Get your lighters out and get ready to turn the volume right up, because Andrea and Mark are, without a doubt, the rockiest couple we’ve ever featured on STG!
Their Jewish wedding took place in the ultimate rockstar city, New York, at the beautiful New York Botanical Garden, with a ‘sunset in the garden’ theme that ran through the dà©cor and color scheme. The flowers were in auburn colors and gradients of red, and looked absolutely sublime.
The couple first met through their shared love of music, and are in a band together, along with bride Andrea’s sister. In fact, their band, MANCIE, gave a surprise performance at the wedding. The idea was to demonstrate how the pair communicates through their music, which we think is just wonderful. What an incredible and very special extra element to have in a relationship! Watching the brilliant wedding trailer by Nicholas Oliver, you can really see them in the zone!
When they weren’t bringing the house down with their own music, the creative couple entrusted their entertainment to none other than Smashing The Glass Recommended Vendor, the fabulous Hank Lane Band! High praise indeed, to be booked by two musicians.
Andrea is also a professional photographer, and so two of her colleagues, Cory Goldberg and Kurt Sneddon were entrusted with capturing the story of the day – and didn’t they do a magnificent job?>
We’re just the warmup act, so we’ll pass you over to Andrea for the lowdown on her and Mark’s Jewish wedding – everybody make some noise for Andrea!
How we met
Andrea, the bride: We met through music, as we are both musicians as well as entrepreneurs, so music and a great party were very important to us. There is more info about how we met here.
A stunning New York venue
We got married at the New York Botanical Garden in New York City. We picked this venue because of the gorgeous setting of the Botanical Garden and the amazing catering from Starr Events at the venue.
A ‘sunset in the gardens’ theme
We wanted the ceremony to be joyous and gorgeous, as well as a special moment to bring our families and friends together in one place. Our florist, Christopher Gus Sidoli from Bloom Flowers, helped us come up with an amazing ‘sunset in the gardens’ theme for our flowers and look. His floral arrangements brought our wedding to life both in the bouquets as well as the arrangements throughout the venue.
We couldn’t have done this without the help of our amazing event planners from Tall & Small Events. They helped us from three months prior to our wedding to the day of coordination. Laura Bass and her team at Starr Events were so helpful in walking us through the prep for our wedding day up until the day of coordination onsite.
We used We Love Photobooth for our photo booth and they had some really fun backgrounds and options to choose from.
Simple and elegant invitations
Our invitation was simple and elegant which echoed the theme of the garden, with flowers and a gold font.
A rocker bride
My makeup artist is the best, and we collaborated on a edgy rocker-meets-gorgeous-bride look. I usually wear skinny jeans and rocker boots, so I really needed to feel like myself, even in a white wedding dress. My makeup really brought that edgy fun to life!
Sharon Becker from SB Beauty did my makeup, and her team did my hair.
A dress fit for a rock star
I found my dress at David’s Bridal on my first trip to go dress shopping. It was the second dress I tried on, and I immediately just knew it was the one. It was elegant and also rock ‘n roll!
Beautiful beaded shoes
My shoes were Badgley Mischka heels and I loved them! When I put them on, I knew they were the ones. I loved how the beads we visible just under the hemline of my wedding dress.
The handsome groom
Mark wore a Joseph Abboud black tuxedo. He is also someone who loves his jeans and T-shirts, so comfort was as important as style. He looked really sharp, in my opinion.
A maid of honor suit
My best friend was my bridesmaid, and my sister was my maid of honor. My bridesmaid wore a marine blue dress with a halter neck line.
My sister wanted to wear a fitted suit, and she worked with our stylist David Mcknight of McKnight Image Lab to come up with a look that made her feel comfortable and stylish.
He paired her suit with the right jewelry and accessories that made her outfit come to life. He also helped me pick out jewelry that worked well for my dress.
A personal ceremony
Our favorite part of our ceremony was the personal touches that our Rabbi Gary Katz added to explain the Jewish rituals and significance of the chuppah and blessings.
We loved being under our chuppah that Christopher Gus Sidoli from Bloom Flowers came up with. We wanted a simple and elegant chuppah. It had a whimsical simple beauty to it.
Perfect music choices
For our music, we had guitar and keyboards from Artie Stuart Band.
We are big music fans and Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah is such a beautiful song. So it was fitting for the first song for Mark and his parents to walk down the aisle to. My parents would always sing Sunrise Sunset growing up and we loved Fiddler on the Roof, so it was a perfect song for the wedding party to walk down to. Erev Shel Shoshanim is a Hebrew love song “Evening of the roses” so perfectly fitting for my parents and I to walk down the aisle at the Botanical Garden to.
Sunset-themed flowers
Our florist, Christopher Gus Sidoli from Bloom Flowers, with input from my mother, who is a flower fan, came up with the ‘sunset in the garden’ theme. This theme had rich reds and auburn colors to give it that warm sunset feel.
Our fabulous photographer
Photography was extremely important to me, as I’m a professional photographer and own a wedding photography studio. So naturally, we worked with two incredible photographers from my studio, Cory Goldberg as our primary photographer and Kurt Sneddon to second shoot the wedding.
Together, they documented the intimate moments of the day, as well as the exciting party photos, which were some of our favorites. We also had a secret performance by the band Mark and I are in together, MANCIE. My sister is also the bass player for our band, so we needed a lot of fun coverage of that performance.
…and videographer
We hired Nicholas Oliver and his team to create the video for our wedding. He has a calm and creative energy that he brings to his work. Everyone thought they were a great team! We have an amazing trailer from our wedding here. They also sent us full clips of both our band MANCIE’s performance and my husband’s fusion band Level5’s performance.
Divine cake
Starr Events is the caterer and event planning team at the New York Botanical Garden. They provided various cake options and we went with their creme fraiche yellow cake with fresh raspberry buttercream. It was delicious.
A band to vibe with our style
Another very important element of our big day was the music. We wanted a rock ‘n roll band that could play classic rock songs, funk and ’90s music.
Hank Lane helped us find one of their bands that would work with our style, and also be OK with us taking over as the entertainment at some point too! The Artie Stuart Band at Hank Lane was what we decided on, and Artie Stuart is an amazing band leader. We loved that they played some epic jam songs towards the end of the night as well.
Macaron favors
Our event planners, Elodie Duyker and Carina Frias from Tall & Small Events, played a key part in organizing certain details, as well as keeping the day moving perfectly smoothly. They recommended that we use a local Brooklyn company for our macaron favors. Plenty of Good was that vendor.
Special moments
The speeches from our family were so touching and sweet and were really significant for both of us. As well as the hora, which was a nice moment to really celebrate the wedding as a big group together for the first time.
Our band’s surprise performance was a really fun part for everyone, according to our guests. They had the opportunity to see how we collaborate as musicians and how important that is to what makes us tick so to speak. Mark is the drummer and I am the lead guitar player and singer and my sister Sharon is the bass player. My best friend is also in the band on guitar, Jake (red sunglasses).
Advice to couples currently planning their wedding
The advice that I would give brides and grooms would be that the day goes by too quickly, so enjoy every moment!
Andrea & Mark’s little white book
Photography – Cory Goldberg and Kurt Sneddon
Videography – Nicholas Oliver
Wedding planner – Tall & Small Events
Venue – New York Botanical Garden
Bride’s dress – purchase at David’s Bridal
Bride’s shoes – Badgley Mischka
Groom’s attire – Joseph Abboud
Hair + Makeup – SB Beauty
Flowers – Bloom Flowers
Catering and Cake – Starr Events
Band – Hank Lane Band
Lighting – ULS
Favors – Plenty of Good
Photobooth – We Love Photobooth
Stylist – McKnight Image Lab
Rabbi – Gary Katz
