Colors!

I'm pretty sure we've picked colors! We really like the purple with orange and white. I made this first inspiration board, and found the ones below:

Any opinions?

In other wedding news, we are meeting with the photographer and florist next weekend.

We're also going to figure out "Save the Date" notices sometime soon. Maybe magnets with our pictures so you can have our pretty faces on your fridge :-).

Top Wedding Ideas

Wedding Progress Post... The post includes:

• Colors
• Bridesmaid Dresses
• Flowers
• Favors
• Hair Styles
• Cake
• Songs
• Venue

Colors

There are a few ideas in the mix. The base color will definitely be purple.

1. Dark purple and bright/burnt orange

2. Dark purple, orange, and yellow

3. Dark purple, orange, and red

4. Purples (light and dark)

Dresses

I’ve tried on a bunch of dresses and have two top favorites right now, but I obviously can't show them here since Neal has access :-).

Bridesmaid Dresses

We haven’t solidified a color scheme yet but I definitely want the BM dresses to be dark purple.

Flowers

We want to have low centerpieces, on the table. They will definitely be flowers, and the florist we will most likely work with calls it a “flush” piece. When I googled it, I could hardly find anything about flush centerpieces, so maybe I understood it incorrectly. We have a few ideas but this one below that I photoshopped is a drastic mix of dark purple with bright tiger lilies:

For the bridesmaids, I want them to carry stemmed flowers. I’m thinking either these Gerber daises (I love this inspiration pic I found on theknot) or tiger lilies.

Or this but with purple dresses (also from theknot):

For my bouquet, my (probable) florist said he would include the most beautiful bouquet I could find. I want something like this picture (I think I found on the livejournal wedding plans community):

Favors

Not sure about these yet. We were thinking of truffle boxes tied with a pretty orange bow, something like this:

Hair Styles

My main concern about hair styles is that I’ve seen a lot of brides who do something different than their usual look. It bothers me when I can’t recognize the bride or get over the fact that it’s her, because it looks nothing like her normal, everyday self. /rant. Anyway, I have curly hair but wear it straight a lot of the time, so most hair styles would be good for me. I never have side bangs or anything, so although I love the style, I don’t want to have anything like that for my wedding day. At this point, I’m thinking up-do, mostly because it’s summer so humidity may not be my friend. I also like half-up but can’t find too many of those. Here are some ideas:

(This picture is many there because of the tiger lily)

Cake

The cake is not all that important to us. We are having a Viennese Hour, so people probably will not even eat the cake with all of the other amazing desserts available. The catering hall provides one, and our florist includes flowers for the cake decoration, so we’ll probably have something basic like this:

Songs

We’re making a list of songs we like for our first dance and for the reception. The first dance songs in the running are:

Crush – Dave Matthews Band

1,2,3,4 – Plain White Ts

Music, Videography, and Photography

We’re planning on having a DJ, videographer, and photographer but have not booked one yet. I'm considering getting someone to do the base work but actually compiling the albums and video on my own. I love doing that stuff, and it's a huge savings, but it is also a ton of work so we'll see.

Venue

We’re booked! July 3^rd, 2011

This is a beautiful hall, and they gave us an amazing deal. My fiancé loved the place when we first drove up. They are so accommodating that we were actually able to pick the timing of our event. Our ceremony will be at the same location, at 5PM, and our cocktail hour will start at 5:30PM. The cocktail hour and reception will be in the same room, and the party will run until 10:30.

First Dance Song

We may have found a song for our first dance!




What do you think?

We set the date!

Leonard's of Great Neck, July 3rd, 2011!


We're so excited!

Crunch Time

It's not that we are approaching any significant date, but it seems like every time I log onto my Facebook newsfeed, I see that another couple has become engaged. While I'm very happy for them, I am getting really stressed out about booking a venue! We have a date we love. And a few catering halls that we really like. And our goal is to pick one this week.

Chateau Briand: It seems that the staff here does not know how to return a phone call, and the food entrees did not have much flavor when we last attended an event here. The place is gorgeous, and I love the outdoor facilities for the ceremony. But, regardless of how much I love it, it makes me nervous that they don't return my calls!

Swan Club: This place is BEAUTIFUL! It's right off the Long Island Sound, on the water, and the back of the catering hall has gorgeous gardens. There are paths that wind all around. The ceremony would be inside but in a room with windows as walls. The cocktail hour would be in a room with vines hanging from the ceiling, and the reception would be the one big party at the Swan Club that evening, and we'd have a huge room that overlooks the water. Downsides are that it's really difficult to get to and very low key.

Leonard's of Great Neck: This place is huge and ritzy! There are tons of rooms, which means there will probably be multiple parties that day, but the place is just humongous and beautiful. There are chandeliers all over the place, tons of photo ops on their winding staircase, and an option of an outdoor ceremony (or an indoor chapel). The reviews rave about the amazing food (BOTH the cocktail hour and entree are supposed to be amazing, where most places show their best work on just the cocktail hour foods).

Basically, we're leaning towards Leonard's of Great Neck. It looks so extravagant, and the bridal reviews are just amazing. And they wrote down our date without a deposit, so they'll call us if anyone else is interested in that time. They gave us the exactly ceremony and party time that we want, which is a 5:00 ceremony and 5:30-10:30 party. I really want an elegant evening party, so that really works for us. I know Neal wants the big catering hall feel-like-a-King thing, which he should have on our wedding day.

Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays, I'll keep you posted in 2010, Happy New Year!

Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell

Oh my goodness we have been busy!

Engagement/Wedding Updates:

Engagement Party:
It was so nice to see everyone and have a delicious meal and spend an evening out in the warm summer air, which I am desperately missing today in the middle of what feels like a monsoon.
Please check out this link to find photos from the party (thanks to my future farther-in-law, David!):
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AcsmjFk1bNWM

Dresses:
I've been shopping a little bit, but we definitely have a good amount of time so I'm trying not to fall in love with anything yet. At this point I know what I like and generally what I'm looking for. I want something really unique and artistic, probably a mermaid or trumpet style and definitely strapless. I tried on some weddings gowns with Jackie, since she is shopping for her wedding which is this coming July. I hope to have something picked out around this time next year, so I'm just looking until then.

Catering Halls:
We decided that Chateau Briand is our top choice at this point. We haven't had any time to go in and book a date, and we're a little hesitant because they will not provide us with a tasting. Considering we've already had a tasting at two other places, this is very out of the ordinary. I know a bunch of people who have been married there though, and everyone says that the food is great. I just love the scenery and architecture there and Neal loves the party room.
Check it out at http://www.chateaubriandcaterers.com/long-island-weddings/


Our Lives:
In other news, as you can probably gage from our lack of blog updates, we've been ridiculously busy. I've been at school nonstop for homecoming and other class adviser responsibilities, and working at home on lesson plans and the two graduate classes I'm taking through NYIT for my Masters in Instructional Technology. Neal has been taking classes at Queens College, completing field work hours in a Jackson Heights middle school, and working full time. He now spends six days a week instead of five. In the Spring he'll be student teaching in a high school in Flushing right near Queens College. We've also been busy with other things such as celebrating my birthday and hunting for rocks and minerals (a great birthday adventure). Also my sister, Amanda, stayed with us for a few weeks in September, so it was nice spending time with her.

I've also been busy trying out new recipes. I'm working on my cooking skills to keep my future hubby happy! Really though, I'm proud of my chef skills. Last weekend we had my parents over for spinach and feta cheese stuffed flounder fillets. This weekend we're going OUT with Neal's parents for Indian food, I'm so excited!


That's our lives! Really busy, and thankfully we have some time before the wedding. Excited that the holidays are coming up, can't wait to have a break from school. Hopefully I'll have time to post again soon. Take care everyone, and stay warm!

Peace, Love, and Family

The apartment is finally set up! My posessions are moved in and I am officially living there. Neal's furniture is there and he will be moving in this weekend. Our parents were nice enough to start us off with some beatiful, comfortable furniture. Neal's parents bought us an amazing pillow top mattress and my parent's bought us a couch. These are very similar to ours:


This weekend we had our first dinner party. Neal's parents, my parents, and my grandparents all came over for appetizers, dinner, and drinks. It was so nice to be able to host for everyone (and wow, it's a lot of work!). I put together a bunch of appetizers including my specialty- spinach dip in a bread bowl. There was acutally room for all of us in the apartment, I'm so glad we all fit. Can't wait to have more parties!

Engagement party plans are moving along. We sent out invitations to family and are waiting for some RSVPs to decide what time we will invite our friends. RSVPs are due on Friday so we'll see. My parents booked a tent and Neal and I will be ordering the food soon.

So the apartment is set up and we are getting situated, we even have Franklin Square library cards now. My grandparents and Aunt Marcy gave us our engagement gifts early to start us off, so now we can actually cook with our new pots, pans, and toaster oven! One of our last purchases for the apartment is this beautiful mezuzzah. It's perfect for us and I can't wait to hang it:

More updates soon!