In This Long Island Local Pulse Issue…

💄 LisaMarie Makeup: Twenty Years of Soft Glam in Smithtown

🇺🇸 Trump Rallies for Blakeman in Nassau County

🎉 Riverhead's Polish Town Fair Brings the Pierogi and Pride

📉 Hempstead Reports Zero Shootings in First Half of 2026

💄 Smithtown's LisaMarie Makeup: Twenty Years of Soft Glam, One Bride at a Time

There's a specific kind of nervous energy that comes with a wedding day, the kind where you're not sure if you'll recognize yourself in the mirror by the time everyone's done with you. LisaMarie Glick built her entire business around making sure you do.

LisaMarie started as a hairdresser back in 2004, but by 2012 she saw where things were headed. Instagram was just taking off, and she watched salon loyalty start shifting toward whoever people found online. As a commission based hairdresser, she knew she needed a plan, and she jumped into makeup early, right as the industry was starting to take events and photography seriously. Over 20 years later, she's done bridal makeup for more than 100 brides a year across Nassau and Suffolk, and even spent stretches working with the cast of Teen Mom OG for MTV.

LisaMarie's specialty is soft glam, an elevated version of you rather than a completely different face in the mirror, and she says that philosophy is exactly what's kept clients coming back for two decades. She works out of a home studio in Smithtown but travels to nearly every event, and she's built partnerships with hair stylists so brides can get a full one stop shop if they want it. She's a recommended vendor at Stonebridge Country Club, Watermill Caterers, and the Swan Club in Roslyn, and a trusted name inside the Brides of Long Island community, one of the biggest vendor networks on the Island.

LisaMarie prices herself right in the middle, not the highest end and not the lowest, because she wants to be able to serve both the bride booking Oheka Castle and the bride getting married in her own backyard. Her advice to brides is to book your favorite vendors as soon as you book your venue, which is usually one to two years out. It locks your rates in and keeps you from scrambling at the last minute. And there's simple math behind it too: there are only four weekends in a month, which means only four chances for you and your favorite glam team to work together.

What makes LisaMarie's business run is the relationship, not just the appointment. When you first reach out, you're talking to an actual person, not a scheduling form, and she's the one who answers when nerves start creeping in before the big day. A lot of her clients find her through social media first and feel like they already know her by the time they sit in her chair, since she shows the full picture online, glam sessions and messy bun mom life both.

If you want to see her work or reach out to book, find LisaMarie Makeup at https://www.misslisamarie.com/ or on https://www.instagram.com/m1ssl1samar1e/?hl=en.

Twenty years in this industry and LisaMarie still treats every bride like her biggest day matters, because for that one day, it is. That's the whole reason people keep finding their way back to her chair.

🇺🇸 Trump Rallies for Blakeman in Nassau County

Nassau County had a very close up week with national politics. President Trump made a stop in Garden City on Friday, headlining an event at the Nassau County Police Academy's training center at the invitation of County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who is challenging Governor Kathy Hochul for the state's top office this fall.

Supporters started lining up before sunrise for a shot at seeing the president speak, while protesters gathered about a half mile away on the Nassau Community College campus. Blakeman used the moment to tout Nassau's crime numbers, and Trump pointed to new FBI data showing violent crime dropping nationally, though a fresh Siena poll still shows Hochul leading the governor's race by ten points.

If you live anywhere near Garden City, East Meadow, Uniondale, Hempstead, or Mineola, you already know the drill: road closures from 1 to 5pm turned the afternoon commute into a maze. Whatever your politics, it's a reminder that Nassau is squarely in the spotlight this election season, and this probably won't be the last high profile visit before November.

👉 Read more: ABC7 New York

🎉 Riverhead's Polish Town Fair Brings the Pierogi and Pride

Downtown Riverhead's Polish Town neighborhood turned into one big block party this weekend for the annual Polish Town Fair and Festival, a tradition that traces back to 1975. Neighbors and visitors packed the streets for two days of live music, dancing, and enough pierogi, kielbasa, and golabki to make anyone proud of their roots, Polish or not.

The festival has become one of the North Fork's late summer staples, drawing generations of families who grew up in the neighborhood back home for the weekend alongside newer Riverhead residents discovering the tradition for the first time. Local vendors, church groups, and Polish cultural organizations lined the streets with food and crafts.

It's one more sign of the momentum building in downtown Riverhead this year, between the fair's return and the town's larger downtown revitalization project breaking ground just blocks away. If you missed it, mark your calendar, because this one is worth planning around next August.

👉 Read more: RiverheadLOCAL

📉 Hempstead Reports Zero Shootings in First Half of 2026

Here's a number worth celebrating: the Village of Hempstead recorded zero shootings in the first six months of 2026, down from four during the same stretch last year. Mayor Waylyn Hobbs announced the milestone, crediting increased community policing and outreach efforts for the turnaround.

For a village that has worked hard to shed an old reputation, the drop is a meaningful data point, not just a talking point. Local officials pointed to partnerships between the Hempstead Police Department, neighborhood groups, and youth programs as part of the strategy behind the numbers.

It's worth noting alongside all the county level crime talk making headlines this month. Sometimes the most telling story about safety on Long Island isn't the one happening on a stage, it's the quiet stretch of months where nothing happens at all.

👉 Read more: Long Island Herald

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