My 8/20/06 Bourne Mansion / Sweet Blossoms / Nafshenu/ Silverfox Review

I should start by providing a little background about myself, as not all of my vendors and wedding planning experiences will be relevant to the LI weddings community. I planned a lot of my Long Island wedding while I was living in California, so the invitations and bridal salon were CA based. At the same time, I was planning a move to England with my new husband immediately after the wedding, and that certainly added an extra challenge. That’s where I’m posting from now, a couple of months after the wedding. This site really made the long distance planning possible and successful—thank you! Here’s a really detailed review. It’s sort of my payback since I lurked these pages with very few postings. Please fm with any questions.

Reception and Ceremony Site: Bourne Mansion A+
I thought it might be too much, a little too fancy for me, but we loved it. This place has so many interesting things going on: the great lawn with the south bay in the distance, the terraced patio, the colonnade in the back of the mansion. The rooms inside are beautifully furnished and all distinct from one another. And the ballroom is just incomparable to anything else--from its sheer size and height, to the incredible oculus/window/skylight overlooking the room.

Although the room allocated for the ceremony was lovely, it was a little tight. We had over 170 guests and it looked like they were spilling out into the hallway. It was tight for two people to walk side by side in the procession, and I even tried to have three (i tried walking arm in arm with both of my parents). It was also very hot in the room on an otherwise reasonable August day in NY. Having the video camera lights shining in our faces made it even hotter. The Bourne has AC, but it’s an old and very big place and the doors were constantly being opened with people coming and going. However, I would not consider this issue a deal breaker, and the AC seemed fine in the rest of the mansion.








Caterers: Lessings A
http://lessings.com/2006_bourne.htm
Overall we’re very happy with the food and service that Lessings provided and we feel like we got it all for a reasonable price. A place like Oheka Castle would have easily been twice as expensive for what we ordered (we ordered a lot of ad-ons, including a sushi station (‘cause how can you have a Jewish wedding with no sushi?), crepe station, chocolate fountain, Viennese table…and the starting package was already quite robust).



Almost everyone I dealt with was pleasant and friendly. Lenore was our sales rep. I think she’s very nice, but I got the sense from her that she wasn’t that well informed about things as others and that she wasn’t in as good a position to negotiate as Ben, the sales manager. When I had questions, even about basic issues such as how to fill out the seating map, I got clearer and more comprehensive directions from Steve, who also ended up being our maitre’d. As maitre’d, Steve kept the wedding running smoothly. With a deep voice and no nonsense manner, he evoked obedience and confidence in both his staff and guests (in terms of keeping the bridal party informed, getting guests seated for the ceremony, moving them from the cocktail hour to dinner…). At the same time…what a sweet guy! Steve and his friendly staff really made the role of wedding planner unnecessary and I’m glad I spared myself this additional expense. I even got the sense that a wedding planner would get in the way.

Lessings was very flexible in working out our food requests. We wanted all of the food to be kosher style, eg. no meat and milk in one dish, no shell fish, no pork, and they were great about making substitutions whenever applicable. There was an abundance of food all around at our wedding, from the cocktail service through the end of dessert, and we got only compliments about it from our guests at the end of the night.

Flowers: Sweet Blossoms Flower Boutique A+
153 W End Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11235-4824
(718) 332-5774
contact: Mila
The flowers were just spectacular. I felt as if Mila took a paintbrush and just painted our wedding with flowers. All I told her was that I wanted bright colors, and color I did get. Flowers appeared everywhere. The bouquet on the entrance table, well I can’t say it was really a bouquet, it was enormous and yet delicate, and again the color, the roses and orchids. The chuppah was so beautiful, with flowers and vines descending off the edges. My bouquet consisted of white orchids cascading downwards with white roses in the back. The bridesmaids had red rose bouquets. Pictures can come closer to do doing justice than my descriptions, so here are a bunch. Besides telling Mila how many pieces I needed of everything, I was barely involved after placing my order. This lady is an artist (also a sweetheart).













Music: Nafshenu Orchestra A+
http://www.nafshenu.com/aboutus.html
lead: Jonathan
These guys generally do Jewish weddings and ours was the longest hora I’ve ever been in. We come from a mix of traditions, Israeli, American, Russian. We’re not so religious, yet we wanted some of the traditional Jewish music plus the extremely energetic and fun eastern Israeli/Arab music sounds. However, we mainly wanted solid American music that matched our eclectic tastes, from classic rock (lots of Van Morrison) to Bluegrass. These guys were able to pull it off. They were really phenomenal and Jonathan was just wonderful to work with.





Invitations: Richard Seibert Letter Press A+
http://letterspressed.com/
contact/owner: Richard Seibert
510-845-8566
Aside from our favors (which we did on our own), the most creative involvement we had in our wedding was working with Richard on our invitations. After exploring various printing options, I became fascinated with the appearance and process of letterpress printing, with how letters appear imprinted on the page. As with most other types of invitations, all the letterpress invitations I saw had set designs. Richard’s business is unique in that he works with you to develop a style and a layout, or to combine elements from various invitations. I decided I wanted cherry blossoms. Next step I went fishing for cherry blossom images on the internet. Richard then converted one of the photo images into an illustration. We worked to choose fonts, layouts, paper type, etc. One aspect of letterpress printing (one of the oldest and most labor-intensive forms of printing) is that each color utilized requires a separate run through the press. The more colors you choose, the more money this costs… Richard, in his pursuit of lending creativity to his work and happiness to the customer (me) charged us for three colors while actually running seven. He illustrates this process on his webpage using our invite as an example: http://letterspressed.com/html_doc/about_lttpress.html Altogether, I think we came out spending far less than we would have with most commercial letterpress printers (where you usually get one or two colors max). We had so much fun and got at least a little bit of credit for the appearance of the finished product (plus lots of compliments). Although Richard is in Berkeley, California, he does a lot of long-distance business too. Another artist.



Photographers and Videographers: Silverfox
http://silverfoxvideo.com/indexx.php
I am so delighted with the photos; ok, actually a little bit obsessed…with all 1,200 of them. I had Franko (as photojournalist) and GE Masana (as main photographer). They are both great photographers with different styles, which makes going through the photos more interesting. They were both great to work with the day of. GE worked especially hard (came out through the pictures—he captured so many great moments, even among the guests). I believe GE is contracting through Silverfox and has his own website (http://www.gemasana.com/), while Franko is also the General Manager for Silverfox. I almost went with Duet, but I felt like they were less than straight with me. We were about to sign the contract thinking we had one photographer booked when it turned out he was unavailable, felt like the old bait and switch. Still better than finding out after the fact. I’ll update my review when I get my edited video.



Hair: Jenn the Hair Genie, LIW vendor A+
Is a wiz… like all the reviews say, I was thrilled to find her free on my date. She works wonders in what seems like seconds. Especially on me: I had grown my usually short hair out for the wedding, but she accomplished a lot with what was still limited supply. And yes, so nice. All the girls were happy with results.



Makeup: Jackie from I Makeup You, LIW vendor A
I was really happy with my appearance and everyone loved the airbrushing. The makeup came off last at the end of the evening, after all the dresses were exchanged for jeans, pjs, and such… Jackie is really confident and really good… the one tradeoff is she’s a bit pushy (oh, and also more expensive than some others, though they’re all really expensive). You may think you know what’s right, but she may very well disagree and tell you so. And that’s probably a good thing. When I came in for my trial I asked for her to go easy since I don’t usually wear makeup. I think this was a mistake on my part that I corrected for the big day, when I pretty much asked her to start from scratch rather than the trial notes. She ended up using slightly darker/deeper colors to much nicer effect, especially in the pics. Also, I really appreciated that she always returned my phone calls immediately. She was one of the few vendors I used in this frantic wedding industry to do so.





Guest Hotel: Hilton Garden Inn, MacArthur Airport A
http://www.hiltongardeninn.com/en/gi/hotels/index.jhtml?ctyhocn=ISPAHGI
Contact: Therese Coppola, 631-738-7800
I kept calling with countless questions and requests for Therese to fax me guest bookings--this lady has the patience of a saint, so nice. The hotel was really nice, modern, brightly lit and clean. I had originally considered the Hyatt, but they make you take financial liability if not all of your blocked rooms are booked. Besides, the Hyatt folks I spoke with weren’t nearly as nice. There were multiple wedding parties booked at the Hilton the same weekend, but this really didn’t affect us. I did think that we’d all end up on the same floor/hall, and we ended up scattered throughout the hotel. This just wasn’t a big deal to me and if anything I felt we had more privacy this way. Tip: ask for two adjoining rooms if you’re getting hair and makeup done at the hotel. That way each artist has a separate work area and it is easier for photographers to move between the two spaces. When I arrived at the hotel I found out that they had actually cancelled this request, but fortunately they were able to reinstate it. The adjoining rooms made the day and getting ready that much easier. The hotel was also really good about distributing gift bags (voice messages were awaiting guests in their rooms). We also paid an extra $100 to keep the hotel bar open to 3am. It was really nice to come back and unwind with our guests this way, especially since most were taking off the next day. The hotel also provides free shuttles for guests to and from the airport and railroad (but not to the wedding, see bus info below).

Bus: Horizon A+
Contact: Rita, 631-654-2622
This was a great discovery after I felt all my other options were exhausted. I kept delaying booking a bus for guests to be transported from the hotel to the wedding because I was so uncertain of how many guests we would end up having, and of course the cost usually goes up greatly with bus size. With Horizon we were able to charter a new 55-passenger bus for less than other companies were asking for much smaller buses. This relieved a lot of anxiety for me because I knew that all of our guests would fit in the largest bus on the market. Our guests were delighted with the bus and grateful to us for providing this service. They were especially impressed with how well the driver was able to navigate the rather tight entrance gate to the mansion. I found Rita to be a little gruff on the phone, but direct. I’m really happy with this find and with the good deal.

Limo: Sir Oliver A+
Contact: Jennifer
http://www.siroliverlimo.com/
This was probably the easiest and one of the nicest experiences I had with any of my vendors. Another remote booking I made from California based on LI Wedding rave reviews. I booked a 14-person Lincoln stretch. Jennifer was friendly and straightforward, and she emailed me pics of the limo. I think we got a good deal because we booked just for what we needed, which was just a pickup and a return at the end of the night (rather than having the driver wait around for us for hours). The morning of the wedding I got a call from the owner/manager offering a free upgrade to a Cadillac Esplanade. Who could refuse? The driver was a lady whose name I can’t remember, but just absolutely sweet and professional.

Rehearsal Dinner: Pomodorino (Hauppaugue, 10 min from the Hilton Garden Inn) A+
http://www.pomodorino.com/gardenrm1.html
contact: Vera Triggs at 631-951-0026
Wow, this place was great. The prices were very reasonable if not on the low end of the catering spectrum. It was very easy and nice to work with Vera, and both the restaurant and our private room had a lovely atmosphere, especially as night fell. The link above contains pictures of the garden room where we had our dinner. Pomodorino also provided a more casual atmosphere to contrast with the formality of our wedding the next day. We chose to have the dinner served buffet style (same price to have it served sit-down), and this kept people up and mingling, again more casual. The food was really delicious, and they kept it coming. Michaeli was our head waiter and kept things running really smoothly, another really nice guy to work with.

Cake: Black Forest Bakery B-
The cake was nice, but disappointing. When I came in for the tasting (I thought it was going to be a tasting), Tom said the he doesn’t work that way, that he produces sample cakes instead for pick up. Even after I explained my California situation, he still refused any tastings. The cake was part of the wedding package through Lessings and Lenore told me this was the only bakery I could use. I paid a lot extra for the fondant frosting. I brought in a picture of what I wanted and Tom told me he could duplicate it exactly. Well, he came close but the colors were off. I ended up with purple instead of pink flowers. I requested raspberry jam, but ended up with raspberry mouse…I even called to confirm the jam bit just a week before so that I could print up my menus with the details. The cake sill tasted good, but this is not a vendor I would recommend based on my experience.


Shoes: Sandy’s Shoes A+
Massapequa Park, NY. 516-799-5450
This LI store has a nice selection at reasonable prices that include dyeing services. I found the staff there to be really helpful. My mom ended up buying her shoes there as well. This store worked out for me because I have too tough a time finding comfortable shoes to trust the internet.


Table Cameras: freeweddingcameras.com or luckyweddings.com F
These were a wash. Actually a double wash since we had to pay for both the cameras and processing. The resulting printing quality was poor and grainy, many cameras went unused, some went missing, and the flash more often than not went forgotten. In this digital age (and if I were to do it again), I’d create table stands or inserts into favors asking guests to upload their digital images to a pre-determined website, eg.: www.fotki.com . Offer them a reward. You’ll get much better results than with these almost worthless hunks of plastic.

NEW EDIT: I've been using www.fotki.com a lot lately. An amazing photo sharing community with great features, eg. you can download full res pics from others' albums, or choose to allow such downloading from yours. You can assign an email address to each album you create and have people email their pics directly to the album. Wish I had known about this before the wedding... Could have created a specific wedding album for this purpose. My pics are at the following address: http://public.fotki.com/lilyanddan/

Yarmulkes A
http://yarmulkes.com/
I think these guys are famous. They are the NY source for yarmulkes. Sort of gruff and rude on the phone, but really nice when you come in to pick up the yarmulkes. Great prices, beautiful result. Make sure you order the clips as well.


Ketubah (Jewish Marriage Contract) A
Vendor: Afikomen: http://www.afikomen.com/
Artist: Ted Labow: http://www.ketubahworkshop.com/persian.html
Afikomen Judaica is famous in the SF Bay Area and offered the best selection of on-site ketubahs that I found anywhere, including in NY. It’s really very different to see a piece online vs. in hand. We approached this process a bit like buying our first real piece of artwork. We ended up choosing Ted Labow’s “Persian” Ketubah because of its vibrant colors. I believe he prints the outline, but he then hand-paints all of his ketubahs, so it also feels more like an original work than many of the lithographed ketubahs out there, which come across more like posters. His prices are also moderate for the amount of work involved, and include personalization. The nice part about buying through Afikomen (which can also be done over the phone) is that they error-check and deal directly with the artist if there are any problems. They also warned me before purchasing that Ted Labow is the one artist that they work with that consistently delivers his product at the last minute (but never too late). Sure enough, we received the ketubah only a few days before the wedding, but after both Afikomen and our rabbi approved the proofs via email. I’m very happy with our choice despite this stress (though glad we had the warning)—it’s just beautiful. Here are pics of our ketubah. For some reason, the pics on the artist’s website aren’t nearly as good.



Dress: Maggie Sottero, Eleganza A+
The Bridal Corral, Livermore
I loved this place and my dress (going out to Livermore great way to save on high premiums charged in San Francisco), but am saving this for last since it’s likely to be the least useful to Long Island/New York brides. (btw, my dress is for sale, ½ price after one use, size 12p, no other alterations, bustles already in place; its at my parent’s on LI. Please fm me if you’re interested).






Website: WeddingTracker.com A+
For $70 you get a personalized website for a year and nice website management tools and templates. Our website address is LilyandDan.com , which we also printed on the bottom of our invites.

DIY Projects: CD Favor, Programs, Guest Bags

Rehearsal Dinner Invites
We bought high quality paper from Paper Source and printed our own invites. The paper matched the color we used for our wedding invites, so we stuck these in together for mailing. We included separate rsvp info for the rehearsal directly on the invite. If anyone is interested, fm me for the text. We got four to a sheet and even printed driving directions on the reverse side. It was a simple invite using black Papyrus font (which we also used on our programs and menus). We used Adobe Illustrator to make everything centered on the page. We even centered it in such a way that only two cuts were needed to get all the invites to be the same size (directly in the middle horizontally and vertically). We printed on our own printer, but took the paper to Kinko’s for the two cuts (for a grand total of about $2).
Luxe Cream 160g Text
8 1/2 x 11 - 10 Pack
$3.75


CD Wedding Favor/Placecard
This was a labor of love from my fiancé. He chose the song list and designed the labels, also using Adobe Illustrator. We got the CDs professionally printed and burned from White Giraffe Productions (http://www.whitegiraffe.net/cddvdduplication.html), which turned out to be a lot cheaper and hassle free than buying the cds and printing/burning yourself. They offer a great price, service, and product, but I suggest requesting a proof before proceeding with the order. We ran into some confusion over this, but were able to resolve the problem. They also printed our insert with a thank you note on the front and a songlist on the back on a really nice, glossy cardstock. We bought our cd envelopes separately—the paperboard cd case from bliss (http://www.blissweddingsmarket.com/store/000058.htm). Here’s a link to the 4x4 laser labels we bought (we couldn’t find them in this nice dimension anywhere else, perfect for the paperboard case): http://www.uline.com/ProductDetail.asp?model=S-10437&ref=1230 Print extra labels and buy extra cases, the first few are bound to get messed up. We became experts at using a ruler to center and flatten the label down after a few attempts. The CD favor was also our placecard. We printed names on beautiful vellum from paper source, as seen in the picture, but can’t find the exact product listed. (http://www.paper-source.com/images/promo/VELLUM.jpg). I think we fit 4-5 names to a sheet, spaced out evenly in rows down the landscape-oriented page. We got the vellum professionally printed and cut into strips (also at our bay area mom and pop printing shop). We then sealed the placecard using a plain silver foil seal, which we purchased a bulk quantity of very cheaply on ebay. The product was called “1' Silver Foil Sticker Seals -- roll of 1,000” and the seller’s name was “mailersmart”. These come in gold and other colors as well. Final touch was to tie around the ribbon described below under guest bags.



Programs and Menus
We did the design and layout ourselves, then bought good quality cream paper and cardstock (for the menus and program covers) at our neighborhood paper supply. We then got our neighborhood copy shop (a mom and pop shop rather than kinko’s or copy central, which would have been a lot more expensive) to print both.



Guest Bags: Costco and Papermart
http://papermart.com/
We kept this project simple, but still nice and color coordinated to the wedding. Costco for all the fillings, water, granola bars, tea, oatmeal, etc. Papermart had great deals and very fast delivery on gift bags (http://papermart.com/index/index_retail_bag_handle.htm), tissue paper, and ribbon (http://papermart.com/templates/44-5-40.htm). We used the same organza wine ribbon (1/4”) to tie our wedding cd favor and as the binding for our programs. We included a welcome/info sheet with bus arrival and departure times, etc.

Bridesmaid Dresses and Groomsmen Tuxes
Ok, this isn’t exactly a DIY project, and I actually stole the idea from a friend’s friend. Instead of selecting a single dress or maker for my bridesmaids, I selected a complimentary color scheme (from a hardware store’s paint scheme samples that are printed on cardstock) and asked them to choose a dress that matched any color from the scheme (mine went from a light rose to a deep burgundy). This saved me the headache of worrying about their dresses and allowed them to choose what they a) liked b) could afford and c) complimented their figures. I think the result was beautiful.

For the tuxes, we simply asked that the groomsmen wear a black suit or tux, preferably one that they already owned. You have to scrutinize the pics carefully to tell that they don’t match exactly. Yet another headache and expense avoided for everyone. What we did do for the guys was buy them matching ties. We bought beautiful City of London solid silk ties in a deep burgundy shade to match the rest of our color scheme (again, determined by the shades on the color palette/swatch that we selected). We got them for a great price at Nordstrom Rack. Of course, another element that brought the tuxes together was the boutonnieres we got from the florist.

Re: My 8/20/06 Bourne Mansion/Sweet Blossoms/Nafshenu/Silverfox Review

Great review nice pictures

Re: My 8/20/06 Bourne Mansion/Sweet Blossoms/Nafshenu/Silverfox Review

absolutely gorgeous!!! i love the personal touches that you added in. mazel tov!

Re: My 8/20/06 Bourne Mansion/Sweet Blossoms/Nafshenu/Silverfox Review

I have to say that as I was reading about what you did with the BM dresses I was thinking that you were out of your mind but you are right! The end result looks fantastic. What a great idea! Your flowers are outrageous...absolutely gorgeous. Everything looked perfect. Congratulations!

Re: My 8/20/06 Bourne Mansion/Sweet Blossoms/Nafshenu/Silverfox Review

very detailed review and congrats!!! everything looked so beautiful!!!!

Re: My 8/20/06 Bourne Mansion/Sweet Blossoms/Nafshenu/Silverfox Review

Wow so beautiful! Your flowers, cake, invitation - all the details!

Congrats and thanks for such a thorough review with lots of pics!

Re: My 8/20/06 Bourne Mansion/Sweet Blossoms/Nafshenu/Silverfox Review

Great review...everything looked beautiful including you LOVE your bouquet...

Re: My 8/20/06 Bourne Mansion/Sweet Blossoms/Nafshenu/Silverfox Review

Great review! You looked stunning. Congrats on your marriage and your new home in the UK

Re: My 8/20/06 Bourne Mansion/Sweet Blossoms/Nafshenu/Silverfox Review

Wonderful review and beautiful pics!

Re: My 8/20/06 Bourne Mansion / Sweet Blossoms / Nafshenu/ Silverfox Review

It looked beautiful

Re: My 8/20/06 Bourne Mansion / Sweet Blossoms / Nafshenu/ Silverfox Review

great review!! Especially for Silverfox....I'm considering booking them!!

Re: My 8/20/06 Bourne Mansion / Sweet Blossoms / Nafshenu/ Silverfox Review

wonderful pictures. and OMG!!!!!!!!! those flowers are to die for!!!!!!!! congrats!

Re: My 8/20/06 Bourne Mansion / Sweet Blossoms / Nafshenu/ Silverfox Review

What a stunning, classy, gorgeous, elegant bride you are. Everything looks fabulous and perfect. Not much more to say. Cheers to you!!!!!!!

Best wishes!

Re: My 8/20/06 Bourne Mansion / Sweet Blossoms / Nafshenu/ Silverfox Review

mazel tov! your wedding was so beautiful. i especially thought your invitations were gorgeous.

Re: My 8/20/06 Bourne Mansion / Sweet Blossoms / Nafshenu/ Silverfox Review

Congratulations! Awesome review. You looked beautiful-I love your dresss and the Bourne is such a perfect place to get married. Congrats!

Re: My 8/20/06 Bourne Mansion / Sweet Blossoms / Nafshenu/ Silverfox Review

Beautiful review! Great pics!