This past Friday, we did Cindy and Roger’s wedding.  Cindy is a friend on Facebook and we chat back and forth periodically.  I love when couples talk to you on Facebook cause then when you come to their wedding, you feel you already know alittle bit about them.  Their wedding took place at the beautiful Woodland’s Country Club in Woodbury.  It is part of a golf and country club complex and has other amenities as well.  The stately mansion and it’s grounds are where the actual wedding takes place.  We have only been there in the winter, and at night, so I was more than pleased to be there in the daytime during the summer.  It is a gorgeous venue.  But before I get ahead of myself, we began our rainy day, meeting Cindy, her mom and all her girls in Cindy and Roger’s apartment in Elmhurst, Queens.  I say rainy, as it was raining quite heavy when we left the apartment, but upon our arrival at The Woodland’s, the sun came out and we had clear sailing from then on, but hot, very hot!  Our wonderful wedding coordinators were from Bleu Diamond Events, and both Gina and Danielle, took care of everything with elegance and ease.  Their website is www.bleudiamondevents.com. We really enjoyed working with them and chatting about weddings.  Be sure and check them out for all your wedding planning needs.  When we arrived, Cindy was busily getting her hair and makeup done in the living room, while the girls were all flurrying about.  On a little table in the kitchen, this Fisher Price sign is what first struck our eye…..

When you enter an Asian home, it is customary to remove your shoes.  I loved how all the girl’s silver evening shoes, as well as, Cindy’s, were sitting all neatly in a row atop this cabinet!

Had to take a photo of this sign in their apartment, as this says “New York”!

Too funny how every bride has their very own library of wedding books!  And, it appears that Cindy knows the best as in “Colin Cowie”…..I heart everything he does!

Here is Cindy getting ready and her bouquet with a family momento pinned to it of Cindy’s grandpa.

Just check out her Maggie Sottero gown and shoes…they were to die for, right?

Now, I was trying as hard as I could to come up with something different to do with her jewelry.  When it came to me!  I said to Rich, go ask Cindy’s mom if she has any oranges on hand that I can lay the jewelry on for some color.  Unbeknownst to me, Cindy’s mom tells Rich to go to the apartment upstairs where Cindy’s grandma lives, as she is sure she will have some.  Rich obliges and when he comes back downstairs, he remarks that Cindy’s grandma did have the biggest, most colorful, oranges he had ever seen AND that she said that any Asian household will have oranges on hand the day of a wedding as they are good luck!  Seriously, who knew?  (Seems I picked a good fruit to ask for, LOL!)

Check out all of Cindy’s bling…..is this bracelet not gorgeous?  Sparkle makes everything better!

Getting ready to leave for The Woodlands!

Once there, we got started with the portraits, as Roger and Cindy were meeting before their ceremony to get them done ahead of time so as to afford them their cocktail hour.  I absolutely love this photo of Cindy, she is such a beautiful girl and photographs so well.

When Cindy and Roger came to our house to go over the last details of the wedding, two weeks ago, Roger remarked how he has this electric, blue Subaru that he is going to bring to the wedding and would we mind taking a photo of it with him.  Heck, no!  But, I must confess, Rich and I, not being particularly fancy car people, we didn’t know anything about Subaru’s.  When we arrived with Cindy and the girls, there they were, not one, but two identical cars!  One belonging to Cindy’s brother and the other one, belonging to Roger!  How funny is that.  So we had to shoot them both, I mean, come on!  And, if I must say so myself, it was pretty snazzy, Roger!

Then it came time for Roger to meet his gorgeous bride.  She and Roger had asked to meet by the gazebo out back.  Here she comes, Roger, you won’t believe your eyes!

Then we got ready to snap a few pics by the gazebo and golf course…

Although we did do all the portraits beforehand, to break it up a little on the blog, I will cut to the ceremony and then return to the photos after that.  Just check out the cute idea Roger and Cindy had of making their ceremony program both a fan to ward off the heat, which was scorching by the way, and a scorecard filled with games on one side and a program on the other!  It came complete with golf pencils, get it?

Bubble wands engraved with the happy couple’s name and the date of their wedding were done up in the wedding colors of plum and green….

Cindy and her dad patiently awaiting the start of the music so they can begin their walk down the aisle….

and there it goes…..

Love Cindy’s dad’s face as he hugs Roger for the hand-off, so cute!

Aerial view of the ceremony.

Rev. Dr. Angela Heil did the beautiful ceremony and she was so sweet and friendly.  Be sure and check her out at www.angelaheilministries.com if you are in need of an interfaith minister for your ceremony.

Here is Roger speaking his vows to Cindy as she looks at him with the love of a new wife…

and then as Rev. Dr. Angela Heil begins her pronouncement of the new “Mr. and Mrs.” you can see the joy on their faces!  The guests didn’t miss a beat as

they cheered the happy couple on!

I just love the way a new hubby holds his wife’s face for their first kiss as a married couple.  It is one of my favorite shots and it is hard to contain my enthusiasm sometimes…

while after the ceremony the happy bridal party toasts the happy couple and to a job well done!

And, like I promised, here are more of the bridal party portraits, as well as, more of Cindy and Roger’s photos….

This group was so much fun.

Everyone say “ahhhhh”!

Pocket watches were the order of the day, as the gift they received from Roger for helping out on the wedding day.

Don’t even ask what these guys were doing….I always let them do their own thing and they had quite a lot of versions of photos from which to select from, LOL.  Usually, they say, “what should we do?”  But, not this group…..so, here is Roger’s guys with their version of “Karate Kid”!  LOL….

I heart this photo below…..love the couple, love the colors, just love it, can’t help myself…

Anyone for a little “heart”, hahaha, I was teasing Roger as he was having difficulty getting his half of the heart together as you can see by Cindy’s laughing!  Boys….it really isn’t that hard, now Roger!

Great series, you guys, so cute…I just love it when a couple can genuinely play with one another and show their crazy sides.  It makes for such good photos.  Just check out how Cindy really looks like she is going for blood, hahahah, (you better not tick her off, Roger, or you’ll be sorry …. )

Then came time for the custom of the Asian Tea Ceremony whereby the couple prepares and pours tea for their parents and grandparents with a cherished family heirloom tea set.  In return, the couple receives little red envelopes, red being a good luck color in the Asian heritage, that are  filled with monetary gifts.

And, I know how you all love those details….so here is their guestbook….

and the game of Monopoly played a major role in Cindy and Roger’s wedding.  Their table cards were “Community Chest” and “Chance” cards from the game with guest’s names written on the front.  They were set into little houses that read Cindy and Roger’s Wedding and were placed on the piano in the foyer of the mansion along with all the little hotels, houses, and charms of the game!  So adorable I can’t even tell you.

On the tables, they had placed in frames, the cards that go to the Monopoly game and correspond with the Community Chest and Chance table cards so the guests would know which table was theirs!

Menu’s were all done up in several different papers that all went with the plum and green color scheme!  Flowers on the tables consisted of dendrobium orchids set in vases with luminaries and grouped with smaller arrangements of green moss.  The kid’s all found colorful paper bags filled with toys picked especially for them by Cindy and Roger1

On my vendor sheet that I give to my couples, I have the website of one of my brides who makes these adorable cake toppers or mini-me’s which she likes to call them.  Nicole and her hubby, Mike, were one of our brides as you might recall with their gorgeous wedding that took place in Scotland.  Every couple who ordered them, including my own daughter, Tara, just adores them.  With this particular wedding, Nicole included a sculpture of Roger’s electric blue Subaru at Cindy and Roger’s request!  Be sure and check her out at www.nicolewclark.com.

And, then it was time for this happy couple to party to the great sounds of After Hours Entertainment….and believe me, they kept the room hopping from the moment it began….

and here is their choreographed first dance….

which blew our guests away from the looks of it on their faces!

There was actually five toasts so I couldn’t include all of them here, but you can get the gist of how they went, too funny!

And, my last photo, the beautiful front of The Woodland’s at night.

My happy couple left real early Saturday morning for a wonderful 10 day honeymoon in Tahiti, not too bad, right?  Hope you have a super duper time and we’ll talk when you get back.  Anyway, once you get a chance to see these teasers and the slideshow, please be sure and leave us a comment…[you know how much I love comments]

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