06/08/08 Westbury Manor Huuge Review w/ Pictures lots of LIW Vendors(Artisan, rev deb, hair genie, Oksana, Absol. Enter. Pedestals etc..Enjoy!

My review of my wedding on Sunday afternoon June 8th, 2008 at the Westbury Manor
Enjoy! Most of the Pics are Pro pictures

LIWeddings
A+
Everyone knows it..no need to explain

Ring set: Ames Silversmith in Iowa
A++
I wish this store was in LI because they are amazing jewelers. They helped my DH custom make an engagement ring that I am obsessed with. The side stones are Alexandrites (both DH and my birthstones). I love this wedding set



DH’s ring: Kay jeweler
B+
Both DH and I love his band. We think it was a little overpriced for being tungsten and Kay’s isn’t the most personal jewelry shop but all in all we were happy with the product.



Weather
B+
It was a record high 96 degree day with tons of humidity! I think I sweat in places that I never knew had sweat glands ? Our ceremony and cocktail hour were outside (12-1:30) so let me tell you it was hot. However, the sun was shining and I couldn’t have been happier to be outside in the gardens getting married.

Invites: LI vendor Kathy from “Follow your Heart”
A+
Very patient and helpful in picking out our invitations. The invites came in a timely fashion and we had the same company send them out for printed calligraphy. They came out great!

Out of town guest dinner: Holiday Inn- Carle Place
B
Nothing special. The food was ok, and they had the room we needed to feed a lot of out of town guests. It was convenient because most of the bridal party and immediate family was staying at this hotel.

Grooms Cake/DH birthday cake: LI vendor: Cakes by Mona
A-
The cake looked awesome but it was rather expensive ( I think a bit overpriced) so I am not giving it an A+. DH was very very surprised. The taste was pretty good although I picked a filling that DH really loves and I don’t.



Hotel for guests and wedding night etc: Holiday Inn-Carle Place
D-
Wow we had more problems with this hotel than I thought possible. When we booked a block of rooms they said no problem (we told them we would need around 30-40 rooms) They told us they released the rooms in blocks of 15 as they filled up but it would be no problem. Come April before the wedding and my guests started calling and they were being told there were no rooms left. Apparently the hotel did NOT really block off the rooms that we needed and pretty much booked everything up. It was horrible, one fight after another to get rooms. We had to call constantly to see if there were cancellations to get our friends into rooms. DO NOT trust this hotel. In the end we were able to get a majority of the rooms we needed but it was an argument every step of the way. The only reason they don’t get an F is because the rooms themselves were fine.

Limo: LI vendor “U.S. Limo”
A +
They picked us up from the hotel in the morning and were very nice and timely. The limo also took DH and I back to the hotel after the wdding. US limo provided free transportation to the airport for the honeymoon in the morning and also picked us up from the airport when we got home. Both times we got to take a limo, it was great!

Hair and Makeup: LI Vendors “Jen the Hair Genie” and “Oksana”
A++
These women both came to my hotel at 5AM! Yes 5AM to get myself and my bridesmaids all done for morning pictures. They were positive, happy, and a pleasure to work with. All of my girls and myself looked great! Oksana did a wonderful job making me look beautiful while still allowing me to look like myself. Jen’s hair creation stayed all day and didn’t get frizzy despite my naturally curly hair and the incredibly high humidity. You won’t go wrong with these two!



My Dress & Veil + MOB Dress: “Bridal Suite of Centereach “(Mary- sales and Effie seamestress)
A+
My dress was a Marisa gown in Ivory(I think 644 or something like that). It was the 1st dress that I tried on and despite trying on other dresses afterwards I always came back to the first one. Mary was very patient with me and allowed me to try it on multiple times that day and was sweet even when I came back the next day with a friend to make my final decision. The price was on the high side and they worked with me to get the dress into a budget I could afford. The dress came in right when it was expected. Effie did a gorgeous job on the bustle, however I felt that even on the day of the dress was a little to tight for comfort. That being said, it didn’t budge or slip down at all so I was very happy about that! My mom’s dress was also gorgeous and we had no difficulties with any of the buying experiences.






Bridesmaid’s Dresses & Flowergirl dress: ”David’s Bridal” (various locations)
B+
Nothing really special here, but David’s works great when you are out of town as are all of your friends! The girls had no problem’s ordering there dresses and they were true to size and looked gorgeous the day of. Most of the girls took there dresses to there own tailors. The prices at David’s are also very affordable which his nice when most of your Bridal party is still in school.





Tuxes: “Men’s wearhouse”
B+
Again nothing too exciting, but the renting experience was fine (no issues at all) and my DH looked great!






Florist: “Pedestals” - Several different sales people and Vito
C- (prior to the wedding day)
A+ (day of)
I found pedestals to be a little difficult to work with especially as an out of towner. We were repeatedly switched from designer to designer despite making specific appointments with people. No one ever called me to schedule a CP trial and when we requested one the person we were suppose to be seeing the day of the trial was not around and someone else set it up to show us. Problem was that this person had no idea what we wanted and the centerpiece looked pretty shabby. She also went over the rest of my order but it was horribly incomplete and she had no idea what was going on because we had never met with her before. My mother called them when I got home because she was upset at the service and we were scheduled with yet another person to do a retrial. This time we were set up with Vito. He did an excellent job at the trial and apologized profusely for the previous issues we had. The day of the wedding Vito came himself to make sure everything was perfect and it was! My bouquet was gorgeous as were all of the other bouquets, corsages, and centerpieces! (we went with floating candles/ callalilly centerpieces as seen in the pictures).








Officiant: LI vendor “Rev. Deb” from Ceremonies of the Heart
A++
She was great plain and simple. We had a mostly nonreligious though somewhat interfaith ceremony that was personal, touching and had a hint of humor as well. Rev. Deb was very helpful with the planning process, and very attentive to emails etc. Planning our ceremony from Iowa and Texas meant lots of E-mails etc and she was great! The ceremony had everything we wanted in it and the night before when I had a panic attack about the length of the ceremony and the heat of the day she was able to make some changes for me last minute. Got lots of compliments on the ceremony about how personal and touching it was. We had 2 readings that were done by my good friend and DH’s brother. We also included the unity candle, a flower presentation and the breaking of the glass. Highly recommended!









Ceremony and Cocktail hour music: LI vendor “Vintage String Quartet”
A+
Gorgeous music, very professional and very easy to work with. I’m picky about music because I was very involved in orchestra through out my upbringing (oboe). They offered musical suggestions but were open to whatever Erik and I wanted. The week before the wedding we went over all of the ceremony music and our selections for the different processionals. The cocktail hour music I left up to them to pick a selection of songs. They were there on time and played beautifully despite the heat!






Reception music: LI Vendor “Absolute Sound DJ” and Curtis (sax player)
A
My parents picked this vendor based on the criteria I had of not being overly obnoxious! I hate when MC’s/DJ’s are over the top and wanted to keep the affair very classy. They did a very good job the day of however during the preplanning I was a bit annoyed because they never called to set up a time to go over our selections. I called them 3 days before the wedding and they said “oh yeah, we should have called you last week”. Not the best organization skills if you ask me. They did a great job of playing what we wanted and did not play anything we didn’t.





Photographer/Videographer: LI Vendor “Artisan photo&Media Group” Chuck
A+ for day of and quality of proofs
C- since that day...
Chuck was great to work with. Everyone was very impressed with how funny , nice and efficient he was they day of the wedding. As I said it was very very hot and he did a good job getting the pictures he needed and then letting people go on there way. We did pictures before the ceremony so that DH and I could go to our Cocktail Hour. It was seriously the best decision of the day. Besides getting pictures out of the way and done earlier in the day before it got even hotter, seeing my DH made the whole day better. I was sooooo nervous and anxious before I saw him . As soon as I was able to see him (we did a reveal for the camera) the rest of my worries went away. It made the ceremony more enjoyable because I was able to relax a bit. But back to Artisan, they were great to work with both before the wedding day and the day of and we are just waiting to get the proofs so I can finally see how amazing the pictures came out. Update: proofs are awesome we got over 1200 of them. Thought it took a while to get them (6 weeks) but otherwise they are awesome! Update again....Uncut video is great...will wait for the edited one!
Update 6/1/10: Well it took us till October to get them the pictures / order for the album...but it is now June and they are supposedly still in the 'printing process'? They told me originally Feb/March and now we are almost 2 years out from the wedding and not only don't have an album but don't even have the prints to looks at. I'm disappointed with how slow everything is taking and that there is really no good reason for the printing process to take this long if they had my order and pictures in hand in October?! We'll see when and if I ever get the prints let alone the finished album.....















Ceremony location/ Reception Hall: Westbury Manor- Manor room
A++++++++++++++++ and more ?
The Westbury manor met and exceeded all of our expectations. I was never that impressed with the person who we booked the wedding with (she is no longer there) but everything she said was true. The food and the ambiance were amazing! They had the cocktail hour and the ceremony area set up beautifully. Our maitre dee and bridal attendant were both excellent and the day ran soooo smoothly. They even set up a private place for DH and I too eat some food during our Cocktail Hour and brought us a little taste of everything we had! They were constantly seeing if we wanted/needed anything. Really there is nothing bad to say, just amazing! Almost everyone commented that it was one of the best or the best wedding they had ever gone too.


















Cake: Westbury Manor
A





Chocolate Fountain : Westbury Manor
A++



Garter: Ebay
A
Looked great, was a little itchy though! DH is a huuuge red sox fan so this one was a must. He loved it!







Honeymoon: Sandal’s Grande St. Lucia
A
We had a great time and spent a week at Sandals. We got a free room upgrade as soon as we checked in which was fabulous. We ended up in a suite instead of a regular concierge room. I would recommend taking the helicopter from one airport to the other because the Van ride is very long and pretty rough (insert car sickness here). Unfortunately the helicopters were down for maintenance so even though we had scheduled to take them we couldn’t. The food at Sandals was good, not great but very good for an all you can eat. We really enjoyed the French crepe restaurant for lunch and the Italian restaurant for dinner. We did a few excursions including horse back riding (very fun), Zip line tour, and catamaran cruise. All of the tours were worth the money and we had a great time overall.

Pictures in my Album under Honeymoon!!!

Hope you have enjoyed the review. I know these reviews help a ton of girls have the best wedding ever!!!!!











Thanks for reading

Re: 06/08/08 Westbury Manor Huuge Review w/ Pictures lots of LIW Vendors(Artisan, rev deb, hair genie, Oksana, Absol. Enter. Pedestals etc..Enjoy!

Congrats to you both! Great review.

Re: 06/08/08 Westbury Manor Huuge Review w/ Pictures lots of LIW Vendors(Artisan, rev deb, hair genie, Oksana, Absol. Enter. Pedestals etc..Enjoy!

Thanks. It is good to hear good things about WM... I am not using any of the same vendors though.

Re: 06/08/08 Westbury Manor Huuge Review w/ Pictures lots of LIW Vendors(Artisan, rev deb, hair genie, Oksana, Absol. Enter. Pedestals etc..Enjoy!

Glad to hear that so many of your vendors did a great job!!!
We are also using Chuck and Artisan Photography. They do amazing work and WAHOOO for 1200 proofs!

Re: 06/08/08 Westbury Manor Huuge Review w/ Pictures lots of LIW Vendors(Artisan, rev deb, hair genie, Oksana, Absol. Enter. Pedestals etc..Enjoy!

Great review. your dress is gorgeous!!

Re: 06/08/08 Westbury Manor Huuge Review w/ Pictures lots of LIW Vendors(Artisan, rev deb, hair genie, Oksana, Absol. Enter. Pedestals etc..Enjoy!

Awesome review! Thanks!!!

Re: 06/08/08 Westbury Manor Huuge Review w/ Pictures lots of LIW Vendors(Artisan, rev deb, hair genie, Oksana, Absol. Enter. Pedestals etc..Enjoy!

I love reading Westbury Manor reviews! Your day looked perfect and you looked beautiful! Congrats!

Re: 06/08/08 Westbury Manor Huuge Review w/ Pictures lots of LIW Vendors(Artisan, rev deb, hair genie, Oksana, Absol. Enter. Pedestals etc..Enjoy!

Congrats!!! Thanks for the review. Everything looked beautiful!!

Re: 06/08/08 Westbury Manor Huuge Review w/ Pictures lots of LIW Vendors(Artisan, rev deb, hair genie, Oksana, Absol. Enter. Pedestals etc..Enjoy!

Congratulations! Thanks for the great review. Everything was perfect, you were so beautiful and your Artisan proofs are AMAZING!

Re: 06/08/08 Westbury Manor Huuge Review w/ Pictures lots of LIW Vendors(Artisan, rev deb, hair genie, Oksana, Absol. Enter. Pedestals etc..Enjoy!

Great review. You looked gorgeous

Re: 06/08/08 Westbury Manor Huuge Review w/ Pictures lots of LIW Vendors(Artisan, rev deb, hair genie, Oksana, Absol. Enter. Pedestals etc..Enjoy!

nice review...congrats!

Re: 06/08/08 Westbury Manor Huuge Review w/ Pictures lots of LIW Vendors(Artisan, rev deb, hair genie, Oksana, Absol. Enter. Pedestals etc..Enjoy!

Great review!!! I love seeing good reviews about WM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You just made me so happy today :)

Re: 06/08/08 Westbury Manor Huuge Review w/ Pictures lots of LIW Vendors(Artisan, rev deb, hair genie, Oksana, Absol. Enter. Pedestals etc..Enjoy!

Yay I'm glad you guys like the review. Reading reviews about you own reception hall are always fun, especially when they are positive ones! Anyone having there wedding at the WM will love it.

Re: 06/08/08 Westbury Manor Huuge Review w/ Pictures lots of LIW Vendors(Artisan, rev deb, hair genie, Oksana, Absol. Enter. Pedestals etc..Enjoy!

congrats looks like an amazing wedding great review

Re: 06/08/08 Westbury Manor Huuge Review w/ Pictures lots of LIW Vendors(Artisan, rev deb, hair genie, Oksana, Absol. Enter. Pedestals etc..Enjoy!

Your photos look great! I am so excited to get maried at the WM. Your cake was so pretty also..... was that a cake that WM included? Is it fondant? They did a great job

Re: 06/08/08 Westbury Manor Huuge Review w/ Pictures lots of LIW Vendors(Artisan, rev deb, hair genie, Oksana, Absol. Enter. Pedestals etc..Enjoy!

Congrats

Re: 06/08/08 Westbury Manor Huuge Review w/ Pictures lots of LIW Vendors(Artisan, rev deb, hair genie, Oksana, Absol. Enter. Pedestals etc..Enjoy!

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Posted by lauralupia

Your photos look great! I am so excited to get maried at the WM. Your cake was so pretty also..... was that a cake that WM included? Is it fondant? They did a great job

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It was the cake included in the package nothing extra. It was buttercream on the outside and strawberry's/vanilla pudding on the inside. It was pretty tastey:)

Re: 06/08/08 Westbury Manor Huuge Review w/ Pictures lots of LIW Vendors(Artisan, rev deb, hair genie, Oksana, Absol. Enter. Pedestals etc..Enjoy!

Great review and lovely wedding! congrats!

Re: 06/08/08 Westbury Manor Huuge Review w/ Pictures lots of LIW Vendors(Artisan, rev deb, hair genie, Oksana, Absol. Enter. Pedestals etc..Enjoy!

Thanks for the great review! You looked beautiful! I can't wait to have my wedding at WM

Re: 06/08/08 Westbury Manor Huuge Review w/ Pictures lots of LIW Vendors(Artisan, rev deb, hair genie, Oksana, Absol. Enter. Pedestals etc..Enjoy!

I was so concerned with what I would get but you have just inspired me! Thanks for the info