Beach Princess Review of 6/21/08 Wedding including Chateau La Mer, April Flowers, Thomas Paul Photography, After Hours D.J., Jill Harth, Roseanna Amador, Enchanted Video, Etc.

Hi everyone! I am sick today, so I decided to work from home and take a break to write up my review. I tried to post a few weeks ago, but something was wrong with the website and I think I lost everything I posted. My apologies if there is an incomplete review somewhere on here for my wedding.

I got married June 21, 2008 at Chateau La Mer. It was a near perfect wedding with gorgeous sunny weather. I am so glad I picked Chateau La Mer! I really wanted a beach themed wedding, but wanted to wear the big fluffy gown and was worried about the potential for bad weather. So, I picked Chateau La Mer because it is a gorgeous hall right on the bay. There is no sand, but I figured with wanting to have a really formal wedding, it was probably better not to have girls in long gowns and heels in the sand.

We looked at almost every location on the water and liked Chateau La Mer the best. The problem with a lot of the places is that they have neighbors smack up against the property. One place I went to even had a neighbor's dog run through the ceremony area while I was there. Chateau just seemed more private and more pretty. I have to say I love the chandelier in the entryway, the live palm trees, the waterfall on the outside patio, and the stained glass windows with nautical pictures.

One of the places we looked at was very pretty, but it was gold everywhere and it almost looked a little too gaudy for my taste. Some of the places we liked were on water, but it looked more like a river than the ocean, which would not have worked for our beach theme.

For those of you who are wondering they actually just remodeled the entire place at Chateau La Mer. They repainted and carpeted both ballrooms and put a new marble dance floor in the downstairs, which was just gorgeous! The paint is a creamy pale yellow with white trim and the carpet is black with small white, pink, and yellow flowers in it.

I was worried that the new look would not match with turquoise, but it looked really good! I was also worried the work would not be done in time for my wedding, but it looked fabulous and no outside construction going on during my wedding either!!! They are planning on vaulting the ceiling in the upstairs ballroom too, which will be really beautiful!

I picked the upstairs ballroom because it was about $3,000 cheaper at the time that I booked and we could not afford the downstairs even though we thought it looked prettier. Actually, I am really glad we got the upstairs room because after they painted and recarpeted it, it was beautiful and actually I feel the view is better from up there. I had a small wedding too and I think it would have looked stupid having just a few guests in the downstairs room.

Just a word of caution though. They currently do not have an elevator, so guests and vendors have to go up a spiral staircase to get to the upstairs room. It was difficult walking up the stairs in a big fluffy gown. I do not think they have many stairs, if any to get to the downstairs room, but you should double check on that if you have guests in wheelchairs or with walking difficulty.

We did get married outside on a deck in a gazebo overlooking the water. It is next to a boat dock, so we had sailboats in the background. There was some noise outside from boats and planes, but nothing too crazy. (I say this because one reception hall that we looked at actually shook when a plane would fly overhead and it was so loud you thought you were at the airport.)

Chateau La Mer imports live palmtrees during the summer, which gave it that tropical resort feel that I was looking for. They also have the option of having the ceremony indoors in case of bad weather. They have a beautiful chapel room for this purpose.

The reception is indoors and you can pick one of two indoor ballrooms. The cocktail hour is half indoors and half outdoors, which is nice in case of bad weather or if it is really hot that day and you have older guests. In my case there was a light breeze and it was in the low to mid 80s.

The only problem we had with the weather was that it was a little too sunny for our morning wedding. We decided to take pictures before the wedding, which I highly recommend. That way you can enjoy the cocktail hour and reception. We staged a reveal where my husband had his back to me out on the boat dock and I came up and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around and saw me for the first time. It was great because it was a private moment that we shared, which was caught on film and video. Doing it this way saved time and eliminated some of the nervousness during the ceremony.

The only problem was that since we were taking pics at 10:00 a.m. when the hall opened, it got very sunny and everyone was squinting. So, the photographer decided to do the family shots indoors in the chapel room where the lighting was better. He was planning to do the outdoor pics at 12:00 noon when the cocktail hour started, but it was still way too sunny. So, he waited until after the salad was served at the reception.

The only problem with doing this was that firstly, there was another bride getting married later in the day and he had to make sure to avoid her outdoor cocktail hour and that she did not see us and secondly, everyone had already been dancing and drinking and did not look very fresh. Plus, they were ready to party and did not feel like doing pics at that point. It was a real struggle to get everyone together.

I felt bad for my bridal attendant too because I heard she got yelled at for allowing my photographer to take outdoor pics right after the other bride's cocktail hour was over. I guess they were concerned that the two brides would cross paths. I never saw the other bride except when I came down the stairs and saw into her ballroom. Hey, it did not bother me. I was wondering who my RH twin was. She never posted on LIWeddings to my knowledge.

So, we did morning pics in the chapel room out of view of the incoming guests, which was great. My wedding was at 11:30 a.m., but on the invites I put 11:15 a.m. I figured I did not want people there before 11:00 a.m. because nothing would be ready, but I also did not want people arriving just as I was walking down the aisle.

The hall and the florist took care of all my decorations and they did a gorgeous job!!! I was really happy with the way things looked. They also brought me into the room to ask for my approval before the guests came in, which was great! I was really worried they would get it wrong and I would be disappointed when I walked in.

The great thing is that the Thursday before the wedding, we had an appointment with the hall and were able to meet with management to drop off all decorations and tell them where we wanted everything. I recommend making a list of what you are bringing and a diagram of where you want it to go.

We did an ocean theme and my colors were turquoise and pearl. I had a lot of trouble finding table linens and ended up not using them. I contacted two different companies that both had turquoise overlays and chair bows and had reasonable prices. I ended up not using special linens at all because the companies I dealt with had such poor customer service and I was worried they would get my order wrong.

Instead of a turquoise overlay I ended up buying turquoise smooth glass beads at the craft store and had the hall sprinkle them over the white table cloth to give it some blue. Chateau La Mer has beautiful linens and chairs anyway, so you really do not need to waste money on renting linens.

Now for my flowers, I used April Flowers in Lindenhurst. They were absolutely AWESOME!!! I cannot say enough good things about the florist! We got centerpieces for all the reception tables, flowers for the bridal party, and ceremony flowers all for $1,500!!!!

My husband and I had gone to several flower shops in the area. One shop was very expensive and the man told me that the flowers I wanted looked like funeral arrangements and that I would never find what I wanted in my $1,500 price range. Boy was he rude and boy was he wrong!!!!

Do not get swindled by cookie cutter florists who want to do the same thing for every wedding and charge you a fortune!!! This place was a small mom and pop shop and they had the best ideas of all the florists we went to and the cheapest prices! They really got my vision for the day!

I had asked for white starfish and shells to be in the arrangements. They covered them in glitter and they looked amazing! Also, we used all white flowers, roses and some tropical looking flowers and they sprayed glitter on those as well and tipped the tops of the roses in a turquoise paint. They were absolutely gorgeous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, I was so impressed because the owner delivered the flowers directly to my room at the hotel on the day of the wedding, so I could approve of them before they left. They even brought water vases that my girls could put their flowers in to keep them fresh until the ceremony. My only problem with the flowers was that a flower or two fell out of my bouquet, but I just popped it right back in and it was fine.

We used the flowers with the seashells in the center of the reception tables, had white sandcastle candle holders from Party Lite Candles on either end of the tables, since they are long tables at Chateau La Mer. Then we had the blue glass beads sprinkled in between the flowers and sandcastles kind of like a runner down the middle of the table. We also threw some white glittery shells on the tables. It looked so beautiful!

We bought the shells from a seashell shop in Delaware that we found online. Even with the glass beads, seashells, and sandcastle candle holders, we still spent less money than if we would have bought table linens and it looked amazing!!!

We thought it would be neat if we named our tables after tropical islands, so we found this company that for about $50-$60 printed up gorgeous table name cards for us with turquoise seahorses and our names. I highly recommend them! It is a lot of money to get them to print escort cards, but if you just need table cards, it gives a really nice professional touch to the tables and it is something unique.

O.K. I am writing a lot today and do not want to lose it all again, so I will post this and then come back on.