Hi everyone! Congratulations on your engagement and best of luck in your planning! We got married on June 23, 2012 and everything exceeded our expectations and went very smoothly. I was a “lurker” on these local boards, but I wanted to share my vendor recommendations because some of the recommendations people had posted before were helpful to us. I am originally from the Finger Lake region, but have since moved away so I was planning what turned out to be a “destination” wedding near my home town.
Ceremony - Hector Presbyterian Church: A I am Presbyterian and my H is Catholic so it was important that we got married in a church and have a religious ceremony. Pastor Jim Yao co-officiates with his wife, Nancy, but he let my childhood minister and my H’s childhood Monsignor take part in the ceremony, which was very special to us. He gave us a traditional Presbyterian ceremony outline, but let us cater it to what we wanted. It was truly beautiful and personal. The ceremony was one of the most memorable parts of my day. Aesthetically speaking, it is a simple white country church built in the 1800s that is very well-kept.
Reception – Glenora: A++ I could go on for days about our reception, Kathy Marchenese, the Chef and wait staff at Glenora, but I will try and keep this short. Our tasting was held in January and it was difficult to decide on the three entrees because everything we tasted was incredible. We ended up choosing the filet, chicken and salmon. Typical wedding choices, but Glenora prepared each meal to PERFECTION. We selected the bruchetta, shrimp cocktail, beef tenderloins, stuff mushrooms and crab cakes for the appetizers and they were also excellent. Kathy was so thoughtful and even had put some extra appetizers at our sweetheart table. Every guest we spoke to complimented us on how amazing both the appetizers and their meals were and how attentive the staff was. We met with Kathy the Wednesday before our wedding and did a walk through of our “vision” and she nailed it. I was absolutely blown away by how everything was set up and the small details that Kathy added, like a water bar with lemons and limes in the water. What a perfect idea to put it near the dance floor so people can serve themselves! I can honestly say that there was 0 stress the night before or day off because we trusted Kathy. We heard excellent things about the bartenders too! Glenora is also a nice kid friendly venue because they offer children’s meals for a fraction of the price of other venues and they let people walk the grounds. A bunch of the younger boys took advantage of this and had a baseball catch during the speeches and their parents were able to keep an eye on them, while still enjoying the evening. Also, you will notice that we used most of the vendors on Glenora’s recommended vendor list and we are extremely happy with all of our decisions and it put us at ease since we were planning from out of town.
Rehearsal Dinner – Suzanne Fine Regional Cuisine: A++ We absolutely love this restaurant and the owners, Bob and Suzanne. We booked this a little over a year out. We did a pre-fixed menu and bar selection (4 wines and 4 beers). Our cocktail hour (shrimp cocktail and cheese board) was set up outside on their back deck. Their deck and outside bar are situated in front of their garden and it is a great location to gather and watch the sunset before we were all seated for dinner. We had the whole back room to ourselves, which is decorated like an old farm house and this added a home-y feel for the rehearsal dinner. Their food is out of this world! We chose the Alaskan salmon, chicken and mushroom risotto for the meals and chocolate cake, cheesecake and profiteroles for dessert. The meals were also served with a fresh garden salad (straight from their garden!) Everything was EXCELLENT. We dealt mostly with Bob for the planning and he is super laid back and gave excellent wine pairing recommendations for the meals.
Photography – Jeffrey Foote: A+ In a nutshell, he is awesome! We loved his portfolio and how low-key he was. He does an amazing job of capturing soft, romantic, modern and nature-y style pictures, which is what we were looking for. Our engagement photos were included in our package so we did those in July 2011 at our cottage. I knew I loved him then because he was willing to hike down into the glen for some pictures and even put up with our hyper dog for some other pictures. The engagement session was beautiful and we are excited to get the rest of our wedding pictures as well! From the few he showed us, we absolutely loved them. He is super flexible and handled the large group pictures outside of the church very well. Also, we received numerous compliments from guests on how professional and courteous he was, which means a lot, because I have been to weddings with some over aggressive photogs and it’s not pleasant. He blended right in!
Cake - Lori Leggott – Club 86 Cakes and Bagels: A The rumors are true… you CAN get AMAZING cake for an awesome price! We did a 3 tiered cake with 2 layers of the white and strawberry filling and 1 layer of the chocolate. Both were EXCELLENT. We met with Lori and designed the cake in April and it came out exactly how we wanted it. She was easy to get a hold of too. I’m not a cake person, but her cakes are so light and delicious.
Flowers – Plenty of Posies: A++ I have always loved the Ithaca Farmer’s Market and Plenty of Posies’ flowers and was thrilled to find out that they do weddings. We met with the owner, Audrey, on her farm where they grow all of the flowers and started to come up with ideas of what we wanted. We gave them our color scheme and asked that everything be natural and romantic then left the rest up to them and the final arrangements and bouquets blew me away. We did have to pay a delivery fee, but it was worth it because they delivered to our cottage (bouquets), church (2 large flower arrangements) and Glenora (everything else). I find that their prices are very reasonable and Audrey and Blossom were amazing to deal with.
Favors – Scuteri’s Cannolli Connection: A+ We had butter cookies and they were awesome! We even had extra that we placed near the cake at the end of the night and they were pretty much all gone! It was easy to place our order (I would recommend doing this about 1 month and ½ before your date) with Vince who is super nice. An added bonus was that they assembled the bags and tied the ribbon (we bought these separately to match our colors and delivered them to their shop) on all of the packages at no extra charge, which was a HUGE help! If you go in on a Saturday, make sure you try their pizza too! Best in Watkins Glen!
DJ – Paradise Entertainment: A I went to a wedding where the DJ was from Paradise Entertainment a few years ago and since he was on Glenora’s recommended vendors list and a few Knot girls had used him and liked him, I figured it was a win-win. We scheduled a time to meet with Ken last spring and he agreed to meet us at Glenora – how convenient! Well, we get there and he was a no show and after 20 min., we called and he tells us how he completely forgot. I was pretty annoyed because we were from out of town and we confirmed the date and time with him a few days prior via e-mail. He assures us that he will be there in no time. OK, fine, we killed some time and expected it to be about 40 min. from the time we spoke to him because he is from Geneva. Well he called after 15 min., which was unexpected and was super apologetic saying that he was DJ’ing the wedding that was going on now and the schedule was pushed up because of weather, etc., etc. Well that is fine, but the thing that really annoyed me was that I could smell alcohol on his breath and that irritated me because I didn’t want to hire a DJ who was drinking… Anyway… he apologized, threw in free uplighting and we stuck with him because I enjoyed my previous experience and knew he came recommended. Given our run in with him, I would say this was the vendor I was the most apprehensive about.. Ron Butler DJ'd our the day off and and he was GREAT! The online forms are handy and Ron was able to play personal requests (my dad wanted to surprise me with the F/D dance and he sent a song in ahead of time, my H and his mom did an Irish dance and Ron even found the one version of our wedding song that we couldn’t find) and he kept the dance floor packed the whole night! It was a diverse mix of music that catered to the 20-somethings and 60-somethings so we were pleased. In fact, I was told by many guests that they have never seen a bride dance so much, which was funny. Also, the uplighting did look incredible! Despite the bad start, I’m happy that we stuck with Paradise Entertainment.
Transportation – Fitzgerald Brothers: A+ We put booking this off for a long time and were almost shut out of a reservation so be sure to book in advance, especially considering all of the wine tours and events that take place in the Finger Lakes. We rented the 16-18 person limo bus and it was so nice! It was very clean and roomy. Our driver was Ed Van and he was very professional and punctual and navigated our windy road to our cottage perfectly. He transported our wedding party and parents and everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
Hair & Makeup – Fringe Hair Salon: A Fringe was recommended by a friend and they did an excellent job. We went to the salon (in Corning) and were able to bring bagels and champagne (the breakfast of champions! 
) while we got ready. 7 girls got their hair done and 5 girls got their makeup done. We had a 9 a.m. appointment and we out by 11:45 so it was GREAT! I loved, loved, loved my hair and make up. It was so natural and everything that I wanted. Unfortunately the hair started to fall out later in the night, but I have thick hair so it was expected. My girls all loved their hair and makeup too and some of them are pretty picky, but we were all VERY pleased! My mom looked a little debutant-ish, but she just fixed it when she got home so no big deal.
Vistaprint: A++ I was able to do a lot and SAVE a lot of money with the Living Social deals and sales that their website had. We did our own save the date postcards (used a picture from the engagement session), rehearsal dinner invitations and response cards, “Thank you” stickers for the cookie favors, brochures for the welcome bags and large “Welcome” stickers for the welcome bags too.
Invitations – Paper Source: A+ Although I did this out of town, I am pretty sure there are Paper Sources in NY, if not, sorry! The store often offers 20% off custom orders, so we took advantage of this. We LOVED our invitation set and programs.
Guestbook – MyPublisher.com: A I purchased a Groupon and was essentially able to purchase a 20 page gloss picture book for $20 ($10 of which was for the shipping). I used our favorite engagement photo pictures and left in blank space for people to sign and leave messages. A lot of guests loved this and it was a nice way to showcase our engagement photo session.
Tuxedos – Mens Warehouse: A I thought all of the men looked handsome! Since our wedding party is from all over, it was convenient that they could pick them up close to home and then drop them off near Glenora!
I hope I’m not forgetting anything and I hope you all have a wonderful planning experience! We had about a year and a half engagement and booked all of the big vendors early, which helped alleviate a lot of stress. Remember to enjoy every little moment, it truly goes by fast!