Pictures in Central Park

Ceremony

Mr. & Mrs.

Cocktail Hour (This is from The Fountainhead's website.  No one got a good shot of the atrium during the actual wedding.)

The Grand Ballroom

First Dance...

Party Time

Details:

Hair/Make-up: The stylist showed up at 5:45am, and hour earlier than I had been expecting.  Good thing I checked my email the night before otherwise I would not have been prepared.  She did a great job on my sis and my mom.  My make-up turned out decently (not as good as that 2nd trial, but I'll live).  As for my hair, I wasn't too thrilled with the way the front looked.  For some reason a small change in how I part my hair makes a big difference (it's also kinda poofy to the left)...my face can look really weirdly oval, which it did that day.  I wish I had spoken up about it before she pinned everything else up.  The sides and back looked great though.

The Outift: My dress was originally an Alvina Valenta v-neck with a trumpet skirt.  I had the Gown Company make it into a sweetheart strapless and a whole lot tighter.  You would not believe what this dress looks like in the original picture.  I'm not even going to show you since you're going to be like what the hell were you thinking???

Veil: My friend is actually trying to start up a business making veils.  She did a one layer cathedral length veil.  Very simple, chiffon.  Just what I wanted.

Crystal drops earrings by Carolee (I don't really like rhinestones or pearl).

Sterling silver and rhinestone (ok, the rhinestone looked good on this) bracelet.  I modified this to fit my wrist and added a drop crystal dangle.  People thought it looked like a million bucks.

No necklace.

Shoes: Loveknot from Dyeables Platinum.  Kinda funny how the shoes came with a big disclaimer saying that they were not recommended for dying.  I didn't see the point of spending hundreds of dollars one shoes I'm wearing once.  These were about $85.  The heel was taller than I wanted originally, but the front was totally comfortable...didn't feel a thing.  And I really did love how they looked.

Photography: Our photographers, Jack and Margaret, are a husband and wife team called Something in Blue.  They're pretty badass -- showed up all sleek and black.  They took us to The Rambles in Central Park (it was about 95 degrees...omg) for pictures beforehand.  I think they're going to be great.  We worked very well together in terms of how their photographic style matches our personalities and nature of our event.  I would highly recommend them.  And they're just cool people.

Venue: Our wedding, both the ceremony and reception, took place at The Fountainhead in New Rochelle/Westchester, NY -- 25 minutes outside Manhattan.  The Fountainhead is AWESOME.  Not only were they a dream to plan with, but their service and hospitality exceeded our expectaions the day of.  Total white glove service and absolutely no attitude.  They were totally on their game.  Our guests raved about how we had the best food they've ever had at any wedding and really appreciated the attentive staff.  They were also accomodating to special requests and held a secret stash of Alvin's favorite beer in the back.  The facilities were beautiful and immaculate. I am so happy that we had our wedding here.

DJ: Joe Shane of Mobile Music DJ's is probably the best vendor I've ever worked with.  I love it when I email out a question and I receive a thorough reply within 10 minutes.  Joe has great attention to detail, even catching things that I've missed myself in terms of song selection and other musical references. 

Decor: The ceremony and reception decor was done by Diana Gould Ltd.  They were one of the two florists we were allowed to work with.  They cost about 30% more than that other place, but the quality for the flowers was much better.  They also had more experience doing ceiling treatments, such as the lanterns, which was very important to us. 

The ceremony decoration consisted of a 6 ft arch covered with organza, ivy, and nosegays in our colors of deep red, fuschia, and mango.  Nosegays were also tied to select chairs down the aisle.  Rose petals were strewn down the runner.  I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out since we never saw samples, but I think it worked out pretty well.

We went for low and modern centerpieces.  I love red and "hot" colors, candles and glassware.  Each centerpiece consisted of a large shallow fishbowl containing 5 white floating candles and flower petals.  The petals were from black magic (dark red), ravelle (fuschia) and another mango colored rose.  Beyond the fishbowl were white pillar candles on either side wrapped with a dark red ribbon.  On either end of the arrangement were two small square vases containing red marbles and a floating black magic rose.  10 votives in red or amber holders were scattered along with the red, fuschia, and mango rose petals.

We added more warmth to the room with our paper lanterns.  Red, fuschia, and orange lanterns for various sizes were hung just over the dancefloor.

Personal Flowers: My best friend's uncle is actually a wholesale florist so he ended up doing our personal flowers.  I'm so glad they matched our decor well enough because he had no communication with our decor people.

My bouquet and the bridesmaids bouquets were pretty similar: Black magic, Lipstick, Julie roses and mango calla lilies...stems tied with a playful plaid ribbon (plaid?  trust me, it was cute).  The flowers weren't as "hot" as our decor...they had a little more of a blush to them.  They looked beautiful against the girls' red dresses.  The pictures really don't do the flowers justice.

The groomsmen had mango calla boutonnieres.  The parents had mini fuschia orchids.

My orchids...well, I didn't exactly get the ones I wanted...not the pale yellow with fuschia.  I guess they weren't available.  Abiding by my "no all white flower" rule, he sent me white orchids with a purple blush.  Hmmm...purple didn't really match anything I had going on.  And Alvin had matching white/purple boutonnieres!  Whoops.  In the end no one could really notice anyway.

One word of advice when dealing with orchids: Don't power spray them!  My friend's uncle told us to make sure we spray our flowers to prevent them from wilting since it was such a hot day out.  For orchids, spray gently.  Someone was a bit too zealous with the waterbottle and they were wilted before they were even in my hair!  Alvin's boutonniere was pretty much non existent when the pictures were done. 

Callas and roses make the best boutonnieres, especially if you around hugging so many people.  We returned all the tuxes for the boys the next day.  The tux place unzipped the garment bags to find a few jackets with the calla still pinned onto them...in perfect condition.

Overall, I think all our vendors worked out wonderfully.  No last minute freak outs or anything.  And, yeah, no one missed the favors.

First time with real internet access since becoming a Mrs. 

Our wedding was a total blast!  See Exhibit A below:

Currently kickin it at the Grand Wailea on Maui.  More pics and stories when I get back in about a week.

MAKE-UP DEBATE: RESOLVED!

I went to my 2nd hair trial last weekend since I'd changed my mind since the first trial.  I'm going with the higher updo (vs. low bun).  It was actually a lot more flattering on me than the low, even though the low is more elegant.  I also found a great white flower substitute: an almost white orchid

I told my hair/make-up artist that I was thinking that I'd do my own make-up instead.  She was a bit surprised, and asked me why.  I just said I like things more natural and I'd been playing around with colors, etc.  One thing led to another, she started critiquing my make-up (not in a mean way at all..she is so sweet) and I ended up doing the make-up trial after all.

And I'm glad I did.  Maybe I scared her or something, but she ended up being 20 times better than the first time, needing little direction.  Much happier now that that's settled and I don't have the pressure of doing it myself:

Yipee!

Alvin and I love food.  We love to eat.  And we had a great food weekend.

After changing our minds 4 times on Friday night about where to dine, we ended up strolling into Le Bernardin at 9pm.  Le Bernardin is one of the few 4-star restaurants, and the only 4-star seafood restaurant in NYC, so walking into Le Bernardin and getting seated seemed pretty lucky.  They threw a jacket on Alvin (we were both in flip flops and sandals, totally unprepared to be out) and off we went on our food adventure.

We ended up getting the 6-course tasting menu which was excellent.  The portions were extremely small though.  This was the first time where I've gotten the tasting menu and didn't feel like I was going to die at the end.  I even ate all the petite fours they gave us with dessert.  I ate all of Alvin's too!  Overall, a great experience.  Impeccable service with a very efficient, knowledgeable, and unobstrusive staff.  Chairs pulled, water glasses filled and napkins refolded almost instantaneously (Alvin tried timing them.)

On Saturday, we went to visit our friends' new house out on Long Island.  It's so nice to have that much room.  They have a great place with a nice deck, FOUR bathrooms, a huge tub, nice kitchen, etc etc.  Like true suburbanites with a newly bought grill, they made us some really fat steaks and potato salad.  I contributed some Beard Papa's cream puffs.  Yum.  I have to say though, the green tea flavored ones really disappoint me.  Still a fan of O.G. vanilla.

AND, we picked our rehearsal lunch place!  We really wanted to have it at one of our favorite neighborhood places, Hakata Grill, but they weren't willing to rent the place out to us on a Saturday night so lunch it is.  I'm very excited to have the entire restaurant to ourselves though.  Each person will get a five course meal including soup or salad, ahi tuna poke or salmon tartare, shrimp dumplings or pork gyoza, a choice of  9 different entrees (the sashimi deluxe set is excellent) and green tea or red bean ice cream.  I can't wait.  We'll all be stuffed silly and it's early enough in the day that we won't have to worry about being bloated the next day. :) 

One more thing checked off the list.

2 more weeks!