Trump Hotel:
A-
I chose to stay at the Trump hotel for various reasons. Principally because the previous times I was in
Vegas, I always left my hotel smelling like an ash tray and I didn’t want that
for my wedding day. I am not a crazy
gambler, so having a casino in the hotel wasn’t a biggie for me. It’s something that Grandma appreciated
too. We got an awesome price via hotwire
($100/night). My mother-in-law called
ahead and asked them to put everyone on the same floor except for my husband
and I.
The Trump was really great, hospital. Nice, open rooms with small kitchens. The only weird thing is that some of the
rooms came fully stocked with glasses and dishes, while others did not. My only point of contention with them is that
a few times I called down for something and it took a while before they let me
know they couldn’t accommodate my request.
For example, I called down for tea bags and they brought me coffee bags
twice before they told me they didn’t have any tea. I could’ve gone to Walgreens in that
time. They sent my husband and I
chocolate covered strawberries after seeing us walk through the lobby in our
wedding gear (apparently they asked my sister-in-law for our room number to
send us champagne and she told them we had enough). The housekeeping staff was absolutely great and
their pool and fitness facilities were awesome as well.
I got married in the grand canyon (civil) and also had a small
religious ceremony at St. Jude’s RC Church.
The grand canyon wedding was facilitated by Maverick Helicopters and the
religious ceremony by Weddings Las Vegas.
Maverick Helicopters: A+
I called over 13 companies in researching Grand Canyon
nuptials. Many companies outsource all
of it. Maverick was one of the few that does it all (though they obviously
outsource flowers, etc.). Maverick was
by far the most expensive of all the companies but you get what you pay for.
Leanne was wonderful from our first conversation. Everything with them was flawless and on
time. Things I loved about my experience
is that they gave me three pictures to take home that day. Two were in their own display folder and I
gifted one to my mom and one to my mother-in-law. The other was in an official plaque made of
solid wood. How many of us wish we had
one pro pic to take home with us on our wedding day? Maverick did it. The picnic we had on the Canyon edge was
simple but filling. I really enjoyed
every moment of my experience and would use them again in a heartbeat. Very professional staff in every detail. Came in a little under $5K
The Palette: A
I loved my flowers. I LOVED
my flowers. I also loved Pam. I e-mailed several vendors and there were
only two that were in my price range that were willing to work with my vision
and their expertise. As in, not just give me a cookie-cut out of a picture I sent. Most florists didn’t
put any of their input, just a price tag. If I were to
show you my dream pic and what I actually got, they are different, but I
had showed Pam my dress, she knew my ceremony site and I think she used the 20+
e-mails we exchanged to guide her to what I consider was ultimately the perfect
bouquet. My mom brought my bouquet back
to NY to place at my brother’s grave, so I only know that it lasted through the night, but my hubby’s boutonniere is still alive
(though drying) 10 days later! She also
transported my cake stand to the reception venue and was very sweet; delivered
flowers in person. She also did my
reception flowers and added in a few extras.
It was truly beautiful. She made 1 bouquet that included roses, succulents, calla lillies, seeded eucalyptus, hydrangeas, and dusty miller; 1 succulent and rose boutonniere, 2 tall eiffel towers and 3 shorts centerpieces. The extras were hanging crystals, immersed rose petal vases and loose rose petals. I paid $471.59 for her services.
Stratosphere: D
A couple weeks after booking, I already knew I had made the wrong
choice. I wanted to give my guests a
great view and the Stratosphere was the only non-booked venue that could
achieve that. I had a tiny reception. I was told at booking that the minimum for a
strip view room was 9 people. (Their
marketing materials also state this). After I signed the contract they told me
12 people and I would have to pay for 12 no matter what or else they would put
me into just a large dining room.
I had planned on doing the dinner and wine pairing package but
when they told me about paying for 12 (at the time my guest count was 8)
regardless of who came and that even though 3 of my 8 guests don’t drink and I
would be charged for them anyway, I went with food only menu. Their wine prices are over the top. They told me that I could bring in my own
wine for a $35/bottle corkage fee. Their
markup is so high that I could have brought my own bottles of Dom Perignon and
still saved over $100 with their corkage fee included. I didn’t do this because it was just too much
trouble, but just saying.
I read bad reviews about their cakes, so I knew I would be going
with another cake vendor. I told them
this from the beginning. After contract
was signed I was told that they would be charging a cake cutting fee because
they had a union staff and their staff couldn’t cut another vendor’s cake
without being paid extra. This sounded
like malarkey to me and I investigated with the union and was right … this was
just some arbitrary charge on their part as a penalty for not using their
vendor. I tried to work with them and since
I was opting to forego the fourth course (dessert) asked them if they would
match my vendor’s cake fee or credit me for not getting dessert and they
refused. At the end of the day I had to
threaten legal action before getting them to eliminate the cake cutting fee,
but they were unwilling to credit me for eliminating dessert, so my guests had
a lot of dessert that night.
The menu I chose was 4 choices with the main having a choice of
filet, chicken or salmon. My mother in
law, sister in law and 2 cousins on either side are vegetarians, so they agreed
to have a vegetarian option for them.
On the day of, they put my cake on a stand different from the one
I had sent to the room. I was told it
was because they didn’t trust that my stand could bear the weight of my
cake. This was fine, but they still set
up my cake stand and left it next to my cake.
I put my bouquet on it because it looked odd sitting there and to
dismantle it and leave it on the side would have been even weirder. My cake stand had little crystals inside the
stand and there was extra. The waiter
had the idea to spread these on the table.
I told him he could. He through
them on the table quite haphazardly and some of them ended in the butter of my
guests. Luckily my hubs saw this and we
were able to warn people to not eat the butter.
I can’t even imagine if someone choked on one or something.
I had arranged for an ipod dock for the night. We made our playlist using spotify. There were serious reception problems there
and my music kept on cutting out. I saw
there was a stratosphere wifi network with a full 4 bars but the waiter didn’t
know the password. I asked him for a
manager. He sent waiter #2 over to
me. I asked him for the password. He told me he didn’t have it. I asked for a manager. He came back 5 minutes later and said the
password used to be vendor11. It didn’t
work and a manager never came. The
stratosphere had their own ipod and he said he would use their music. I said this was fine (better than
silence). After 10 mins I asked where
the ipod was because we were sitting in silence and he told me that their ipod
needed to charge a bit. I was a bit
#@$%! Because if this was their backup ipod, shouldn’t it be charged and ready
to go in a need of an emergency?
The vegetarian option wasn’t on the printed menu and I asked the
waiter to please mention it because I had several vegetarians in attendance in
particular my mother in law. He said he
would. When he made the announcements
for the night he didn’t mention the vegetarian option and my mother in law
said, “I guess I will fill up on cake.”
I told her they had something special for her (them), but I’m upset she
was upset for those few minutes.
The waiter thought he was comedian and made several bad jokes when
he was doing his announcing thing. No
one laughed at his jokes and he said, “geez my sister is from NY and she isn’t
this uptight.” I had to compose myself
after that comment. Thanks for insulting
me and my guests, Joe.
In addition to that, later on in the night when he was sorting my
cake tiers, he mentioned to a couple of my guests “can you believe this flimsy
cake stand?” I thought this was unprofessional and it made my guests
uncomfortable. We also had a cake large
enough to feed 40 but out total count including us was 13. He only cut half the bottom tier, yet only
the top two tiers were in my to go cake boxes.
Don’t know what happened to the rest of it, but I certainly hope at
least the staff enjoyed it as it was a over $500 cake.
The food was good except for the ceasar’s salad. I didn’t know that a caesar’s salad could be
that bad, but it was. My mom said the
market salad (other option) was great.
All of my guests got a free pass to the observation deck and for
unlimited rides. This was done by
wristbands. The waiter didn’t put one on
me or my husband bc he knew we’d be photographed a lot, but he put them on
everyone else. My pictures have all my
guests with fluorescent bands. I would
suggest just handing it to them. It
looked quite tacky. The view up there
was great and my husband and sister-in-law (only brave ones) enjoyed the rides.