Real Long Island Wedding: Jessica and Matthew

Matt and I got engaged Thanksgiving Eve 2011 after 15 months of dating.  We waited until after the holidays to start looking at venues, but once the New Year hit we quickly booked appointments at 10 different venues.  The Historical Thatched Cottage was our second appointment and I quickly fell in love with it.  It was so different from anything else we had seen (and would see), and I knew it was special.  Matt insisted we continue to look, just to see what else was out there; but every time we went to a new venue, all we would do was compare it to Thatched Cottage.  It was the place for us, plain and simple.

When we started planning all the little details for the wedding, we tried to figure out an overall theme or feel for our special day.  Matt is a Batman fanatic; literally he has a huge collection of Batman memorabilia and was even an extra in The Dark Knight Rises; so we knew that we had to incorporate Batman into the wedding somehow.  We quickly became known as the “Batman bride and groom” to Maureen at Thatched Cottage and that seemed to follow us throughout the wedding.  I wanted to incorporate the thing my husband loved so much into as much of our wedding as possible without it looking like a child’s birthday party.  Our vendors were amazing with our requests and ideas, and were always enthusiastic about what we came up with.  After speaking with Phil from After Hours, we decided on having a Batman gobo instead of having a monogram in lights on the floor and that we would make our entrance into the reception to the 1989 Batman theme song.  Florio from Lighthouse Photography not only took amazing photographs of my husband and me at every point during our wedding, but also of all of our guys in their superhero t-shirts.  Matt created table numbers with each Batman character, had Batman socks and cufflinks (his wedding present from me), and a Bat Symbol Groom’s Cake at the rehearsal dinner to solidify the theme even more.

Even with all the Batman components, our wedding never felt like anything less than a wedding; an incredibly personalized wedding.  While there were a lot of Batman components to the wedding, I was also able to incorporate my favorite thing as well.  I collect elephants, so I wanted to get something small in there that was just “me.”  I ordered a few elephant buttons from etsy and Michelle from Hidden Essence did the most amazing job of putting them on my bouquet handle.  She also took the charms I had made for my girls and put them onto each of their bouquets.  These little touches made our wedding even more special and personalized.

Our wedding was the best day of our lives (so far!) and I wouldn’t change anything that we had.  Our wedding was completely “us” and something that we will always remember and cherish.  Our vendors were beyond amazing and exceeded all of our expectations.  The Historical Thatched Cottage, After Hours, Lighthouse Photography, Hidden Essence, A Modern Day Affair, Jessica Leigh Paperie, Afresh Approach, and every etsy vendor we used were the best we could have asked for and we are so happy that they were all a part of our memorable Batman wedding.