After getting
engaged the big question of “When will the Big Day actually be” arose. People
always laugh when I tell them how our wedding date of 2/20/10 came to be. John
is a big sports guy. His favorite sports are Baseball and Football. He didn’t
want to have the wedding on a day when one of his favorite sports might be
played. He also didn’t want to be away on our Honeymoon during playoffs. He
gave me 2 months to choose from since sports he watches aren’t on at that time,
February or March. He also threw in “the girl gets to choose everything. Can I
at least have a say in the date?” I didn’t give him a hard time about the date
because we are both pretty hot blooded and we would never have been happy
having a summer wedding. We enjoy the cold and the snow so a winter wedding
just fit. We priced out some places and decided on a February 20th wedding.
Many people would ask if we were worried about snow. To be honest, our ideal
scenario was snow on the ground and flurries in the air. What gorgeous pictures
that would have made. Snow covered tree limbs are so beautiful and delicate and
in the background of photos it would look amazing. Flowerfield is simply a
gorgeous hall inside and out. We knew we might not be able to take pictures
outside but that didn’t matter because Flowerfield has amazing backdrops inside
for photos. Their cocktail hour room is an atrium with trees, a bridge and a
pond. It really gave us a variety of locations to take different style
pictures.
Our color
scheme was one of many challenges in wedding planning. It took me forever to
decide on something. Although John was very involved in wedding planning,
choosing a color scheme wasn’t really his cup of tea. I am a fan of darker bold
colors and red is one of my favorite colors so the decision of red black and
white seemed the perfect blend of winter meets classiness. Red can be a very
dominant color so instead of doing red dresses I opted for black gowns and red
sashes for the bridesmaids. I added pops of red throughout the décor by having
red runners and chair sashes. I also added a small red rose to be tucked in
each napkin. The accents gave the tables the right amount of color. I used the
black and white in my invites along with the red. The girls bouquets were
wrapped in red fabric and the MOH who wore a red gown, had her bouquet wrapped
in black. The groomsmen wore all black. They had black shirts and black vests
with red ties and handkerchiefs. They wore black Adidas sneakers that had red
stripes to once again tie in our color scheme. I felt our color scheme worked
out beautifully. The black against the red was a very pretty contrast.
We wanted our wedding to be “us” and if you know John then you know his
obsession with the Buffalo Bills. Instead of using table 1, 2, 3 etc. we
decided to name the tables after his favorite Bills players. John had a ball
with this. He made up a list of his favorite players of all time. He searched
for pictures and then created them on PowerPoint. He added a paragraph
alongside the pictures explaining who the player was and why they mean so much
to him. To accompany the table names we customized the place cards. John found
jerseys on the internet and used them to display the table number. He even got
as detailed as using the style jersey that player wore at the time of his
career. He created these on PowerPoint as well. Our florist, Flower Michele,
gave us the idea of displaying them in wheat grass. This effect would give the
illusion of being placed on a football field. We loved this idea and it came
out very cute on the day of.
I can’t take all
the credit for our programs. A wedding we went to in 2007 inspired them. The
groom at that wedding was into comics so their program was drawn up comic book
style and they had assigned members of their bridal party to comic book
characters. We absolutely loved this idea and wanted to somehow use the idea
for our own programs. For the most unique part of our program, we contacted my
Uncle who is an artist and asked him to draw each person in our bridal party as
a cartoon caricature. These drawings came out phenomenal. Instead of listing
everyone in the bridal party, we wrote blurbs about each member next to their
cartoon face. These were such a hit. The bridal party loved them as well as the
guests.
Since John and
I are very much into pictures, we had decided to take pictures for 3 hours
before our ceremony. This meant bringing our bridal party with us and having
them stay occupied when our photographer was done with photos of them. Fast
forward to our rehearsal at Flowerfield…the bridal party spots a large dining
room like table in the Groom’s Lounge and begins scheming on who will bring
what to play a good game of beer pong the day of the wedding. I thought it was
a joke but sure enough one girl brought cups and another guy brought balls!
While the photographer was busy with me and John, the bridal party started up a
beer pong tournament! We actually thought this was hysterical and typical
because that’s the kind of group they are. We made sure Jessie (our
photographer) got some cool shots of the game. This was a fun behind the scenes
part of our wedding that a lot of guests had no clue about. John had also
brought a football and the guys were tossing that around as well. You can dress
the men up in tuxedos but you can’t take the kid out of them!
One of the
spotlights of a wedding is the first dance. In my eyes, it’s a very special
moment. It’s really the first moment that you get to be together in front of
everyone yet feeling like it is just you two in the room. John isn’t too keen
on dancing. He isn’t comfortable dancing in front of people and having all eyes
on him while he’s doing it. I didn’t want to just rock back and forth like
Junior High days though. I proposed the idea of dance lessons to John. We
contacted John from Ballroom Dance LI and he offered a free introductory
lesson. Our first lesson was great! John did so well and didn’t feel
intimidated at all. The instructor taught us some steps in a very relaxed easy
way. John agreed to go back again. We purchased about 6 lessons and did them
once a week. We had our first danced choreographed and we just loved it. There
were dips spins and other fancy moves. Our last lesson was held at Flowerfield
so we could get a feel for the dance floor and how it would be the day of.
Taking lessons was one of our best decisions. We had so much fun learning and
we still use the moves we learned while out at other weddings.
One of my
favorite things about LIW was it steered me in the direction of some amazing
vendors. The LIW vendors we used were LI Sound, Flower Michele, Lovin Oven
Floral, Nicole D’Angio, Cruise Control Limo, Ballroom Dance LI, Patken,
Pennylane Video, Dawn’s Honeymoon Specialists, Elsa and A Beautiful Affair of
the Heart. Each one of these vendors did a fantastic job! Patken was better
than I could ever have hoped for. We had Jessie and Nick and they are spilling
over with talent. John and I are in love with our pictures. The creativity of
the shots floored us. We have full intentions of using Patken whenever possible
in the future. Our DJ was another vendor I cannot say enough about. LI Sound
was nothing short of amazing. There wasn’t one moment of the wedding when our
dance floor wasn’t packed. The DJ read the crowd and kept everyone on their
feet. They also provided the uplighting for our room and it looked sick! After
the wedding, compliments came pouring in for our DJ. Just the thought of what
they did for us on our wedding day makes me giddy! My flowers were just what I
had pictured/wanted. Both florists nailed my vision and were pleasures to work
with. Nicole did a fabulous job. I really wanted my hair to look natural,
romantic and soft and she did just that. I didn’t look like I had loads of
hairspray in my hair and it didn’t feel “crunchy”. She was such a sweetheart
and I would love to work with her again. Adam from Pennylane is in a league of
his own. We haven’t received our video yet but I can tell it will already be
amazing. He showed us some of what he filmed the day of the wedding and he is a
genius. The anticipation for our video just kills us!
Planning a
wedding is tough work. It takes a lot of time and energy and can be very
draining on a relationship. Right in the very beginning of the process, John
mentioned that we should write our own vows. I agreed but was a little nervous.
I am 1000% thankful that we decided to go through with it. It was my favorite
part of the ceremony because it was so special to be able to let everyone in on
what it feels like for us to be in love with each other. It made the ceremony
that much more special and personal. Our vows are something that we can forever
look back on and we are having them added into our photo album as well. With
all the stress and pressure that planning a wedding caused, it was nice, at the
moment of our vows, to remember why we went through it and what brought us to
that point.
Yes a wedding is
like a big party but remember what the party is celebrating. It is celebrating
your commitment, trust, loyalty and love for one another. Remember that you
must still honor all of those in the days leading up to your big day. Also, no
one will be as excited for your wedding as you are so don’t take it personal
when people don’t want to hear about it. With that in mind, take their opinions
and suggestions with a grain of salt because when the day is over its YOU and
your FIANCE who need to be satisfied with the end result.
