I know everyone says this but its so crazy that I’m doing my review already! I really can’t believe after all that planning my wedding is already over! It was a great great day and I was really lucky with everything. I wasn’t a huge poster, but I really appreciated the reviews so I wanted to pay the favor forward ;) All of my pics here are not professional. It's way to complicated trying to get those pics off the site to post!
Shower – CrabTree’s Floral Park, NY - 10
I really had no part in planning my shower. This place was a great find by my mom and sister and they deserve all the credit for the day. They did a Sunday morning brunch. The place was beautiful, the food was great. The best part was that a patio was attached to the room. The day of my shower was one of the only beautiful days in June 2009 and we opened the French doors so people could wonder in and out. We had about 60 people. It was perfect for a nice shower, nothing to crazy or overdone.
Invitations/Programs/Menus – Invitations and Beyond – 10
This place was a great find! I actually just walked in to see what they had one day for invitations. I found exactly what I wanted and they beat the prices of the other two places I was looking at. I was so happy with their service, product and location that I ended up having them do my calligraphy and also my menus and church programs. They always gave me the best deals and they did such a great job. They were willing to communicate via email or phone which I loved b/c I’m much more of an email person.
Hotel Block – Holiday Inn Express Lynbrook/RVC – 6
I picked this place because it was very close to the church and the rehersal dinner. We did not have a lot of OOT guests so it wasn’t a huge deal for my wedding. The hotel was nice, brand new and the customer service at the front desk was average. I never really had a problem with them I just didn’t think they were great. When I was trying to originally block the hotel rooms it was EXTREMELY difficult to get in touch with the person in charge of hotel blocks. Once he gave me his email ( and I didn’t have to rely on him answer my voicemails) communication got better. Overall the whole process was just very unorganized. Toward the end when I was trying to get a list of my guests who had booked I was constantly finding that people were missing from the list. It was a pain but no major disaster.
Coach Bus/Shuttle Bus for Guests – Hampton Jitney – 10
No issues with this company. I picked it because I thought it would be cute to have my OOT guests travel on The Hampton Jitney. Also in my pictures I am glad that a nice green bus is in the background because it looks very pretty. From what I heard the driver was nice and on time. Also they let us leave champagne and glasses on the bus which the guests could then drink while driving from the church to the reception.
Limo – Royalty Limo Franklin Square, NY – 10
For us this company was great. I thought they gave us a fair deal for the Rolls Royce and a 20 person escalade. I changed pick up times and locations a few times and they were with me and helpful every step of the way. On the day of both Limos were early and the drivers were professional and very friendly. I didn’t spend any time in the escalade but my driver was incredibly nice. One of my guests handed me a card literally 5 minutes before I was about to walk down the aisle (she was leaving early and wasn’t going to see me again). I didn’t know what to do with the card and our driver was nice enough to take it for me. I then completely forgot about it…. He was honest enough to find my mother at the cocktail hour and make sure she got the card before leaving for the day. One warning for summer brides: I got a beautiful wedding day for August. It was sunny and 80 degrees. I do not think the airconditioning in the Rolls Royce would have been able to make it on a really hot day. IMO
Florist – Stefan’s – 10
I know there have been mixed reviews on the florists for the Royalton. I had a fabulous experience. I worked with Paul and he totally got my vision right away. He LISTENED to me which is so key, and he gave his opinions too (many of which were great ideas). I really didn’t want a ball of flowers for my centerpieces or any of my bouquets (just my style). I said I wanted asymmetrical centerpieces, for them to be unstructured, and I wanted them to tower over the tables. My sample centerpiece was even better than anything I could have thought of. We pretty much continued like this throughout the entire wedding planning process. I was in love with my flowers, they were great quality, and they too were at the royalton early that day setting up. The non-professional pics really don’t do them justice… but it’s the best I can do for now.
Bridesmaid Dresses – Bridal Reflections Massapequa – 5
I liked this place because they have a TON of dresses… in every style, shape, color you name it. I went with this place because I found the dress that I liked here (Dessy, After Six in color Mocha) and because they gave my girls a discount because we were ordering 7 dresses. I had a few of my girls try on the dress first to give me the OK and the ordering process was easy. All of the girls got fitted. THE BEST THING I DID was I gave them a fake wedding date. I told them my wedding date was a week earlier to be on the safe side. Thank god I did this because alterations at this place were a disaster. I clearly listed that none of my girls dresses should have a train… yet 3 days before my “fake” wedding date one of my girls picked up her dress and it still had the train on it. Another of my Bridesmaids found a hole on the seam of her dress. And a third girls dress simply did not fit. I was lucky because my girls got this all fixed without telling me (they didn’t tell me about the problems until after I got back from my honeymoon). But they said that the customer service was terrible, some of the women were just full out rude, and obviously the alterations did not go well. The good news is that I think everything looked fine the day of and I thought the dresses looked great. Soo… everything was fixed by real wedding date :)
Tuxedos – Men’s Warehouse – 7
This place was exactly like everyone said it was so I was prepared for a complete disaster… and a disaster never really happened. Just a few small things went wrong and that’s about it. Two weeks before the wedding they called my fiancé and told him that one of the groomsmen never got fitted. My fiancé nicely explained that there was no way because he and that groomsman had actually gone together… basically Men’s Warehouse refused to accept responsibility and just keep repeating “well his measurements are not in the system” like a robot. Luckily that groomsman kept his receipt, so he had to show up at the store and clear it up. Annoying for him but atleast things got fixed. Then when the tuxes came in atleast half of them just didn’t fit… and none of these people grew. Again that was fixed it just required a lot of the guys come back a few hours later to pick them up. A hastle for them but actually didn’t affect me at all lol. I thought they looked great. I wanted the classic bow tie tuxedo look and that’s what I got. I would recommend just stay on top of this vendor and just be prepared that there will be some kind of hitch with the tuxedos.
My dress and veil – Kleinfelds – 10
This was another vendor I heard mixed reviews about but I lucked out. I really liked every single person I met there. The girl who showed me dresses was awesome. She listened to me and was not pushy at all. She also stayed within my price range. The veil specialist was very nice and gave me some great ideas on how to bustle. I LOVED the woman who did my alterations. I wanted it tight tight tight and she just said yes ma’am to everything I wanted. The dress looked exactly how I was hoping and the bustle held up all night. This was my favorite store of all the stores I visited mainly because of the huge selection. I hated going to small boutiques and only seeing like 4 dresses I wanted to try on. So for me, this place was perfect.
Bridal Shoes – J.Crew – 10
I got the cutest gold and white shoes from J.Crew that I will totally wear again. I actually wore them to my shower too because I wanted to test them out and see if they would hurt so I could be prepared. They were a little more expensive than my usual shoe but since they are very wear-able again I think it was a good buy. The pictures below is the shoe except the ones I ordered had a white folded strap instead of the pink one you see.
