My Oct 16 Hamlet Wind Watch Wedding Review with Pics!!

Hi everyone,
I was a not so frequent poster but this site helped me so much that I felt it was my duty to give everyone the scoop on how everything turned out.

In short, it was amazing, everything turned out better than i could have imagined. I can't even think of anything that didn't go well. I'll try to give you the details of everything....

St. Cyril's and Methodius Church - Beautiful church, wonderful people. This is my childhood church and I am so happy that we got married there. Everyone on the staff was so accommodating, made everything so easy and beautiful. Our priest, Father Grieco is such a wonderful person and really made the ceremony and the months leading up to it special for us. Our bridal party even mentioned to us that the woman who does the rehearsal there, Mrs. Fitzpatrick really did a great job and everyone knew exactly what to do.

Hamlet Wind Watch Country Club - I can't say enough good things about this place. This was the first reception site we looked at and we knew instantly that it was perfect for us. Its a bit smaller than a lot of the other places which we liked and has a nice low-key elegant feel. It is not a wedding factory at all. The service and the food were outstanding and we got so many compliments from all our guests about how personalized the service was. Denise was so responsive throughout the whole process and was always available to answer questions, etc. On the day of, there was not a single thing out of place, all of our requests were taken care of. We didn't have to worry about anything except enjoying ourselves (and this was not a problem!) The view and the grounds there may for beautiful pictures (more on this later). The cake was gorgeous and actually tasted really good, plus our guests were totally impressed by the dessert (Ice Cream/Mudslide pie) that they served along with the wedding cake.

Alexis Limos - This was a referral from my brother since I was impressed with the way they handled his 2003 wedding. Everything was very professional, the cars were really clean, they were all on time, and the drivers are all so nice. they might be a little more expensive than other places, but in my mind it was worth it.

Long Island Sound DJs - Chris (MC) - Again, we only visited one DJ for our event. They were recommended by the Hamlet and did an outstanding job. We wanted someone who wouldn't try to be the star of the party but would encourage people to get up if needed. And he did just that, they played all of my requests and the dance floor was packed all afternoon. Early in the party, only the bridesmaids were out there, but Chris went out around the room and talked to the different tables so he knew who everyone was and then called the bridal party back out by name to dance again and then made it a point to say 'Now, all the friends from college, all the friends from the neighborhood, all the friends from the Navy, etc.' It really go people up and moving and they stayed up after that and Chris faded back into the background. He even humored my crazy friends who requested songs and showed them the 'do not play' list so they knew what they were dealing with.

Spelman Studios Photography and Video - The photgrapher was the one thing I was neurotic about. I had seen too many bad collections of photographers and wanted to make sure that I didn't fall into that trap. From the moment I met Christine Spelman, I knew that I wanted her at my wedding. She has an incredible eye and her work is gorgeous but perhaps more importantly, she is incredibly organized and detail oriented. She remembered everyone's names, she got all the pictures we asked her to get. We had an 11:00 ceremony with a 1:00 cocktail hour and she was totally aware of the tight timeframe, she came early to do my family at the house and then left before the ceremony to do the groom's family at the church. We took all of our family pictures on the church grounds immediately after the ceremony and by the time we got to the Hamlet, our parents and grandparents were able to go directly to the cocktail hour and the bridal party made it to at least 1/2 the cocktail hour. It was fantastic and I was so happy b/c it was really important to me that our parents be able to greet all their guests. Christine is so professional. She has a very relaxed style and I never felt that any of the photography intruded on our day. In fact, her team is so unobtrusive that after the first dance, I never even noticed there were photgraphers there, but there must have been because they got a lot of great pictures of the party!

Now for the more important part, we went to pick up our proofs last Friday and they are gorgeous, absoutely beautiful. One of the things I liked about Christine is that she believes in taking a combination of pictures and styles so our album has a combination of B&W and color, posed and candid, romantic, photojournalism, etc. Plus, the way they do the album there ensures that you get an album that really tells the story of your day. The album coordinator, Gina, has a great eye and puts together a collection of pictures for you to start with rather than the whole box of proofs and you start from there. We sat down with her for 4 hours but the end product is really what we were hoping for from our wedding album. The whole staff there is amazing.

We also used Ted, Spelman's videographer for our wedding and he was also very unobtrusive. I haven't seen our video yet but I am sure it will come out great!