Category Archives: wedding

Don’t forget to enter my Self Workout in the Park Giveaway.

This weekend Frank and I went upstate to attend our “grand tasting” and to take care of other wedding details. It’s getting down to the wire on booking things and we are in full steam ahead mode!

We are working with Mazzone, a company that is the exclusive caterer to many venues in the capital district. Rather than set up hundreds of tastings, they host four “grand tastings” a year and invite you to pick the one that works with your schedule.

It’s a cool idea because you get to sample so many different appetizers, entrees, sides and desserts.  You also get to see how they serve a few hundred people at once.  We didn’t get a whole lot of personal attention, but we have a meeting with our event coordinator next month and we’ll already have a good idea of what we want.

Here’s just a quick sample of what we tried.  I only had my phone, so the photos don’t do the food justice.

I didn’t get a shot of any of the items from the vegetarian room, but they had cauliflower steak which was one of my favorite dishes of the night!

The real highlight for me might have been meeting photographer JP Elario. I read his blog almost everyday for wedding and vendor ideas.  There are many great photographers upstate, but Elario has hands down the best blog. I always feel like I was at the wedding and he links to almost every vendor used. It’s actually been invaluable in my own planning! After I gushed all over about how great his blog was, we hopped in the Elario Photobooth.

I am still a very bad jumper.

The rest of the weekend was spent trying to run and getting rained out, which wasn’t ideal considering all the eating we did.  But we did manage to get in one sweatfest of a spin workout.

Frank’s parents came into town to finalize the rehearsal dinner location.  I’m happy to say–we did it!  We even nailed down our after party locations.  Somewhere along the way, I got to meet Giddy P. who works at the gift shop at the Gideon Putnam.  He is one hardworking bear. And that is one hardworking dress

While I was fairly exhausted when I got home from the weekend, I am more excited then ever to get down to the details of wedding planning! The one thing I really didn’t expect going into planning was how often you have to compromise or pick one thing over another.  For example, we wanted to get married in a church, but we also wanted people to arrive at the reception venue during daylight since the venue is in a very beautiful park.  However, the church only had a 5:30 ceremony, so it might be close-to-dark by the time people arrive at the reception. Yet, we didn’t want to get married at the reception venue if we couldn’t do it outside–and in late October, outside is a gamble.  I’ve found that once I realized I couldn’t have everything I wanted, but I could pick the things I wanted most, I’ve been much happier moving forward with decisions.

So just to give you a wedding update, we’ve got a number of things done:

• Venue+Caterer
• Church
• Florist
• DJ
• Save the Dates
• Transportation (some but not all)
• Hotel Room Blocks
• Dress

Wow, it’s been a while!  The week flew by due to the long weekend and all of the sudden the weekend is here again. I guess that’s a good thing!

I spent last weekend upstate trying to finish all the major wedding decisions that really have to be booked now!  I went to about a dozen hotels, bed and breakfasts and potential rehearsal dinner venues. Our wedding weekend is a busy weekend for Saratoga, so we have to be on top of everything.  It’s kind of a stressful, but I am actually really happy to have major things done early, so I have more time for details later.

One major decision is definitely hair and make up.  Of course, I want to look my best, but it’s kind of hard to know exactly what I want.   I decided to try out three places that I had found, but knew relatively little about.  The most popular places upstate, like Make Me Fabulous, are all booked. I am sure there are still great options, but they are a little harder to find!

Here’s a sample of my trials! I’d love your thoughts! Be critical, it’s cool!

You can see my inspiration on my pintrest board.

Hair and Make Up Trail #1:

The first trial went okay.  The salon is super adorable.  My first hair look came out pretty well (above), but my hair was not holding curl, so by the second look, it was a little messy and droopy.  I liked the make up, it was more smokey than I would end up going,  but not bad.

Make Up Trail #2 (no hair). Excuse my unibrow–how embarrassing!

This artist was incredibly talented and fun to work with.  The make up was a little heavy, but I think I could work on that.

Last Hair and Make Up Trail #3

This was actually only half a hair trial. I didn’t have it booked, but we had a little extra time. I took the photo after my hair was down.  I liked this trial.  They make up was really natural, almost what I do myself.

Anyways, I’m just not sure, but I am ready to be done with the decision.

In addition to the wedding planning frenzy, I did mangage to take 2 spinning classes. I can’t pass up a $12 spinning classes at The Revolution. I actually tried it back in August and boy has it caught on!  In August there were only 8 people in the class, this time, both the classes I took were packed and they have opened a second studio!  The facilities are not quite flywheel caliber, but I love that boutique studios are spreading. I just hope they start renting spinning shoes soon! 

The experience of finding my dress was nothing like I imagined it would be.  I had always thought I would rent a dress or borrow one. I couldn’t imagine investing in something I would only wear once.  But once I was actually at the point where I was in the position to acquire a dress, my mindset changed.  The dress actually became important to me.

The second thing that surprised me was how hard it was to decide on one. I thought that you just “know.” I did not “know.” I went to about 6 places and tried about 70 gowns give or take a few.  The thing with wedding dresses is that they are all pretty. For the most part, they all look good! I went in with a huge range of styles I liked and really went a little crazy trying to sort through all my choices.

If I was going to do this again, I would definitely try to do the following before I started/soon after I started shopping:

1.) Wait until the date and venue were booked. Until I knew the season and the style of my wedding (formal), it was very hard to really know what type of dress to get.

2.) Pick a silhouette and commit to it. My main issue was I kept vacillating between ball gowns and more fitted styles. I loved them both and didn’t want to choose.  Once I did, it really helped rule out a lot of beautiful gowns that just weren’t what I ultimately wanted.

My first stop upstate was David’s Bridal. I went there mainly because I wanted to go with my mom and my sister, and I didn’t need an appointment in advance.  All the dress were nice, but nothing jumped out.  My favorite dress was an Oleg Cassini that was on sale for only $300.  It was very tempting.

My second appointment was at Klienfeld’s!

Living in NYC, I had to see it for myself. It looks pretty much exactly how you picture it. Unfortunately, my appointment wasn’t the best.  The woman was perfectly nice, but because you can’t look through the racks yourself, you really have to know what you want when you go in.  I was still all over the place and the appointment didn’t really help narrow anything down.  I shouldn’t have expected her to read my mind, but this was the first dress she brought me!

I have no idea where this came from. I am pretty sure I never mentioned wanting bare my mid drift.  After that things got better. I tried on a lot of different styles and she was very good about staying within my budget.

I do love the simple romantic styles.

Give me a long train and I melt.

I left Klienfeld’s empty handed, but I did have fun seeing people from the show. Sadly, I didn’t see Randy.

My next appointments were at Wedding Atelier and The Designer Loft.  Wedding Atelier was a beautiful store, but there wasn’t much in my price range. At the designer loft, I was sure I had found “the one,” but the one was actually four.  My family happened to be in town the next day, so they pulled some major strings to get me an appointment. Sadly, my family didn’t really give me the reaction I expected and I then second guessed my choices. The dresses I tried on were on the high fashion side, so maybe they were too dramatic for my family.

This was the La Sposa Detalle was the probably forerunner of the bunch…

I had to take a break after that one.  So over thanksgiving I booked two appointments upstate.  The first was at a beautiful store called Something Blue.

This  Kate Middleton-esque dress by Ellis was almost the one…

When I couldn’t commit to a dress this beautiful, I knew it was because I didn’t see myself in a princess gown for my wedding. I love them, but I just wanted something a little more fitted.

My last appointment was at Angela’s Bridal (which is featured in an episode of I Found the Gown).

The first two dresses I tried onwere both amazing. My third dress happened to be one that I had tried on at Klienfeld’s and Wedding Atelier.  The third time was the charm.  The second I stepped out, my mom and my sister immediately loved it and I knew it was the one.  I realized why I kept coming back to it, it had all the elements I was looking for in a dress. My lovely attendant Nora popped the champagne and the search was over.  Thank goodness.  ;)