LI Weddings was a great resource for finding new ideas, looking at beautiful pictures and hearing what real brides had to say first hand. Wedding planning is a complete rollercoaster. Some moments are absolutely wonderful and fun and exciting and other times are well just sucky! I can honestly say that in the end YES it was all worth it and NO I will NEVER EVER plan another wedding again ?
A very special thanks to all of my friends and especially my family. I could have never gotten through all of this without you. There has never been another time in my life when I felt so loved. I really feel like this brought everyone in my life closer together and I am so grateful for that and all of the time and effort that you helped contribute. I love you all and consider myself very lucky!!!
Let’s Start from the beginning……
Dress – Pricilla of Boston NY, NY (Melissa Sweet)
We were engaged Dec 8 and for Christmas Chris got me a ton of bridal mags. Flipping through in the first few pages I saw a dress that I really loved. Chris actually saw it too and mentioned that he really liked it (“sexy” I believe was the exact phrasing). It was this picture
About 7 months later I had a job interview in Manhattan and my Mom suggested we go dress shopping the same day. I went to Pricilla of Boston first and the NY location had just opened up and it was so pretty. White carpets, chandeliers and big framed mirrors against the wall. Of course the dress I saw in the mag was the last one of the few there that I tried on and surprisingly I did not get that “This is THE dress” feeling b/c I had only tried on two dresses so far. After trying on a few others my Mom and I knew that it was “THE” dress. The tailoring was excellent (Candy at Pricilla) and the French bustle looked great.
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The Woodlands – Woodbury, NY
Absolutely exceeded any expectations we could have ever had. The tasting they provided was amazingly delicious and the entire staff (Eirika and Raquel rock and our BA’s too!!) is super organized and personable. The entire process was really a pleasure. They were completely flexible with us and really worked to make our day go smoothly and unforgettable. I really could go on but instead here are a few pics
Flowers – Pedestals
All of our Boks, corsages and bots came out stunning. They arrived on time and stayed fresh throughout the entire day/night. I was very surprised and happy to see how vivid the colors were in mine. I was happy with the few extra pieces we had for our entrance and card table and I LOVED the flowers on the cake. My only disappointment was our CP’s. They did not come out like the trial ones even though they had taken a picture. We just had a hurricane candle and tea lights set up but it was the wrong size and there were like 6 rose petals on a table when they were supposed to be in the hurricane and a lot more on the table. It was not the worst thing that could have happened they just looked a little on the plain side but it still looked very elegant. I also feel like I should have followed up more b/c I didn’t get my final printed contract in the mail until almost a week before the wedding.
Cake – Taste of Home Bakery – East Meadow, NY
This bakery is actually 3 blocks from my house and happened to be the house bakery for The Woodlands. I went with Chris and our Mom’s to a tasting where we got to build our own mini cakes and we finally chose the one they first created for us to try which was a mix of chocolate and vanilla cake with a layer of chocolate mouse and a layer of chocolate fudge mixed with a layer of raspberry. It was soo good and I am counting down the days to eat the top of my wedding cake next year which currently resides in my freezer. I also got the grooms cake here which was a NY Islanders Hockey puck. It came out great and Chris loved it!
Accessories
Veil – The Bridal Salon of Manhasset
I wanted an absolutely plain cathedral length veil. Inspired by ‘Tuosto’ I tried Manhasset and found exactly what I wanted.
Flower Clip - Pricilla of Boston
Fell in love with this when I was trying on my dress. I thought I would wear it with the veil, but I wound up getting a cathedral length and knew I would take it off. When I did I just put the flower in!
Shoes – J.Crew
Ivory satin pump Mary-Jane, how do you go wrong…..even though I only wore them until the end of the first dance. They are on clearance now online at J.Crew.
Jewelry –
Earrings from Bridal Reflections
Bracelet from Sandy’s Shoes (took me forever to find a nice cuff without a ton of crazy bling)
My Aunt’s sister had a ring that went perfectly with the bracelet and I used it as my something borrowed.
I have to talk a bit about my engagement ring. It was the same ring Chris' Dad gave to his Mom. It is beautiful and classic and timeless. I could have never imagined getting such a special ring. Chris has 6 sisters so how I got to be the lucky one I have no idea! Everyone was so happy when Chris gave it to me and I never take it off!!!!
Make-Up – Karen the Make-Up Artist
Karen was awesome!!!! Aside from being super talented she is so funny and nice?
We had one trial and I booked her on the spot. I don’t wear a lot of make-up so it was really important to me not to look over done. Karen is a pro. If you look at her portfolio, which is amazing, she can do the simplest natural make-up to the most crazy bad-*** make-up you have ever seen. Not only did Karen do my make-up, but she did my ENTIRE family as well (Mom, Nana, 2 Aunts and 2 cousins – 7 in total). Everyone looked great and was soo happy with her work. I want to take her everywhere I go so I can always look that great!
Hair – Dana @ Salon D’Arel East Meadow, NY
I started going to Dana 3 years ago to get my hair done for my work Christmas party. She is right across the street from my house and has always been able to replicate every magazine picture I have brought her. She is soo nice and always asks you what you think and to be honest with her. If I wanted something higher or more curls she would always do it and it would look great and stay in place all night. I had a few trials with someone else that cuts my hair near where I work in the city but they were just too much and not me. I decided to do something simple and half pulled back even though I knew it could fall out b/c of the heat. I went for a trial with Dana and she made my hair look exactly like what I wanted within 25 minutes. The day of she also did my Mom and my Aunt’s hair which looked great.
Photography/Videography – IMAGINE STUDIOS BEST EVER!!!!!
We can’t say enough about Lia and Nelson from Imagine Studios. They were soo much fun on the day of our wedding (they both jumped on the back of a golf cart that Chris drove like a wildman and almost threw them off!!) and they did an amazing job. Everyone in my families commented on what a wonderful job they did of capturing soo many different things, not to mention people kept telling me how great they were for never getting in anyone’s way during the process. They were so easy to work with and did a really good job at wrangling our 25 person bridal party, not to mention huge family. I really couldn’t be happier so far and with each new thing we get from them they keep getting better….sooooo psyched for the video, already heard a lot of possible funny stories!!! Update – We got the raw cut of the video and it was so much fun to watch, we can’t wait for the edited copy we know it will be great!
Music – Time Square Orchestra
They rocked the night!!! So many people said they were great and the dance floor was never empty. They learned our first dance song which was “Can’t Buy Me Love” by The Beatles and we had soo much fun with it. We knew we wanted to do an upbeat song b/c it was just not us to kind of waddle around to a slow song. We wanted to practice a dance since we had taken a few dance lessons but we never had time. For some reason everyone though we had made up our dance when we really just winged it. To top it off Chris surprised us all by doing a split that everyone went crazy for.
I am still updating so check back!!!
