Wedding Venue

Finding the perfect wedding venue is one of those magical moments in your wedding plans. As you stand in an elegant, romantic ballroom, or find yourself in a beautifully-bloomed outdoor garden wedding locale, your wedding vision will come to life. Many of our northern New Jersey and New York City brides say that when they found their dream wedding location, they just knew it was The One. They could see all the elements of their dream wedding, see their guests having the time of their lives, and see themselves enjoying their gorgeous celebration.

To choose your perfect wedding venue, begin your research by talking to recent brides and grooms you know who married at the New Jersey banquet hall you have in mind. This is a top way to get the inside story on what it was like to plan with the wedding venue’s staff, what they loved about their setting, what they enjoyed most about the planning process. Talk also to people who have planned bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs or other big celebrations at your ideal wedding venues, since they’ll have valuable input, too. Read more…

Vintage Wedding Photo

All brides have something old and something new on their wedding day, but more and more, we’ve seen a trend toward more fully incorporating retro and vintage-inspired elements into our NJ wedding couples’ celebrations. Whether it’s Gatsby glamour or 50s finery, brides are putting a touch of classic elegance back into their unique NJ weddings and receptions.

Whether you want a top to bottom vintage theme or just want to bring a bit of yesterday’s style into a modern wedding, here are a few tips we’ve noticed might be helpful to get you started. Read more…

Beautiful Wedding Flowers

Filling your wedding venue with a sea of beautiful flowers may be part of your dream wedding vision, perhaps a vision you’ve had for a very long time. After viewing so many inspiring images of flower-filled wedding banquet halls on bridal blogs, wedding websites and Pinterest, you’re likely very excited to start planning your own floral décor and wedding bouquet designs.

In order to choose the perfect flowers for your wedding, you must first think about what your wedding floral style is. Do you prefer a grand, opulent look with thousands of flowers arranged all throughout your wedding ballroom,  with oversized floral centerpieces, florals draped at ceiling height and flowers arranged on the bar and all throughout the setting? Or is your style more subdued with preferences for a smaller number of beautiful, exotic flowers that make a big impression in smaller numbers, such as in low-set centerpieces? For your garden wedding, do you wish to add more florals to the already-bloomed garden wedding setting?

Some brides are very inspired by the luxe colors and textures of fabric, such as on their guest tables and draped throughout the ballroom, with flowers playing a smaller role in their wedding décor. They may want just a modest number of florals, with crystals draped around the displays to capture the lighting in the wedding ballroom. Read more…

Wedding Photos

After your wedding, you’ll want to share both the gorgeous collection of photos taken by your wedding photographer during your Big Day, and the photos you took at your pre-wedding parties, your after-party, the morning-after breakfast and all of the moments in between. Your guests will be eager to see your wedding portraits, and guests too will want to share the photos they took.

With so many photos to share, you’ll find there are two different sharing plans to establish. The first is the traditional photo-sharing method enacted by your professional wedding photographer. He or she will create an online gallery of all of your photos, categorized into pre-wedding, ceremony, reception and portraits, and post it with an access code so that only you and your guests can view the photos from your event.
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Wedding Logo Design

Put your personalized stamp on your wedding, in so many ways, with your own wedding logo. It’s a top wedding trend to create your own logo or monogram, featuring your first initials and last initial – or just your married last initial — in an artistic insignia. Artists have taken the traditional monogram logo and given it a beautiful, decorative twist for more visual effect, such as with delicate flourishes above and below the logo, rather than the monogram being in a circle. Or, the logo might be a square, a rectangle with ornate borders, or an oval. Read more…

Wedding Day Shoes

Today’s glamorous designer wedding shoes are true works of art, with some of the biggest shoe designers like Jimmy Choo, Manolo Blahnik, and Christian Louboutin lighting up the world of wedding fashion. Many of our New Jersey and New York City brides say they buy their designer wedding shoes before they buy their wedding dresses, since it’s such a big part of their wedding dream to wear fabulous wedding heels made by their favorite or dream designer. The passion for wedding shoes is as big as the passion for a dream wedding dress.

To choose the perfect wedding shoes for your big day, you have to know what they’ll face at your wedding venue. Will you have an outdoor garden ceremony? If so, don’t count out the designer heels. You can wear pretty, stylish flats to walk down a soft, grassy aisle in your outdoor garden ceremony site, and then change into your fashion-forward, glittery designer heels afterward, for the indoor reception.

Choose thicker heels for your wedding shoes if you would like to wear them for the ceremony, since wider heels don’t sink into grass as easily as thin stiletto heels, and thicker heels can also give you a more protected stride when walking on cobblestone driveways, marble terraces and down staircases. Read more…

Wedding Gifts

According to 2013 wedding surveys, brides and grooms create an average of two to three different wedding registries. Guests don’t see this as a greedy grab for presents; they know that couples have different preferences and needs for their home. Perhaps they like the Crate and Barrel glassware and party serving platters, and the Macy’s bedding. Your different gift lists at each of the stores where you register for wedding gifts will show your style, and guests appreciate knowing what you love, so that they can give you presents you’ll adore and use often. Read more…

So you’re ready to write your wedding thank you notes, but what is the proper etiquette for what to say? As a popular New Jersey wedding venue, we’ve tapped the expertise of wedding professionals to offer some wedding etiquette tips for writing thank you notes.

The guidelines here are fairly straightforward:

• Be sure to express your genuine appreciation, but avoid being so over-the-top that your gratitude seems false.
• Thank your guests for attending, and if there was any notable distance or effort involved in getting there, do acknowledge it. (If they didn’t attend but sent a gift or other well wishes, acknowledge that instead.)
• Reference the specific gift(s) given and personalize your thoughts about it (Perhaps a specific use you’ll have for it or how you already enjoy it, how you’ll think of them when you use it, something specific you enjoy about it, etc.) The recipients will be glad to know that you safely received their gift (especially if they came via mail) and that you are aware they are the ones who gave it to you – and ideally that the thought they put into the purchase (even if it was from your registry) was appreciated. Read more…

Gifts

As a popular New Jersey wedding venue, we’ve received so many gracious thank you notes from our many lovely couples. Some have come quite quickly and others in good time. Regardless of the timing or the manner in which they come, we were are always appreciative, but never expecting to receive these thank yous.  Your wedding guests, particularly those who have given you a wedding gift, however, will most likely be anticipating a thank you in response.  And proper wedding etiquette dictates that sending a timely thank you note is a must.

Because the note writing process falls after the day itself, it is one of the more overlooked parts of your wedding duties.  But it is no less important, because your response is a direct reflection on you (and if you wait too long, you may soon start hearing from your mother or mother-in-law that it is a reflection on them as well).  Good timing also goes a long way to show your guests that you are genuinely appreciative that they were part of your special day. Read more…

Outdoor Ceremony Vs Indoor Ceremony

While some brides have always dreamed of having an outdoor garden wedding, and some have known since they were little girls that they would have their weddings in an elegant ballroom venue, other brides are struggling to decide on their perfect style and location of wedding.

If you’re among those brides weighing both indoor wedding and outdoor wedding options, here are some of the top considerations of each type of wedding venue:

Outdoor Weddings:

• Outdoor garden wedding venues are already decorated in beautiful splendor, with lush trees and gorgeous, flower-filled gardens…providing an already-bloomed venue that you don’t have to spend a large portion of your wedding budget to decorate. Master landscape artists and gardeners have created a magical garden wedding venue featuring beautiful seasonal blooms, as the setting of an outdoor wedding ceremony. Read more…