trying to post review for 3rd time having trouble with pics lets see if they worked

Best Wedding Ever!

I just want to start my review by saying that I started looking on LI weddings all the time for ideas once the planning process began and I loved to peek in on other’s weddings but never thought that I would post a review myself. I wasn’t really vocal on the boards much and felt a little shy to post pics of us and all that but once the day started getting closer I realized I couldn’t wait to post a review. You do all of this work for your special day and spend so much time on details that most guests probably don’t even notice much less care about but the girls on LI weddings love it all so its my turn to get to share! :o). Also, my vendors were wonderful and I feel that I owe it to them to try to throw a little business their way because everyone did an amazing job. So good luck to all of you- our day was absolutely perfect and amazing and I wish we could do it again every year. Just relax, take it all in and enjoy your day together because it is so special.

Dress: Carmela’s Bridal Garden Designer: Enzoani A+



I absolutely love my dress and veil. I had a pleasant experience with Carmela- she did a great job on the tailor work although I didn’t need much and I wish I could wear my dress every weekend!

Bridesmaids Dresses- Burton’s Bridal Designer: Bill Levkoff A+

I chose these dresses because they were mermaid style like mine- which when I was ordering my dress and theirs mermaid was not as popular as it has recently gotten so there wasn’t many choices. The dresses turned out so beautiful and I felt really flattered all of the girls. Burtons has the cheapest prices and everything worked out fine with them as well.




Shoes: A

I ordered these online- can’t remember the website but I thought they were so beautiful and they were actually very comfortable. They didn’t hurt my feet at all the only thing was the rhinestones kept getting caught on the tulle that was under my dress. I ended up cutting the tulle a little so that wouldn’t keep happening. Unfortunately, this is the only pic that shows them even a little.


Bra & Panty: David’s Bridal and Victoria’s Secret

This bra was so uplifting and did not fall down at all but I got so hot and it was so restricting that I went to the bridal suite and took it off during dinner cause I couldn’t eat in it. The panties were so cute.

Day of Jewelry:
Earings Macys
Bracelet Macys
Engagement Ring Christian Bernard
Wedding Bands Elegant Jewelry

I love them all! I don’t have great pics of them but in this one you can see my earring a little.

Bridesmaids and Groomsmen Gifts:

For the girls I just decided to pay for their hair and make up. I know it’s not the most sentimental gift but I felt it would be the most helpful and practical to them. When ever I was in a wedding finances got tight and I have never worn any jewelry I got ever again. I did get my sister a beautiful sisters picture frame from Things Remembered. My husband got the guys a really cool gift- an engraved poker set.


Invitations: Pippy’s Sweets A

I totally loved our invitations and Diana was great to work with. She was easy to get in touch with she sent everything on time, it was all done and they were beautiful. My only complaint for the invitations was I had to glue the belly bands on myself and the glue dots were really annoying and most of the belly bands had to be trimmed before I could glue them on. It was no big deal though and we got a lot of compliments. These were the invites that we copied but ours had cream pocket folds- I don’t have a pic of ours but I do have the inside pic of the sample she sent so I will attach that as well.



Hair & Make-Up: Maximus Salon Glindy for hair and Michelle for make-up A+

I had 4 make up trials and 3 hair trials before finding these girls who I loved. Maximus is my normal salon but I was going to have someone come to the house so I decided to try some of the vendors who I’ve seen on here first. None of them nailed the look that I wanted so I just decided to go to Maximus and give it a try and it was exactly what I wanted. My curls started to get a little looser than I wanted by the end of the night but it was extremely humid out and 90 degrees for our ceremony and photos and I danced the entire night so all considering it held up pretty well. I absolutely loved my make-up and I did try airbrush with all of the other trials which is another reason I wasn’t going to go to Maximus cause they don’t airbrush but I loved the natural look so much more than I did the airbrushing so it was perfect.



Tuxedos: Paradise Tuxedo Patchogue B-

The tuxes looked great and it all worked out but they didn’t come in until 2 days before the wedding and two of them were sized completely wrong and therefore weren’t ready until the day of the wedding. I didn’t care- I let the groomsmen worry about it and they all looked great day of so no worries!!

Ceremony: Nassau County Museum of Art A++++

We got married in the garden and it was breathtaking. When we went there to look around I knew that even though there was no inside in case of rain that I had to take my chances and book this place. It was so beautiful and no one had ever heard of it and we got millions of compliments. It was so gorgeous.


String Quartet: Vintage Strings A+

This made the ceremony!! Vintage Strings are so reasonable and professional and perfectionists. The music was beautiful and it really added a lot to the ceremony. They even provided a microphone for our pastor because I was worried that guests wouldn’t be able to hear us say our vows. Call Andrew they are the best!!

Officiant: Pastor Mike Cassara A+

Pastor Mike officiated a friend’s ceremony and I loved how charismatic he was and the passages he read. We called him right after met with him and booked him. He gives you a lot of control over your ceremony and he is interesting to listen to.

Limos: All County Limo A

The limos looked great, we got the Rolls Royce and the Chrysler 300. The drivers were really nice and on time. They got us to where we needed to go and everything was fine. The AC in the rolls worked but not great- it was pretty hot in there and that limo has to drive pretty slow. Those were my only complaints but I loved the look of it and for the pics it was worth a little discomfort :o).


Photographer: Thomas Paul A

I just picked up my proofs and love them. Tony was our photographer the day of and he was comfortable to work with, professional, easy going, and not demanding. He was not intrusive at all and Thomas Paul has a great style of photography.



Video: Thomas Paul (don’t know yet but A so far)

We almost did not get a video. We thought it was way too expensive and you only watch it the first month you get it, that the videographer would annoy us and make us feel uncomfortable, and that wedding videos were cheesy. I am soooooo glad we got one!!! Please don’t save money by not getting a video. We never once noticed he was there, he was so discreet. The day did go by too quickly and we cannot wait to relive it and we also heard things the next day that we did not even notice so we can’t wait to see it all. Also, wedding videos are so not cheesy now, now they edit them and make them really cool actually.

Florist: Honeysuckle & Roses A+

I was so worried about the centerpieces. I felt that I didn’t want to spend a crazy amount on flowers but that they were pretty important because they are a huge focal point in the room. Debbie got me a little nervous at times because she doesn’t really make sample centerpieces and she’s not the best at calling back or sending paper work right away. She gave me a great price for what she said she would get us and she works from home so I felt a little like oh my god does she really understand our vision because this price seems too good to be true. Well she did understand my vision and did a wonderful job. I was very happy with the bouquets, centerpieces, and she even put little flower pins on the aisle chairs and rose petals down the aisle. She was a sweetheart and did a wonderful job so don’t worry about her being a little flaky she totally comes through for you!

Reception Hall: Fox Hollow B+

My husband and I wanted our wedding to feel intimate and unique. We looked at several halls and felt like the huge ballrooms were not our style at all. We wanted something that was very elegantly decorated, smaller scale so that we could have 100 people and not feel like it was spread out so crazy, and just something a little different than the norm. When we saw our room in Fox Hollow it was all of that. The room is so different and gorgeous that we had to have it. Everyone loved the food and told us over and over again how great it was. My only complaints are that they dropped our wedding cake, which we really didn’t get too upset about because it was an accident and these things happen and they felt soooo bad about it. We did custom order our cake from an outside bakery so of course Fox Hollow is refunding us what we paid for it and they actually called a baker in during the middle of the night to try to fix it. It didn’t look anything like the cake we ordered but it was fine and we get our money back so no big deal. The only other complaint I have is my bridal attendant was nice but she never refilled my drink once and she really didn’t take care of me at all. I started writing this review last week and now I have something to add to Fox Hollow which I actually have to change their grade for. When I picked up my proofs yesterday the photographer told me that they felt bad saying something to me at the wedding but that none of the vendors were fed even though I paid for all the vendors to get a dinner. I called Fox Hollow and told them I demand a refund for those dinners and I am mortified and they said they would get back to me. The place was gorgeous but between this and the fact that I haven’t gotten the refund for the cake either I’m getting annoyed.


Cake: Erga Bakery A

We never got to see our cake because as I mentioned it got dropped. Erga called us the next day to let us know that it came out beautiful and that they are making us a mini replica for our anniversary because they felt so bad we didn’t see it. Here is the picture we gave them though. The only difference is instead of the flowers on top we were going to have a fondant bow and the initial would have been an S. I will also attach a photo of how Jay by Cakes by Jay reconstructed the cake after it had been dropped.



Table Cards: WhiteAisle.com

I wanted to do table names just to do something different and I love white aisle’s products. They looked great and I ordered the stands from some website online. This is a the pic from their site, I used names but I don’t have a clear pic of them.


DJ: Sound Choice A++

Mike was really professional from Sound Choice. He convinced us to have him MC with the DJ and we were adamant about not having someone cheesy and on the mic the whole time and he was absolutely not like that. He was so classy and he got a feel for the kind of music we wanted before the wedding and he totally played everything we told him we wanted and he kept the party going all night. I have to say that he mostly stuck with music the young people wanted and danced to all night but I think that’s just because our friends danced the full 4 hours and he wanted us to have a good time. Everyone had so much fun!

Favors: Donation to American Cancer Society
We did a donation and put scrolls on the tables. People also took the frame their place card was in but we didn’t go crazy with favors because this was an area we felt we could save a little money. Most favors are never used and many are actually left on the tables so the money went to a good place and no one seemed to mind at all.

Honeymoon: St. Lucia

Tom the travel agent who is mentioned on here quite a bit convinced us to do Sandals Grande for 4 nights and Jade Mountain for 3 nights. We were leery on doing Sandals because we thought it might not be as luxurious as we wanted but when we arrived we were very impressed. The place is beautiful, people are friendly and its fun during the day. The food is good but not great and the night life is a little lame but on your honeymoon you don’t really care. By the 4th day we were happy to be going to Jade cause we were ready for something new. When we were going to Jade we were cursing Tom because he told us the transfer over would most likely take us straight to Jade if we gave him a good tip and that even if the transfer insisted on taking us to the airport that Jade was 10 mins. from the airport. Not True! The driver had to take us to the airport because there were 8 other passengers all going to the airport. The airport is an hour and a half from Sandals and the roads in St. Lucia are extremely windy and bumpy hence they make everyone very carsick. Once we got to the airport we had to wait for a transfer to Jade and were told it was an hour and 15 mins. away. I felt so sick at this point and was very unhappy. Once we got to Jade though it was 100% worth the traveling and now I was cursing Tom for sending us to Sandals for 4 days because Jade Mountain was something out of a dream. It was the sickest place I have ever seen in my life and I cannot wait to go back. In hindsight, Tom was awesome and did everything right. We could have never afforded Jade for a whole week and he knew that and actually breaking up the week made us always have something to look forward to while we were on our v.k. because we knew in a few days we’d get to try a new place and it made us never get bored which I think we would have. Both resorts were wonderful but Jade Mountain was phenomenal. Here’s our room at the resort. The rooms have 3 walls and infinity pools. The beds, showers, Jacuzzi tubs, everything is amazing!

• 

Re: trying to post review for 3rd time having trouble with pics lets see if they worked

You look gorgeous. Congrats. So happy to hear about the honeymoon. Travel Tom booked me the same honeymoon but I am doing Jade first then sandals. I am a little concerned about the transfer to Sandals because Tom told us the same thing.

Re: trying to post review for 3rd time having trouble with pics lets see if they worked

That dress is gorgeous!

Re: trying to post review for 3rd time having trouble with pics lets see if they worked

I ordered the same dress...what kind of bustle is that??its amazing!!