My 6/7/09 Wedding at the Crescent Beach Club..lots of LIW vendors! (12th night pro pics in album~)

First off thanks to all the ladies on this website! I haven’t posted for a while but found this website to be tremendously helpful during the early stages of my wedding planning. I thought I’d post and share my reviews so that it can hopefully help others as they begin planning their big day.

Small token of advice: the day TRULY does go by in the blink of an eye. Try hard to stop and take everything in as often as you can and to take mental snapshots of your special day. Second, don’t sweat the small stuff! While my wedding day will always be special and memorable, it was definitely not without its bloopers (read: dad had way too many drinks, but in a happy way, and I lost my earrings and bangle at the RH) Below are reviews of all our vendors. Please take them all with a grain of salt, they are our honest experiences with these vendors and I know everyone gets both good and bad reviews so… here we go! (This is a loooong review! ) Pictures are in my album b/c I could net get the pics to post inside the review..

Weather: (A++) Wow we really lucked out with what was probably the most beautiful day in June. Warm, sunny, we could not have asked for more. Like many a bride I was checking weather.com several times a day, every day the week of the wedding

Invitations: Stephita Invitations (A)
We really wanted to do bilingual English/Chinese invitations that were nice but would not cost an arm and a leg. I had stumbled upon this company while doing some internet research. We dealt with them solely thru email (which I know some people might not feel comfortable with) but in all honesty the process was really smooth. I had emailed them a ton of questions and they were always very quick to respond. They send you samples of the papers/cardstock as well so you can see in person what they look like. We received a lot of compliments on our invitations so overall I was very happy with them.

Rehearsal Dinner: Northern Manor (Littleneck, NY) C-
OMG. So since we had relatives from out of town come to the wedding we decided on a Chinese restaurant to hold the RD. Since Flushing would have been farther (and parking more of a problem) we chose somewhere else in Queens that wasn’t too far from the hotel. The food was only mediocre here but what REALLY got me was that they charged a corkage fee of $20, and that’s not a FLAT fee, it was $20 per bottle! Keep in mind this is NOT a fancy place, very casual and average. And we were given the impression that it was a flat $20 fee. When we tried to negotiate it, the manager was very brusque and refused to take any of it off. We spent $80 on the corkage fee and we poured all the wine ourselves! Don’t Go Here.

Gown: Saks Fifth Avenue (Short Hills, NJ) A
Unfortunately the bridal salon in Short Hills has closed but my experience there was great. My bridal consultant was Mimi who I loved! She was this incredibly sweet, classy woman who made the experience of dress shopping wonderful. Maria who was my seamstress did a great job with all the alterations. I purchased an Amsale gown which I loved. It was simple but fit beautifully and was very flattering. It was modern and classy and went very well with our beachside wedding.

Veil: Netbride A
Can you believe the costs of veils??? I couldn’t, which is why I ended up going the route of ordering one through Netbride. I had gone to RK Bridal to try on a bunch of veils and found one I liked and took down the style number. I was hesitant to order the veil online and to wait the two months it took to arrive, but their customer service was great. I’d highly recommend ordering through them. I think I saved $150 off the retail value of my veil.

DOJ: Regina B. and Tejani (Both A)
It breaks my heart to talk about my DOJ because sadly I lost both the earrings and bangle that I had bought. While changing from my wedding gown into my qipao I carelessly left them on the table in the downstairs bridal suite at the CBC (the downstairs suite does not lock). I think someone, I don’t know who, came in and stole them. When I went to change back into my wedding gown and change my jewelry, they were nowhere to be found.

But anyway, LOVED the earrings from Regina B. and the bangle from Tejani. Highly recommend both these companies for the fabulous pieces they have. Pricey but beautiful.

Flower for Hair: Etsy seller Mikiye (A)
I knew I wanted to have a flower in my hair instead of jewelry and found Mikiye on Etsy. Her pieces are really amazing and extremely lifelike. Not cheap but it was beautiful.

Officiant: Pastor April A+
We LOVED Pastor April. She is truly just the sweetest woman ever! All the wonderful reviews about her are true. From the moment we met her, we instantly clicked. She was easy going, laid back but very professional. We had a rough draft of our ceremony within days of meeting. And the week of the wedding she called to check in on me to let me know that we were all set and to make sure I remembered to bring our marriage certificate and overall just to see how everything was going. Unfortunately someone turned down her PA system so the start of the ceremony wasn’t heard as loudly as we wanted, but she did a beautiful job with our ceremony. Her prices are also extremely reasonable so definitely contact her if you’re looking for an officiant.

Makeup: Sachiko Yanase A+
Ahhh I love Sachiko! She is such a sweetheart. She is also one of the first vendors I booked! And if you are looking at her for your wedding I suggest you book FAR in advance as well. When researching MUA’s who are good with Asian brides, Sachiko’s name always came up. I had two trials with Sachiko, the first time I had a much more natural look but I didn’t love any of the hairstyles we did. I went home and did some more research on what styles I liked and had a 2nd trial where we nailed down what we would do. The day of she came early (3:45AM!!!) to set up and started working on my first BM. When I came out she was like “Oh why are you up so early? Go back to bed and get some extra sleep!” The night of the wedding she called and left me a message to let me know I had given her too much money! How awesome and honest is that? All my BM’s loved her and so many people gave me compliments on how wonderful my hair and makeup was. It was great to have her cheery personality with us when we all had to wake up so early to get ready.

Ceremony Music: Capriccio Ensemble A
Natalie was wonderful to work with, communicated via email very quickly (which is Always a plus!) I didn’t get to hear any of the music they played as guests came in but the ceremony music was lovely. I think I was concentrating so hard on not crying I could barely hear it! ?

DOC: Christine Viola (Exquisite Affairs Production) A++
Oh Christine… What would I have done without you?! Two words: Hire her. She was fabulous to work with, extremely organized, professional and a wonderful individual. She helped me through a couple pre-wedding meltdowns and was extremely calming and understanding to some of the drama I was dealing with. Throughout the months of planning I always said to myself and DH “Thank God I hired Christine.. seriously, she is the best $$ spent on this entire wedding.” I loved her. The peace of mind she brought to my day was priceless. Before DH and I did our first dance I realized that the train of my dress was too long and that I would keep tripping over it. She worked her magic and re-did my bustle with the help of safety pins and not only did it look beautiful, I did not trip once during our dance!

Photographer: Twelfth Night (Dom and Anthony) A-
We booked Twelfth Night pretty early on in our wedding planning after reading the wonderful reviews. Their prices are really competitive and allow you to purchase a package that excludes albums so as to lower the cost of photo. Dom was great to work with, always responsive to email and we had a very fun e-shoot with him. The day of he arrived on-time, was funny, light-witted and worked quickly to get all the shots we needed. His partner Anthony was great as well, super nice guy, never intrusive in his photography. Overall I was pretty happy with the proofs. I loved a lot of the bridal portrait/pre-ceremony shots. However, there weren’t a lot of pictures that I liked from the reception. For our first dance and parent dances, I think I got better pictures from friends and family. Still, overall their prices are really good and we still received many pictures that we liked.

Videographer: Wedding Cinema (Pete) A-
DH and I did not want to spend a ton of $$$ in the videography department, so when we stumbled upon Wedding Cinema we were really impressed by how much was included in his package for the price. I think the video turned out better than we expected and documented the day very well. Pete was also very nice to work with, always responded to email quickly and genuinely seems to love what he does. A couple days before the wedding he asked if we wanted to upgrade to filming in HD which we had turned down. In the end, he did it anyway for free and gave us an extra BluRay DVD.

DJ: FM Entertainment (B+)
Ok this is the first of two reviews that are difficult for us to write. First off I know Frank gets a ton of great reviews on this site (so perhaps they were having an off day) and he is a really nice guy and their DJ prices are extremely affordable. We were initially sold by both their price and the showcase we attended. But a couple things during the wedding kind of bugged us including: 1) they messed up DH and my entrance song!!! I don’t know how that is possible… they started playing some random song as we walked in and I think they realized it was wrong and were scrambling to find the right one leaving DH and I to stand a little too long on the dance floor awkwardly. 2) During one of the dance sets the music was abruptly cut off. I feel like this was a really amateur mistake, luckily the music came back on without much of a problem but still… 3) We paid for the two person package (DJ/MC) and indeed there was someone else there besides Frank. However when DH introduced himself to the guy and was like “Oh Hi, are you the DJ?” The guy responded “No I’m not the DJ I’m just the assistant/I’m just here to help” (something like that) DH didn’t tell me this until afterwards but in hind sight perhaps that’s why there were these bloopers because Frank was scrambling to do everything himself, both DJ and MC. Plus we thought Frank could have been a little more “pro-active” in terms of working the crowd and stuff. I mean overall they did a decent job and their prices can’t be beat, but we were kind of annoyed with these mistakes.

Florist: Verbena Designs (B)
Oh goodness this one is really tough to write too. I really liked the whole process of working with Jen and thought she was fabulous and her prices were competitive. We ended up spending more on flowers than I had originally wanted/budgeted for, but in the end thought that it would be worth it to have beautiful flowers for our wedding. So going into this I had HIGH expectations for our flowers, especially with all the wonderful reviews Verbena gets on this site. However, it really hurts me to say this, but my expectations were not met and I was disappointed with a bunch of things.
First the Good: the canopy for our outdoor ceremony was GORGEOUS. I absolutely loved it and wished we could have taken it home. It made a gorgeous backdrop for all our ceremony photos. She did a fantastic job with this and was by far my favorite floral item of the day. She also showed up on time to drop off the personal flowers and to set up at the CBC.

The Bad: Here’s where it goes downhill. For my bouquet, I was really disappointed that not every flower was “perfect” (oh god I know how bridezilla-ish that comes off!). Hear me out: my bouquet was to consist of blush cymbidium orchids, ivory roses, and pale green roses. For some reason there were these other roses in my bouquet whose tips looked like a brownish/mauve color, I wasn’t sure if it was because they weren’t fresh or if she added in some other type of rose, but I did NOT like it…it just looked un-fresh. I was very disappointed that I did not LOVE my bouquet, especially when you spend $200 on a bouquet, I would think every bud should be perfect. For my BM’s bouquets I had requested light and bright pink cymbidium orchids. What I ended up getting were light pink and burgundy/maroon-ish colored cymbidiums. In fact all the parents’ corsages/bouts were supposed to be bright pink cymbidiums and they all received the burgundy colored ones as well. I did NOT like them and did not think they qualified as bright pink at all! Plus they were supposed to be mini-cymbidiums because I did not like the large cymbidium flowers as bouts/corsages, but I don’t think we got the mini’s. In our original contract, she attached sample pictures of the different flowers to be used and there are two different colored pink cymbidiums(the ones I thought would be used). The burgundy colored one she used the day of were NOT on it.

When it came to our sample CP, I didn’t love them either. The sample one we had seen before the wedding looked nicer and the 2nd type of CP we had seemed to have too much hydrangea and not enough of the other flowers we requested…making the hydrangea appear like a lot of filler.

Overall I don’t know what happened, I was really expecting all our flowers to be really beautiful, but a lot of things fell short of our expectations. I know many brides have awesome experiences with her work, I’m just sad to say that I didn’t love everything.

Ceremony/Reception Hall: Crescent Beach Club (A)
The CBC was the first and only hall we saw and we booked soon after we visited. Coming from NJ, we didn’t have a lot of opportunity or time to go and visit a lot of different vendors so depended on a lot of online research(this website!) and had read so many great things about CBC. We dealt primarily with Stacie and Denise and they were fabulous! Super sweet, helpful, and accommodating.

The food was spectacular and exceeded our expectations. At the start of CH we were given bites of everything in the bridal suite (Jumbo coconut shrimp, bacon wrapped scallops, delicious pastas). There were drinks flowing and pina coladas in coconuts. Entrees were even better, we had filet mignon, Chilean sea bass, and stuffed chicken. The Chilean sea bass was phenomenal! DH and I both looked at each during dinner and were like “wow the food is SOO good!” Everyone said the food was the best they’ve had at a wedding. Oh and the cake. Our cake was DELISH. Vanilla and chocolate cake with white chocolate mousse and raspberry infusion and cappuccino mousse. At the end of the night I realized I hadn’t eaten my slice and proceeded to scarf it down in a very “un-bridal like” manner. Hahah. Everyone also enjoyed the ice cream sundae bar we had…even the adults!

OK enough about the food, the location was spectacular. DH and I really wanted to have a beachfront wedding and our ceremony outdoors on the beach patio was beautiful. So many people complimented on how wonderful the location and scenery was. It is different from a lot of the traditional wedding halls we’ve seen, it was a lot more modern which we liked. Since most of our guests were driving from NJ we really wanted to give them a fun and special day to remember. We realize that the CBC is definitely not the cheapest but given the amazing quality of food, service, and beautiful location, we would definitely do it again if we could!

Transportation: Camelot Limo A
Not much to add to this, they were professional, had good prices and picked up/dropped off on time. Very satisfied overall.

Hotel: Four Points Sheraton (Plainview) A
I had originally dealt with Ryan when booking our room block and he was great to deal with. Answered all my questions and responded quickly to emails. The hotel was nice and clean and no one had any problems with their rooms. They even decorated our suite the night of the wedding at no charge and including champagne!

Wedding Stationery (Programs and Menus): kiss + tell cards (A+)
I discovered Etsy while reading another wedding blog and looked for someone to help me create my programs and menus. I quickly realized early on the wedding process that I was not a big DIY-er ? I found Karissa and her shop, kiss+tell cards, while browsing through etsy one day. I sent her ideas of what I liked and she worked with me to finalize a design. Her prices were very reasonable and the quality of work was great. Overall very satisfied.

Aisle Runner: Lorilis.com (A)
We ordered a custom painted aisle runner from this company and loved it. I was going back and forth debating whether or not to spend the extra $$ for a nice aisle runner, but in the end I really liked how it added an extra touch to all our ceremony photos. Service was great, you can choose a custom monogram to be painted in the colors of your choice.

Chinese QiPao: Lai’s Royal Tailoring (Chinatown, NY) A
I had a tough time debating whether or not to order a qipao online or to go somewhere in person to have it custom made. I was worried about what the final product and fit would be like if I ordered it via an online company. In the end FMIL (MIL) recommended this store to me. It is more of a tailoring shop and not a qipao store like the famous one on Mott St. We bought our own silk fabrics from the garment district and she custom made my gown. I was really impressed with the quality of her work and I think the dress turned out beautifully.

Phewww…okay that’s it! Hope this will be helpful to future brides! Pro pics in album...Thanks!

Re: My 6/7/09 Wedding at the Crescent Beach Club..lots of LIW vendors! (12th night pro pics in album~)

thanks for the review and Congratulations!! You looked beautiful!! Sorry to hear you weren't 100% happy with your flowers, but I think everything looked great!!!!

Re: My 6/7/09 Wedding at the Crescent Beach Club..lots of LIW vendors! (12th night pro pics in album~)

Congrats!! Your pictures are gorgeous!! Sorry to hear that some of your vendors weren't topnotch.