New Page: Recommended Vendors

I've already raved about the folks that helped make my own wedding day come to life, but I felt that I needed to get the word out more. So, I've created a page just for recommended vendors. Most of the vendors are New York, Long Island, or East Coast people but some might travel, so they are worth contacting!

I might expand this page to include sponsored vendors, with the caveat that I'd like to meet, or work with, the vendor first. If you're interested in getting together, send me an email - believenotes@yahoo.com. Right now the page has all my own wedding vendors, but I'll be adding a few other folks I have met through Believe Notes and who I think are fabulous.

Vendor Review: The DJ

Wow! It's been almost 6 months since my wedding! I cannot believe how quickly it went, and I wish it would slow down - I'm enjoying it too darn much :)

I'll be honest and admit that I've been procrastinating the last two vendor reviews from my wedding. I feel like once I finish them, that'll be it for anything wedding related in my life. Kinda sad about that. But, I saved the best for last and I really do want to get the word out.

In case you missed it, I've already reviewed all the little fashion details, the location, the transportation, the ceremony and church, the cake, and the flowers. Now it's time for the DJ.

And, like almost everything else in my wedding, there is a story about the DJ. Actually, I had originally booked a different entertainment company, but I started hearing a lot about Michael Gentile of Funktion 67 DJs and after seeing Michael at my cousin-in-law's wedding, I decided I had to have him. I think booking Michael may have been the best decision I made for the entire wedding. He MADE the night! I have never heard such a fabulous mix of tunes, and the dance floor was packed all night long (and it was a 6 hour party, so that's no small feat).

Oh, and remember, this theater is no stranger to good music. It's hosted legends from Eric Clapton to Mariah Carey to the Red Hot Chili Peppers - and, for the record Michael Gentile rocked the place like nobody's business! 

Michael was awesome to work with from day one. He loves what he does, and he's so damn talented it's not even funny. I think every pre-wedding meeting we had with him turned into a jam session at his office. If I remember correctly, at the last meeting he even had my husband singing Adele. Yes, I remember correctly (although I maybe wish I didn't).  Of all my vendors, I get at least one email a week from a guest asking who my DJ was!

I remember at one point during the wedding one of my friends - on the middle of the dance floor - looked over at me and screamed "Is this for real? this is the best set-list EVER!" and yes, it really was!


The bridal party walked out to Deadmau5 "Animal Rights", which my husband picked, actually my husband also picked the song we walked out to, which was Martin Solvieg "Hello". They're laughable, but totally worked for us! And I'll always have the picture in my head of Michael and my husband jamming out to Deadmau5 during one of our meetings. How could I deny them the pleasure?

Here is my favorite picture of my MOH and the two best men being introduced. I love how all three are in totally different - but equally entranced - states of PARTY!

Here are some more of my absolute favorite pictures from the dancefloor:

my father-in-law, probably dancing to Lady Gaga

not a party without the ROBOT!

yes, my husband's got moves, and yes, he began to strip

Mr. Jake, breaking it down and not breaking a bone.

Our couples dance

The music made the night, so thank you, thank you, thank you to Michael Gentile and Funktion 67 DJ's - you rocked the night!

Vendor Review - The Flowers

my balcony in the rain

It's a rainy day here in NY, and so I figure that if I can't go out and smell the flowers here, instead I can review the beautiful flowers from my wedding....

My wedding decor was mostly candle light, but I wanted some gorgeous and simple flowers to help make the tables more elegant. Everything needed to be done perfectly, and Dana (pronounced more like "Donna"), from Events by Stylish in Queens NY, was the only person I trusted!

Dana is one of the warmest people I've ever met, and I would recommend her ten thousand times over. She is breathe of fresh air during the stressful time of wedding planning. She is a real person that loves what she does and it shows in her work... she's warm, friendly, creative and oooober talented!  I told her what my budget was, and she was able to work with me to produce stunning florals within that number, which is a big deal when it comes to flowers and weddings.

Dana and I seemed to work perfectly together - I knew exactly the look I wanted, and she knew exactly what flowers to use to turn my vision into reality! I told her I wanted all the centerpieces to be white and to all be different, but flow together perfectly. The dinner tent was envisioned as ethereal, while the cocktail hour a little more modern. Dana nailed it!

Check out some pictures:

simple, round white flowers for cocktail hour

blooming tulips on the dinner tables

white roses on the dinner tables

Orchids on the dinner tables

Hydrangea on the dinners tables

Oh! And how could I possibly forget about my AMAZING bouquet? I fell in love with a bouquet on the Events by Stylish Website, and threw all creativity out the window. I wanted that one, and that one only! My favorite part is the beautiful vintage style beading on the stems. Amazing. I remember holding onto it for dear life walking down the aisle, and I'm pretty sure I slept with it on my nightstand that night.

Thank you, Dana, for being so amazing to work with! You made me smile so many times when I desperately needed it :)

Vendor Review - The Cake & Sweets

Even before we were engaged, Mike and I knew we wanted cupcakes at our wedding. At first we thought about going with one of those big famous chain type cupcake places, and then I decided I wanted something better. Way better. Enter Baked. Baked is the Mecca of comfort style, homemade desserts. I had known about Baked for a while, but didn't think they would be in my budget, so I never called. And then Oprah did a few features on them (yes, I said a few, as in, more than one), and I though "damn, these guys are huge! There's no way they could do my wedding!" So, one day, feeling a little silly, I decided to call, figuring I'd be put on hold until my ears bled. Somebody answered the phone. I was not put on hold. They are nice. They are very nice! This must be where they nicely say they can't accept any new orders.....THEY CAN DO THE WEDDING! YIPPIE!!!

Ok, so maybe I got a little too excited over the desserts, but the best part about working with Baked is that owners Renato and Matt might be like, kinda a big deal, but they are totally the nicest, most down to earth people ever. I dealt with Renato for the wedding, and felt horrible when my email account got hacked (and then got a virus) and so we played a long line of "tag, you're it". When I realized (several months after it was sent) that my deposit check never made it to their shop, I thought maybe Renato would say he couldn't hold my date anymore. Nope, he said not to worry, mail gets lost sometimes; I could pay when I pay, as long as it's before the wedding. How often does anybody say that?

Oh, and we had our last meeting the day before the "end of the world" back in May. I'm pretty sure I offered to take in any abandoned pets of the bakeshop workers, should they happen to disappear. The only things I like more than cupcakes are puppies.

So, for the wedding we ended up doing an entire table of comfort style desserts, including vanilla, chocolate, peanut butter, lemon drop and pistachio cupcakes; along with a variety of other sweets, like chocolate chip cookies, brownies and whoopie pies. Our cake was a small, two tiered cake in the lemon drop flavor, and it was to die for. I ate my whole piece.

Here are a few pictures:

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Renato & Baked for tastiest part of the wedding :) I can't wait to come into the shop soon, and dive into a lemon drop or pistachio cupcake!!!! If anybody else ever finds themselves in Red Hook, Brooklyn, be sure to stop in and grab some coffee and sweets.

Vendor Review - The Ceremony and Church

I want to keep this brief, since I was not originally planning on saying anything about the ceremony at all....As it turns out, I think the ceremony may have been my favorite part of the entire day.

We started about 10 minutes late (I just told you why, in the past post), and as soon as I got to the alter, Father Steve (or rather, Monsignor Steve!) said to me "Take a deep breath, relax, we'll get this thing back on track!!". After that, Father Steve proceeded to give the most down to earth, heartwarming ceremony I have ever, ever heard....

Let me give you a little history about Mike and I and Father Steve. When Mike was a volunteer fire fighter and EMT, Father Steve was the department Chaplain. Everybody loves Father Steve, he is a down to earth guy that is always genuine and kind, but has a wicked good sense of humor. I say "wicked" good because he's from Boston - well, actually, I think he's from Ireland originally, and then Boston. Either way, the man rocks.

When Mike and I got engaged the very first thing I said was that we needed to go talk to Father Steve to see if he would, please please pretty please, marry us. I was so excited when he agreed! Over the past three years Father Steve has since become a Monsignor (congratulations!) and left the Fire Department to take on greater responsibilities. A few weeks before the wedding I told him how afraid I was that I was going to cry the entire time - or worse, giggle the whole time! He reassured me that even if I did cry or laugh, and on the day of the wedding, when I got to the alter in one piece, he said "you did good!" in his endearing Boston/Irish accent.

In fact, on the day of the wedding I did not cry at all, I was too in awe of everything around me to even feel anything other than joy. I took a sigh of relief when Father Steve told me I was sitting up too straight, and I laughed when he joked about the different methods I may need to try in order to wake Mike up from deep sleep. He told all of our guests about how, when Mike was in the fire department, the department installed amplifiers to Mike's pager because he was such a deep sleeper that he would sleep through the normal alarms....Father Steve told us never to text the words "I love you", but to speak them, face-to-face. Overall, the ceremony really felt like a conversation between us and a man/friend we deeply respect, love and look up to. It was touching and beautiful, and I genuinely regret not having a videographer, because I wish I could replay the ceremony over and over again...

Here are a few pictures...

Vendor Review - Limos and Transportation

I'm back with more reviews!! I hope you're not bored yet, caused I'm keeping these coming!


The one thing I left up to Mike to handle was the transportation for us and the bridal party. He ended up booking through Elegant Limo, and here are some of my thoughts around transportation....

I had originally wanted to rent one of those vintage type trolleys for the whole day to serve as our bridal party transportation and the guest shuttle service, but my family thought it was a terrible idea. I was frustrated to see that the traditional car and limo package was three times the price as my beloved trolley would have been and I absolutely couldn't bring myself to spend the money. So, I had Mike do it....and he got lucky because while the stretch Escalade might not have been vacuumed the night before - the drivers more than made up for it!!! In fact, the entire timeline for the day very easily could have been blown when the wedding that was taking place at church before us was running over 40 minutes late....but our awesome limo drivers saved the day!! I'll explain after the first picture below...

Mike booked us the 1938 Caddy, driven by Ray, and the 20 passenger Escalade, driven by Junior (Charlie Jr.). The Escalade was for the bridal party, and the Caddy took my parents and I to the church, and then took Mike and I to the reception.

So let's talk about how Ray and Junior saved the day....

The plan was for the Escalade to pick up the groom and the groomsmen and drive them to the church early and then swing back to my parents home to pick up the bridesmaids. Let me first say that our cars were ALL ON TIME, which helped so much!!! Junior picked up Mike and the groomsmen to go to the church, but when they got there they realized that the wedding before us was running almost an hour late. When Mike got to the church the other wedding party should have been on their way out, instead they were just starting their full Mass ceremony. Uh oh. So Junior, our limo driver, got the phone number of the limo driver for the other wedding party and asked that limo driver to call him as soon as they left. This was perfect. Perfect!! When Junior and Ray showed up at my house - perfectly on time, might I add - Junior told me to take my time with pictures because the other wedding wasn't going to be done for at least a half hour. At first I had the initial feeling of panic, and then he said, very calmly "Don't worry, they are going to call me the minute they leave, it takes us 10 minutes to get the church, you'll be fine." Ray and Junior insisted we use the delay to take more pictures, which turned out to be perfect. While we were waiting for Junior to get the call from the other bridal party, we snapped some fun shots in my neighbors garage sale...

Most brides might have been upset by their neighbor having a garage sale, I thought it was kinda awesome. As long as my cars had a place to park, I was a perfectly happy camper.

We also got to take some fun shots with the Caddy....

Alright, so while we were taking the pictures, Junior got the call that the other bridal party was getting into their cars and heading out. It was GO time! Ray was super helpful in getting me (and the gown) into the car.

Ray helping me get in, and Junior holding the door for me.

In fact, Ray ended up being the one to show my dad how to pull the veil over my head, and Ray was also the one that put out my train before I went down the aisle. Thank you SO much, Ray!! Ray was such a kind, warm and helpful guy, which was just what I needed to calm my time-line nerves.

Ray and Junior planning our arrival so perfectly that I literally pulled up and walked from the car outside the church straight inside and down the aisle. It was amazing!!!! So, so, so perfect. Thank you to Ray and Junior for saving the day and my nerves!!!!

starting the walk straight to the alter!

Turns out we started our ceremony only about 10 minutes late and - thanks to Father Steve (the fasted Monsignor out there) - we ended exactly on time!!!

As for the couple before us....I do feel bad because my guests crashed their receiving line. In fact, one of my guests asked for a picture of the other couple to show me "who made me so late". HA! So now I have, along with my own pictures, a picture of the other bride and groom who's timeline didn't work out so well. I hope their day turned out amazing anyway!

Vendor Review - Location, Location, Location!!

It's mind blowing to think how incredibly lucky we were to get married at such a unique and sentimental location. Really, I get all teary just thinking about it.... and I'm not going to lie - hands down the number one reason the wedding was so amazing was because of the location.

Our reception was held at the Nikon Jones Beach Theater, and no, they do not "do" weddings, and yes, they made an exception for us....

Mike and I met at Jones Beach back in 2003 when it was the "Tommy Hilfiger Jones Beach Theater" and we were both working for Aramark at the concession stands. We met in the Food Court, where I worked on a register and Mike flipped burgers. We both continued to work there every summer...I became a supervisor and Mike left when he became a cop. The staff there became like family to us, and so when Mike and I cancelled our original wedding venue because they double booked our wedding, the folks at Jones Beach offered to let us have the reception in the VIP tents. It took me a few months to think it over - they had never done a wedding before and the location is totally 100% outdoors, so weather could be an issue. In the end, obviously, I said OK, because really, how many people have the chance to get married in the very spot they met? Oh, and it helps that the location is BEAUTIFUL!

I cannot thank my boss/coworker/catering manager enough for all of his hard ward. Rowland has been there since day one and was the single most important person in making this day come to reality. He worked 'round the clock with me and really outdid himself. Let me also say that the staff that worked for our wedding could hardly be called "staff", in reality they are the people Mike and I have been working with for the past 9 summers. They are our coworkers and our friends, and we were thrilled that they were a part of our day. I made it a point to thank them in front of all the guests.

Also, can I just say how flippin' awesome it was to be able to take our wedding pictures on the stage and in the seats at Nikon Jones Beach Theater? It was an breathtaking backdrop, and at times it just didn't feel real.

So I give our location ten million thumbs up. It touches my heart to know we got to start our lives as husband and wife in the very place we started our relationship at. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everybody that works with us for helping so much!!! I really believe that the whole feel of the day was dictated by how special the location was. For that one day in time, the entire theater belonged to us. I have never felt so much love before in my life, and I think that's the right feeling to have on your wedding day.

Vendor Review - All The Details

You hear this all the time about just about everything: beauty is in the details. Details, details, details! And when it came to my own wedding, you can bet your bottom that I put a huge emphasis on the details - and while almost all of them were DIY, some were most certainly not! I wanted absolutely everything that was at the wedding to flow with everything else. There was no "color-theme" so to speak, but the aim was for a particular "feel". We wanted all of our guests to feel as if they were joining us for a big Sunday dinner - a very elegant, ethereal Sunday dinner. And while we wanted the wedding to be elegant and ethereal, we also wanted it to be comfortable and personal.

Consider it mission accomplished - and all because of the details!

In this post I'll talk about rentals, seat numbers, and all of the attire for the bridal party....

First off - rentals really are what made the day happen. The location was a totally raw space so we had to bring in everything from chairs, to tables, to a whole extra tent for the dancing area. We used Broadway Party Rentals for all of the china, flatware, linen and chairs. For the rest of the decor we brought in the tent pros from The New York Tent Company. They provided us with the draping, chandeliers/lighting, heating system, and they also constructed the entire dance tent and floor for us. The New York Tent Company was absolutely fabulous to work with, they were affordable, the staff was incredibly sweet and very knowledgeable, and they definitely helped alleviate a lot of my weather stress. The original plan was not to have a tent over the dance floor, but as the threat of rain loomed, we decided to put one up. Boy, I am so glad we did because the tent really made the dance area seem like a "club" and provided the most beautiful backdrop for all the lighting!

The Dinner Tent

The Dance Tent

In the dining tent, each and every guest was assigned a specific seat. This was no easy task, but it helped make the 178 guests feel a bit more intimate. I used little white paper tags, from Michelle Jeffrey Cards on Etsy, and hand stamped them with each seat number. The tags were attached to the chairs so that guests could find their seats.

Look closely and you'll see the tags on the back of each seat!

Now, let's talk fashion. My gown, veil and headpiece were all purchased at Lillette's Bridal, which is where my mom bought her gown 30 years ago. I tried on around 7-8 gowns with the style I thought I wanted, and then my mom pulled the last one, which turned out to be "the one". It was totally not what I had originally envisioned, but once I put it on I knew it was perfect. The staff at Lillette's are all friendly, although I did have some issues during alterations. My seamstress spoke barely any English, and refused to let me go bra-less during my fitting (despite the fact that my gown had a corset). The bra she gave me was clunky and huge, which made the entire top of my gown too tight. I begged her to let me take it off, and she simply would say "no", so I told her I wouldn't pay for the gown because I didn't like how it fit...and then in pops the manager. When I finally explained to the manager what the problem was, she told me that my seamstress is very old fashioned and didn't understand why I wouldn't wear a bra. When all was said and done, the manager spoke with the seamstress and I had to make another appointment to re-do the entire fitting (without the bra). They gave me a discount on the alterations for the hassle, and the manager was very close by for the fitting rounds two and three. My gown ended up fitting perfectly, and I advise all brides to SPEAK up during your fitting if something isn't perfect.

The gown was designed by Midgley Sottero

For the bridal party we wanted something that had the same ethereal and soft feel as my gown. The girls and I went to a few different stores in Manhattan and all fell in love with the same gown almost instantly. We chose a Bari Jay gown in orange, which I talk about why in this post, and I think they were absolutely perfect. They had a flower detail at the waist, which went so nicely with a similar detail on my gown.

The groomsmen chose a classic tux with a vest and tie from Sal's Fashions. They all looked so handsome in simple black and white.

Alright, that's it for the non-DIY details! Stay tuned for the DIY details and the rest of the vendors!