July 20th wedding & Hawaii Honeymoon

Just wanted to report back on our wonderful wedding and reception. Everything went wonderfully. The best advice I can give is even if you worry about everyone else up to that day, let that day be just about you. We did & we had a blast!!!
Bridgeview Yacht Club in Island Park was AWESOME!! I can't say enough good things about them. The staff, the bridal attendant, the banquet manager all went above and beyond - even patching through a call from Ireland to congratulate us! The food was absolutely incredible. Really top notch - and so much of it!! They sent us home with boxes and boxes of food. Our families enjoyed it for days!
Ou DJ was Big Hits Entertainment and Jeff did a great job!
Our photo/video was through Ferlise in Levittown. They are a family shop and were great through the whole thing. I'm waiting to see how the pictures and video come out - hopefully soon.
I used a Florist from CT that I use at work and our centerpieces of all yellow roses were perfect.
Let me know if anyone has questions - I really just wanted to rave about Bridgeview, they were so awesome they made the day! (People were actually asking me how much it cost b/c they thought it must have been REALLY expensive - we thought it was reasonable.)

The Hawaii honeymoon was amazing. 5 days in Kauai at the Radisson which we LOVED! We were worried b/c it was a less expensive resort but it was the PERFECT location and allowed us to spend more money on food/activities and we still had a great room/view/pools!!! Our favorite restaurant on the island was The Beach House. YUMMY!! And our favorite activities were swimming in Queens Bath, snorkeling at Tunnels & Hideaways beaches, and the helicopter tour. Convertible was also great!

Then 5 days on Maui at the Fairmont Kea Lani. We booked Garden View and were bumped to Ocean View. Yeah!! This resort was absolutely top notch. HUGE suite with a HUGE balcony. The adult pool was great to have but we also had fun in the kid pools with the water slide and over by the swim up bar. We also enjoyed the Trilogy snorkel cruise, the road to Hana, and the sunrise and Mt. Haleakala. Hana was LONG though! And the Jeep Wrangler was perfect for this drive. We thought the Old Lahaina Luau was okay - but weren't thrilled about this whole area b/c it was VERY crowded, very commercial. Our favorite restaurant here was Mama's Fish House in Paia - so romantic!

Lastly, 1 night in Oahu. Stayed at Kahala Mandarin. Gorgeous room and nice hotel but I wouldn't pay the money for it if I could do it again - it wasn't worth it. Unfortunately, we had had to change last minute from the Hilton Hawaiian Village b/c their Kalia Tower was closed due to a hazardous mold problem & that's what we had booked. Luckily, we read about this in the Maui News and were able to call & change our plans before arriving on Oahu.
We saw the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor before our flight home. That was great to see.

I want to go back!!!!!!!

Congratulations! It sounds like you had a wonderful day. I would love to see some of your pictures. I want to use yellow flowers too.

So happy you had a great day, and thanks for the reviews!

Jen

Sounds like you had the perfect day! Congrats. Definitely post pics if/when you can!

Enjoy your new married life!

Congratulations! Thanks for reporting back with a review. Any pictures?

MMN,

Just wanted to say that I am glad that Bridgeview was soo great. We are having our reception there in 2003 and were worried because we hadnt heard many reviews about it. If you have any suggestions that you can give me regarding decorating (flowers/tuling) I would greatly appreciate it. I am glad you had such a wonderful day.

Oh, you will have such a wonderful time there!
Whatever you do, make sure you order the coconut shrimp - they were out of this world.
Oh, and we asked them to nix the salad course and they did a lemon sorbet that was raved about instead.
We did simple white/cream ceramic-type pots filled with verigated greenery, yellow roses, Queen Anne's lace, and tails of lace coming out the sides.
Then we printed menus ourselves to put at each person's spot....and we had our wine bottle favors at each spot as well.
At the cocktail hour our florist did open seashells filled with greenery and yellow bud roses - it was really cute & went with our sea theme, but I don't think cocktail hour decorations are really necessary. He also put out shells and flower petals on our placecard table. We used seashell placecard holders.
Honestly, they had great suggestions there are were really easy to work with - and loved to help! So ask them also - they even had some stuff in their stock that they let us use. (Ex. Frames with a silver seashell on them that we used as table # signs)
I could go on and on about how great it was.
Oh, the chilean sea bass for main course was also a big hit. Did you do a tasting? Have it. It's awesome.

MMN,

I went to a tasting before we booked so I knew that the food was amazing (esp. the chilean sea bass) The coconut shrimp sounds great. Did you do most of your planning with Robin? Just wondering and when did you find out all the information such as using their table markers etc? I know I have a long time just wanted to start to get a time frame. The sorbet idea sounds like a really good idea. Thanks again!!!!!
JMBtrfly

I did all my planning with Kathy.
Well, the table markers - actually I found out about those 3 days before the wedding when I dropped my other stuff off. Kathy saw all my shell stuff and said she had the great table markers that would go with my theme & I could use. So she offered them up.
Also, I was there for some reason a couple of months before the wedding and we were talking about flowers, decorations, etc. Just in conversation. They mentioned they had some votive candle holders and stuff like that we could use if we wanted. We didn't b/c we had the 5-10 Saturday wedding and we thought we'd have too much daylight to bother with candles. We were right, by the way. Candles would have been a waste.
Oh, and especially don't use tall candles. They've told me some girls insisted on them but the air conditioners can blow them out.

http://photos.lycos.com/PhotoCShare/PhotoAlbum.asp?CG=co6mrhlvjro4t2qve63bho9ae4&AID=374103

If you can click on the above site some of the pics show the yellow roses with the navy dresses the girls had. (monica w/girls is a good one to see it in)

Also, outside pictures were mostly taken by the outside gazebo by the tent.

We have some by the dock, fireplace, and lights - I will have to scan them later

The photos are all by Ferlise in Levittown

MMN:

Everything sounds GREAT !!!!!
I am going to Hawaii for my HM. 5 days Maui, 5 days Kauai.

Can you tell me how you booked your HM? Through a TA here or online?

Thanks -- Liz

You look so happy thanks for sharing. The pix are very beautiful.

lizlen2003 -
I booked everything myself. I called the hotels and car rental places myself and got together the best deal I could. Then I called travel agents to price my exact trip through them & I found it was more that way. So I'd advise you to do both as well. I also liked doing it myself b/c we had the option to make any changes we wanted up until about 1 week before.
I also booked a few of the activities ahead of time on my own.
Kauai - the helicopter tour, a NaPali cruise, and dinner at the Beach House (first seating!)
Maui - Molokini snorkel cruise, Old Lahaina Luau, dinner at Mama's Fish House (6PM)
The above things were ones we did ahead of time that I noticed others have trouble getting. For some of them, you might get in but it might only be available on 1 certain day of your stay and you don't want to have to work around their availability if you can avoid it.

HAVE A GREAT TIME!!!! I wish we could go back now!!!!!

Congratulations on your wedding!

I am going to Maui for 7 days and Oahu for 3 days - I was wondering who you booked your activities ahead of time with? Did you go online to book them? I want to book a few activities before I go because I heard they fill up quickly. Thanks!