Tamanna & Colin's professional pictures are in!

I am so excited to share some professional pictures from Tamanna and Colin's wedding by Tiffany of Atlas Wedding Photography.  Aren't these photos gorgeous?  I especially love the first photo, I love how there's so much greenery!  Thank you, Tamanna and Tiffany for sharing them with me.

If you like Tiffany's photography skill and are searching for a wedding photographer, she can be reached at info@atlasweddingphotography.com .  Tiffany is easy to work with and friendly =)

photos  courtesy of http://www.atlasweddingphotography.com/

McGuire Air Force Base Wedding--Tamanna + Colin

On 5/28/2011, John and I coordinated Tamanna and Colin's wedding at McGuire Air Force Base.  The wedding was a fusion of South Asian and Western cultures.  To give everyone a little background, usually South Asian weddings are colorful, festive and lavish.  And all of the above elements were present at this wedding. 

The ceremony started at 6pm at the Air Force Base Chapel.  They had a traditional Bengali gate ceremony at 5:45pm.  Gate ceremony was so much fun for the kids to watch and as an adult, I enjoyed it just as much as the kids.  From what I saw and gathered that day, during the gate ceremony, the bride's siblings and friends play practical jokes on the groom and his friends.  According to Wikipedia, "the wedding gate ceremony is arranged by the bride's family. The groom, along with his friends and family, traditionally arrive later than the bride's side. As they arrive, the younger members of the bride's family barricade the entrance to the venue, demanding money from the groom in return for allowing him to enter. There is a bargaining between groom and the bride's family members on the amount of money of the admission. There is typically much good-natured pushing and shoving involved."

Both of Tamanna's parents walked her down the aisle.  The beautiful ceremony lasted about 45 minutes and the couple walked out of the church to the bubbles that guests were blowing out at them.  Reception for 230+ guests was held across the street at the officers club.  DJ Ritz (and his partner) of Tribe Entertainment created gorgeous uplighting for the reception.  The couple followed all other Western wedding traditions: grand entrance, speeches by parents and siblings, cake cutting, couple's first dance and many more.  Guests enjoyed garden salad and second course from one of the following choices: NY strips, Stuffed cornish hen, Salmon or Vegetarian.  Tamanna and Colin also had a Roushmat Ceremony (translation: mirror ceremony).  During the mirror ceremony, "a veil is draped over both the bride and groom, and a mirror is placed in front of them. The groom is then supposed to say something romantic on what he sees in the mirror—notionally the first time he has laid eyes on his bride. A traditional answer is to say that he has seen the moon."  Of course, Tamanna and Colin have met each other before and to play it off, Colin looked into the mirror and answered, "my wife", when he was asked what he saw looking into the mirror.

Both ceremony and reception were equally fun and interesting.  Vendors team included:  DJ's of Tribe Entertainment, Coordinators of Enchanté Weddings, Tiffany of Atlas Wedding Photography and Videographer Brian.  Enchanté Wedding team would like to thank the bride's family for being such nice a client to work with and allowing us to be part of this fabulous wedding!   

Below are some photos of the set up:

--Nellie

Lisa and Mike are married!

On 5/21/11, John and I had so much fun working for Lisa and Mike's wedding at the Metropolitan building in Long Island City.  The Met building couldn't have been a more suitable place for Lisa's vintage themed wedding.  Lisa also had a beautiful and colorful candy buffet table, which was a big hit for the guests.  The most popular candy was sour gummy worms; they were gone at the beginning of the party!  Nature's Petal created the gorgeous white Baby's breath centerpieces that matched the white table linens, white dining chairs and the light green back wall.  Guests enjoyed a variety of entertainment from a Jazz Band, DJ and clown.  Another interesting part of this wedding was Lisa's idea to substitute Mad Libs for the traditional guestbook.  The Mad Libs were designed for guests to give advice to the newlyweds.   I thought that was very fun part of the wedding and I am sure Lisa and Mike received a ton of interesting advice from the guests.

Vendors team included: Big Tent Jazz Band, DJ from Scratch Weddings, Coordinators from Enchanté Weddings, flowers from Nature's Petal, Ben photography, and Clown David Ellis.  I love all the vendors Lisa hired, everyone was so nice to work with.  Carols and his crew from the Metropolitan building was super nice to work with as well.  This wedding couldn't have been more interesting and fun-- it was perfect!  Lisa and Mike was one of the sweetest couples to work with.  I wish the two of you a lifetime of happiness together!

--Nellie

Happy Easter

When I think of Easter, I think of candy and eggs.  and eggs.. we can use eggs as escort cards for weddings! :) "The egg is widely used as a symbol of the start of new life, just as new life emerges from an egg when the chick hatches out." This also symbolizes the start of a new life for the bride and groom.  Look at this picture of egg escort cards I found on Style Me Pretty.  How clever..

--Nellie

Place card holders and personalized labels

If you are looking to buy place card holders for your wedding dining tables, try Crate&Barrel.  They sell these beautiful silver memo clips 3 for $5.85, you can totally use them as place card holders.

I came across this site that does customized wedding labels, such as address labels, wedding favor bag labels, and water bottle labels.  How cute is it to order these water bottle labels and tape over the regular boring bottle labels? And you can even include a picture of the two of you.  If you need personalized labels for your wedding at low prices, check out http://www.myownlabels.com/wedding_labels

--Nellie

DIY wedding projects

If you are working on DIY wedding projects, definitely check out stores like Michaels, Party fair, Paper Presentation, Print Icon (they don't have a site, but it's next door to Paper Presentation on W18th st), and online store Etsy. Michaels and Party fair have more selections in their actual stores than online, so if you have these stores nearby, check them out!  Luckily for me, I can get to both Michaels and Party Fair easily =)

--Nellie

Customized fortune cookies

I remember watching the Bachelor show (Jake's season), and on one of  the episodes Jake took his date (Ally?) to a fortune cookie bakery and they made fortune cookies with their personalized love messages to each other.  I thought it's a wonderful idea to incorporate into a wedding.  This idea is imaginative, sweet, yet inexpensive!  How wonderful is it to include some love messages into these cookies for your guests?!

or even use this as a proposal idea

 You can get fortune cookies customized at local fortune cookie bakery or even online. E Fortune Cookie does personalized fortune cookies and ship them to you.  (note* I have never used this company, this is one of the customized fortune cookie companies I came across online.  You can certainly do more research on this company or other companies before ordering.  I just wanted to share this tip/idea with brides)

--Nellie