Our Wedding - Hotel Shots

As our guests were enjoying the food & beverages at the cocktail hour, we were taken outside the room for some photo ops. The hotel has an absolutely gorgeous atrium so it was a great backdrop for the photos.

Next up - Reception decor

All images: Daniel Krieger

Our Wedding - Cocktail Hour

Hope you all had a great weekend! I was cooped up in the apartment all weekend taking care of my sick wife who came down with the flu this past Thursday. The poor thing still isn't better yet. Good news is remarkably, somehow I haven't gotten sick. Knock on wood!!! I'm gonna keep up the positive thinking :)

I figured I'd continue along with the recaps this week. Today we're onto the cocktail hour. Immediately after the ceremony the guests we're escorted into the cocktail room for some delicious bites & cocktails.

Here's what we served. It wasn't a ton of food...I didn't want to stuff people with a bunch of stations...I preferred offering a bunch of super delicious pass arounds and only a couple of stations.

Passed hors d'oevres
Cold

Shredded Beef Filet served with Blue Cheese on Endive Leaves

Honey Marinated Salmon with Noodles served in Chinese take-out boxes
Figs stuffed with Mascarpone and Walnuts
Shrimp Bandelliras

Hot

Mac and Cheese Phyllo Cups
Baby Lamb Chops

Mini Crab and Goat Cheese Empanadas
Bacon wrapped Sea Scallops

Mangia station
Olives, cheese, tomatoes & other assorted antipasta

I wish I could have been there the entire time, but J & I were taken in and out of the room a few times for some photographs so I feel like we missed a lot of it. Nonetheless everyone told me they had a great time so that's what matters most.

Cocktail room

My sister Lisa enjoying our signature drink The French Kiss

The French Kiss - vanilla vodka, chambord & pineapple juice...delish!!!

The Mangia Station

Mingling with our guests

Our centerpieces which were actually recycled from our shower. My sister used peonies at the shower but we had the florist supply fresh dahlias for our wedding.

My step-mom enjoying the honey marinated salmon noodles. They were a huge hit!

Shrimp Bandelliras

Bacon wrapped Sea Scallops

Next up...see what we were up to for the majority of the cocktail hour.

Images: 1-3 & 5-13 - Daniel Krieger, 4 & 14 - Nat :)

Martini Mondays

I just found this over at Beauty News NYC and I am way tempted to brush off the gym today and head on over for a watermelon martini & pedi! What a great idea! The thought of it instantly puts me in the summer spirit.

Eve's new seasonal treatment, the Watermelon Pedicure, includes a soak in a scrumptious watermelon bath, a scrub with watermelon sugar (which smells like the epitome of summer), followed by a leg and foot massage with a luxurious watermelon lotion. You can choose from a selection of fruity colors for this pedicure or there’s the option to get some fun watermelon-inspired nail art. The pedicure is available any day of the week, but if you stop in for one on Mondays you get a complimentary refreshing Watermelon Martini!

Eve Spa
55 West 8th Street (East of 6th avenue)
212.807.8054

I totally love this idea and could use one right now but I think I'm gonna wait until next week since a) I just got a pedi Saturday night so my toes are still lookin shiny and b) I'm determinted to get to the gym tonight!

Making Progress

Happy Monday everyone! Hope you all had a great weekend. We had an extremely eventful and productive one. Firstly, as you can see, I tried my dress on! I decided to let you have a little sneak peak :) It was the first time I had the opportunity to see it since January and I'm happy to say, I still love it. It's very simple, but it's just right for me.

So, like I said, it's been eventful, and I don't want to leave anything out so I'll start from the top. On Saturday we decided to take our flower girl, Ally dress shopping and we just happened to find ourselves shopping at the same bridal salon where we purchased our dresses from. As I mentioned before, my dress came in well over a week ago but I haven't scheduled a fitting yet because I still haven't decided on the shoes. As you could imagine, the suspense was killing me so I just had to try it on shoes or no shoes!

After that excitement, we ventured on to find Ally a dress. I don't remember if I've mentioned this before but Ally is Antoinette's six year old daughter, our best friend who just passed away last month. As I said before, the weekend was eventful and this certainly was an eventful experience. I'm gonna try to keep this short and spare you some of the gorry details.

Well she was a dream child at first. She tried on about seven or eight dresses with no complaints at all. She was having a great time, she was loving every one she tried on and she even did a little dance for us in each one. Everything was going perfectly and we ended up narrowing it down to four dress. There were two that I was absolutely in love with, one that I hated, it was a horrible shade of pink that did not go with our color palette whatsoever and it had a ridiculous amount of beads, and one that I was pretty indifferent about. So naturally what happens is that Ally decides that she LOVES the horrible pink beaded dress that didn't even fit her. The dress that I hated! I couldn't, for the life of me understand why she wanted that one. When she tried the dress on it was actually hurting her because it was too small and the beads were scratching her skin! Why would she want to have that dress? So, as you could imagine, things ended up taking a sharp turn for the ugly. She ended up throwing a fit in the store, hysterical crying, laying down on the floor, refusing to take the dress off. And it killed us to see her so upset because we knew the real reason she was acting out was because she had just lost her mother. It wasn't really about the dress. But there was no way we could make her undestand that. So after about a half hour of antics we gave in and compromised and bought her the dress I was indifferent about, her second choice and my third choice. I wish I had pictures to share but it really wasn't a photo op moment. It's an ivory dress with ivory grosgrain spaghetti straps an a grosgrain bow. It's a little too plain compaired to what I was envisioning so I decided that I'm going to liven it up a little bit. Yesterday I bought a wine colored sash that matches the girls dresses and I think I'm going to see if I can find a light pink chiffon peony and have a seamstress attach it to the sash.

So that was Saturday and the fun filled dress excursion. Yesterday was a better day. We made a lot of progress and now I'm feeling pretty good about things. We went to Bloomies and finalized our invitation design and placed the order. We should have the first proof by the end of the week. I am sooo excited and I can't wait to see what they look like! I think they're going to be absolutely perfect!

After Bloomies, we headed on down to Gracious Home and while we were browsing we found the perfect solution to our cocktail hour table centerpiece dilemma. Aquamarine mercury glass votives!


These aren't the exact ones but you get the idea. I'm can't even tell you how excited I am to cross that task off our list. We've been trying to think of more affordable alternatives to bud vases and I think we came up with the perfect solution. We're going to put two mercury glass votives on each table, they were only $2.99 each! and then have a hurricane with a burgundy pillar candle in the center of the table. Our venue provides the votive candles and clear glass votive holders so we'll probably put a few clear glass ones on each table as well.

So all in all we had a pretty productive weekend. We'll try to get a few more things accomplished over the next few days...shoes & hair trial appointments and then Saturday we're off to sunny St. Thomas for a much needed vacation. Let the countdown begin!

Image: found here

Cinco de Mayo Cocktail Time!

Cinco Herradura Cocktail

Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 oz Tequila Herradura silver
- 2 oz pineapple juice
- 2 oz cranberry juice
- Splash of lemon-lime soda
Garnish: fresh lime wedge, green, red and white sugar for rimming

Stir the tequila, fruit juices and soda together in a tall glass. Garnish with a fresh lime. Rim a third of a tumbler with lime and dip in green sugar. Rim the adjoining third of the glass with lime and dip in white sugar; rim the last third and drip in red sugar. Pour drink in rimmed glass and serve.

Source: Cocktail Times

Cocktail Hour Options

Image: Jen Kroll Photography

Image: marthastewartweddings.com


Images: gifts.com, stylemepretty.com

We really wanted to have bud vases and votives on the tables for the cocktail hour but we were totally suprised at how expensive bud vases could be! Since we are trying to keep our flower budget in check we were thinking of coming up with more affordable alternatives. The only thing I can come up with is having a few votives on each table but we could upgrade to more decorative ones than the hotel provides.

Image: gifts.com

I'm desperate for ideas and am absolutely amazed at my lack of creativity here! I'd love to hear if anyone has any other ideas.