My 10/8/06 Review: Timber Point, Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Rosalie, Starry Night, Kenny Pang, Denise/Angel Eyes, Flowers by Burton and more (added some pictures, 11/15/06)

We got married on October 8, 2006 and had the most amazing day – totally worth all the time, effort, money, stress, all of it. I had the wedding on Long Island but since I live and work in NYC, I hired a lot of NYC vendors. So for the convenience of people reading, I’ve split them up into Long Island and NYC Vendors, with Online and DIY at the end. I provided a lot of detail because well, I like to talk/write. Also because when I was reading reviews to choose my vendors, the more detail, the better it was for me. I hardly ever posted on LIW, but I used it a lot as a reference, especially the bride’s review, which is how I found my makeup person, DOC, bridesmaid jewelry, and I’m sure other vendors! These are a little long, but I hope they help someone. Thanks to all of you for all of your help, and happy planning!

I’m not sure how to put pictures in a post, so I can’t share many, but if you want to see a few, here’s the 20-picture slideshow preview our photographer sent us:

http://bigshow.bigfolio.com/?s=000003324&t=bbe87d95277829eddc9597901114ff94

By the way, we got absolutely perfect weather, especially since our ceremony was outdoors. Mid 60s and sunny - it felt like a gift, and I think maybe it was. (Thanks, Dad!)

LONG ISLAND VENDORS

Venue: Timber Point Country Club (Great River, Long Island)
www.lessings.com
Timber Point was exactly what I wanted in a venue – a place that looked and felt comfortable and warm, not glitzy and elegant. We were doing a Sunday brunch, and they offered us a great one – lots of options for a very reasonable rate. (It’s definitely possible to do a wedding for under $100 per person on Long Island!) We wanted a place on the south shore of Suffolk County, and they were – only a 20 minute drive from my mom’s house in Babylon. And we wanted it to have an outdoor area with a nice view, and they have a beautiful brick terrace overlooking the golf course and the bay in the distance. (You can have your ceremony outside on this terrace, we just chose not to.) Timber Point is run by Lessing’s, which has many locations on Long Island, and they really know what they’re doing. They gave us an absolutely amazing day. We gave them tons of pictures to display, and they put them out beautifully. When we arrived a little late for our cocktail hour, they just extended it a bit so we could enjoy it. Our maitre’d was Isaiah, and he rocked – he was always smiling, always helpful, but in a low-key way, and he made the whole day run like clockwork. And our personal attendant, Nicollete, was great – when my bustle broke, she was there with pins as soon as I wanted to fix it, and when Jason (my now-husband) asked her to pay special attention to his mom (who was outside a lot, smoking), she did – she brought food to her outside, checked on her often. The food was terrific – we had brunch food, so it was a really wide variety of foods including crepes, eggs, bacon, salads, roast beef, potatoes, etc., and everything I tried was really great. We weren’t able to do a tasting – they don’t do tastings of their brunch menu – but we did go there on Mother’s Day to try out their brunch, so we had a good idea of what it would be like, and the food did not disappoint.

I have only one complaint about Timber Point, and that’s working with a woman there named Lenore. When we first went to see TP, she was the one who showed us around. But when we went to sign the contract, she wasn’t there and we signed with Ben. However, Lenore became the person assigned to us, and she was terrible – not mean-spirited in any way, just forgetful and ditzy in a way that stressed me out to no end. When we first saw Timber Point, and when we signed our contract, we told them we were having our ceremony elsewhere, but wanted to use TP as our rain backup plan, since our ceremony was taking place outside. They said fine, and put a note in our contract. About two months before the wedding, Lenore calls me to ask about what the “ceremony: maybe” note in our contract means. I explained it, and it seemed fine, although she seemed confused. She calls back a week later to say she still doesn’t understand – when will they know if they’re having the ceremony at Timber Point? I explained that she’ll know the morning of the wedding, IF IT’S RAINING – that we’ll call by 9 am to let them know we’re having it there. Okay. Then she calls me again to say that they have to know a week in advance whether they’re having it there because they need extra staff. It’s a rain backup plan, how could I possibly let them know a week in advance?! I tell her that this should have come up ages ago, like when we booked. In the end, we work it out that we’ll pay a little extra so they can have staff on hand, just in case. She still calls me a week later to ask how they’ll know if they should set up for a ceremony, whether they should determine it based on cloudy skies, etc. I call back and get Neil over there and explain very carefully that WE WILL CALL if we’re moving it there, and I don’t want to have one more conversation about the ceremony again.

Also – we scheduled a meeting with Lenore to set the menu about a month before the wedding. We show up and she’s not there. We ended up having the meeting with Ben, who was there. (I later found out she had left a message on my home machine telling me she would be late. But I was already on Long Island by then, and she didn’t call my cell, so we never got it, and she never told anyone at TP to expect us, since she didn’t reach me in person.) Ben, I should say, was great – patient, funny, got everything done for us with little hassle. (In fact, when Lenore showed us around the first time, she had told us that we could have certain deals if we guaranteed 140 people. When we signed with Ben, he said the guarantee was 100 people. He was obviously the one there in the position to get you what you needed.) A couple of weeks before the wedding, I spoke to Ben and explained that I didn’t want to deal with Lenore anymore. A very nice woman named Jen called me to work out some details and ask for my table chart and such, but unfortunately, when I went to schedule my final meeting (to drop things off, mainly), the only time I could come was when Jen wouldn’t be there and Lenore was. Fine. So my mom and I arrive the Friday morning before the wedding at 10 am. The front door is locked. We call Lenore’s office and get the voice mail. We’re standing there, surrounded by bags, and no one is there. Finally we see a staff member walking by inside, and he lets us in. We go upstairs to the offices – no Lenore. Another staff member finally tracks her down somewhere in the building. When we sit down, she asks for the table chart – the one that she insisted was SO important that I faxed to her a week in advance of the wedding. She didn’t have it. I had to sit down and create a new one right there at her desk. (While I did this, she talked my mom’s ear off about her recent dental work and other medical problems.) So everything would have been perfect with Timber Point if Lenore hadn’t driven me so nuts. If you go to TP, even if it makes you uncomfortable (and I say this because I had read bad things about Lenore but didn’t say anything earlier), ask to deal with Ben or Neil or anyone else. You won’t regret it.


Ceremony location: Bayard Cutting Arboretum (Oakdale, Long Island):
www.bayardcuttingarboretum.com
They’re not really a ceremony location, but they allow wedding ceremonies, with a few rules. It’s a beautiful public space – like a nature preserve – on the south shore of Suffolk County, just a five minute drive from Timber Point. Lots of wedding parties take their pictures there because the grounds are so nice – there’s a pond (although there’s lots of goose poop near the pond) and lots of paths, flowers, clearings, gorgeous trees. It was perfect for us. Whether you’re doing the ceremony there or just taking pictures, the fee is the same – a $50 site fee/photography permit. (However, our costs went up when we chose to pay for parking for everyone – it’s $6 per car. We just left an envelope at the gate and told them to take money out of it for everyone who arrived and said they were here for our wedding, then picked up the change when we left.) It’s entirely do-it-yourself – we chose the area we wanted to do the wedding in and let them know, but it wasn’t like reserving the space – it mainly told them to expect a large group there that day, and not to have the sprinklers on in that area in the few days before the wedding. You have to bring everything in and out, and they don’t allow rental companies inside the arboretum. (So if you bring in chairs, you have to do it yourself, you can’t have the rental company deliver.) And they only allow you to have 25 chairs. Not that anyone came by and checked on us (we actually had 30, since we needed a few for the musicians), but we stuck to what they told us. We asked if we could bring in benches instead of chairs, and the woman at the Arboretum, Lillian, said yes, but in the end that grew complicated. It’s a spot that definitely made planning more difficult and detailed than if we’d had a venue and staff helping us, but in the end, it was so worth it to have our ceremony in such a beautiful place. People had to stand, but our ceremony was about 30 minutes, and it seemed to work fine - the people that needed chairs (older people, pregnant people), had them. We even had a few empty chairs, I think people were nervous about taking one if they didn't need it. Anyway, I'm so glad we had it there - I loved the setting and every moment we spent there. Even if you don’t end up having your ceremony there, if you’re having a wedding on Long Island and want to take picturess outside, definitely check this place out.

Florist: Flowers by Burton
www.flowersbyburton.com
Burton’s was great. I really liked that they charge one flat fee no matter what flowers you choose, so I could sign a contract a year in advanceand later change my mind if I wanted without worrying about the budget. We only did bouquets, corsages and boutonnieres with them – we did our own centerpieces. We spent about $500 total for one bride bouquet, six bridesmaid bouquets, 10 bouts, 3 corsages, which I thought was a very good deal. I loved what they did. I brought in pictures of what I liked, mainly calla lilies in fall colors, and they helped me put it together. For example, I wanted yellow and mango callas for the bridesmaids, and John, who we worked with over there, showed us some yellow filler that would look nice with them – and it did. He also helped us select boutonniere flowers based on the colors we wanted. For the bouquets, he tried to dissuade me from having the stems show below the ribbon around the stems – he thought the stems might stain my dress. But I hate the look of the stems being fully covered, and it worked out fine, no stains on me or anyone. My only complaint is that the bridesmaid bouquets were a little smaller than I expected – but they were still nice. And one thing was interesting about my bouquet – I brought him pics of red, mango and golden callas and told him I wanted a mix. He showed me a red calla that really looked more purple, which I didn’t like, and said that’s what the red really looked like, and said the golden was a hybrid and he wasn’t sure he could get it. So I decided on an all-mango calla bouquet, with red berries and some green leaves around the edge, and I was happy with that. But when it arrived, it was just what I had originally wanted – reds, golden, orange, all of it! So while maybe I should be upset that it wasn’t what we had settled on as my final choice, in the end I was thrilled that I got my original image. I LOVED my bouquet. Anyway, this place is a bit of a bridal factory – they don’t sell to the public, they only do weddings and events – but they know what they’re doing and the prices are great.

Hair: Tannya
I found Tannya when I contacted a hair stylist who advertised on liweddings – she was booked, but she recommended Tannya. Tannya was wonderful. During my trial, she did two different looks. First the updo I requested, then she suggested we try something different. I said “try half up” and she went ahead and did a half up, half down curly style that I ended up loving and wearing on the wedding day. She was totally sweet and calm – just the kind of person I wanted around first thing in the morning that day. Her rates were great, and she was really patient. Until the morning of the wedding, I didn’t know how many people she’d be doing, since Jason’s mom was unclear on whether she was coming early to have her hair done. I told Tannya that his mom wasn’t having her hair done, and then the morning of the wedding she showed up and wanted to get her hair done and Tannya worked her right in, no problem. And when I suggested that Tannya show up at 7:30 that morning, she was the one who suggested she come earlier, just in case – and she was exactly on time. She also handled totally different kinds of hair beautifully – she made my stick straight hair curly, blew out my sister’s crazy curls, did a flip blowout on one of my bridesmaids, and did magic with Jason’s mom’s short hair. Since Tannya isn’t an official “wedding vendor,” I don’t know if she wants her information out there, but if anyone wants her contact info, I’ll ask if I can pass it on. She lives on Long Island - I went to her house for the trial, but she’ll come to your place for the wedding day.

Makeup: Denise of Angel Eyes Makeup
She was great – funny and down to earth, and did a great job on me and my sister. She knew that I never wore makeup and was afraid of looking too done up, so she kept it pretty light, and when I asked her to take off some blush or eyeliner, that was no problem. I was really self conscious about wearing makeup, but she did a great job, and I love how it looks in the pictures. And she gave me a set of the makeup I wore – shadow, liner, blush and lipstick – so I could reapply during the day, although I only remembered to do lipstick once, when my friends cornered me and made me before the first dance. She was very affordable, and does great work - I definitely recommend her. Again, I traveled to her house (in Huntington) for the trial, but she came to my house for the day of the wedding.

Alterations: Donna, the Nimble Thimble (Bay Shore, Long Island)
My dress was already on Long Island – I had brought it out there to show my mom – so it just seemed easier to get alterations done out there rather than dragging my dress around the city. I forget how I found Donna – I think I was just searching for alterations people in the Babylon area - but she lived close to my mom’s house and did work out of her home. My dress was tough to alter – there’s a lot of detail at the top and bottom, so I had to order with a specific hollow-to-hem measurement since the hem couldn’t be cut down at the top or bottom. And the three layers are all sewn together and because of the embroidery, couldn’t be removed for altering. So it was tough. She did a good job, although I do have some reservations:
- She quoted me an estimate of $150 for basic alterations, although in the end it would depend on how much work she did. For a while I had considered altering the underlayer of the dress severely, which she estimated would bring the cost to $250. In the end, I didn’t alter the underlayer, and I didn’t add new straps (which I was considering), so her work was basically taking in the bodice and creating a bustle. And the final charge was $220. I thought that was a bit high based on her early estimates.
- My dress had two layers that needed to be bustled. The only real way to bustle it was at one point, and she reinforced the button she bustled it onto, but it broke anyway. Everyone’s bustle breaks, so I can’t really blame her for that, but it was frustrating when I popped that button off right at the start of the day and eventually had to keep the bustle up with pins.
- My straps seemed fine at the last fitting, but the morning of the wedding they were loose – I kept having to tug them back onto my shoulders. And then I went to hug someone and a strap popped right off. So I tucked my straps into the dress and went strapless. However, I didn’t learn until later that the straps were adjustable – so I could have tightened them, and I could have reattached the one I thought “broke” as well. This isn’t her fault – I should know my own dress – but I really wish she had mentioned this!

My Jewelry: Argyle Jewelers (Main Street/Deer Park Avenue, Babylon)
My mom offered to get me my jewelry as a birthday gift. I showed her pictures of what I wanted, and she took care of it – I know they didn’t have a “tin cup” pearl necklace in the store, so they made it based on what I showed her, and I also asked for pearl drop earrings. They were both so beautiful, and I loved wearing them.

NEW YORK CITY VENDORS (all will travel to Long Island)

Officiant: Rabbi Renee Feller
www.rabbireneefeller.com
We love Rabbi Renee! I had seen her officiate a wedding a few months before we got engaged, and I loved her warm style. She’s not affiliated with a temple, so she basically does weddings, baby namings, etc. She’s not for everyone – she’s very liberal (willing to do interfaith weddings, or not mention God, and let you use whatever rings you like, etc.) – she works with you to craft a ceremony that works for YOU, not for her or even for Judaism. She was okay with us using a more modern translation of the seven blessings (in fact, she provided it) and writing our own vows. It was important to me not to say – or have anyone else say – something we didn’t believe as part of our ceremony. I didn’t want to be a hypocrite and I wanted our ceremony to have meaning for us, not just for our family and our religion. We are both Jewish, but we feel more connected to our culture than to our religion, and in the end, our ceremony truly reflected that. She was also very accommodating, arriving at my mom’s house on Long Island an hour before the ceremony so we could sign the ketubah at home, where it would be more convenient for us, rather than at the arboretum. Her fee is pretty high - $850 when we hired her – but I felt that the attention she paid to us was worth it. We met with her four times over the course of the year, and emailed in between. My only complaints were that she had said early on that when she does weddings out of the city, she gets a car service to take her, and as the wedding got closer, she started talking about taking the train, which made things more complicated. And she stumbled a couple of times during the ceremony in almost-embarrassing ways. (She almost had Jason say, “I promise to laugh AT you” rather than “laugh WITH you” during the vows.) It took a little prodding to get her to send us the first draft of the ceremony, but I was also being a little anal at the time – it was two or three months before the wedding. Anyway, she’s wonderful – I felt connected to her the first time we met, and she gave us exactly the kind of ceremony we wanted.

DJ: A Starry Night (Gabriela)
www.astarrynight.com
We hired her without even meeting her, based on Starry Night’s reputation and the price was right for our budget. I admit, at first I was disappointed that Carol herself wasn’t available. But she spoke highly of Gabriela, and I admit that I was in a period of time when I just wanted to check tasks off, so we hired A Starry Night and Gabriela without meeting her in person. What a relief, when we met with her a month before the wedding, to find that we really clicked. I don’t know all that much about music, but I know what I like and don’t like, so we decided to let her do what she does best – plan the day, read the crowd. We gave her about eight “must play” songs consisting mainly of the wedding songs of our family members, the usual list of “don’t’ play” songs (Macarena, Chicken Dance, etc.) and other than that, just some ideas of genres we like and don’t like. (I.e., 80s rock good, heavy metal bad.) She stuck to everything we mentioned. I liked that I didn’t know every song that was going to be played, but every song that she played, I liked. (I was surprised to hear “Brick House” at one point, but she does know the crowd – it got lots of people on the floor, and that wasn’t always easy to do at a Sunday afternoon wedding). Two things I really loved that she did: when we got to the reception from our ceremony site, she mentioned that she had found three versions of our song and asked if she could play one for us to make sure it was correct. We wanted to use a very specific live version, since we liked it best and had practiced our dance to it, so it was great that she wanted to make sure it was right. She played about a minute of it, and we confirmed it was right and practiced our dance for a minute, alone on the dance floor. It was a nice moment, and I’m glad she checked. Also, I had been nervous about doing a hora – a lot of our friends wouldn’t know it, and since we didn’t want to be lifted on chairs, I wasn’t sure how quickly it would get repetitive and boring. When I started to feel it was going on too long, I mouthed “end it” to her – and she was watching me, because she did, right away. One thing I would do different next time is specify a clear last dance song – we had asked her to play “Heaven” by Bryan Adams, which is the wedding song of my stepbrother and his wife. Not my favorite song, I find it pretty cheesy. However, my stepbrother and his wife left early, and Gabriela played “Heaven” as our last song – totally understandable, since we requested it and she probably thought it was special to us. My fault, not hers, and no big deal.

Photographer: Kenny Pang
www.kennypang.com
We haven’t seen the proofs yet, just a quick preview of 20 pictures, but we loved him! I chose certain vendors partly on their personality – people like your photographer and DJ are going to be around you all day, and if they rub you the wrong way, that could really get in the way of having a good time. Kenny was fabulous – he was low-key and not pushy at all in that way I’ve seen some wedding photographers get. He made this great sound of excitement whenever he was getting posed shots he really liked. And other than the posed shots, I was barely aware of him all day (yet whenever I wanted a picture, he seemed to be right there).. He was super quick with our posed shots, too – we had very little time before the ceremony, and I’d planned to finish what we didn’t get done after the ceremony. But he got our whole list done in 45 minutes, with time to grab some other people for more pics! He had some posing ideas I didn’t love – hands on hips, having people stand in odd ways, etc. – but if I wasn’t comfortable, I’d just say so and we’d move on to something else. I can’t wait to see what he got. His rates, at least when we hired him in 2005, were right within our budget, and he was willing to tinker with his packages to bring the rate down. He also had no problem coming out to Long Island, and even though we didn’t pay for him to bring an assistant, he brought one anyway. (He brought Heather, who seemed great – she helped us check off our photo list, helped Kenny, and also took pictures herself.) I definitely recommend him.

Ceremony musicians: City Winds Trio
www.citywindstrio.com
We couldn’t have amplified music at the Arboretum, so we looked for live musicians. We listened to some string trios and quartets, but it just wasn’t a sound I loved – I wanted something a little different and less classic. So I read somewhere about City Winds Trio on one of the wedding boards somewhere else and listened to their samples online and really loved them. They’re a flute, oboe, and bassoon, and they had this light, sweet, fun sound that I thought would sound great outdoors. We had all communication by email and hired them without ever talking to them in person. We asked them once if we could hear them play live, and they said they’d send us a schedule of where they were playing around the city, but they never did, so that was annoying. As it got closer to the wedding, I emailed them to see if we could meet to discuss our music selections – I was hoping they could provide some advice – but they said they didn’t do meetings, but we could talk on the phone. In the end, Jason and I just made our choices on our own and emailed the choices to them, and it worked out fine. I asked if they could play “The Rainbow Connection” at some point before the wedding (not the processional), and at first she asked if I could find sheet music (which I had no time for), and then she said it turned out they had it, so they played it as part of the pre-wedding music, which I really appreciated. It was a little weird to have vendors we knew so little about and had never spoken to as part of the wedding, but they did a great job. When we arrived at the Arboretum – around 10:15 in the morning – the first person I saw was a woman who said, “Hi Susan,” and I was like, “who is this, should I know her?” It was Meredyth, one of the musicians, who obviously recognized me as the bride. They had gotten there early and wanted to know where to set up. That was the only time I ever spoke to any of them! But they played beautifully and we loved hearing their music while we took pictures across the path. My only other complaint is that when we were ready to start the ceremony, we had to delay a bit because Jason’s mom was in the bathroom – and they just stopped playing. We were all lined up across the path in our processional order, and all the guests could see us, so it was a little awkward in the silence.

Dress: made by Venus,
Ordered through RK Bridal 'no frills' program
www.rkbridal.com
www.venusbridal.com
No problems here. I was on a budget, and I chose a dress that I loved but that wasn’t too expensive. I didn’t see it at RK originally – I tried it on in a little shop on Long Island. The LI shop had it for $600, RK had it for $385, so I ordered through them. It was an additional $80 for ordering it with the exact hollow-to-hem measurement I needed (to make sure I didn’t need to hem the bottom and lose any of the detail, I had to order it to my exact height), but I still stayed well within my budget. I found the “no frills” thing a little nervewracking – you order through them, but they don’t help you with your measurements at all, so that’s all up to you to figure out your size and order it – but it worked out fine for me. (I work in a theater and had the Costume Shop manager take my measurements.) While to me RK is a New York City vendor, since I went there twice and tried on dresses and even filled in my “no frills” form in person and picked up my dress from them in person (they’re three blocks from where I work), anyone from around the country could order through them by phone or online. I definitely recommend checking their prices before you order through someone else. As for the dress – I loved it. It was not at all what I thought I wanted, originally – I was looking for something with wide straps or sleeves, no train, v neck! Instead I got spaghetti straps, scalloped hemline, train. It was from Venus, which had an “informals” line I first liked (simpler dresses with no train), but then I fell for this one – it had all this floral embroidery, but no beading, which was what I loved most about it. However, I knew when I ordered it that it was cheaply made. It had big wide seam fabric sticking out from each side of the seam on the inside, that kind of thing. I didn’t care, and it looked great on the wedding day.

Shoes: Payless!
Saw them in the store and thought they were cute. I had a fitting coming up, so I thought I’d get them to see if they were the right heel height, as a prototype for what I would eventually get. (Since the hem of my dress was detailed and couldn’t be altered, I had to pick the shoes to match the length of the dress rather than the other way around.) But I liked them, and I didn’t need super fancy shoes, so a quick, cheap and easy choice!

Strapless corset-type bra: Bra Tenders
It’s a bit pricey, but worth it. I made an appointment, the woman who worked with me eyeballed me and picked out a corset-style strapless bra that fit perfectly. It cost around $130, I think, but was worth it for giving me a great figure and support under my dress.

Veil[: Rose Bridals
West 39th Street between 7th and 8th
The woman there is named Maria, not Rose, and it took me a little while to explain what I wanted, but once she got it, she did it exactly right. I wanted a one-tier, not-fluffy veil with a thin edging that matched my gown, and she did it beautifully. She makes each one to your specifications, but it was only a two week wait – when I went to pick it up, she hadn’t attached the veil to the comb yet, but I just ran some errands for 30 minutes and came back and it was done. It only cost about $60, and I really liked being able to order in person and see the fabric I was getting and how it fell, rather than online.

Jason's Tux: Men's Wearhouse
Jason was the only one who wore a tux, mainly because he wanted to, but the rest of the wedding wasn’t that formal. (The groomsmen wore charcoal grey suits and white shirts of their own choosing and a red tie we provided to match the bridesmaid dresses.) Everything seemed to go fine for him, and he looked great in it. And because they’re a chain, it was easy for him to pick it up at a place near work and then have my parents return it the day after our wedding on Long Island, since we left for our honeymoon right away.

Dance Lessons: Sandra Cameron Dance Studio
www.sandracameron.com
(199 Lafayette St. south of Spring street)
We got the 'wedding couple' package, which includes four group lessons and 3 private lessons. I definitely recommend going this route, wherever you go – the group lessons helped us get some basic steps down before we had intense focus put on us and on developing a dance for the wedding. If you’re not comfortable dancing with someone who isn’t your fiancé, it may not be for you – you switch partners a lot in the group lessons, which was weird at first, but ended up being fun. The studio also offers a bunch of perks here and there if you’re taking lessons with them, like going to their Friday night dance parties. And when you’re taking group lessons, you can go to any “Basic 6” session during the week Monday – Thursday, and then you can come to a “Basic 6 Review” class for free on Friday. The basic 6 dances we learned were fox trot, tango, salsa, swing, waltz and rhumba – just a few basic steps of each, but enough to twirl around the floor a bit and feel like you’re doing more than just swaying. Our group lessons were with Sherman, who’s a great teacher if short on personality. Our private lessons were with Janice, who we loved – she was fun and patient, and really knew how to work with our strengths and weaknesses. And she came up with an impressive but not-too-hard dance for our song, which wasn’t easy, since our song wasn’t really a traditional dance song, it was sort of like a fast slow song. We had a really good time in the lessons, and we’re thinking of going back for more, just for fun.

Rings: E&J Jewelers in the Diamond Jewelers
My e-ring and wedding ring from E&J jewelers in the diamond district. Jason's is from an online vendor. E&J was great – reasonably priced, and a very funny (and slightly pushy, but in a nice way) Russian (I think) woman named Kathy works at the front counter there, and we loved her.

ONLINE VENDORS

Bridesmaid dresses: Aria Dress
www.ariadress.com
They don’t have a shop in NY, but have locations in LA and Boston. I had worn an Aria dress for my friend’s wedding a year before, so I knew what they looked like and I knew they were a good quality. What I really wanted was a line of dresses where I could pick the color and everyone could pick the style and length of their dress, and I personally didn’t like the local dress lines (Dessy, etc.) I was seeing. Aria was perfect – they send color swatches of up to five colors for free, so I ordered five colors and picked “dark red” from that. Then I sent all the women the link to the Aria site where they could pick their dress – any style they wanted, from more than 20 styles. I really liked the styles they offered – it feels like they have something for everyone, and they don’t necessarily feel or look like bridesmaid dresses, so they can be worn again, hopefully. Since some of my bridesmaids were spread around the country, doing it all online worked well for us. They all picked something different, although two wore similar halter styles. There were two long dresses and three short, and I think it looked great. (I say that because some people didn’t think the different lengths would look good, but I had no problem with it, and each one of them got to order something they felt they’d look good in, which I loved.) Some of them ordered matching bags or shawls, and we ordered ties for the groomsmen that matched the dresses. They’re a little pricey – around $200 for a dress depending on the style, and the ties were $50 each. But many of the women have already told me that they plan to wear the dress again and how much they loved the dresses, and I believe them, so hopefully it was a good purchase for them. The order form can be a little confusing, but the customer service people are a great help – and totally on the ball, they called me to confirm they got my order fax about ten minutes after I sent it. Everything arrived exactly when they said it would, and except for one dress being tighter around the middle than expected, they were great.

Ketubah: 'Autumn of Joy' by Nishima Kaplan[
Found and ordered through her website, www.artketubah.com
I spent a lot of time looking at ketubahs online – there were just so many options online, and we really wanted something that would say just what we wanted it to say while also being a work of art. We couldn’t afford an original work of art, but there are some beautiful prints out there. We originally saw our ketubah, “Autumn of Joy” on another website which features the work of many artists, but then we saw that Nishima had her own website, so we ordered directly through them. I’m so glad we did, because I really felt like we got so much personal attention. After seeing the color sample of our ketubah, I felt like the white text was going to be too light against parts of the background that were yellow, so they offered to do the text in a light brown and sent us another color proof so we could see it. (It looked great – and we now have a one-of-a-kind ketubah, since no one else has the brown text, and even the artist said she really liked the change.) We dealt directly with Alon Kaplan, Nishima’s husband, both on the phone and in person, and he was great about sending us proofs of the text, letting us change the text, waiting for our changes, etc. They were wonderful and really let us do a lot within a basic “order as is” kind of budget. We absolutely love our ketubah.

Hair pin
www.noesisboutique.com
I knew I wanted something floral in my hair, and I spent a lot of time looking at hair pins and barrettes with little flowers on them. Then I saw the “lily hair pin” at Noesis and fell in love. I ended up getting a small one, with no feathers, just beads. When I ordered it, I realized I was dealing with an individual artist who made everything herself and would customize it to what I wanted! She asked for pictures of my dress, and even matched the beading in the center of my lily to what would look good with the dress. Then she sent me a picture of the lily when she was done to make sure I liked it before it was shipped. She was great to work with. Unfortunately, I didn’t do a hair trial with the pin and when I went to put it in my hair the day of the wedding, I couldn’t quite get it to work in a way I liked, so I didn’t wear it. But she (sorry, I forget her name at the moment) was great to work with, and the prices were really affordable.

\Wedding party gifts
www.redenvelope.com
www.creme-de-luxe.com
www.amazon.com
I decided to go a bit traditional and get the brideswomen jewelry – but I was having a hell of a time finding something affordable that I liked for them. Finally, I found Crème de Luxe through someone’s recommendation on LIW – thank you! Crème was wonderful –she sells lots of different styles for bridesmaids. (There’s beautiful jewelry for brides, too) in a range of prices starting around $35, so I was easily able to get everyone something within my $50 per person budget. Every necklace she shows is available in any color crystal bead you want, so you can easily match your bridesmaid dresses, although I chose to get the “Claire” necklace in pearl rather than crystals so that they’d have a better chance of being able to wear it again. (There’s also three colors of pearls available). At the time, she was even throwing in matching pearl earrings with the Claire for only an additional $5, which helped make the purchase even better! This was another case where I soon realized I wasn’t dealing with a huge business but with an individual artist who makes everything on her own. My timeframe was a little tight, but Jen assured me that everything would be reach me in time, and it did. She even sent everything with boxes and ribbon to package them in. I had enough left over to get everyone a three-tier stacking jewelry box in chocolate or pink, which were on sale for only $10. I’m not sure they sell those anymore, but they looked great and really helped to fill out the gift. Jason got the men a “dopp bag” from Amazon for their toiletries, and then went to CVS and filled them with razors and other guy-like things.

Save-the-Dates: magnets through www.vistaprint.com
We were going to do postcards for our save the dates, but at the end we decided on magnets. Vistaprint was easy, very affordable, and even offered us matching address labels for very cheap, which we ordered and used. They sent us an online proof before we ordered, which helped – although when it arrived, we thought the font looked a little smaller than we expected. The whole magnet thing was still somewhat new to a lot of my family members, so they thought we were very clever.

Donation (instead of favors): Cancer Care
www.cancercare.org
I lost my dad to cancer and Jason lost his brother to cancer, so we knew we wanted to donate to a cancer charity in their memory. I wanted something that felt a little more personal and less huge than the American Cancer Society. A friend of mine spent the last year dealing with her own cancer, and Cancer Care was a great help to her, providing real-world needs like say, cab fare to get home from the hospital after chemo, so I really liked making a donation to a group that had helped my friend and was doing real work for cancer patients. In return for our donation, they provided us with cards – that we could draft – that went on every place setting at the wedding, telling people about the donation and about Cancer Care and what they do. It cost a little of their donation to get the cards, but I figured it was worth it if it informed other people about their charity and perhaps spurred other donations from our guests. They even sent online proof copies of the card to us to approve before they sent the cards out. They also offered scrolls, but we chose to do the card.

Wedding Website: www.ewedding.com
We didn’t want to start from scratch building a website, but we wanted a template that we could customize. Ewedding was great – I’m a computer idiot and I had no trouble using it, once Jason (an IT professional) showed me some html code so we could change the basic times roman font and I could put breaks between paragraphs. They give you a lot of basic page templates, but you don’t have to use all of them – we used about eight of them, and turned some pages into others. For example, we wanted a page for “travel information” about hotels, airports, etc., and they didn’t really have one, but it was easy to turn something else into that and just rename the page. We were able to share lots of family pictures, stories, FAQs, links to the registry, etc. The only drawback is that despite putting the address in the save the date and the invitation (the “details and directions” card had it), people still asked me things by email right before the wedding like where we were registered and if there was a hotel we could recommend. Oh well – we loved making it, and it was a fun project to do early on before everything got much busier, wedding-wise. I did need to remember throughout the year to keep updating it, like when we had directions to the venue or when the time of the wedding ceremony changed.

Registries:
Bed, Bath & Beyond, Macy's, Honeymoon registry through www.thebigday.com
No complaints about any of them. If we had found the bedding we wanted at BBB, we might not have even registered at Macy’s – BBB pretty much has everything, including fine china (which we didn’t register for). The Big Day was great, sent an email whenever someone bought something and got us the bulk of the money before we left. I should note that the whole honeymoon registry concept confuses some people. People seemed to think they were actually booking things for us rather than basically giving us money through a website.

Honeymoon: Hawaii! (Maui and Big Island) - booked through thebigday.com
Hawaii was amazing! We LOVED it, even with an earthquake! We did four towns on two islands in 12 days, and it was incredible. It definitely isn’t the place to go if you want to be original – Maui especially was crawling with honeymooners – but it was paradise, and a great mix of relaxation and activity. We snorkeled, hiked, kayaked, saw the sunrise, went to the beach, relaxed by the pool, walked across a volcanic crater, took a surfing lesson, shopped, ate, went to art galleries, swam in waterfall pools… you can really do anything on Hawaii.

DO IT YOURSELF PROJECTS

Centerpieces: Potted Mums
www.VanBnursery.com
We always knew that our venue didn’t provide centerpieces with our brunch package, and that this would be a good area for us to cut costs by not having our florist do them. We went through several ideas – little birdhouses was an idea for a while (our song is “You’re my Home”), but in the fall a year before our wedding, we saw potted mums sold cheaply everywhere, and that was the idea that stuck. (We briefly considered doing dried flower arrangements and even made a couple of trips to Michael’s for materials to try it out, but I never liked how it looked. We also considered ordering cut flowers online, but it just seemed like too much work, and in the end, I’m SO glad we didn’t do that, what with everything else we had going on that weekend.) Anyway, we had a whole fall colors thing going on, so mums were perfect. We scouted the nurseries around the south shore area where we were having the wedding and while some said they couldn’t pre-order mums and didn’t know what they’d have in stock, we finally found Van Bourgondien Nursery on Route 231/Deer Park Avenue, which was great. We pre-ordered 21 baskets of mums in three colors: red, orange, and rusty yellow, along with matching baskets to put the pots in. They weren’t sure if they could get that many baskets, and said they’d call about that, but didn’t – I called to follow up and they let me know they weren’t sure if they could get the exact basket that we chose, but they would get something that matched, and they did. When I arrived to pick up the mums, they weren’t anything like what I expected. The orange looked great, but the red hadn’t bloomed (the wedding was in two days) and the yellow was too bright and looked more like daisies than mums. I’ve got to give them credit – this (creating centerpieces for a wedding) isn’t at all what they do, but they sent a staffer out to the mums section with me while I put back all the yellow ones, wavered about what to do about the red ones and ended up changing my order entirely by getting lots of smaller pots of red mums that were fully open and that I could combine into one and ditching the bigger pots that weren’t open. Not only that, but I ended up taking 16 pots rather than the original 21 and they had no problem with that. It worked out to be really inexpensive (especially compared to having a florist do it), at roughly $11 a centerpiece ($6 for the basket, $5 for the mums).

Invitations
Paper from Paper Presentation (www.paperpresentation.com)
Embosser from www.theprintersink.com
This wasn’t an area we wanted to spend a lot of money on, so we made them ourselves. Paper Presentation had everything we needed – we bought pre-cut paper with rounded corners for the inside of the invitation, pre-cut paper with regular corners for our reply postcard, and “firecracker red” pocketfolds. We went to Paper Presentation to buy one pack of each to make sure it would work in our printer and do a few trial runs, and then we saved money by ordering online – the more you order, the more of a discount you get online. We printed everything ourselves, and ran the envelopes through the printer for the addresses. I didn’t want to use return address labels, so we ordered an embosser, and the one from the Printer’s Ink was really affordable. It didn’t offer as many font choices as some others, but we didn’t really need a lot. I do wish we could have had a few more characters per line, but it was fine. It needed a really strong hand to push it down and make an impression, though – I ruined a few envelopes by not pressing hard enough and only getting half an impression.

Other stuff:
Pens for guest book and ketubah from Office Depot - great selection.

Tons of things from Michael's - picture frames, picture frame stands, bags for out of town bags, etc. Never went into a Michael's before this, but they were a lifesaver!

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Re: My 10/8/06 Review: Timber Point, Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Rosalie, Starry Night, Kenny Pang, Denise/Angel Eyes, Flowers by Burton and more

great review, thanks

Re: My 10/8/06 Review: Timber Point, Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Rosalie, Starry Night, Kenny Pang, Denise/Angel Eyes, Flowers by Burton and more

great review! I can't wait to see pictures

Re: My 10/8/06 Review: Timber Point, Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Rosalie, Starry Night, Kenny Pang, Denise/Angel Eyes, Flowers by Burton and more

Great review! Cant wait to see pics.

Re: My 10/8/06 Review: Timber Point, Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Rosalie, Starry Night, Kenny Pang, Denise/Angel Eyes, Flowers by Burton and more

Great Review! Its interesting hearing about your sitiuation with Rosalie. She is highly reccomended on this site, but perhaps from her popularity she is spreading herself way to thin. Thank you for you honest review, I am sure this will help future brides! CONGRATS!! cant wait to see some pictures!!!

Re: My 10/8/06 Review: Timber Point, Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Rosalie, Starry Night, Kenny Pang, Denise/Angel Eyes, Flowers by Burton and more

Great review - you were very honest and thorough. Can't wait to see pictures!!!

Re: My 10/8/06 Review: Timber Point, Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Rosalie, Starry Night, Kenny Pang, Denise/Angel Eyes, Flowers by Burton and more

It sounds like you had a beautiful day...thanks for the review. Can't wait to see pictures

Re: My 10/8/06 Review: Timber Point, Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Rosalie, Starry Night, Kenny Pang, Denise/Angel Eyes, Flowers by Burton and more

Congratulations! That was an awesome review! You looked beautiful (the pics worked) and it sounds like despite a few glitches with Lenore you had a perfect day.

Re: My 10/8/06 Review: Timber Point, Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Rosalie, Starry Night, Kenny Pang, Denise/Angel Eyes, Flowers by Burton and more

WOW, your wedding lookes like it turned out beautiful. I just love the whole fall theme, if I wasn't a teadher I definately would of gotten married in October. You were a beautiful bride, thanks for the great review. Congrats.

Re: My 10/8/06 Review: Timber Point, Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Rosalie, Starry Night, Kenny Pang, Denise/Angel Eyes, Flowers by Burton and more

This is an awesome review thanks!!!

Congratulations!!!

Re: My 10/8/06 Review: Timber Point, Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Rosalie, Starry Night, Kenny Pang, Denise/Angel Eyes, Flowers by Burton and more

congrats!!!!

Re: My 10/8/06 Review: Timber Point, Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Rosalie, Starry Night, Kenny Pang, Denise/Angel Eyes, Flowers by Burton and more

Thanks for writing such a detailed review!!!!
Congratulations

Re: My 10/8/06 Review: Timber Point, Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Rosalie, Starry Night, Kenny Pang, Denise/Angel Eyes, Flowers by Burton and more (added some pictures, 11/15/06)

I couldn't figure out how to get more pics in my original post - or how to get them to show up near each vendor, so here's a few more:

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Re: My 10/8/06 Review: Timber Point, Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Rosalie, Starry Night, Kenny Pang, Denise/Angel Eyes, Flowers by Burton and more (added some pictures, 11/15/06)

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Re: My 10/8/06 Review: Timber Point, Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Rosalie, Starry Night, Kenny Pang, Denise/Angel Eyes, Flowers by Burton and more (added some pictures, 11/15/06)

Great Review!!!! cant wait to see proofs!!! congrats!!

Re: My 10/8/06 Review: Timber Point, Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Rosalie, Starry Night, Kenny Pang, Denise/Angel Eyes, Flowers by Burton and more (added some pictures, 11/15/06)

Sue! You look absolutely gorgeous and so happy in these pictures. The Bayard Arboretum looks amazing. What a fabulous place to have your wedding!

Congratulations on your marriage. Jason is a really lucky guy. I'm so glad I stumbled on this review!

Re: My 10/8/06 Review: Timber Point, Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Rosalie, Starry Night, Kenny Pang, Denise/Angel Eyes, Flowers by Burton and more (added some pictures, 11/15/06)

Congratulartions!!!!

Re: My 10/8/06 Review: Timber Point, Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Rosalie, Starry Night, Kenny Pang, Denise/Angel Eyes, Flowers by Burton and more (added some pictures, 11/15/06)

Can't wait to see some more pics!

Re: My 10/8/06 Review: Timber Point, Bayard Cutting Arboretum, Rosalie, Starry Night, Kenny Pang, Denise/Angel Eyes, Flowers by Burton and more (added some pictures, 11/15/06)

How are the prices at the timber im trying to find a place for an oct wedding but im on a tight budget?