hey ladies, sorry it took me so long to write these. i really thought i had come up with a winning combination of vendors, but unfortunately i can say i was only completely satisfied with a few of them. i had a very beautiful wedding and didn't allow all the setbacks to spoil the day, but it does suck that these incidents occurred. it just goes to show that not everyone is going to have the same experience with the vendors that a lot of people on here praise:
Mary Coop - A: she was one of the few vendors i was actually really satisfied with. my hair wasn't curled like it was during the hair trial but it looked amazing regardless. i changed how i wanted my make up done the day of the wedding and she did it flawlessly. she is a wonderful person to work with and very professional. considering she comes to you the day of the wedding, her prices are very reasonable
Music Connection - B: our DJ was very nice and I don't think it was his fault that a lot of people didn't dance at all at our wedding - we just had a lot of party poopers. he cut the music off during our recessional so some of the bridal party walked back in silence - a little awkward. he didn't pay attention to the timeline at all so we had to keep going up there to remind him of everything. i was trying to enjoy myself and had to keep asking what time it was every two minutes. i don't mind things not being exactly on time but we cut the cake almost half an hour late. the time we were supposed to cut it was already pushing it and we didn't realize it was late until my photog said we needed to do it soon cuz she had to leave. the people that did actually dance, however, had a really great time
Caitlin's Creations - A so far: can't really give a complete review on the photog cuz we haven't got the pictures back, but I'm sure they will be beautiful. she is very professional and blends nicely into the background during the reception - I didn't even notice her and her assistants.
Eden's Echo: A for Erin, F for her assistant: the flowers were absolutely beautiful and Erin is a pleasure to work with. her assistant that delivered the flowers however, is for lack of a better word an idiot. she was very late delivering the flowers after i had already worked out with Erin that it needed to be 2:30pm cuz my cake person needed the extra roses to put on the cake and had other deliveries to make that day. so of course my cake person needed to leave and said that she trusted Erin to put the flowers on the cake. i never would have said she could leave if i had known Erin wasn't the one delivering the flowers. i told the lady how i wanted them put on the cake and she didn't listen to a word i said. i wanted them cascading down at an angle down the stairs made by how my cake was offset. she just shoved them all on the front to the point where you can't even tell the cake was offset. she even covered up half my cake topper that i worked really hard on. i was already running behind and didn't have time to sit there and babysit her so when i saw what she had done i was devastated. of course there is nothing you can do once the flowers are on, cuz if you take them out and move them there are holes where they were before. i told her she was blocking my cake topper, and she said she would put a smaller rose there, but it still blocked a portion of it. i was very disappointed with this lady. if she didn't know what she was doing she should have said so and one of my bridesmaids could have put the flowers on the cake better than she did.
Seventh Heaven - A: the cake would have been beautiful if michelle had done the flowers so i cannot hold it's end appearance against her, that wasn't her fault. the cake was delicious. 2 layers were supposed to be one flavor and 1 another flavor - all of my husband's family had both when we took the cake home and they said it all tasted the same. again, not holding that against michelle, cuz his family pretty much complained the whole time about EVERYTHING so i'm sure there were two different flavors and they were just trying to start trouble again.
canyon springs golf club - C: brenda is a joy to work with - so it really sucks that she isn't the one there the day of. guillermo is - we had a final meeting where we worked out all the odds and ends which ended up being a complete waste of our time. we get there the day of and we were missing things that we were supposed to have. at first it wasn't a big deal cuz we just told him and he corrected these things. we set out all the favors and realized they had put 10 chairs instead of 8 around each table, which explained why we ran out of favors. so then he had to take down two of the chairs from each table and all the favors rearranged. dealing with all of this - and the lady that messed up my cake - is why i was late getting ready for my wedding. during the reception i went up to the bar only a few times cuz he kept getting me my drinks - which i thought was nice until i realized his motives. the two times i went up to the bar, and the numerous times my hubby went, they had pulled a tip jar off and hid it so we wouldn't know about it. towards the end i looked over while i was dancing and saw it. all my bridesmaids said it had been up the whole time. they thought it was tacky and would have said something to me but thought i knew about it and didn't realize they hid it from us. it wouldn't have been a big deal if they had it up there for us to see the whole time - we could have told them to remove it. i don't mind them accepting tips - but the tip jar made everyone think the tip wasn't included and that they were helping us out by dropping large sums in - one guy even put in $60!!! we had an open bar so that our friends and family wouldn't have to spend any money on our special day. a 20% gratuity was included in what we paid these people - that's over $700 for tip alone and they pulled a stunt like this. my husband overheard how upset i was and confronted the guy. he said it is a normal thing to have and that we were overreacting. if it's normal, then why hide it every time? we talked to brenda about it, and of course the guy had lied to her. she said that the way it is supposed to be done is that no tip jar is up there and if people are leaving money on the bar then you ask the host if it's ok to put one up so the money isn't all over the bar. this is not what happened AT ALL. it was overall really tacky and embarrassing and i would not choose to do another event at this place.
bridal perfect fit - A+: i got my alterations at this place and this lady is AMAZING. she did my bustle in a way that no detail was lost on my dress. she is so sweet and wonderful to work with. i originally wasn't going to get my nails done, but two broke a few days before the wedding. she knows the nail people next door to her shop and knew they were doing a 20% discount. she walked me and two of my bridesmaids over there herself after hearing us talk about it. she goes out of her way to make sure the customer is completely satisfied. 100% recommend her!!
TLC invitations - B: i ordered my invites well in advanced and ended up having to call cuz they never let me know they came in. turns out they never put the order through. they put a rush on it and even put our address on the outer envelop for free. they were really nice about the whole thing, but it was definitely a stress i could have done without. the invites came out beautiful and we got a lot of compliments on them. if you do order with them, i would either do so in their actual shop or if online like i did i would call and make sure they put the order through
overall it was a great wedding, it is just unfortunate that all of these minor things had to happen. if i had a wedding coordinator i wouldn't have had to deal with any of these things and probably never even would have known about half of them. i would highly recommend that you at least do a day of coordinator. that way you can sit back and just really enjoy the day instead of worrying about everything getting done and having everyone ask you a million questions. my husband didn't have anything to worry about and he had a great time (minus the tip fiasco) so i definitely should have hired one.