UPDATED with Vendor Review!!!! 07-18-08-Leanne&Chris-TheWoodlands,Imagine Studios,TimeSquareOrchestra,Pedestals,DesignerLimo,KarentheMakeUpArtist,MelissaSweet,BridalReflections,TasteofHomeBakery

LI Weddings was a great resource for finding new ideas, looking at beautiful pictures and hearing what real brides had to say first hand. Wedding planning is a complete rollercoaster. Some moments are absolutely wonderful and fun and exciting and other times are well just sucky! I can honestly say that in the end YES it was all worth it and NO I will NEVER EVER plan another wedding again ?

A very special thanks to all of my friends and especially my family. I could have never gotten through all of this without you. There has never been another time in my life when I felt so loved. I really feel like this brought everyone in my life closer together and I am so grateful for that and all of the time and effort that you helped contribute. I love you all and consider myself very lucky!!!

Let’s Start from the beginning……


Dress – Pricilla of Boston NY, NY (Melissa Sweet)
We were engaged Dec 8 and for Christmas Chris got me a ton of bridal mags. Flipping through in the first few pages I saw a dress that I really loved. Chris actually saw it too and mentioned that he really liked it (“sexy” I believe was the exact phrasing). It was this picture




About 7 months later I had a job interview in Manhattan and my Mom suggested we go dress shopping the same day. I went to Pricilla of Boston first and the NY location had just opened up and it was so pretty. White carpets, chandeliers and big framed mirrors against the wall. Of course the dress I saw in the mag was the last one of the few there that I tried on and surprisingly I did not get that “This is THE dress” feeling b/c I had only tried on two dresses so far. After trying on a few others my Mom and I knew that it was “THE” dress. The tailoring was excellent (Candy at Pricilla) and the French bustle looked great.










The Woodlands – Woodbury, NY
Absolutely exceeded any expectations we could have ever had. The tasting they provided was amazingly delicious and the entire staff (Eirika and Raquel rock and our BA’s too!!) is super organized and personable. The entire process was really a pleasure. They were completely flexible with us and really worked to make our day go smoothly and unforgettable. I really could go on but instead here are a few pics





































Flowers – Pedestals
All of our Boks, corsages and bots came out stunning. They arrived on time and stayed fresh throughout the entire day/night. I was very surprised and happy to see how vivid the colors were in mine. I was happy with the few extra pieces we had for our entrance and card table and I LOVED the flowers on the cake. My only disappointment was our CP’s. They did not come out like the trial ones even though they had taken a picture. We just had a hurricane candle and tea lights set up but it was the wrong size and there were like 6 rose petals on a table when they were supposed to be in the hurricane and a lot more on the table. It was not the worst thing that could have happened they just looked a little on the plain side but it still looked very elegant. I also feel like I should have followed up more b/c I didn’t get my final printed contract in the mail until almost a week before the wedding.






Cake – Taste of Home Bakery – East Meadow, NY
This bakery is actually 3 blocks from my house and happened to be the house bakery for The Woodlands. I went with Chris and our Mom’s to a tasting where we got to build our own mini cakes and we finally chose the one they first created for us to try which was a mix of chocolate and vanilla cake with a layer of chocolate mouse and a layer of chocolate fudge mixed with a layer of raspberry. It was soo good and I am counting down the days to eat the top of my wedding cake next year which currently resides in my freezer. I also got the grooms cake here which was a NY Islanders Hockey puck. It came out great and Chris loved it!







Accessories

Veil – The Bridal Salon of Manhasset
I wanted an absolutely plain cathedral length veil. Inspired by ‘Tuosto’ I tried Manhasset and found exactly what I wanted.





Flower Clip - Pricilla of Boston
Fell in love with this when I was trying on my dress. I thought I would wear it with the veil, but I wound up getting a cathedral length and knew I would take it off. When I did I just put the flower in!



Shoes – J.Crew
Ivory satin pump Mary-Jane, how do you go wrong…..even though I only wore them until the end of the first dance. They are on clearance now online at J.Crew.







Jewelry –
Earrings from Bridal Reflections
Bracelet from Sandy’s Shoes (took me forever to find a nice cuff without a ton of crazy bling)
My Aunt’s sister had a ring that went perfectly with the bracelet and I used it as my something borrowed.



I have to talk a bit about my engagement ring. It was the same ring Chris' Dad gave to his Mom. It is beautiful and classic and timeless. I could have never imagined getting such a special ring. Chris has 6 sisters so how I got to be the lucky one I have no idea! Everyone was so happy when Chris gave it to me and I never take it off!!!!




Make-Up – Karen the Make-Up Artist

Karen was awesome!!!! Aside from being super talented she is so funny and nice?
We had one trial and I booked her on the spot. I don’t wear a lot of make-up so it was really important to me not to look over done. Karen is a pro. If you look at her portfolio, which is amazing, she can do the simplest natural make-up to the most crazy bad-*** make-up you have ever seen. Not only did Karen do my make-up, but she did my ENTIRE family as well (Mom, Nana, 2 Aunts and 2 cousins – 7 in total). Everyone looked great and was soo happy with her work. I want to take her everywhere I go so I can always look that great!


Hair – Dana @ Salon D’Arel East Meadow, NY

I started going to Dana 3 years ago to get my hair done for my work Christmas party. She is right across the street from my house and has always been able to replicate every magazine picture I have brought her. She is soo nice and always asks you what you think and to be honest with her. If I wanted something higher or more curls she would always do it and it would look great and stay in place all night. I had a few trials with someone else that cuts my hair near where I work in the city but they were just too much and not me. I decided to do something simple and half pulled back even though I knew it could fall out b/c of the heat. I went for a trial with Dana and she made my hair look exactly like what I wanted within 25 minutes. The day of she also did my Mom and my Aunt’s hair which looked great.







Photography/Videography – IMAGINE STUDIOS BEST EVER!!!!!
We can’t say enough about Lia and Nelson from Imagine Studios. They were soo much fun on the day of our wedding (they both jumped on the back of a golf cart that Chris drove like a wildman and almost threw them off!!) and they did an amazing job. Everyone in my families commented on what a wonderful job they did of capturing soo many different things, not to mention people kept telling me how great they were for never getting in anyone’s way during the process. They were so easy to work with and did a really good job at wrangling our 25 person bridal party, not to mention huge family. I really couldn’t be happier so far and with each new thing we get from them they keep getting better….sooooo psyched for the video, already heard a lot of possible funny stories!!! Update – We got the raw cut of the video and it was so much fun to watch, we can’t wait for the edited copy we know it will be great!





Music – Time Square Orchestra

They rocked the night!!! So many people said they were great and the dance floor was never empty. They learned our first dance song which was “Can’t Buy Me Love” by The Beatles and we had soo much fun with it. We knew we wanted to do an upbeat song b/c it was just not us to kind of waddle around to a slow song. We wanted to practice a dance since we had taken a few dance lessons but we never had time. For some reason everyone though we had made up our dance when we really just winged it. To top it off Chris surprised us all by doing a split that everyone went crazy for.











Limo – Designer Limos
They were a bit more expensive then other Limo companies, but all of their Limos are brand new and in great condition. We had a limobus and 5-door limo. They arrived on time and the staff was really nice. There was a bit of a mix up with getting an additional pick-up drop of limo and which limo was being used to go where but everyone got to where they needed to be and on time. The staff is very courteous and professional and they have the coolest party bus you have ever seen, it’s a double decker and I want to have a party on it some time! Just be wary of your times!!! Overtime is the biggest killer to your bill and we paid for an extra hour in advance. We were glad we did b/c the ceremony ran long.

BM Dresses and Flower Girl Dresses (UsAngels) – Bridal Reflections
After Six and Dessy
The dresses were very pretty and came in way ahead of schedule but they made all of my girls order ridiculously large sizes. So many people had to have a lot of fabric removed from their dresses and some had to even pay extra for the larger size. Not to mention the dresses were a silk charmeuse which are a total nightmare to tailor, especially when there is soo much extra fabric. I thought the girls all looked great but so many were uncomfortable with the final fit b/c the dresses in the larger sizes lost some of their shape and style.


BM Jewelry (Bridal Gifts) – Redot Designs
I got a lot of jewelry from here and what I liked most was that they use good quality materials. It is all hand made and you can customize each style by choosing gold or silver and different color pearls or beads. I chose a bunch of swarowski ivory pearl jewelry and not only did I get a great discount for buying so many pieces but it all arrived really quickly. I had some correspondence with Rebecca and she was so helpful with any questions I had. They did a really good job.

Tuxes – Ray’s Tuxedo Franklin Square, NY
Calvin Klein
The people at Ray’s were soo helpful and nice. They have a really cute store and their styles are up to date. They were so good b/c we had a lot of people some coming from abroad and they were able to get their orders in and fitted even a week before the wedding. They were great! They also had these microfiber shirts that felt like a silk and were so much lighter for the guys to wear on the hot day.













Necklaces from Redot and Make up by Karen






-Two on the left are my nieces and the on the right is my cousin, how cute are they!!!






MOB Dress – Jade - Bridal Reflections
We went shopping only once for my Mom’s dress and she only tried on about 5-6 dresses. We were ready to leave and one of the women suggested a dress that was in a dressing room that had not been put back yet. It was strapless but had a wrap piece that also had arm holes and secured in the front. It was really cool and looked like it was part of the dress. It worked out great b/c my Mom wanted her arms covered but not with sleeves b/c it was going to be hot. She added her own broach to the front and covered the appliqué and it looked really pretty.







Save the Date – Magenetstreet.com
We had a lot of people coming from out of state/country and we knew we were going to be married in the summer when people go on vacation, so we wanted to make sure we sent something out for a save the date. We thought the magnet thing was cool b/c people wouldn’t loose it and we found a cool design that was very much us.


-Instead of the red we had white

Invitations
We saw a really cool pocket invite that was super plain and simple but the font was so elegant. It really seemed to fit the feel of The Woodlands, kind of mansion-ish and Jane Austin-ish. The process was not too easy and we had to correct a bunch of mistakes including two-reprints for 2 different pieces. We also decided to add our own ribbon and faux wax seal to the front of the pocket envelope (everyone thought they came that way, so thank you to all the ladies in my family that spent the time helping me put them all together).

Favors - DIY
I got this great idea from “Emomma17” for cupcakes in a jar. There were a few people online and some local bakeries that would do this, but I thought I could make them for cheaper. Chris and his sisters made 3 types and my family and I made another 3 types. I do not remember all the flavors but we did make strawberry shortcake, chocolate cake with oreo and caramel and a cinnamon crumb cake. They tasted really good and we were bummed that my family scooped up all the extras we didn’t even get one! We made them in mini mason jars with a label on top and then wrapped them in some really cool vintage lace. I thought this went more with our details and was a nice little touch.




Honeymoon – 7 night Mediterranean Cruise (Italy, Greece and Turkey)
4 nights Sandals Regency St. Lucia

Oh man, we are so lucky to have a great family friend as a travel agent!! We were originally thinking of going to Greece for 10 days and seeing 3 different islands there. For even cheaper we were able to visit not only Greece (Athens and Crete), but Italy, Turkey and St. Lucia. The cruise was really amazing. We had been on a carnival cruise once before and we thought it was only okay, so we were very hesitant to take one for our honeymoon. We are sooo glad we did. A European cruise was really different. We used Royal Caribbean and our boat was HUGE!! There was always something to do, even though we spent a lot of time relaxing and sleeping on the boat. We stopped in 4 ports in 7 days and we did some long excursions that were so much fun. Some highlights were seeing Mt. Etna during an eruption, visiting a family vineyard in Sicily, seeing the Temple of Zeus and the Acropolis, walking through Ephesus, visiting a Turkish market and sleeping through Crete! The food was good too, we had access to food and drinks just about 24 hours a day, and it was great. After the cruise we flew back to NY for 12 hours and then flew down to Sandals Regency La Toc in St. Lucia. We lucked out on weather b/c we had just missed a hurricane and we only had drizzle or short passing showers. It was nice to relax on the beach, but we were a bit disappointed overall. I think from all the brochures and from what people have told us we expected overflowing food, drink and service on this huge beautiful tropical beach. We just felt it came up a bit short. Don’t get me wrong we had fun playing golf, going to the spa and relaxing on the beach but we felt that we could have done the same someplace closer like Florida. The shorter plane ride would have been a better bet after all the traveling we did for the cruise. I wish I could post pictures, but the very worst thing that happened was when we got home from the honeymoon we realized that somehow I lost our 2GB memory card containing over 800 pictures!!!!! At least we had some video, but it just was not the same. To boot, our brand new digital camera broke on our first day in St. Lucia. We are disastrous everywhere we go, good thing there is two of us to remember it all ?


*****I hope that this helps some people out there. Please FM me if you have any questions, I would be happy to help in any way I can and Good Luck to all of you planners out there!!!!********


PS-I was super lucky to get a lot of great pics, but did not post them all. Check out my album for more pics!!!!!

Re: UPDATED with Vendor Review!!!! 07-18-08-Leanne&Chris-TheWoodlands,Imagine Studios,TimeSquareOrchestra,Pedestals,DesignerLimo,KarentheMakeUpArtist,MelissaSweet,BridalReflections,TasteofHomeBakery

Absolutely gorgeous!!! Congrats!

Re: UPDATED with Vendor Review!!!! 07-18-08-Leanne&Chris-TheWoodlands,Imagine Studios,TimeSquareOrchestra,Pedestals,DesignerLimo,KarentheMakeUpArtist,MelissaSweet,BridalReflections,TasteofHomeBakery

stunning wedding love the colors congrats

Re: UPDATED with Vendor Review!!!! 07-18-08-Leanne&Chris-TheWoodlands,Imagine Studios,TimeSquareOrchestra,Pedestals,DesignerLimo,KarentheMakeUpArtist,MelissaSweet,BridalReflections,TasteofHomeBakery

great review. you looked like you had fun on your frist dance!
i love that you replicated the cupcakes in a jar...i thought about doing that as well.
congrats!

Re: UPDATED with Vendor Review!!!! 07-18-08-Leanne&Chris-TheWoodlands,Imagine Studios,TimeSquareOrchestra,Pedestals,DesignerLimo,KarentheMakeUpArtist,MelissaSweet,BridalReflections,TasteofHomeBakery

Congrats Wow beautiful flowers and love the cake. I like the idea of a upbeat song as a first dance and dance lesson is something we are thinking about. Thanks for sharing.

Re: UPDATED with Vendor Review!!!! 07-18-08-Leanne&Chris-TheWoodlands,Imagine Studios,TimeSquareOrchestra,Pedestals,DesignerLimo,KarentheMakeUpArtist,MelissaSweet,BridalReflections,TasteofHomeBakery

Great Review!! Congrats!

Re: UPDATED with Vendor Review!!!! 07-18-08-Leanne&Chris-TheWoodlands,Imagine Studios,TimeSquareOrchestra,Pedestals,DesignerLimo,KarentheMakeUpArtist,MelissaSweet,BridalReflections,TasteofHomeBakery

Amazing review - love the pics and colors!!!

Re: UPDATED with Vendor Review!!!! 07-18-08-Leanne&Chris-TheWoodlands,Imagine Studios,TimeSquareOrchestra,Pedestals,DesignerLimo,KarentheMakeUpArtist,MelissaSweet,BridalReflections,TasteofHomeBakery

great review!! Your wedding was stunning! I love your dress and the flowers! So pretty!! COngrats!!

Re: UPDATED with Vendor Review!!!! 07-18-08-Leanne&Chris-TheWoodlands,Imagine Studios,TimeSquareOrchestra,Pedestals,DesignerLimo,KarentheMakeUpArtist,MelissaSweet,BridalReflections,TasteofHomeBakery

WOW, you looked absolutely stunning!!! Everything looked amazing on your day. The best review with the nicest pictures, Congrats!!!

Re: UPDATED with Vendor Review!!!! 07-18-08-Leanne&Chris-TheWoodlands,Imagine Studios,TimeSquareOrchestra,Pedestals,DesignerLimo,KarentheMakeUpArtist,MelissaSweet,BridalReflections,TasteofHomeBakery

It was a lot of fun doing the cupcakes and much easier than you might think. We printed the labels and I found the mason jars for very cheap. To be honest I feel like unless you decide to spend a lot of money on a favor like for a bottle of wine or liquor or something fancy....then no one really remembers them anyway. I know that is a terrible atitude to have. So many brides on here have spent a lot of time and effort on the small details and they come out so lovely but I felt like when the day actually came people were more focused on the big stuff. Which bummed me just a little b/c I did put something together that was supposed to be like a family tree, but the florist did not really set it up the right way and no one wound up noticing it.

Re: UPDATED with Vendor Review!!!! 07-18-08-Leanne&Chris-TheWoodlands,Imagine Studios,TimeSquareOrchestra,Pedestals,DesignerLimo,KarentheMakeUpArtist,MelissaSweet,BridalReflections,TasteofHomeBakery

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Posted by CloudNine

great review. you looked like you had fun on your frist dance!
i love that you replicated the cupcakes in a jar...i thought about doing that as well.
congrats!

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It was a lot of fun doing the cupcakes and much easier than you might think. We printed the labels and I found the mason jars for very cheap. To be honest I feel like unless you decide to spend a lot of money on a favor like for a bottle of wine or liquor or something fancy....then no one really remembers them anyway. I know that is a terrible atitude to have. So many brides on here have spent a lot of time and effort on the small details and they come out so lovely but I felt like when the day actually came people were more focused on the big stuff. Which bummed me just a little b/c I did put something together that was supposed to be like a family tree, but the florist did not really set it up the right way and no one wound up noticing it.

Re: UPDATED with Vendor Review!!!! 07-18-08-Leanne&Chris-TheWoodlands,Imagine Studios,TimeSquareOrchestra,Pedestals,DesignerLimo,KarentheMakeUpArtist,MelissaSweet,BridalReflections,TasteofHomeBakery

Sooo nice of all of you!!!!!
The more I look back, the happier I am with how the day went and how everything looked :)
More importantly we had such a blast, we seriously danced just about every song!!!

Re: UPDATED with Vendor Review!!!! 07-18-08-Leanne&Chris-TheWoodlands,Imagine Studios,TimeSquareOrchestra,Pedestals,DesignerLimo,KarentheMakeUpArtist,MelissaSweet,BridalReflections,TasteofHomeBakery

great review! Your wedding was beautiful!

Re: UPDATED with Vendor Review!!!! 07-18-08-Leanne&Chris-TheWoodlands,Imagine Studios,TimeSquareOrchestra,Pedestals,DesignerLimo,KarentheMakeUpArtist,MelissaSweet,BridalReflections,TasteofHomeBakery

your wedding is so amazing i keep looking at the pics!!!!

Re: UPDATED with Vendor Review!!!! 07-18-08-Leanne&Chris-TheWoodlands,Imagine Studios,TimeSquareOrchestra,Pedestals,DesignerLimo,KarentheMakeUpArtist,MelissaSweet,BridalReflections,TasteofHomeBakery

Thanks for the review.

I am getting married at the Woodlands 7/18/10!! and was thinking of using Imagine Studios. Anything else you can tell me about them? I was nervous it being only one photographer where so many other places have either 2 or 3. What do you think?

Re: UPDATED with Vendor Review!!!! 07-18-08-Leanne&Chris-TheWoodlands,Imagine Studios,TimeSquareOrchestra,Pedestals,DesignerLimo,KarentheMakeUpArtist,MelissaSweet,BridalReflections,TasteofHomeBakery

Thanks for the review.

I am getting married at the Woodlands 7/18/10!! and was thinking of using Imagine Studios. Anything else you can tell me about them? I was nervous it being only one photographer where so many other places have either 2 or 3. What do you think?

Re: UPDATED with Vendor Review!!!! 07-18-08-Leanne&Chris-TheWoodlands,Imagine Studios,TimeSquareOrchestra,Pedestals,DesignerLimo,KarentheMakeUpArtist,MelissaSweet,BridalReflections,TasteofHomeBakery

Gorgeous Wedding for a Gorgeous Bride! Congrats!

Re: UPDATED with Vendor Review!!!! 07-18-08-Leanne&Chris-TheWoodlands,Imagine Studios,TimeSquareOrchestra,Pedestals,DesignerLimo,KarentheMakeUpArtist,MelissaSweet,BridalReflections,TasteofHomeBakery

You look beautiful. Love your dress.

Re: UPDATED with Vendor Review!!!! 07-18-08-Leanne&Chris-TheWoodlands,Imagine Studios,TimeSquareOrchestra,Pedestals,DesignerLimo,KarentheMakeUpArtist,MelissaSweet,BridalReflections,TasteofHomeBakery

Beautiful and Congrats!!

Re: UPDATED with Vendor Review!!!! 07-18-08-Leanne&Chris-TheWoodlands,Imagine Studios,TimeSquareOrchestra,Pedestals,DesignerLimo,KarentheMakeUpArtist,MelissaSweet,BridalReflections,TasteofHomeBakery

beautiful!