Nicole and Adam – Three Village Inn – Stony Brook, NY

“My favorite part of the wedding was the ceremony. We were both so excited! I loved hearing the processional song start to play and knowing I was moments away from marrying my best friend. More specifically, my favorite part of the ceremony was our first kiss at the end–we were so happy–Adam grabbed me, dipped me, and gave me the best kiss ever! “

On Vendors: Matthew Anthony did my Makeup —https://www.facebook.com/MakeupByMatthewAnthony. I think his work speaks for itself! He is a blast to have around and such an expert at what he does. Our cake was done by The Rolling Pin Bakery in Stony Brook (rollingpinbakery.com).

Our flowers were done by Heidi at Sugar Magnolias in Stony Brook (http://www.sugarmagnoliasflowers.com)–she was absolutely amazing and the flowers were more than I ever dreamed. She worked perfectly with my vision; I just love her!  A lot of the little details of the wedding were DIY or things I already had–like my Underwood typewriter: from the first second I bought it, I knew it would be at my wedding. The card catalog drawers that held our escort cards, I made myself from old tool-shed drawers I bought from eBay. The centerpieces were made from used books that I collected from various local sales–all of the titles mentioned love, marriage, wife, husband, etc. It was so much fun hunting down appropriate titles! Amy Heitman custom designed our invitations (with our Mad Libs response cards that we used to decorate the cocktail hour) and our bookmark favors. Her Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/AmyHeitman. Angel from FairestLJ on Etsy made the library card table numbers that we hung from the lanterns (https://www.etsy.com/sg-en/shop/FairestLJ), Liz from A Banner Affair on Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/sg-en/shop/ABannerAffair) made the banners for our table, our parents’ anniversary table, and our “Cards” guitar case (which was Adam’s).  The Willie Steel Trio (www.williesteel.com) played during our cocktail hour and they were awesome. It meant a lot to Adam, too, because Willie has been his teacher and mentor for years. And of course the music was fabulous. Our DJ was Craig from LI Sound and our emcee was Joseph (www.lisounddj.com). They were absolutely amazing. They played almost every song on our endless list of songs and worked really hard throughout the day to make sure everything was going smoothly and everyone was having fun. They got everyone on the dance floor from age 3 to age 90 the entire night without any cheesy “party starting” stuff. We couldn’t have had such a blast without them. Rob Coupe from Couped Up Productions (coupedup.com) was so awesome during the day! He got there at 2 pm and started shooting all of the tiniest details and was around all day to do things like pin the flowers on all the guys and make sure everything was in place in the reception room. He didn’t leave until after we did! He was absolutely amazing and we can’t wait to see the video!

Dress  and Tux –-My dress was by Maggie Sotero (“Geneva”) and I fell in love with the appliqués and crystal details so I matched them with the gorgeous hair comb from J. Crew and crystal earrings from Kenneth Jay Lane. My SHOES! Shoes are such a huge part of my life–one of my more fun vices–so it took me a while to find the perfect wedding shoes, but I absolutely did. They were part of the Blue collection by Betsey Johnson (“Sweet” was the style). They were sparkly and perfectly vintage and, most importantly, comfortable! Adam’s tux was the “Manhattan” by Tony Bowls.

This is  “why we wanted to do a book-themed wedding: Adam always tells me the “story of us”… and always starts with “Once upon a time there was a girl and a boy…..” He adds to the story as we add to our lives together. When he proposed, it was a total surprise; he started our story in the typical way and ended with, “…and then the boy asked the girl to marry him” and my beautiful ring! It seemed fitting to choose a book theme for our wedding to mark the beginning of our new story as husband and wife!

Plus, I love books. 🙂 I think there’s nothing more beautiful than a book–I have TONS in my house–and again, I wanted my favorite things around me on what promises to be my favorite day.

 How we met: Adam and I have known each other our whole lives. We grew up on the same street–I lived on Howe Rd. in Coram and he lived in Howe Court. 🙂 Our families have worked together and known each other forever (both of our sisters taught dance at the same school for years). We weren’t really close growing up (I knew his two sisters better), but reconnected after I got divorced. Three years ago, he “found” me on Facebook. The rest is history!