Leonard's May 30, 2004 review (with 12th Night, LA Blossom and more) black and white photos added...

(if you want to see any other photos, just ask!)

Leonard’s of Great Neck: A

I worked with Maurizio and Ian. Jeff was my Maitre D and Domino was my bridal attendant. Everyone did a fantastic job!

I can’t say enough great things! I booked them in August of 2002 for my May 30, 2004 wedding. I was concerned because they basically booked up the whole building for my wedding day. But, we did not encounter ANY confusion and my wedding was completely separate from any of the other parties that were going on. I don’t think my guests even realized that there were other parties.

Leonard’s gave me a recommended list of vendors. I ended up booking one of them. It went absolutely horribly, so I cancelled the vendor. I called Leonard’s back to complain. They refunded the entire deposit that I had given the vendor. And, the vendor is no longer on the recommended list. Leonard’s also tossed in the fruit castle for my cocktail hour because of my inconvenience. I was SO happy about that! And, they did everything they could to help me replace the vendor since it was only a couple months before the wedding.

Three weeks before my wedding, they let me and Laurie (LA Blossom) come in to look at my sample centerpiece. They made sure to have a table with the proper linens in my room so that we could really gauge how it would look. They let us hang out for as long as we wanted!

My only gripe was that the bathroom attendants had out tip baskets and actually asked my cousin (MOH) for a tip! Those tips were supposed to be included in my gratuity. And, there’s even a sign up in the lobby that states that tips have been provided by the host. I didn’t find out about the tip baskets until after the wedding. But, I did call to complain and I am sure that it will be corrected from this point forward.

But, they did do so many great things! I got to take home the left-overs from my Viennese hour. They opened up my cocktail hour 15 minutes early because my guests came early. And, they made sure that my guests knew it was okay to take home the bud bowls that I had out on the cocktail hour tables. Jeff and Domino packed up our car with our belongings. Also, I found out that one of my guests didn’t want any of the 4 dinner options that we offered, so they made her a special meal on the spot!

So, I am completely thrilled with my Leonard’s wedding! My guests are still raving about the food, the atmosphere, and the décor!

My only word of advice for any reception: make sure your guest book is on a table all by itself! Someone knocked over my water glass on to my guest book and a bunch of the pages got ripped.


LA Blossom: A+

Laurie, and her flowers, were absolutely FLAWLESS in every regard! That’s why this is one of only two vendors to receive an A PLUS

I still CANNOT believe how amazing the flowers were! AND, I only booked Laurie 20 DAYS before my wedding. She truly outdid herself! She even remembered the little things that I mentioned to her and incorporated them into the wedding flowers. And, the roses were HUGE. EVERYONE still keeps commenting about how beautiful they were and that they’ve never seen such BIG roses. My aunt keeps saying, “I wish I would have known about those flowers in advance, I would have made provisions to get them home!”

The funny thing is, it seems like all of my other vendors oversold themselves. So, I was expecting them to move the earth and the sun. Laurie never acted like them, but it was like she really did move the earth and the sun!!!

Also, I still have the roses from my wedding cake in my refrigerator. Only one petal has started to wilt! I cannot believe it! The wedding was ONE MONTH AGO and the roses from my cake still look great!

One of my DH’s aunts loved the bud bowl SO MUCH that she took on the airplane with her all the way back to ITALY! She held it on her lap for the ENTIRE plane ride!

The East Coast Band: A

They were fantastic! I still get compliments! They really carried the night and the crowd very well! Everyone loved them! I never really know how important the music was until AFTER the wedding when EVERYONE commented about how much fun they had dancing to the wonderful music! We did hit a couple bumps about a month before the wedding because it seemed like they may not have been able to learn our song, but they did and everything worked out wonderfully! I am really, really happy with how well they did at the wedding! They interacted with the guests and moved around the dance floor to keep the party moving.

Twelfth Night Photography: A

Dominic handled my guests wonderfully! He has a great personality for this job. (Hey, he even put up with ME!) His brother, Michael, is great- very quiet and happy looking. It was really funny because he was supposed to be the ‘photojournalist’, but EVERYONE kept asking him to take pictures of them. Finally, I told him to ‘just give up the quite guy in the corner act and just make them happy.” And, Michael fixed my train for me right before I walked down the aisle. It was just me and my brother waiting to go down and I realized that my train was folded over. My brother had no idea how to fix it, so I asked Michael and he ran right over to help! In my raw footage, I can see when he poofed my train, so now I’ll always remember that moment!

And, can I just say, the photos are ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!! Dominic put the digitals on a DVD and set them to music. He truly is skilled at his job! And, so is Michael. I HIGHLY recommend them to everyone! Every time that I look through the proofs, I am more and more happy with his work! And, I did NOT give him a ‘must take’ list. To me, I thought it would be a big burden. I just wanted him to focus on the day and to shoot the day as it unfolded. And, I have NO REGRETS about that. I do not feel like I am missing anything. He took all of the detail shots without ever being asked!

Post-wedding communication was a little slow, but I got everything I wanted and the pics look great!

Bliss Productions NY: A

Jerry did an AWESOME job with my video. Everyone who has seen it LOVES it. Jerry's post-wedding communication is excellent and FAST! I highly recommend Jerry to everyone!

He did so many 'little touches' to the video- like adding in childhood pics to other sentimental spots in the video, like my dance with my brother and DH's dance with his mom.

Also, the special effects were very elegant and gave the footage a classic feel. This was very important to me because I didn't want to end up with a wedding video that was tacky.

Jerry truly made my wedding look like a beautiful movie!

His sound edits were great. During my ceremony, right after our kiss, a wedding guest let their cell phone ring a million times. I was SO worried about that ruining my wedding video. Jerry was able to edit 99% of it out. No one could even notice it in the video (except for me of course- because I was trying to hear it, LOL!)

And, we had a difficult bridesmaid. Jerry did a wonderful job of edited out her bad behaviour and making her seem like a 'lady' on our video. :)

My local florist (name not provided because this florist is in NJ anyway): D

Well, technically everything that was on my contract was provided. BUT:

He wrapped the fabric from the BM dresses on the bouquets, but he used it 'as is'. So, threads were hanging down, seems were showing, and we could see the green tape.

As soon as my bouquet arrived, I thought that my stephanotis looked a little beaten up, and by the end of the night, all of my stephanotis' were COMPLETELY wilted. The ribbon on my mom's corsage frayed.

During the ceremony, one of the roses in my maid of honor's bouquet popped out and fell on the floor.

Also, by the end of the night, John's bout was COMPLETELY dead and all of the white roses for the groomsmen turned brown.

The kicker: I was supposed to have a lace aisle runner. He brought a paper aisle runner. During the ceremony, while bringing up the gifts to the altar, my mom tripped on the runner, ripped it with her shoe, then her foot got stuck under the aisle runner and she tripped about 3 more times before John's mom grabbed on to her to help her walk passed the ripped runner.

So, during the sign of peace, I had 2 of the groomsmen roll the aisle runner back out of the church. It was quite an ordeal. It is all on film. I got to see it in the raw footage. You can actually see Dominic from Twelfth Night putting down his camera to help. Then, he tells Jerry from Bliss Productions to come help too and that’s where the film cuts from that scene.


My limo company (again, name not provided because this company is in NJ anyway): D

There was NO AC in the limo on the way to the ceremony. Everyone in the car was sweating and complaining.

The limo driver did not know where she was going. As soon as she turned out of the hotel, I knew she was going the wrong way and I told her. She insisted on following her own directions. Then, LATER, she asked me to help her out. She made me 15 minutes late to the ceremony. We worked SO hard to be on time, only to have THE LIMO COMPANY make us late anyway.

Later, they did not know how to get to Leonard’s. Luckily, my DH and I drove from the ceremony to Leonard’s in our own car, so they were able to follow us.

Then, they refused to leave until I paid $175 in overtime charges. She argued with me about her start time, and I didn’t have a copy of my contract with me to prove that she was wrong, so I just paid the money to get her to leave.

And, after getting my proofs back, I noticed that there is a BEAUTIFUL photo of my brother helping our grandmother out of the limo. BUT, the STUPID limo driver POSED in the photo as well! I was SO MAD when I saw that! It was a beautiful photojournalistic black and white print where my brother and grandmother are looking at each other. Too bad the limo driver smiled for the camera!!!

David's Bridal: C

I got my headpiece and veil there. The headpiece was great. The veil needed to be exchanged for ivory. The store manager at East Brunswick, NJ said to me, 'you saw the color when you bought it. No one twisted your arm.' So, I basically threatened to get her in trouble for the was she spoke to me. Then, she ordered me a new one.

My MIL got her dress at a different David's. It was so so. But, she bought it 10 days before the wedding, so what can you expect?

Wedding Expressions.com: My dress and the BM dresses: C


They did wonderfully with my BM dresses. My dress came in EXTREMELY late. They just kept saying, 'it will be here soon' And, they never did send me the fabric samples that I requested. But, I did speak to the owner and he was very nice and tried to be helpful

Mona Leesa Favors: B

The favors came out great. Mona Leesa is a mover and a shaker. And, once she forgot that I was trying to come in and drop off some decorations to add to the favors. So, she wasn't there and I had to ship the extra decorations...

Invitations Et Cetera: B+

They did a nice job with my invitations. I ordered William Arthur invites. They helped me choose the color of my motif. They took 20% off the price and talked me out of getting the very expensive matching thank yous.

William Arthur ended up shorting me one invite. Invitations Et Cetera called right away and William Arthur shipped 5 to my home.

The only thing that I didn't like was that they packed up the boxes of my invites, responses, and envelopes in a couple of bags (they were all inside cardboard William Arthur boxes) They then left the bags on the floor near the cash register. A customer kept knocking into my bag...with her foot. No one asked her to be careful, nor did anyone move the bags out of the way. And, no one offered to help me carry out the bags to the car. The bags were very heavy. So, I kind of felt like the customer service was lacking in that regard. I really spent A LOT more than I should have on the invites. So, when I saw another customer knocking into my bags, my stomach was literally doing flips...

Teaneck Marriott at Glenpoint: F

site of the rehearsal dinner and one of the hotels for OOT guests. They never did get ANYTHING right! The promised to set up early check ins and late check outs for my block of guests. They never did.

They pushed my RD to a VERY early end. We were supposed to have the room until 9 pm. They started cleaning up at 7 pm. I asked the waitress to stop taking people's flatware and glasses. She continued to do it anyway. When I asked for more coffee at 8 pm, she said that they were done with the coffee for the night!!!

The plumbing burst in my suite. It took them 45 minutes to get me a bell hop to help move to my new room. IT WAS THE NIGHT BEFORE MY WEDDING! On the evening of the wedding, we got a call from a guest. They wanted to let us know that the Marriott left a mini tray of cookies and crackers for us...in the wrong room! So, my DH went down to our guest's room to get the tray.

And, my MOH treated us to room service on the morning of the wedding. Well, the Marriott charged US BOTH! When checking out, they made me wait for 10 minutes while they went through ALL of their room service receipts for that day. Finally, they verified that they incorrectly charged me. No apology for making me wait. nothing for all of the inconveniences. nothing at all. Now I know why 'Hilton' is such a good name...

Re: Leonard's May 30, 2004 review (with 12th Night, LA Blossom and more)

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Re: Leonard's May 30, 2004 review (with 12th Night, LA Blossom and more)

Re: Leonard's May 30, 2004 review (with 12th Night, LA Blossom and more)

Re: Leonard's May 30, 2004 review (with 12th Night, LA Blossom and more)

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Re: Leonard's May 30, 2004 review (with 12th Night, LA Blossom and more)

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Re: Leonard's May 30, 2004 review (with 12th Night, LA Blossom and more)

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Re: Leonard's May 30, 2004 review (with 12th Night, LA Blossom and more)

Re: Leonard's May 30, 2004 review (with 12th Night, LA Blossom and more)

Re: Leonard's May 30, 2004 review (with 12th Night, LA Blossom and more)

Re: Leonard's May 30, 2004 review (with 12th Night, LA Blossom and more)

Re: Leonard's May 30, 2004 review (with 12th Night, LA Blossom and more)

Re: Leonard's May 30, 2004 review (with 12th Night, LA Blossom and more)

it sounds like you had a wonderful day, Congrats! Your pics look great, we are using 12th night as well and our so so so happy we decided to switch vendors and go with them! And more pics please!!!!!!

Re: Leonard's May 30, 2004 review (with 12th Night, LA Blossom and more)

thanx for the review, I love the centerpieces they are beautiful... both of you looked sooo happy together

Re: Leonard's May 30, 2004 review (with 12th Night, LA Blossom and more)

Congratulations!

Re: Leonard's May 30, 2004 review (with 12th Night, LA Blossom and more)

Maurizio is also the one that I am working with, he has been very nice so far

Re: Leonard's May 30, 2004 review (with 12th Night, LA Blossom and more)

Re: Leonard's May 30, 2004 review (with 12th Night, LA Blossom and more)

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Re: Leonard's May 30, 2004 review (with 12th Night, LA Blossom and more)

your pictures are wonderful, you have given me many ideas for the pictures that I want

Re: Leonard's May 30, 2004 review (with 12th Night, LA Blossom and more)

Hey girl!!!! I've been waiting for your review . The pictures came out great!!!!!

Congrats again!