My 2/19/10 Wedding ~ Atlantis Marine World, Lillettes, Little Flower Shop, Sound Choice DJ, Blue Daisy, Infinite Video Productions, Pastor April Gismondi, & Mill Neck Interpreter Services

I want others to first know that I was planning this wedding from out of state. I was living in Northern Indiana when planning this wedding. My mother was in Tennessee and my bridal party was mostly in New York. That was a big thing when I was researching venders. They needed to be able to work with me via phone &/or email since I couldn't always come into their office.

I will be posting my reviews on the following vendors: Atlantis Marine World, Lillettes, Little Flower Shop, Sound Choice DJ, Blue Daisy, Infinite Video Productions, Pastor April Gismondi, & Mill Neck Interpreter Services. My mother always told me 'If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all'. In other words, if you notice I listed a vendor that I used in my profile and do not see anything said in this review about them, feel free to FM me for my opinion on their services.

First, I will talk about Atlantis Marine World. We are both “out of the ordinary” people and really wanted a place that was different than your typical catering hall. Our guests loved that they could explore the sea life throughout the night and as you will see, it really made for a beautiful backdrop for the pictures. Throughout the process we worked with Ron. He was a sweetheart and was really helpful. He was very attentive to our needs and that really helped us out a bunch, especially when planning long distance. The day of the wedding, the entire staff was attentive to our needs as well as our guest's needs. From the bridal attendant being sure to keep me on time to the cooks being sure we had great food all night, it was really nice to just sit back and not “run” the party for once.

Next, I want to talk about Lillettes of Bellmore. Let me give you a background on my wedding dress saga. I was originally intending to have my mother’s wedding dress altered to fit me for my wedding day. After hearing that this was not able to be done without major reconstruction that would change the dress completely, I was without a dress in July 2009, 7 months before my wedding. I was in a bit of a panic because I am not one that is in love with dresses. I’m a tomboy that is very picky on dresses because I’m not one to look “girly”. We had gone to another bridal shop that I had used for my prom dresses and were quite unsuccessful because the representative was not listening to my requests for my dress. Then we went to Lillettes. My mother got her wedding dress there so we figured we would try the one week I was in town to look over vendors. Pat was able to work with use and show us dresses, even without an appointment. I live out of state and that was the only time I had to look at dresses since I was already behind the ball and without a dress. We found the perfect dress for me after looking only through a few dresses. That’s when you know it’s a good place. You tell them what you want and they give it to you. They don’t question you or work against you. We had the dress ordered. I had to fly in to get the first alterations (done by Angel). I was supposed to fly in 2 weeks before my wedding to confirm the alterations yet my flight got cancelled due to weather conditions. They again worked with me the weekend before my wedding to make sure everything was perfect with my dress. What a place!

John and the crew from Little Flower Shop in Lindenhurst are wonderful. He really cares about his business and about his work. My family and I have always looked to him for any flowers we need, even out of state, and this was no different. He even had the flowers delivered to our hotel in Riverhead. Tom, the delivery person was very attentive and made sure that we saw everything that we ordered and where everything was in the boxes he brought. I know there is not much about him on here and there really should be because he really cares about his customers, not about his bottom line!

Mike at Sound Choice DJ we actually met at the bridal showcase Atlantis Marine World had. We really liked his approach to his services. He explained what he had, not how he was better than everyone else. We’ve been to a bunch of weddings and sometimes the DJ is loud and obnoxious and into themselves. Right from the beginning, we knew they were not like that. He followed our music specifications exactly how we wanted and we had a great time with our guests.

Mariann at Blue Daisy Weddings is a great photographer. She was actually one that we picked based on others on LI Weddings. We really thought hard about the photographer and videographer because after the wedding is over, all you have left are the pictures and the videos of the day. After looking at other photographers samples, we liked Mariann’s work as well as the “real” colors in the pictures. When you looked at grass, it was green not lime green. She also was very unobtrusive. We’ve been to other weddings and the photographer has interrupted dancing to get the perfect picture. She works with what is there to not only get a great shot but the true emotion instead of the forced feeling. She also was very calm and patient after the wedding when creating the album. We would not always have time to sit down and look over things right away so she was very patient with us. In the end, everything turned out beautiful as you can see. Here's the blog page for our wedding from our photographer.

Mike of Infinite Video Productions created a beautiful video of our wedding. He is very professional having tons of experience and knowing how to pick the perfect things to put in the video. We found him through our Best Man, who actually used Mike for his wedding. When we met Mike and he showed us his work, we were hooked. His stuff is of the highest quality. He also will not show you a sample of his work. He will show you the last wedding he did. He feels showing a sample will out date too quickly with the industry constantly changing. When sitting down with us, he realized that he was not going to be in town the weekend of our wedding. Unlike others who said, “Sorry, find someone else” Mike offered to still do the editing of the video and bring in the absolute best person to get the footage. He worked real hard and found us Pete, who was out of this world. Mike gave us someone who he wished he would have had for his wedding. That’s when you know he cares. Between Pete’s footage and Mike’s editing, it was really a great video. Here's the link for the “teaser” he sent us while he was working on the video so you can see his work. Videographer Teaser

Pastor April kept her promise. She promised per her website “The wedding ceremony shouldn't be the thing that you and your guests have to suffer through to get to the good part. I promise you a meaningful, enjoyable, ceremony that everyone will remember for years to come.” We have never heard people say they loved someone’s ceremony as much as they loved ours. She customized the ceremony to exactly what we wanted. She let us know what “legalese” had to be there to make it official, interviewed us both to put into the ceremony so both sides of the family were able to learn about both of us, and really made the ceremony a wonderful experience. As said before, we are two goofballs who like to have fun and our ceremony had plenty of laughs.

As there are not any reviews for interpreting services on LI weddings, we figured it would be important to post this vendor. As the groom’s parents are deaf, we wanted them to have the full experience of the wedding that everyone else was having. We hired an interpreter from Mill Neck Interpreter Services, Patty Sewell. She was very professional and clear. As the bride being someone who studied interpreting for a bit and the groom growing up in the deaf community, we were glad that we had a qualified interpreter. We will be sure to have this put up all over LI Weddings because there was no info on the site on which route to go for an interpreter.

Re: My 2/19/10 Wedding ~ Atlantis Marine World, Lillettes, Little Flower Shop, Sound Choice DJ, Blue Daisy, Infinite Video Productions, Pastor April Gismondi, & Mill Neck Interpreter Services

Great review. Where in Indiana are you from- both my FH and I went to IU (go hoosiers!- hence my name!)

And i am glad you had a good expierence with the little flower shop- my besttttt friends used to own it for many years and sold it a few years back to john who was a long time employee at the time. Glad to hear he is keeping up the reputation.

Re: My 2/19/10 Wedding ~ Atlantis Marine World, Lillettes, Little Flower Shop, Sound Choice DJ, Blue Daisy, Infinite Video Productions, Pastor April Gismondi, & Mill Neck Interpreter Services

Thanks. We were in North Central Indiana (South Bend,Elkhart) Originally from the island moved put there in 2007. After the economy really took a nose dive there decided to leave. Moved down to Charlotte NC.

Yes John is wonderful. Hard to find passion in ones work anymore but he definitely does and stands behind all his work.