My 10/20 wedding!!!! EXTRA-LONG and comprehensive
WOW!! I cannot believe how quickly it flew by! We just came back from our 12 day honeymoon and I wanted to make sure to tell you guys all about my day!! For those of you still deciding on a honeymoon, we would highly recommend a cruise!!
We used the following vendors (so you don't have to read the entire message, if you don't want to):
Reception: deSeversky Mansion
Hair: Margaret
Makeup: Jackie from IMAKEUPYOU.COM
Photographer: Ernie from Creative Compositions
Videographer: Bob from Skylight Productions
Florist: Greenleaf & Bloom
DJ: Mike from Stan Weist Entertainment
Limo: Designer Limos
Buses: Paradise Travel
Cruise: Holland America--Volendam
We had our wedding and reception at deSeversky Mansion, and Bob Ventresca (the main guy we worked with since last year) was fabulous. He was incredibly flexible with us regarding last minute changes in the number of guests. He let us go there the night before and drop off all of our stuff (my dress, pictures for the entry way, etc.). We were able to use the mansion for the entire day so my mom, sister-in-laws and some friends and I went there on Saturday around 9:30AM to start setting up. The ceremony was going to be a traditional Persian ceremony where you put a hand made cloth on the floor and food and objects are arranged on that cloth for symbolic meaning. The cloth turned out to be breathtaking!!
Our wedding reception was 'mansion style' which was basically like combining a buffet and on going cocktail hour for 2-2 1/2 hours. Food was spread out throughout the different rooms in the mansion--so each room had a different selection for guests to chose from. It was worked out great as our guests were able to mix and mingle, instead of sitting in one seat all night. We had so many compliments on the quality of the food and the selection of different foods was beyond our expectations.
My hair person (Margaret) came right on time and did a fabulous job on my hair--it stayed up all night and I received so many compliments on it.
For makeup, I asked Jackie (from IMAKEUPYOU) and she did an absolutely amazing job! She was right on time and it did not take her a whole lot of time to do my makeup. She really knew her stuff. I had even forgot to bring with me the paper that she had given me when she did the trial that stated the colors that she used, but she remembered and it came out exactly how I wanted.
Our photographers (Creative Compositions) were out of this world! Ernie and his assistants were so professional and so much fun to work with. He was even able to make my 1 1/2 year old nephews laugh in the pictures. Ernie had taken engagement pictures of us in August which were absolutely beautiful, so we cannot wait for our wedding pictures! Ernie was the main photographer and his assistant (I don`t remember her name) did all the candid pictures. She was really fun to work with too and she helped me out a lot to bustle my dress and poof it up for the pictures! They were incredibly unobtrusive!
Our videographers were from Skylight Video and they were extremely professional and never in anyones face. I hardly noticed them--which was great. One of the best things is that our photographers and videographers worked really well together, which was really wonderful.
The florist was Greenleaf and Bloom and the flowers came out beautifully. Everything was gorgeous. One little thing was that for our cake table we had asked for rose petals to be scattered on the table with votive candles, but when the cake came out, it just had greens all around it---not a big deal, and I don`t know who was supposed to do that, the caterer or the florist.
Our DJ was Mike from Stan Weist--he was really great! He was so flexible--we gave him a lot of CDs that we had mixed with Persian, Arabic and Spanish dance music, and he played most of the songs we had asked for, and played all the most important songs. The only thing that happened with our music is that when the DJ came to the mansion to set up for the ceremony, there was already a portable CD player hooked up (that we had used to play music while we set up)--so rather than using the CD player that he had brought (and tested our CDs in), he used the CD player that was already hooked up---for some reason, the CD skipped over the song that I wanted to walk down the isle with, so I ended up walking down with the song that our families walked down with. It was kind of annoying (not at all the DJ`s fault), but it really is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. All in all, we really liked our DJ and it seemed that people were dancing the entire night!! One thing we really liked was that the DJ did not have a big advertisement displayed in front of his booth like so many other DJ companies, instead it was just simple black. He just played the music and introduced us, but did not do any of the wild crowd stuff--he did exactly what we had requested!
We also used Designer limos. They were really professional when picking up and dropping off our families.
We also used Paradise Bus company to transport about 60 guests to and from two hotels to/from reception, and they were great!! No problems or complaints, in fact, we changed the number of buses from 2 to 1 and the travel schedule a few days before the wedding, and they were very undertanding and we have already received our refund check!!
We would highly recommend all of our vendors. They all helped our day to be incredibly memorable and without any problems or worries--we were truely able to just enjoy the entire day.
Sorry it is so long, but I wanted to give you guys a comprehensive reviews. Please do not hesistate to ask any questions you may have.
Now I am off to the newlywed board!!
