OK so we got married in July very bad of me not to write this sooner!
We got super lucky with our great vendors and I definitely want to spread the love, I hope this helps some lucky lovey-dovey couples out!
We had our ceremony and reception at the Burlington Country Club, only sour note here is that Kim Hein the current event coordinator was very flakey time wise preceding the wedding. We met on March 15th to discuss menu, seating charts, and get an idea of what the final costs were going to look like. We didn’t get the paper work for the questions we had asked until April 7th, we were definitely in panic mode by the time we finally got the stuff. The day of was great though, staff was fantastic, Kim was everywhere organized and timely, the grounds were gorgeous, the food was great with wonderful vegan and meatlover options, and the dancefloor is perfect. Overall I would recommend it, the cost was reasonable and the day of was great, just make sure you have your squeaky wheel impersonation down pat.
We used a bagpiper for our ceremony musician, a Mr. Terry Ranney of the Green Mountain Celts. My father’s Scottish family and everyone else raved about how wonderful he was, I certainly enjoyed the music. This was definitely my splurge extra special thing that I had to have and I’m very glad I did it.
For our Florist we had the charming Heather Listenik of the Village Green Florist. She was fantastic! Lots of enthusiasm and ideas, the flowers and bouquets were beautiful and everything I thought they would be and more. Nothing really gets you going like being handed your bridal bouquet on your wedding day.
Our photographer was Mr. Paul Lamontagne of Champlain Photo, he’s an excellent professional photographer, but a very down to earth guy. We’ve also decided he’s a ninja. I don’t ever recall seeing the guy before or after the formal pictures, but he managed to get the most amazing shots. He managed to get a group photo of all of our guests which I will treasure forever along with my other 2,000 pictures. He also got the pictures back to us about 3-4 weeks after our wedding, photo albums, DVD, and in a stick drive, and he was very reasonably priced. Plus we got the rights to our pictures, so we can share them with everyone.
Mr. Jeffrey Leete of Elite Entertainment in Colchester was our DJ, and he was amazing. Definitely set the tone for the evening, the dance floor was packed the whole night I saw people dancing that I thought for sure would never get near the floor. He has great sound equipment and was excellent at extrapolating our tastes in music from a list of songs we gave him. Very professional guy, obviously loves what he does.
The CAKE! We loved our cake. Actually it was cupcakes with a grooms cake, but all of it tasted fantastic. Everything a cake should taste like no dried cardboard stuff. We got the cake through the fabulous services of Snaffle Sweets which can be reached through snaffle.sweets.cakes@gmail.com . June was great to work with, very calm professional lady who obviously knows her stuff.
I got the girls and my hair and makeup done at Indigo, it seemed pricey to me but I’m glad I did it there, great staff, very experienced, and friendly. They do use plant based makeup though, when I went through the trial it caused my face to break out, yikes! And I’m not allergic to anything, well except to whatever they used. So be careful if you have sensitive skin and bring your own stuff. I recommend MAC on Church street.
Our first dance! It was a Salsa, everyone loved it my mom says she bawled through the whole thing. Our dance was great because we had an awesome instructor, a Mr. Angel Herrera. I would definitely encourage people to learn a dance, it’s so romantic and it makes you set aside time in your hectic schedule to get close to your soon to be spouse to practice. Angel is fun, down to earth, very patient, and obviously loves teaching salsa. He’s also very good at making other guys feel not quite so… uncomfortable about dancing. You can find his contact information by going to Zumba.com, go to the “Find an Instructor” tab and typein his name. Yes, he teaches an excellent Zumba class as well, yay Zumba!
Finally, but certainly not least, we had some custom bookmarks made for favors by a local graphic artist just out of college. We gave her a few basic ideas, and she came up with the cutest design that was totally us, she can be reached at Amber.braman@gmail.com.
One last piece of advice, have fun and don't sweat the small stuff!
