and the drinks were good too. I ate so much. The beach is beautiful. We mostly stayed at the resort and relaxed, but one day we took a ½ day trip to the Tulum Ruins, another day we took a cab over to Xcaret for a while, and Playa del Carmen is only a $4 cab ride away. You could walk there if you want. We booked our HM with Liberty Travel. In the past we have booked all of our vacations online, but Liberty gave us a better price and the customer service was excellent. I’m going to check with them for all of our future vacations.
Hair-Anthony Cole Salon
I’ve been going to Anthony Cole for a few years and I knew that I could completely trust my regular stylist Vivian with my hair. I really wanted someone who could come to my house so I had one other trial with another vendor, but I wasn’t happy with it at all so I ended up going to Anthony Cole. They opened up the salon at 6am just for us and Vivian had a 2nd person come in so we could get all of my bridesmaids and my mom done in time. I loved my hair and it stayed perfect all day. All of the girls looked gorgeous too!
Makeup-Jillian from Gorgeous Faces
I loved my makeup and it looked great all day. Jillian is such a sweetheart and was so nice to work with. I highly recommend her. She also did my mom’s makeup. My mom usually wears hardly any makeup and when it was all done she looked so beautiful, but not unnatural. After seeing my mom’s makeup, my MIL decided she wanted to get hers done too and Jillian had time so she stayed and did hers too.
Florist-Jack and Rose
I was very happy with the way my flowers came out. They looked exactly like what I described to Jack. I loved my bouquet so much! I was also really pleased with my centerpieces. I wasn’t sure if they would look full enough because they only had 2 dozen roses in them, but they looked great! I just had one little problem with J&R, which ended up working out in the end. When I had originally placed my order, I had forgotten to add in 2 corsages for the readers. When I went to make my final payment about a month before the wedding I added them in, but apparently they never made it on to the computerized print out of the contract so I didn’t get them the morning of the wedding. When the delivery guy dropped off all of the flowers we went over the whole print out together and I okayed that everything was there, but since the 2 corsages were never on the list I didn’t realize they were missing until later. Luckily we had an extra corsage for our reader because my DH’s grandmother was too ill to attend the wedding so we took hers and we didn’t need the 2nd one because we made a last minute decision to have my MOH do the other reading. When I got to the Fox Hollow the delivery guy was there again and I told him about the missing flowers and even though I told him I didn’t need them anymore he came back a little while later with 2 corsages and some extra boutonnieres for some of the groomsman whose boutonnieres had gotten a little wilted by that time. I’m sure if I had let them know earlier in the morning they would have fixed the mistake then. Mistakes do happen and I was happy that they quickly tried to fix the mistake. I guess I would recommend that if you make any changes make sure that you get a revised contract. One thing that was annoying though was that the delivery guy kept insisting that I personally go down to the reception room to make sure that I was happy with the flowers. I know they want to make sure that the bride is happy, but I was in the middle of having my dress bustled and the maitre d was getting everyone ready to be introduced and this guy was hounding me to go look at the flowers. Finally, I had my DH go down to look at them and I signed off that I was happy with them. Overall, I was very happy with J&R and would recommend them. Oh yeah, Jack also surprised us by throwing in a beautiful flower arrangement for the dais.
Limos-Royalty
I’ll start off by saying that I was happy with the limo drivers. But, that’s about it. We were supposed to have 2 10 passenger Lincolns, but the sent 2 Cadillacs instead, which didn’t really matter to me, but still they were not the cars I had wanted. It was a pretty warm day and the AC in both of the cars was not working. Even though they said it was on, the vents were blowing out warm air. The radio also didn’t work in one of the cars. However, my real problem with Royalty was that as my DH and I are standing in the doorway of the church about to walk out after the wedding, my photographer comes up to me and says that the limos can’t go into overtime because they have another wedding to go to. The limo drivers said we had to be at the Fox Hollow by 1:30. Mind you it’s now at least 12:00 and we are in Bellmore. So she says that we won’t have time for everyone to go to Old Westbury Gardens for pics. She suggested that just DH and I could go so we could at least get a few pictures of us. Having just gotten married a few minutes before I was so happy that they could have told me anything and it wouldn’t have mattered, but later on when I realized what had happened, I was pissed. Especially since we were contracted to have one of the limos until 2:00 even without going into OT. We also spent an extra $275 to go to OWG and we ended up taking most of our pictures at the Fox Hollow. I was told from the beginning that I would be able to go into overtime and that I would just be charged extra, which was fine with me. A few days before the wedding I even spoke to Royalty and we discussed the OT and I told them I would probably need the limos until at least 2:00-2:15. Since only DH and I along with my MOH and the BM who came along for the ride went to OWG, there wasn’t enough room in the other limo for everyone to get back. I’m still not sure how our parents got to the Fox Hollow. Our bridal party had no idea what was going on and were surprised to say the least to show up at the Fox Hollow instead of OWG. In spite of how unhappy I am with Royalty, I have to say that my limo driver was excellent. As we arrived at OWG, I got a sudden nosebleed right before I was about to get out of the car (probably because it was so hot in there) and she took complete control of the situation and took care of me and told everyone else what to do. She sent someone to the trunk to get a runner to bundle up on top of me so my dress wouldn’t get blood on it, sent someone else to make an ice pack to put on my neck, all the while pinching the bridge of my nose to stop the bleeding.
Photo/Video-Imagine Studios
Imagine was the one vendor that I never had a doubt in my mind about. They were absolutely wonderful. Even my guests and family raved about how great they were to work with and how nice all of them were. Lia, Nelson, and Paula are all so incredibly sweet and nice to work with. They work so quickly and unobtrusively and are just so enjoyable to be around. I absolutely LOVE all of my proofs! We told Lia that we wanted a lot of B&W and photojournalistic and that’s what we got. We have the unedited video, but we haven’t really watched it yet. I’m sure the final video will come out great.
DJ-Get In Tune
Having an afternoon wedding, I was worried that people wouldn’t be dancing. Boy was I wrong! The dance floor was packed the whole time. Glenn, our MC was terrific. He came up to the bridal suite right before the reception started to quickly go over everything and to make sure everything went as planned. We gave them a list of about 10 songs that we wanted played and they played every one of them. I am still amazed at how much people danced.
Reception-Fox Hollow
Everything was perfect! As much as I loved the Fox Hollow, I think my guests loved it even more. Everyone has had nothing but great things to say about the FH. We never made it to the cocktail hour, but from what I hear it was awesome. Our maitre‘d was excellent and made sure that everything ran smoothly. My bridal attendant was terrific too and was always around to make sure that we had everything that we needed. I didn’t eat much, but I did try the filet mignon and the chicken (poulet de la princess) and they were both excellent. Our maitre’d had a combination plate made for me and DH so we could try a little of everything. Our CH was supposed to start at 1:30, but since a lot of our guests got there early they opened it at 1:00 instead. We had our reception in the Winter Garden Pavilion and everyone thought it was such a beautiful room.
Wedding Night Hotel-Inn at Fox Hollow
The room was beautiful. We had the honeymoon suite with rose petals, champagne, and chocolates. Breakfast was included, which was great because I barely ate anything the day before and I was starving. When we booked the room though we got a discounted rate because we got married at the Fox Hollow, but when my DH paid the bill when we checked out it was $249 instead of $209. He didn’t realize it was the wrong amount though. I don’t think we ever followed up with them so I guess we’re out $40. Oh well. Another thing-I left my veil in the room and you would think they could give you a call to let you know they have it since they obviously know who left it in the room. When I realized I had left it there I called and housekeeping had it in their lost and found.
Bridesmaid Dresses-Netbride
We got my BMs Bill Levkoff dresses from Netbride and I think they only cost $110 each. The dresses even came in early. We ordered based on the size charts and all of the girls’ dresses were a little too big when they arrived, but I guess that’s better than too small.
My gown-Lillettes
Everyone there was so friendly and I can’t say enough about Gerri who helped me find my dress. She is wonderful. If you are having trouble finding a dress, I highly recommend you go see Gerri. She will find the perfect one for you. I had no problems with getting the dress or getting the alterations done at all.
Veil-Barrons at Tri-County
Excellent to work with. They custom made my veil to be exactly what I wanted. And you can’t beat $45 for a veil. I didn’t find Barron’s until after I had already bought my tiara, but they have a great selection of headpieces too.
Tiara-Glamgal.com
I found my Bel Aire tiara at Lillettes, but ordered it through glamgal.com for much less. They have a huge selection and even though she didn’t have the tiara in stock I got it very quickly-I think it was less than 2 weeks.
Tuxes-Bonaventure in Garden City
Everything was perfect. Such a pleasure to work with.
Invitations-Gaddis Design
I LOVED my invitations. I spent more than I had originally planned, but I was so happy with the way they turned out. I couldn’t find anything in any of the tons of invitation books I looked through that I liked. I didn't want traditional looking invitations, but I still wanted them to be formal and elegant and I think they came out just perfect! Melissa custom designs your invitation and will keep making changes until you are satisfied. I have to admit I am a paper snob and I was very pleased with the quality of the invitations. I even sent Melissa a swatch of my BM dresses and she matched it to the color of the invites. I got sooo many compliments on the invitations.
Honeymoon-Royal Hideaway
This place is amazing!! Supposedly it is the only 5 star all inclusive resort in the world. They treat you like royalty. The food is excellent and the drinks were good too. I ate so much. The beach is beautiful. We mostly stayed at the resort and relaxed, but one day we took a ½ day trip to the Tulum Ruins, another day we took a cab over to Xcaret for a while, and Playa del Carmen is only a $4 cab ride away. You could walk there if you want. We booked our HM with Liberty Travel. In the past we have booked all of our vacations online, but Liberty gave us a better price and the customer service was excellent. I’m going to check with them for all of our future vacations.
