Real Wedding Villa Borghese in Ivory & Teal
Written by Trina Paradise Friday, 08 January 2010 15:34
Trina & John's Fabulous Ivory & Teal Wedding At the Villa Borghese...Coming July 2010! 
The Search - We got engaged this past August in Cape May, NJ. I am an organized gal and I knew that when I went back to school in September (I am a high school counselor) things would be way too crazy once school started to devote the time I would like to spend on the wedding planning. Plus, I have heard how quickly vendors book up, so started hunting for our wedding venue as soon as we got back from our engagement vacation!
John and I booked up our weekends and even some week nights looking at wedding venues. We live in Danbury, my family lives in Dutchess County, and John's family lives in Northern Westchester County, so we decided on doing a 3 area loop of wedding venues in our price range (roughly $100 per person) that also had a guest capacity of 150-175 (we couldn't believe how fast the guest list added up!)
Some of the places we visited were absolutely "no way," and some we kept on our list. We visited about 10 wedding venues in roughly 3-4 weekends. (I know crazy right!) We were tired, but we also had fun! Some places gave us bottles of champagne and tickets to comedy shows just to entice us to book.
The Criteria - When looking at these venues, we eliminated them based a variety of factors...
• Not handicap accessible. (Something to think about if you have elderly guests or guests who have a hard time with stairs.)
• Hotels were 30 minutes or more away.
• Additional charges for ceremony chairs, wine table service, etc.
• Not a lot of food offered for the price. (One cocktail hour included only a vegetable and cheese display and 8-10 butlered hors d'ouevres.)
The Location - Villa Borghese
We ended up choosing the Villa Borghese in Wappingers Falls, NY for the date, Friday July 9th 2010.
Karen is wonderful! She was very thorough with explaining the wedding packages and showing us around the venue. We even tasted the most delicious champagne we have EVER tasted that is served at the wedding! I don't really like champagne, but this was very tasty!
The Villa Borghese included everything we were looking for and more at an affordable price. Also, because of the amount of guests were expect, we receive 5 complimentary hotel rooms at the Marriott Courtyard in Fishkill. This was all around the best venue we could have chosen. We are really happy with our choice and can't wait for the wedding!
The Entertainment - The DJ Solution
John and I are confident that we booked the best wedding DJs EVER! Stephanie and Jeff Padovani are great! We are really excited to have them DJ at our wedding.
Jeff will also be playing the acoustic guitar during our ceremony and cocktail hour. We are in the process of looking for some very unique music to be played at our ceremony.
The Officiant - Father Rich Hasselbach
Father Rich Hasselbach is great! He is an ordained Catholic Priest and we couldn't ask for a better officiant. We are having an outdoor ceremony at the Villa Borghese. When we told him we were booked with the DJ Solution, he was so excited!!!!
Videography - Artistic Images
I can't tell you how many video clips I watched online. If a video brought tears to my eyes, I contacted the vendor!
We booked with Artistic Images, a superb husband/wife team (Kathy and Jim Culhane) who create amazing storytelling videos! We wanted a video to capture ourselves and our friends and family in the moment. We will never be able to recreate these special people "in action" again. A video to us compliments the photography. 
Photography - Majestic Studios *The engagement photos in this blog post are courtesy of Mark Greenstone from Majestic Studios.
John and I were extremely picky about who we chose as our photographer. It is the most important (and expensive) piece we think, so we wanted to choose a photographer who offered quality photography and a great package at a reasonable price.
I looked at a bunch of websites and we met with a few photographers. Being able to see the pictures and the photographer's style was important. We do like the photojouralistic shots, but also wanted traditional photos.
We chose Majestic Studios in Hopewell Junction. Mark Greenstone is fantastic! He is very organized, professional, friendly, and worked with us on a package of exactly what we wanted. The price is also reasonable for what we chose, as I did a lot of research on this. Mark recently took our engagements photos and they came out beautiful!
He is also great at getting back to me when I have questions. We are really happy with our choice in photography!
The Dress - The Town Shop
The Town Shop in Poughkeepsie is the best bridal shop around (in my opinion)! If you want friendly, personalized service, where when you walk in you are greeted warmly, the Town Shop is for you! Giovanna works with me and she is so fabulous! I absolutely love her!
My dress is designed by Maggie Sottero and it is absolutely gorgeous! The price of the dress includes 3 dress fittings!
One piece of advice is to definitely give yourself enough time to select and order a dress, because my dress is made to my measurements and takes 6-8 months to arrive. My mom was with me when I tried on the dress and she says I look like "Hollywood." It's like a vintage "old hollywood" style dress in ivory with lace and Swarovski crystals. I can't wait to see John's expression when he sees me on our wedding day!
Bridesmaid Dresses - The Town Shop
I did go look at those "bridal warehouses" and I did not like anything I saw. The dresses were cheaply made, the zippers were all broken, and one dress was the same material as my bedroom curtains! Plus, I did not feel the same personalized attention that I received at the Town Shop.
I went to the Town Shop and I picked out a really pretty, elegant dress in teal, by Mori Lee. With the discount they gave (because I ordered my dress here) it was so reasonable...cheaper in price than the warehouse dresses! The girls are really happy with the dress too, which is important to me.
Wedding Invitations - Rexcraft
They say that the wedding invitation, "sets the stage for the wedding." While the invitation is important, at the end of the day, most people are going to toss it in the garbage after the wedding is over. So we want to chose invitations that are beautiful, but not crazy expensive.
I don't have the time (or patience) for DIY invitations, so I ordered every wedding invitation catalog I could get my hands on! When I received the catalog I would go online to their website and order samples. The invitations in person do not always look as nice and elegant in the pictures! Most of the samples are free.
We are going with a Rexcraft invitation in the Simple but Elegant collection (Embellished: W6047.) We haven't ordered them yet though!
Wedding Favors - Disc Duplication
We both love music and we are going to give a wedding music CD as a favor. We can include music from the wedding and pictures of us! Rich Rossi from Disc Duplication is great!
Transportation - Country Grove Limousine
We were looking for two limos for the bridal party and a shuttle to transport guests from the hotel to the Villa Borghese and back. Tom from Country Grove Limousine is very personable and offers reasonable packages! He was able to accommodate everything we need for our special day.
Save the Date Magnets - Totally Wedding Magnets
I would highly recommend Save the Date magnets. I found this great website and ordering with them was sooooo easy! They have a large amount of Save the Date magnets (and colors) to choose from at a reasonable price. Before it goes to production, they e-mail you a free proof of your magnet. We sent out our Save the Date magnets recently and we keep getting tons of compliments on them!
The Colors - Ivory and Teal
I envisioned the girls dresses in blue/teal. I saw a picture of this great teal color in a magazine. But when I saw it in person, I didn't like it because it was too bright and too "prom/sweet 16."
I wanted the girls' dresses and color to compliment the style of my dress. So I guess you could say that my dress was my inspiration! Did I mention how much I love my dress? LOL. The Mori Lee teal is so rich and elegant.
New Traditions - Irish Claddagh Wedding Cup
We also want to include sentimental touches in our wedding and perhaps create new traditions in the process. We are looking at incorporating very special music selections in the ceremony and an Irish claddagh wedding cup instead of the unity candle.
Wedding Finds - My Wedding & Traveler's Joy
My Wedding - Free Wedding Website
A major wedding find was our FREE wedding website! I am an internet guru and found this amazing site. You can upload music, photos, link to your registries and so much more for free! Plus, your website will stay up for however long you want. Other wedding websites charge for the service. If you can create a great wedding website at no cost, why incur an additional expense? We have received so many compliments on our site!
Traveler's Joy - Honeymoon Registry
This is a fabulous wedding honeymoon registry site. Since John and I live together and have combined our households, we do not need to register for the traditional items like some couples. So we decided on creating a honeymoon registry.
We booked a Mediterranean cruise (we have never been to Europe) and we thought the honeymoon registry was a great alternative! Feel free to check out our registry to get an idea of what a honeymoon registry is all about!
