Updated! My 5/27/07 review, now with pro pics!

It's been a long, long while since my wedding, and I finally got time to scan in some photos.

Here's the link to my album...

Wedding Album

Hope all is well with everyone!

mrs s.


LI Weddings
I haven’t posted much on the boards, having been a lurker for the last ten months or so. Being a Jersey girl, and knowing next to nothing about Long Island, this site was indeed helpful in locating vendors. I was grateful to see actual brides and photos of vendors’ work, and once everyone was booked, I mostly kept tabs for reviews of my vendors.

We had a pretty tight budget, and our goal was to have an amazing event without looking like we spent a bazillion dollars. Many of these vendors are not from LIW. Some were found through other contacts, some by sheer stroke of good fortune (like opening the phone book and randomly pointing to a listing). I’m not going to give letter grades, but let you judge the grade for yourself based on my writing (they were all great, but every big event has issues—as long as you take that into consideration, it’s fine).


Mia, The B-r-i-d-a-l L-o-u-n-g-e, Bethpage, NY
When I first started planning my wedding, I picked two of the most popular hair/makeup people on LIW for trials. I liked both Mia’s and Jenn the Hair Genie’s work, but Jenn’s makeup partner, Oksana, was already booked. Mia was available for my date; I was confident in her ability, so I booked her without a trial and used my actual trial in December to have her play with my hair. I wasn’t super thrilled about the style—it was a little too “fussy” for my taste—but I knew she would do a fine job anyway.

Day of the wedding, Mia and an assistant were scheduled to come to the hotel at 4:30AM. I set my alarm for 4:00AM so I could shower and dry my hair before they got there. I woke up at 3:58 and turned off the alarm, and at 4AM the phone rings—Mia was a half hour early! So they came up, got organized and worked on my mom while I was in the shower. She also did a quick style for one of my bridesmaids, nothing fancy, just giving her a little extra boost with her short wavy hair. We had loads of time, no rush at all, which was exactly what I wanted. I showed her a couple of pictures of hairstyles, and the hair and makeup came out beautifully. I was really happy.


Bobby, Creative Director at the Westbury Manor
One of the very few wedding things I had planned in my mind before I met my husband was that I wanted my primary wedding flower to be hydrangea. I love the look, the feel, the smell, the colors, and because they’re so large, you get more bang for your buck. When we booked the WM, we asked about recommended florists (as we remarked we were impressed with the grounds and interior floral arrangements), and our banquet manager told us that Bobby, the in-house Creative Director, could also provide the flowers for our wedding. And as the gardens are lovely and ceremony flowers are provided by him anyway, we felt confident that Bobby would do our centerpieces justice. He did an excellent job. I didn’t price out other florists, but my guess (from the quotes y’all have posted) is that he’s probably a little less than most of the local places. If you’re getting married at the Westbury, talk to Bobby about flowers—he understands the rooms, the colors and the style of the WM better than anyone.

Because the WM tables are oval, we chose to do three smaller centerpieces lined in a row. I love the country/rustic look of a line of small arrangements, like the ones you see in Martha Stewart magazines. He threw in a couple of extra touches too, and because there were so many arrangements, nearly every couple got to take home a vase.

If you get the ceremony package, white flower arrangements on pedestals lining the aisle are provided. Since we were married in the garden, we also had all the flowers that were planted along the aisle as part of the decor—a HUGE savings, and absolutely beautiful.


Catrina Genovese Photography, Brooklyn, NY
(www.cgweddings.com)
One of my best friends was married five years ago and Catrina was her photographer. Having worked with Catrina (I was in the wedding party), and having seen the results, I knew that I wanted to use her, whenever I got married.

Catrina is an independent photographer who specializes in photojournalism. She shoots for commercial magazines during the week, and shoots only one wedding per weekend, so she can really concentrate on the day. She’s a lovely person, really talented, and takes a darn good photo. I haven’t seen the proofs yet, but I’m totally not worried about it.

My husband is an art director, and as the food and location were the most important parts of the wedding to me, his was photography and invitations. We looked at two photographers prior to Catrina—one was amazing (and expensive!) but booked, the other we weren’t impressed with at all. We went to see Catrina (and I knew that he would love her, but I wanted him to come to that conclusion on his own) and about five pictures into her album, he looked at me and nodded in agreement. So we booked her immediately. And she’s incredibly reasonably priced, too.


Expressway Music, David Swirsky
(www.expresswaymusic.com)
This was the vendor that I randomly (and literally) picked out of the phone book. We’re not dance-party people, and we didn’t want loud thumping beats throughout the wedding—that’s not our style. We’re more the unobtrusive “Frank-Sinatra-crooning/quiet-jazzy-instrumentals” type, and this DJ has worked at a lot of corporate events at upscale places like Cipriani. He specializes in quiet, elegant affairs—right up our alley. He spent very little time on the microphone, just for important announcements, and it was perfect, like he wasn’t even there (which is exactly what we wanted). Good combination of music (as we specified American standards, Motown, a little disco/R&B). My husband and I were called away for some outdoor photos right after the entrée, but I heard that people were on the dance floor having fun.


Classical Chamberlin Ensembles
(www.classicalchamberlinensembles.com)
This classical trio was my splurge. I love string quartets, but we found this flute, violin and cello trio online and they’re wonderful. The flute made it unique, and the soft sounds carried by the wind as I walked down the aisle…ah, just remembering. ? Sarah was great to work with—she’s prompt with email and very knowledgeable with the repertoire, and was so helpful with suggestions when I couldn’t make up my mind. I met her for the first time the morning of the wedding, and she’s very sweet. I didn’t get the full effect of the music, mostly because I wasn’t outside during the prelude (duh), but there was also a Latin beat playing in the “holding” room as we lined up for the processional, and I couldn’t hear the trio over the sound system. C’est la vie, non? They were great during the cocktail hour as well, though I wasn’t paying a heck of a lot of attention.


Communicar
My mother-in-law’s company uses corporate cars all the time, so she made the arrangements for a Lincoln Towncar. We didn’t want limos (in part to save money, but also because it was just my mom and I going from the hotel to the Westbury Manor); it seemed like a waste for us to have a limo for four hours when we only needed a car for 15 minutes. The car was waiting in the hotel parking lot when I came downstairs (which was about ten minutes earlier than the time we had stated). We got in, took off, and arrived at the Westbury in ten minutes. Safe ride, nice guy, helped me and my dress out of the car.


Hilton Garden Inn Westbury
They gave us a great rate, better than my cousin’s “travel agent” discount. They were really nice and helpful, and went out of their way to assist us with small things (like providing plates, cups and napkins for the after-party). I ordered a breakfast platter for the morning of the wedding to be delivered to the room—they were a little late with it, but when we called about the missing coffee and OJ, they sent someone up immediately and were so apologetic. As it was 6AM, and I’m not much of an early-morning breakfast person anyway, it was fine.


Rabbi Alan Stein (www.newyorkrabbi.com)
Found our rabbi through LIW. We met with him twice at his office, and he was exactly what we asked for: laid back and funny, and not overly religious (yet would still deliver a traditional Jewish wedding ceremony). Everyone I’ve spoken with loved the rabbi—he essentially quoted verbatim the story of how we met, and the things we love about each other …no one else in my family had heard the whole story, so it was new for them and they got a few good chuckles out of it. When the WM peacock made his special appearance (in full plumage) halfway through the ceremony, the rabbi used the opportunity for a couple of jokes and carried on. It was great.


Russell Solomon (my hubby) and The Letterpress Studio
Jersey City, NJ
We love letterpress—it’s elegant without being pretentious, and it’s a completely different style from thermography. I asked Russ to design the invitations and other materials since I couldn’t find anything I liked (well, except for Kate’s Paperie, but they were WAY above our budget).

After an initial concept that I absolutely hated (and we didn’t speak for a few days after that), we dug into design books and found a floral pattern that was perfect. A good friend of ours is a printer (whom my husband sends work to often, professionally) and recommended a friend of his who does letterpress. We met with Val, the proprietor, loved her work, and she gave us a quote for invitations and envelopes, thank you cards, reply cards and program covers that was much less expensive than the letterpress companies through invitation stores. My husband also designed matching menus, table cards, escort cards, and the program’s interior, and the friend who recommended The Letterpress Studio printed those additional materials as part of his wedding present to us.

Val was amazing to work with, and I would recommend her in a heartbeat. She works in Manhattan for her “day job” while getting the Studio off the ground, so you don’t have to schlep to NJ, but she is SO worth it. I admit that we went a little overboard—we didn’t really need the program covers or the thank you notes, but my husband really wanted them to coordinate, and I’m glad that we did.


Westbury Manor
My husband and I looked at two places prior to the Westbury Manor, and neither felt like our personality. I’ve got to give my hubby credit for finding the WM online—it was his instinct that brought us there. What I loved about the WM was its proximity to the city (as many of our friends needed to take LIRR), and the gardens, which were simply magnificent.

My strict policy for my wedding day was that I wanted to be completely oblivious to any problems (save for serious injury or death). I highly recommend all brides to do this. Prepare a chain of command should any issue arise, like the cake is delivered ten minutes late or the music is too loud. First stop is to the Best Man or Maid of Honor. Then the Groom. Then you. I had a great time because I stopped worrying about all the small things that could possibly (or did) go wrong. If there were small issues, I am unaware of them. Oblivion can be a beautiful thing.

Our original banquet manager was Jennifer (who left), then Amanda (who also left), and then Maureen. I was a little concerned when I heard that my original BM was gone, but Amanda had the file in front of her when she took my call and seemed up to date. And then when she left, it was clear that Maureen knew what was going on too. Any future WM brides, if your BM leaves and another one assumes your wedding (and it’s that kind of industry), don’t worry. They have their act together—they’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve been in so many weddings that I had a good handle of what was going to happen on the wedding day. Maureen was great to work with (as was the rest of the staff on the day of), and the day went along fairly flawlessly. Our maitre'd was Rafael and the attendant was Vickie--both terrific.

I knew that the food would be good because it’s run by one of the Scotto brothers, who have an excellent reputation. The food was one of the most important things to me—I’m a foodie and a former culinary student—and though they don’t provide tastings, they give you a coupon to their in-house restaurant, and I must say that it was one of the best meals I’ve had in my life. Though the menu is different (and the quality of the food is just slightly less), it’s essentially the same kitchen staff.

I will say that there was one fairly large mistake that happened with the food. When we met with Kelly, the menu person, we stressed that it was a kosher style wedding, meaning no shellfish of any kind, no pork and no milk with meat (in the obvious sense, like a veal chop covered with mozzarella cheese). Our personal philosophy is that we didn’t care, but it felt only right (it being a Jewish wedding and all) that we at least try to make it seem appropriate to the occasion. Kelly wrote down “no shellfish or pork” on the final menu form—I have a copy of it—and at our final meeting with Maureen, she had the same paper and reiterated that. We had a few substitutions for their regular menu, namely, a veal chop with bordelaise sauce rather than the cheese, and plain salmon without the shrimp that’s normally served with it. Somewhere between Maureen and the kitchen, something happened, because all the salmon plates came with shrimp. Most of our families don’t keep kosher anyway, but it’s the principle of the matter, and the one person we won’t tell is my mom (‘cause she’ll be really upset).

In terms of quality, every person that we spoke with loved the food. Said it was “magnificent,” “amazing,” “scrumptious,” even. And they loved having such a variety of choices, from the duck l’orange (YUM), to the veal chop (which you never see on a wedding menu), to the sea bass, in addition to the usual filet mignon and chicken. Presentation of the food was lovely; the centerpieces, menus, and votive candles were all arranged perfectly on the tables, and the most common compliment I’ve gotten about the wedding is that it was so classy and elegant. And that’s what the Westbury does, classy and elegant.


Sandreen’s Bridal, Saddle Brook, NJ
My intention was to look in NYC for a dress and then find it in NJ so I wouldn’t have to pay any sales tax and save some money. My mom and I took a day off from our respective jobs to go to RK Bridal in midtown. I’d been there the week before with my bridesmaids, just to look, and I thought that if I could at least narrow down the styles, my mom could then help me choose from those. None of the dresses I tried on felt like magic, but I assumed that it was because I was a person who just wasn’t going to feel that way about a dress—sure, I can really like a dress and be happy with it, but hear the bells? Nope.

We went in, and the saleswoman vaguely remembered me from the weekend prior. I tried on five dresses, including the one that my bridesmaid insisted was “the one,” and felt good about the experience. My mom fell in love with another dress on me that was nice, but didn’t quite sing to me. We decided to sleep on it, and went back to NJ. Realizing that it was only 1PM and we felt like we should have come home having purchased my dress, we decided to check out a small bridal shop about 15 minutes from my mom’s house.

As we approached the dim looking shop on the main road in a small strip mall, we looked at each other like “oookay.” But we went in, and Donna, one of the owners (it’s a family business), asked me some basic questions about the wedding (time of day, time of year, indoor/outdoor, white or ivory, strapless or no), and proceeded to size me up. She pulled four dresses from the rack, and my mom saw the dress she loved on me at RK Bridal, so we pulled that one too. The third and fourth dresses were good, so I kept them aside while I tried on the one that my mother saw at RK—and it looked terrible two hours later. Tried on the third one, then the fourth one…and the third one again and then I heard the bells. It was everything I wanted in a dress—strapless A line, very little beading, very simple. Turns out I saw the dress online during my search (it’s an Alfred Angelo), but the dress in the photo is gold, which made me skip right over it. The sample she had was in pure ivory, just the right color for my yellow-ish skin tone, and the sample size was pretty close to perfect.

Donna was so amazingly helpful that my mom bought her dress there, as well as the two bridesmaids.

If you live in Bergen County, I highly recommend going there. Donna’s a little brusque and a little sassy, but she knows her stuff, and in the end, she’ll take the time to make you look the best you can, and she won’t steer you to a dress just because it’s more expensive.


Bell Formal Tuxedos, Bayside, NY
We passed by this shop when we were doing some errands in Bayside one Saturday, and we went in and he tried a few jackets on. The owner gave him a quick once over, pulled a jacket and it was a perfect fit. They were inexpensive, very fast, and the product was exactly what we ordered. The fabric of the tux wasn’t the most amazing quality on the planet, but he wore it for eight hours and looked great, and that’s what counts.

LuLu’s Bakery, Fresh Meadows, NY
Okay, one word—YUMMY!!!! The WM’s in-house bakery (can I name names? It rhymes with mErga) wasn’t up to our standards—the short version is, we called to make an appointment to taste the cakes so we could decide what we wanted. We confirmed with them, and when we got there, they said that they didn’t do tastings. No samples of cake. No samples of fillings. I went to pastry school, and any wedding cake maker has samples of cake as mini cupcakes, then serves either the vanilla or the chocolate cupcake with a dollop of fillings on the plate, so you can take a forkful of each and taste combinations. The “fillings” that they gave us to try came directly from the pastries in the case, which is COMPLETELY different from cake filling. But I digress…

My then-fiance had a haircut scheduled that afternoon, and we decided to stop by the bakery one block from the salon to see if they did wedding cakes. They did, and the display book they had showed cakes a little cheesy in style for my taste, but it sure smelled good in there. Appointments are during the week only, but since we live in Westchester, the baker/owner was kind enough to talk to us for a few minutes. We didn’t want a chocolate-based cake, as the dessert we chose as part of our menu was chocolate mousse, and as a salute to springtime (and because I love fruit-based desserts), we chose a yellow cake with lemon curd and strawberry filling. Charlie (the baker) had samples of the exact combination in the pastry case (he makes little parfaits in plastic shot glasses), and we each had one and went, OH yeah, this is it!

My husband designed the cake’s exterior with Charlie (they sketched it out),. We also decided to use silk flowers rather than fresh or sugar flowers, mostly for cost. In retrospect, I would have kept the frosting all ivory, but my husband really loved the idea of bringing more color and depth to the cake. Still, the final presentation is just beautiful.


Silk Hydrangea
(www.afloral.com)
The cost to make flowers from icing was a lot more than we had budgeted for (especially considering we didn’t budget for the cake at all), and as long as the cake tasted really good, I didn’t mind silk flowers, as long as they looked real. I went to Michael’s and the Rag Shop, and none of the silk hydrangea looked nice enough to be on the cake (nor did they have the colors that I wanted), so I went online, found this great site that delivered beautiful silk hydrangea in exactly the colors that I wanted, and I probably overbought by a half dozen stems, but I wanted to make sure that the bakery had all that they needed. In hindsight, I probably would have incorporated more ivory into the flowers and used the green as the accent, but it was still a nice touch.


Votive Candles (eBay, efavormart)
I bought 144 frosted votives with candles directly from efavormart for about $25 less than “commercial” sites, and they were fantastic. None were broken, the shipment arrived in a week, and we ended up having a ton left over. Can’t ask for anything more…


Yarmulkes
(www.skullcap.com)
I went a little cheap on these—we had them made in six-panel ivory moiré, which gave it a nice little sheen that the plain satin didn’t have. In retrospect, I wish I did the button, but they came out fine. I wasn’t expecting much for the $80 I spent, and really, no one will wear them again (unless you’re my mother who will save them for future Passover seders).


Crème-de-Luxe Jewelry
(www.crème-de-luxe.com)
Found this website through a review on LIW. She custom-makes pearl and crystal jewelry that is right up my alley—simple and delicate. I ordered a bracelet and drop earrings from her, and asked if she could make a hair comb for me, since I couldn’t find anything I really liked (and I’m definitely not a tiara person). I sent her a picture of my dress and the hairstyles I was thinking of, and she sketched eleven ideas and emailed them to me. We then narrowed it down to two that were similar in style, and a few tweaks later, it was perfect. She made an actual sample of it and photographed it (in her hair!), and emailed it to me for approval. And it was very inexpensive too. Arrived within two weeks of the finished product, and when I realized that I measured my wrist incorrectly for the bracelet, there was no charge (other than sending it to her) to have it lengthened. Brides who want simple, elegant jewelry, I highly recommend her. Turns out I couldn’t use the earrings—my then-fiance bought me diamond journey earrings as a wedding present, but for the money I spent on them ($20), I will probably wear them to two weddings this summer.


Ketubah
(www.ketubah.com)
My husband, in his search for ketubahs (he’s the art guy in the family), came across a particular artist’s work that he really liked. There were a couple of websites that carried her ketubah prints, but ketubah.com seemed the most reputable (as the prices were the same across the board). The website is easy to use (you have to pay for the ketubah before you can choose options, which is a little confusing), especially for us Hebrew-challenged, and the print is just gorgeous. It’s colorful and lively, and we’ve just had it professionally framed, and I can’t wait to hang it up!


Here’s the link to some of the non-professional pictures…will post the pros when we get them…

Wedding Album

Re: My 5/27/07 review: Mia, Westbury Manor, Catrina Genovese Photography, Sandreen’s Bridals, Expressway Music, Classical Chamberlin Ensembles, Rabbi Alan Stein, The Letterpress Studio, Lulu’s Bakery

Really beautiful wedding!! Congrats, great review.

Re: My 5/27/07 review: Mia, Westbury Manor, Catrina Genovese Photography, Sandreen’s Bridals, Expressway Music, Classical Chamberlin Ensembles, Rabbi Alan Stein, The Letterpress Studio, Lulu’s Bakery

It looks like you had a beautiful wedding. Congrats!

Re: My 5/27/07 review: Mia, Westbury Manor, Catrina Genovese Photography, Sandreen’s Bridals, Expressway Music, Classical Chamberlin Ensembles, Rabbi Alan Stein, The Letterpress Studio, Lulu’s Bakery

Beautiful!

Re: My 5/27/07 review: Mia, Westbury Manor, Catrina Genovese Photography, Sandreen’s Bridals, Expressway Music, Classical Chamberlin Ensembles, Rabbi Alan Stein, The Letterpress Studio, Lulu’s Bakery

beautiful, thanks for the review!

Updated! My 5/27/07 review, now with pro pics!

It's been a long, long while since my wedding, and I finally got time to scan in some photos. Here's the link to my album...

http://www.liweddings.com/community/album/?ID=16445

Hope all is well with everyone!

mrs s.

Re: Updated! My 5/27/07 review, now with pro pics!

congrats and great review