Busy Brides Survival Guide - Creative Solutions For Your I Do’s and Your Happily Ever Afterwards…

Look for a featured spread of Engaging Floral Designs in the fall 2010 issue of WellWed Magazine . Some image samples from the magazine are below. The amazing photographer for the photo shoot was Cappy Hotchkiss Photography . The photo shoot took place at Round Hill F.E.A.S.T. Caterers in Washingtonville, NY.

Yesterday, Sarah Lusardi (owner) and Jessica Salazar Mino (associate coordinator) at NY Engagements, LLC were onsite providing day of coordination services and floral decor at the CV Rich Mansion in White Plains, New York. It was a sunny yet chilly winter day - no snow fall thankfully. The day started for the bride at 1pm when she checked into the Crowne Plaza Hotel with her bridesmaids to start getting their hair and makeup done. The bride's makeup artist Meredith Hayman traveled on-site and did a fantastic job making her look natural and radiant. Her photographer, talented Jacqueline Pfeffer of Beacon, New York arrived at the hotel to capture the getting ready shots before heading to the mansion for the ceremony. Behind the scenes, the NY Engagements team set up the ceremony and reception decor. In the ceremony room, Sarah and Jessica set flowers on the pedestals at the front, wedding programs on each chair, lanterns down the aisle, an aisle runner to pull prior to the proc...

Engaging Floral Designs and NY Engagements, LLC offer attending brides of the Villa Barone Bosco Bridal Show on January 6, 2010 a scavenger hunt promo for the grand prize! If you are a bride on the hunt for the prize, you're doing great and you could be the very first one to win the contest! Your next task then would be to go onto http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/vowfactor and find the latest post by EngagingFlorals. After reading it, email the post (using the icon at the bottom of the article) to a friend and also to us (find our email on your promotional materials) with your show promo code. Best of Luck to you and Happy New Year! Sarah Lusardi

If you stopped by Maggie Heinzel-Neel's booth at the Wedding Salon bridal showcase at the Roosevelt Hotel in NYC last night, you will have also seen my floral design work on her table (see image to the left). Brides from all over swarmed to the Show and I make a point to attend every year. But I was honored this year when Maggie asked if she could display my floral work next to her amazing portfolios. I worked with Maggie on a wedding at the Tarrytown House in Tarrytown, NY this fall and she is wonderful to work with, very professional, and has an eye for detail. She has a very warm and friendly personality that instantly relaxes her brides. She really captures natural emotion in her photographs and tells a story of the day as you look through her albums. Like most vendors in the wedding industry, she travels all over for her events so whether your wedding is in NYC, upstate NY or beyond, she'll be there!

Here are some quick tips that come to mind to help navigate your way through planning your wedding. There are too many to mention in one sitting but here are a few to wet your appetite! 1) Sign up for an email address that you use specifically for wedding research - give it out at bridal shows, to prospective vendors, etc so that you can keep your regular email clear of clutter after the wedding. 2) Going with the vendor on a preferred vendor list doesn't necessarily mean they are the best of the best- certain sites require vendors to pay to be on their "preferred vendor lists" but it can also be a good starting point to see what's out there - compare notes and see who is mentioned a lot, read reviews, meet vendors in person and decide for yourself. Seeing an ad in a magazine or visiting a vendor's website is not enough to make a decision off of. 3) Make sure you order extra envelopes with your invitation order and make sure your rsvp address is one that is a s...

During my undergraduate years at Skidmore College, I took several art classes... one being avant garde. I didn't quite appreciate the concept until I actually started applying it over the years in my floral design and planning work. Avant garde is an innovative way of creating something out of the norm. How many times do you go looking for a vase for your flowers in the pipe section of your hardware store? Or see stretchy bracelets as a cool accessory to accent your bouquet? Sometimes it happens by accident. For example, one day when I was cleaning up the studio after a big event, I found one of my dangly earrings on the floor. I picked it up not wanting to lose it again and hung it over the top of my gooseneck vase. I thought to myself... "Now, how clever does that look! Vase jewelry!" Who knows if it will make it into a future bride's design ideas but at least it made me think a little more imaginatively about what can be done with a simple vase. We're...

Imagine a different themed flower arrangement on each table in the reception room. One of our past clients asked us to create a flower arrangement for each table to create a garden effect as you looked through the room. The linens on the table were a vibrant kiwi green and the explosion of colors on each table was stunning. The bride loved flowers and this was the perfect concept to create a "garden" effect inside the reception hall.