Real Wedding: Alexandra & Joseph
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When Alexandra Nee first met Joseph Donaldson, she wasn’t interested in knowing much more than how he took his coffee. Joe was a frequent diner at the breakfast café where Alexandra worked for a few summers, and though he seemed like a perfectly nice guy, it wasn’t until years later, when Alexandra’s uncle reintroduced them, that Alexandra and Joe really connected. They had a dinner date, and then another dinner date, and before they knew it, they were in a serious relationship. Apparently, the timing was finally right, and from that moment on, they were a couple.
Joe isn’t the world’s greatest secret keeper, according to Alexandra, so on the night he asked Alexandra to get their dinner laid out while he ran to the car, she was instantly suspicious. Sure enough, as she started to pull out the containers from the takeout order Joe had picked up on the way home from work, Alexandra spotted a ring box among the containers. As she opened it, she turned around. Joe was down on one knee in front of her. Alexandra beamed as he asked her to be his wife.
Since Alexandra and Joe are both Long Island natives, they knew they wanted to have the wedding near their home. They were also determined not to have a traditional catering hall–style wedding — they wanted something different and creative. Inspired by Long Island’s famous wine region, they discovered the ideal wedding location at the Martha Clara Vineyards, which had a sprawling barn perfect for celebrating with 190 dancing and dining guests.
Alexandra was enrolled in an intensive nursing program when Joe proposed, so she quickly sought the help of a wedding planner who could help her juggle the logistics of her dream wedding without having to get bogged down in the details. She and her wedding planner, Laura Mastriano, talked frequently about Alexandra’s ideas, and then Laura would work through the details to bring Alexandra’s vision to life. It was an ideal collaboration, and Alexandra says her vendors were instrumental in helping her have the wedding she wanted almost completely hassle-free. “Every vendor we worked with was just outstanding, from the planning process right down to completion,” says Alexandra.
Alexandra and Joe made sure to fill their wedding with plenty of personal touches. Alexandra wore her great-grandmother’s pearl earrings, the same ones her mother and grandmother had worn at their own weddings. Joe opted for spats instead of traditional shoes with his tuxedo, and Alexandra fell in love with a spectacularly out-of-the-ordinary gown, which she wore to walk down the aisle to the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Alexandra’s veil was a labor of love, made just for her by her mother and her grandmother, and Alexandra and Joe asked several family members to give special readings during the ceremony.
Instead of a cake, the couple decided to serve five tiers of 350 cupcakes, each tier with a different flavor to encourage guests to go back for seconds. They also encouraged their guests to pop into the photo booth and paste their pictures — along with their best wedding advice for the newly married couple — into a wedding scrapbook.
The weather grumbled a little as the time for the ceremony drew near, and when the blue skies darkened ominously, the couple decided to move to the cocktail tent instead of risking a downpour in the vineyard, where the wedding was intended to take place. Fortunately, their wedding planner had a solid "plan B" in place for inclement weather, and the ceremony was just as perfect as Alexandra and Joe had envisioned.
As Alexandra and Joe celebrated with their guests in the enormous old barn on the property, it was hard to believe that only a few years before, they’d been strangers in a little breakfast café.
Alexandra & Joseph's Advice
1) Hire a professional wedding coordinator. Our event planner was fantastic, and we couldn’t have managed all the details without her help.
2) Choose things you love. I never imagined that my favorite color ~ a very bold fuchsia pink ~ would work for bridesmaids’ dresses, but the ones we found were perfect.
{Other Professionals}
Cake: Erin Quintana
Catering: Christopher Michael Caterers
Coordination: La Productions
Cupcakes: Sugar Sugar
Entertainment: Music By Michael
Event Rentals: NYC Photobooth
Floral Design: La Blossom
Hair: Nicole D’angio