I posted here a few times so I wanted to share my vendor reviews. Our wedding was Saturday, July 7th, 2012!
Ceremony/Reception Venue: Becker Farms/Vizcarra Vineyards. It was unbelievable! Everyone raved about the unique venue, and Amanda and Ashley were great to work with. I provided many decor items and the woman in charge of setting everything up was very thorough, and took her time going through all my instructions with me. She followed my directions to a T. We served Italian Pesto Alfredo and Beef Sirloin with garlic mashed potatoes - both were amazing. Highly recommend serving the homemade pies! They accommodate different budgets, but they only do weddings May-Sept.
Wedding Dress: M. A. Carr. Very pleasant consultants and nice selection. They accept walk-ins, but I would suggest always having an appointment if you need to try dresses on. I walked in to make a final selection and they took me, but I felt like I was in the way since I didn't have complete access to a mirror and I had to change in the special events dress area.
Tuxedos & Bridesmaid Dresses: Men's Warehouse & David's Bridal. Men's Warehouse can get a bad reputation, but they were awesome. Tony at the Walden Galleria location was helpful and remembered us every time we went in. Most groomsmen are out of town, and there was no confusion and nothing missing. We got 50% off a suit after the wedding too. David's Bridal was more of a hassle; my biggest complaint is that the consultant never pointed out that a few of the dresses we picked out were a different fabric than the rest. They weren't super helpful or sympathetic when I called in a panic to ask advice. Everything matched well in the end, and we ended up with 5 different styles that my girls were actually happy to wear.
Flowers: Flowers by Johnny. The owner Tim was fantastic to work with. I knew what I wanted but he helped me round it out for a more complete look. We had white hydrangeas, green hydrangeas, green micro hydrangeas, purple calla lilies, peacock calla lilies (white with purple on the inside), berries, and branches. If you have a vision and want something really unique and pretty, call Tim!
Photography: Ayres Photography. Loved working with Jenn and Ben! They are really creative and fun to be around, and really thorough with a pre-wedding questionnaire and follow-up phone call. We've only seen a sneak peek of our pics on Facebook, but judging by our engagement photos they are going to be fantastic. Must-have people to do photojournalism style pictures. We'd love to see them again for family portraits in the future!
DJ/Entertainment: Phenomenon Sound. Great DJ (DJ Joey
, but their back-office was a little disorganized. There was some type of minor miscommunication every time I called/emailed the office. DJ Joey was very thorough and allowed me to give him a complete list of songs with notes on when to play, and messages to relay to guests. He came through with some obscure songs we asked for as well. My favorite parts of the wedding were centered around the music, such as him performing the entire Cupid Shuffle with us and when he immediately switched to the Bills version of the Shout song when guests sang 'Let's Go Buffalo.'
Transportation: Buffalo Limousine, Advantage Limousine & Ridge Road Transportation. Buffalo Limousine transported wedding party to the venue and out for pictures before the ceremony. Second time I've used this company and they are really easy to book with, accommodating to changes, buses are always clean and roomy, and their drivers are so friendly. I booked Advantage Limo for a surprise 1960 Rolls Royce "getaway car" to take the bride and groom back to the hotel. What a way to end the night. The driver was nice and allowed our photographer time to set up some great pictures of us with it. We're still getting comments on it from guests. We booked Ridge Road Transportation to shuttle guests to and from the wedding. They were the most reasonable option to transport 60+ guests.
Hair/Makeup/Nail: Tresses Salon in Williamsville. They did a great job, and their pricing is typical of most updo/nail services. All hair and makeup was gorgeous and we had a fun morning eating breakfast and drinking champagne in the private room.
Wedding Cake: Dessert Deli. Their practice is to create a "fake" cake for outdoor weddings decorated how you want, then served from sheet cakes. We were told that we would be able to cut into a marked corner that would be made of real cake so that we could still do the traditional cake cutting. The wrong corner was marked, so we were not able to feed each other cake. We never ended up having a piece, but we heard the red velvet cake with cinnamon buttercream was out of this world. Maybe we'll order a small version on our anniversary! Price was great because the tiered cake was styrofoam, and the design was exactly what I wanted.
Favors: Lake Effect Ice Cream. We treated our guests to Lockport-based Lake Effect Ice Cream in lieu of favors. We bought enough to serve 200 guests for less than $1/pp, and Becker Farms set up a sundae station with hot fudge and whipped cream. We were told to pick 2 flavors, and if we wanted we could create our own flavor. I came up with a flavor, but was then told that I would have to purchase and prepare any ingredients they don't already have on hand. I wasn't willing to do this 3 weeks before the wedding, so we nixed that idea and just requested 2 of our favorite flavors. I thought it was very strange to ask the patron to make half of the ice cream herself. If they offer to do custom flavors but don't want to eat the cost of extra materials, they should charge extra for custom flavors. It would have been really cool to say they created a flavor just for us. They also did not offer to transport the ice cream to our venue, and the groom (in his tux) and his parents had to pick up all the ice cream and bring it to Becker Farms. On the bright side we got to pick up the leftovers from Becker Farms and we've been enjoying it ever since
