Dayna and Ryan-Women of Faith Proposal from Nathan Baker on Vimeo.

Dayna & Ryan celebrated their wedding on March 6, 2010 at the Westminster Hall and Chapel in Mendon, NY. Their wedding took place 1 year from the date of their engagement and 6 months after Ryans amazing proposal to Dayna.
This video was used as their grand entrance and introduction and they were received with a standing ovation.
Congratulations Dayna and Ryan!

Our friends Julia and Kurtis Kracke need your help in winning Wedding Of the Year on The Knot.  Below is an article from Julias Blog.  PLEASE HELP THEM OUT!!!! Also, for what its worth,  Fingerlakes Entertainment is cheering for Bryan and Meg, Dan and Kittie, Jeff and Bridget, and MarK and Amanda.

We had the pleasure of working with these AWESOME couples and the Krackes and hope that you appreciate their work as much as we do.

Go VOTE Now and share and tell your friends and family to do the same!

“Kurtis and I were like dueling computers in our race to get as many of our weddings up on The Knot for their My Real Wedding Contest. We worked until the 12 midnight deadline, our fingers were sore and our eyes were bugging out of our heads. Here are the weddings that we were able to get uploaded. Next year we have promised ourselves to start earlier and get them all up. Here is what I need you all to do.

Click on the name of the couple. This will take you to their Knot site. Tell your friends and family to vote between March 1 and 21. (You can vote too!) There will be a voting box on the page. Vote “yes” and we’re one step closer to becoming a finalist. The 10 photo entries and 10 video entries with the most votes will move on to be Brides’  Pick finalist.

THANKS!!! (giggle giggle… we’re so excited! ; – )”

Tonia and Kevin

Kevin and Tonia - Kracke Photography

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Dan and Julia

Julia and Dan - Kracke Photography

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Jeff and Melissa

Jeff and Melissa - Kracke Photoraphy

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Bryan and Meg

Meg and Bryan - Kracke Photography

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Jeff and Bridget

Jeff and Bridget - Kracke Photography

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Chris and Angela

Chris and Angela - Kracke Photography

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Kittie and Dan

Kittie and Dan - Kracke Photography

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Emily and Jeff

Emily and Jeff - Kracke Photography

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Pat and Mary

Pat and Mary - Kracke Photography

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Mark and Amanda

Mark and Amanda - Kracke Photography

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Erika and David

Erika and David - Kracke Photography

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Ian and Carrie

Carrie and Ian - Kracke Photography

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Lauren and Ben

Brian and Lauren - Kracke Photography

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Jane and Willis

Jane and Willis - Kracke Photography

I was tweeting with Kitty Oliver, Heron Hill Winery’s Media Director and she informed me of their new Wedding and Events Coordinator, Kara Wilson.  The Fingerlakes Entertainment Staff is very excited to meet and work with Kara and we look forward to another great wedding season with Heron Hill a stop for us along the way.

Here is Kara Wilson’s Bio.

Kara Wilson Heron Hill Winery Wedding and Events Coordinator Finger Lakes Entertainment Friend

Kara Wilson-Heron Hill Winery

About Me

I just joined the Heron Hill team in January. I will be doing the wedding and event coordinating as well as revamping the gift shop. This is a new adventure for me. I am planning my own wedding as well, which I will be having here! Wedding planning is not easy. After much poking and prodding, I have gotten my fiancé to agree on food, flowers and colors. We are going with a truffle base and dark purple and burnt orange Dahlia’s. Of course we will be serving steak! We will also have a chicken dish and an alfredo pasta with spinach, mushrooms, bacon and crushed black pepper. Yum! My future brother in-law is a chef at the Wine and Culinary Center, so he will be preparing several yummy appetizers. The best part of the whole planning process is the honeymoon! We are going to spend 10 days in Hawaii on the Big Island. I will be zip lining through the jungle over their gorgeous waterfalls, and hiking the state parks. Sounds relaxing! With wedding season creeping up on us, I am looking forward to working with all the newlyweds here at Heron Hill as well as the staff.

Please contact the Wedding & Events Coordinator at 800-441-4241, ext. 20 or e-mail events@heronhill.com for further information.

Congratulations Kara!

Many of our clients come to the area SPECIFICALLY for the wine and I’ve had many past clients work Wine Tours and Tastings into their Rehearsal Diners and Receptions.  I thought the following article would be of interest to many of you planning on using the Winerys and to give you a “heads up” of what will be expected of your group, should it be a large one, at the wineries.

I’ll try to locate an article, but rules are being tightened at the wineries in regards to serving large groups who may be intoxicated in light of an incident last week at Three Brothers Winery on Seneca Lake.

Wine tours: Safety in colors

By AMANDA FOLTS/afolts@fltimes.com
Sunday, February 21, 2010 12:11 AM CST

A  yellow card means your wine touring group is on notice. A red card means you’re done for the day.

In light of the assault of a local winery owner Valentine’s Day weekend, members of the local wine industry gave some input on how they handle tour groups.

Paul Thomas, executive director of the Seneca Lake Wine Trail, said the Keuka, Seneca and Cayuga lake wine trails, in cooperation with the New York Wine and Grape Foundation, produced a Web site, “Safe Group Wine Tours,” which lays out the policies of the wineries with recommendations to customers.

Part of that is the yellow card/red card system.

If members of a group are acting out at one winery, the group can be given a yellow card. If they act out at another, they can be hit with a red card, which means they can’t go to anymore wineries that day.

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Thomas said the transportation companies offer an invaluable service, allowing people to safely and responsibly visit the wine trails without worrying about driving.

But there are some groups that go out solely to get intoxicated, hiring a limo and drinking between wineries like it’s a “pub crawl,” he said.

Though the assault by two Pennsylvania brothers of one of the owners of Three Brothers Winery last Saturday was “a particularly egregious example,” Thomas said a lot of other bad behaviors can come out of wine tours as well.

To put a positive spin on things, Thomas said companies try to remind people who are asking about wine tours that when they get to the point of intoxication by drinking between wineries, they lose their ability to judge the wines. They also tell those who arrange the tour that it’s their responsibility to keep on top of people who get rowdy in their group.

“You try and ask the people to kind of self-monitor their own group and proactively manage it,” Thomas said.

He noted that an overwhelming majority of customers are nice, calm and mature.

“It’s not just that we want to keep people away who can’t purport themselves in a mature fashion, it’s that we want to make sure we have a safe, enjoyable, positive experience for the overwhelming majority of the customers that do come that are mature and responsible and are there to enjoy the wine and learn about the wine,” he said.

As for the transportation companies, Thomas said the wine trails hope to get active cooperation from them, but at least one local company has been uncooperative.

He wouldn’t name the company, but he said that the company transporting the group that included the two Pennsylvania brothers was arguably the main company that triggered the Web site laying out the wine tour guidelines.

“This company, that at this time shall remain nameless, evidently doesn’t get it, and I believe should not be in the business of bringing people to wineries, and if I had my way I will help enforce that reality,” he said.

He wanted to stress that visiting the wine trails is fun and wineries want people to come out and enjoy themselves. He also noted that he doesn’t want people to think the trail associations are coming down on transportation companies.

“It is equally important that we preserve the quality of the experience for the responsible customers that we have by trying to minimize … boneheads corrupting our wonderful wineries with their existence,” he said.

Jim Havalack, owner of Quality Wine Tours, said that when someone books a wine tour with his company, employees try to find out what the objective is, whether it’s just to visit six or seven wineries or to go to as many wineries as possible.

“Our policy is to try to shy away from that kind of group because that really keeps us from running into any problems,” he said.

Referencing the Safe Group Wine Tours guidelines, Havalack said it’s his goal to never have a group that gets a yellow or red card. So far, none of his groups have.

If his company does have a group that is drinking too much, Havalack said, the driver tries a number of suggestions, such as encouraging them to stay at the current winery and not going to another, taking a slower route or recommending a restaurant.

Quality Wine Tours has a policy of not allowing people to drink in their vehicles during a wine tour, even in the limos where it’s legal because there is a divider between the riders and the driver. He explains to people that they’ll be drinking a lot of wine and that they don’t need to drink between wineries.

In the summertime, if someone wants to open a bottle they just bought at a winery, Havalack suggests stopping and getting out of the vehicle.

Havalack says it’s the transportation company that needs to take responsibility for its wine tour customers.

“I think it is their responsibility because, again, we’re the ones bringing them to the wineries. We can’t expect to bring them in the winery and let them make the judgments,” he said.

Derek Wilber, president and winemaker at White Springs Winery in Geneva, said his winery doesn’t see a lot of visitors who are too intoxicated. But he added that state law says wineries can’t serve someone who is visibly intoxicated anyway.

He said a system is in place of forewarning wineries further down the trail of people who are being rude or disruptive. He said they also ask groups of a certain size to make reservations because he wants to make sure they have a good time and that the staff is ready, though noting that they wouldn’t necessarily turn away groups that don’t call ahead.

Brad Phillips, marketing director for Hazlitt 1852 Vineyards, said his winery has a strict bus reservation policy and said groups are required to have a leader or chaperone who provides personal information to the winery. Hazlitt also has a person at the door, especially during the busy season, who makes a judgment call when buses or limos arrive, regardless of a reservation, of whether the occupants are intoxicated.

Wine tour expectations

The code of behavior set forth by both the Wine Trails of the Finger Lakes and regional transportation companies.

The wineries and transportation companies expect:

  • Good and respectful behavior
  • Common courtesy to all
  • Appropriate noise control
  • Respect for other customers and the winery staff and facilities.

The wineries and transportation companies will not tolerate any illegal or anti-social behavior including, but not limited to:

  • Intoxication
  • Theft
  • Underage drinking/fake IDs
  • The use of illegal drugs
  • Indecent exposure
  • Excessive profanity
  • Public urination
  • Violation of open container laws
  • Littering

Any illegal, anti-social or intoxicated behavior can result automatically in a group being issued a RED CARD at the discretion of the winery with a YELLOW CARD being issued for less serious infractions.

Link To Finger Lakes Times Original Online Article:  http://www.fltimes.com/articles/2010/02/21/news/doc4b80bb389b7be164701904.txt

Rachel Barnhart from WHAM 13 in Rochester NY tweeted the link to this article.  All wedding vendors think that their aspect, responsibility or part of a couples wedding day is of the UTMOST immportance and any article with a “cost cutting” them tends to draw the ire of many of us in the wedding professional community.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704511304575075371105740244.html?mod=WSJ_PersonalFinance_PF2

This article is very fair and identifies the rising costs of couples planning a lavish wedding.  The one thing I like is that they call it a “lavish” wedding and don’t paint the cost they quote as the norm or the standard.  Many couples have a fraction of the budget mentioned and some have more.

I do appreciate the suggestion of couples opting for a DJ rather than a band.  I love live music but the cost of a solid wedding band can start and $5k and thats for an affordable band.  A DJ service is a more affordable flexible and versatile option.  I’ve had a handful of couple of the past two years tell me they were choosing between our service and that  of a band.

Please take a look at this article and feel free to comment.  I plan on taking some time in the near future to outline my view of the differences between wedding bands and DJs.