The Brides' Review - Wedding Review: Sep 4th 2005 Jersey City

hocus Posted: Oct 11, 2005 04:21 PM+

hocus MEMBER SINCE: 4/05 TOTAL POSTS : 604 WEDDING DATE: Sep 04, 2005

Posted: Oct 11, 2005 04:21 PM

Wedding Review: Sep 4th 2005 Jersey City

Ceremony Location/Hotel Block

Hyatt Hotel, Jersey City. (NJ) (F)
The Hyatt is gorgeous. The hotel has a great view and lovely ballrooms. However, it is over priced and staffed with some of the stupidest people on earth. I won’t bore you with all the details but here is a sample of things that went wrong.
1. We checked in for 2 rooms on the night before the wedding because they could not guarantee early check in for one of them. (And we only needed it for the second night). Since we had this room we told the one out of town groomsman to stay there. We left his name at the desk since he was coming in late. At 12:30 AM, on the night before our wedding, we got a call because they had no record of this name.
2. After the ceremony I wanted to go back to my room and drop of the veil. My key did not work. My husband’s key did not work. My maid of honor’s key to my room did not work. We had to go back down to get new keys, which wasted a lot of time.
3. They made our reservation with both last names (bride’s last name/grooms last name) but yet could never find it when we said look for my name or my husband’s name.
4. The extra programs and some other ceremony items were taken by the staff. We were told they would be sent to our rooms. They were not sent to our rooms. They were not at the front desk. No one at the Hyatt contacted us to tell us where they were. We had to call them, and then make a trip back for them.
5. The hotel arranged our limo. The limo driver was extremely rude. When we got in to the car he started complaining to use that he was told the wrong pick up point. They then asked who we were and told us that this was limo for the bride and groom, not a guest shuttle. The only other people in the car were my husband’s parents.

Update: We heard from them today -- they claim nothing went wrong. They claim 'We don't have a record of that' or 'no other guest complained'. Never use this hotel!

hocus Posted: Oct 11, 2005 04:22 PM+

hocus MEMBER SINCE: 4/05 TOTAL POSTS : 604 WEDDING DATE: Sep 04, 2005

Posted: Oct 11, 2005 04:22 PM

Re: Wedding Review: Sep 4th 2005 Jersey City

Reception: South City Grill, Jersey City (NJ) (A)

My sister worked as this restaurant, which is why we decided to our reception there. Overall I was extremely pleased with the experience. The space is beautiful; though a bit non-traditional for a wedding. The backrooms (there are two which can be joined) can hold between 30 to 100 people, so if you are having a larger wedding it is going to be spread out over the entire restaurant. We put family and our parents’ friends in the back room, and our friend and co-workers in the “main” room near the dance floor. It appeared to work out fine, and several people expressed their pleasure at the arrangement. However, I doubt anyone would have said anything if they were unhappy, so their might have been a few people who didn’t like it.

The staff greeted everyone with trays of mixed cocktails and sparking wine. All of the food from the cocktail hour through dessert was outstanding – it isn’t banquet food, but food made to order. Of course this takes a long time, so for a big wedding (>100) you’ll probably want to have 2 courses before your main course it served, so they aren’t long gaps in the food service. We had salad and a cheese and salami plate as our 2 courses. We also asked them to make fresh chocolate chip cookies and they were still warm and gooey when they were served. At the time of my wedding, they were not doing wedding cakes, but recommended someone who worked out well, and was fairly affordable.

The only things that seemed to bother people was the cake was not displayed before it was cut – so almost no one saw it. (I found this out after the wedding; it wasn’t really an issue at the wedding, for me at least.) I think they had problems with cake that had been left out too long in the past, so they are cautious about leaving them out too long. Also they made some small changes to the floor plan the day before the wedding. It wasn’t a huge deal, but I might have been had I had a tighter seating chart.

Cake (NJ) (FM me): (B)

The cake tasted great, even though it was not quite what I ordered. I ordered a chocolate cake with chocolate filling with butter cream frosting, and we got a “white cake” with chocolate moose filling and butter cream frosting. The outside looked pretty close to the picture I showed the baker, though I though the proportions were funny. The top layer was much smaller than the next layer down. I would have preferred that they were closer in size. Overall I was happy, because I didn’t really care about the cake. If you care, I would suggest writing your own contract which reviews what you’re expecting, as he didn’t give us one.

hocus Posted: Oct 11, 2005 04:23 PM+

hocus MEMBER SINCE: 4/05 TOTAL POSTS : 604 WEDDING DATE: Sep 04, 2005

Posted: Oct 11, 2005 04:23 PM

Re: Wedding Review: Sep 4th 2005 Jersey City

Hair

Bruce from www.beautybybruce.com (NY-will travel) (A+)

I had been going to Bruce for 4 years when I got engaged. He was one of the first people I asked to be a part of the wedding. He came to Jersey City on the day of the wedding and did 7 people’s hair. He did an awesome job which was not an easy task since we had such a variety hair types. Between hair appointments he took pictures (which he sent to us) and generally helped out. When he put my veil in for the pictures, he also spent about 5 minuets fixing my dress. Overall he was a delightful person to work with.

Make-up

Raychel Wade (NY-will travel) (A-)

Raychel is a very talented and fast make-up artist. (At the time I booked her she was not doing airbrush, but I am not a fan so it wasn’t a problem.) She did 7 women, including myself in about 2.5 hours. You can also book her for touch ups. I did pay her to stay, but it was pretty clear that she was too tired to be there (she had been in a wedding as a bridesmaid the night before) and she ended up leaving a bit early. She is expensive and you will need to arrange her transportation if your wedding is not in Manhattan.

hocus Posted: Oct 11, 2005 04:23 PM+

hocus MEMBER SINCE: 4/05 TOTAL POSTS : 604 WEDDING DATE: Sep 04, 2005

Posted: Oct 11, 2005 04:23 PM

Re: Wedding Review: Sep 4th 2005 Jersey City

Ceremony Musicians

Rose Trio (www.rosetrionj.com) (NJ-will travel in NY) (A+)

I found this vendor to be one of the most enjoyable to work with before the wedding. (which is why I booked them, because I didn’t have time to hear them play.)They responded to all emails within 48 hours. Though I only heard 4 songs, these were all lovely. Several people told me that they though the music was recorded, because it was so flawless. They have a broad repertoire and are very accommodating.

Flowers:

Seasons (NY-will travel to NJ) (A-)

I found working this flower shop a breeze. They’ve clearly done many weddings and know what you might need. I also felt that they treated me and my mother like people (served us tea and cookies on out first visit) which was very nice. He was also able to provide me suggestions and ideas – rather than just being told what to do. He can work within most budgets if you need that, but I would more recommend him for people are into flowers and have allocated their budget based on that. I gave my florist a pretty loose description of what I wanted, and by and large I was pleased. The wedding party flowers were lovely. My bouquet what made up of over 3 dozen read roses (different kinds). It last for days. The flowers arrived promptly at 3:00 pm. Each center piece (there were 36) was a different arrangement of seasonal red flowers. The only thing I didn’t really like was the flowers for the escort card table. Though it was nice, it wasn’t exceptional. Since it was the most expensive arrangement in the package, I though we would have gotten something a bit nicer.

DJ

David from David Productions: (NJ – will travel) A

I didn’t interview any DJ’s but simply used the one my reception site recommended. I liked him a lot. He knows how to move people around, and keep the dance floor packed. He played the music we asked for, and knew when to play quite music and dance music. He keeps good notes and didn’t make any mistakes on the names or on the key songs (first dance, cake cutting).

hocus Posted: Oct 11, 2005 04:25 PM+

hocus MEMBER SINCE: 4/05 TOTAL POSTS : 604 WEDDING DATE: Sep 04, 2005

Posted: Oct 11, 2005 04:25 PM

Re: Wedding Review: Sep 4th 2005 Jersey City

Dance Lessons: Nathan from http://www.nyweddingdance.com/ A

I loved taking dance lessons, in part because I don’t really feel totally comfortable with a first dance. I figured it we asked people to stop and stare at us we should at least look good. We took a total of 12 dance lessons. Nathan was a patient and fun instructor and really worked hard on our non-traditional song (Up Where We Belong). Our dance was comprised of custom choreography which reflected our dance abilities and the tone and pace of the song. Our first dance was great, even though we had one little slip; we were able to get back into the routine because it was so familiar. We also have a very nice sense of build up – and finished the song with a lift, and a dip – which was great!

Invitations: Birchcraft from Lee’s Art Studio, Mid-Town Manhattan. B

I walked in and asked for the cheapest book they had. From that point on I got zero assistance. I picked out my invitations myself and used my own wording. They invitations came out fine and came in less than 2 weeks.

hocus Posted: Oct 11, 2005 04:26 PM+

hocus MEMBER SINCE: 4/05 TOTAL POSTS : 604 WEDDING DATE: Sep 04, 2005

Posted: Oct 11, 2005 04:26 PM

Re: Wedding Review: Sep 4th 2005 Jersey City

Hair Clip http://www.ednamae.com/ B

I ordered a comb pushing to the French twist that I had. The piece itself was lovely. The comb wasn’t really properly attached. Also this site isn’t set up to take on-line orders, so you’ll need to place your order over the phone, and sign and send back a fax with your confirmation.

Wedding Dress/Bridesmaid dresses/Alterations: RK Bridal mid-town Manhattan.

Shopping: B
Bridal: RK is a discount store, with a huge selection and good pricing. Though they have some good sales people I didn’t get one of them. She was kind of pushy and didn’t really know anything about what they carried, and thus couldn’t help me make selections. I also had the misfortune of going on a Saturday when the place is packed. I wish that I had gone on a weekday, so I could have had more time and a better help. Overall I was pleased with my dress and felt that we got a good deal.
Bridesmaids: Again the price and selection are the main reason we went with RK bridal. Because we went at “off” times I found buying the bridesmaid dresses much less stressful than buying my dress.

Alterations B
The first fitting was a disaster. It took over an hour – which was absurd since all they need to do was to hem the front, bustle, and take 1/8 inch in from each side of the top of my dress. We had problems communicating with the seamstress. When I told her I wanted my sash shortened she tried to cut the whole thing off. We also wanted them to make a small jacket which I could wear for the ceremony. (RK advertises that they can do this for a fixed fee) We tried on a jacket when I bought the dress which was perfect. On the day of the fitting they could not find that jacket “anywhere.” I must have tried on 20 jackets. They won’t make one unless that have a “pattern” already made. The second fitting went much better. My seamstress found the jacket we were looking for and it came out great. The dress didn’t really need much additional work. I was happy with the final product overall, thought I wish my dress was bustled higher – people stepped on it all night long.

Undergarments: Town Shop 2273 Broadway, near 82nd St.

I bought a Felina longline bustier from the Town Shop on the upper Westside. Unlike other stores they will really work with you one on one to find something that works for you. Delightful service, only marred by the limited selection (at least for my bra size)..

Personal Training: Glenn from Crunch Wall Street A+

I love Glenn. He is the best personal trainer I have ever had (and I’ve had about 5 or 6). When I joined crunch I had just ended a very rough patch at work were I had put on about 10 pounds from stress. I signed up to work with Glenn once a week. Two months later I got engaged, and upped my sessions to twice a week. On the day of the wedding I was the thinnest and fittest I have ever been. I received many compliments on how good I looked from people who have known me for a long time (and known how I have struggled with my weight which was ranged from 185 to 120 pounds). Glenn is pretty seasoned and is very capably of building a workout that makes sense for each client. He has a great sense of humor and will listen to all of your wedding planning stories with more attention than most bridesmaids.

orchid24 Posted: Oct 11, 2005 06:16 PM+

orchid24 MEMBER SINCE: 8/04 TOTAL POSTS : 1646 WEDDING DATE: Sep 04, 2005

Posted: Oct 11, 2005 06:16 PM