Hi everybody! After a long break I'm back here - married and with my vendor reviews that some of you might find helpful. So, here they go:
1) Dress: David's Bridal -
A. This was the first place I went to look for a dress and after checking out two local boutiques I went back to DB. I have heard bad reviews regarding their customer service but I had a good experience there. In the very beginning one girl was taking care of me and she did make me feel uncomfortable by constantly telling me about buying a dress asap and trying to sell all the accessories that could go with it, but during my next visits I had some other people helping me and they were very nice and gave good advice. I went shopping by myself and it was important for me to be able to take pictures of dresses so I could send them to my family and some friends to get their opinions. I noticed that boutiques usually don't allow taking pictures but in DB they don't just allow that, the associates helped me by taking my pictures. After about 3 days of trying dresses on I decided on the one and was more than happy about it. The dress received many compliments: people kept telling me that the dress looked like it was custom made and that they wouldn't have thought it was from DB. Also, DB's alterations department did a really good job. My dress had to be taken in in the waist and they charged me $70 for that. I don't know how much it would have cost somewhere else but I decided to let them take care of their own dress. They also spot cleaned it (mine was a floor model) and steamed it and my dress had no wrinkles even after being kept hanging in a dress bag and transported in the car from North to South Florida!
$350 + tax and alterations.
2) Venue:
Grand Salon Ballroom (Ciudamar) -
B. The place itself is really beautiful and is located in Killians Palms Country Club, so it's not on a busy plaza and has plenty of its own parking. The staff was halpful and the vendors included in our package were great. We didn't use their DJ, though. As for the price, it seemed fairly reasonable, however, some things were definitely overpriced (for example, appetizers - they were nothing like what I had imagined from the description and the price we had to pay for them). We didn'l like the food much and there was not much of it on the plates (we had a sit down dinner). We had some no-shows and because of that those men who wanted more food didn't stay hungry. Also, we asked for roasted potatoes but were served mashed potatoes (tasted like they were from the box). Appetizers looked so much like frozen ones from Costco... Overall, we liked the place but not the food. Around
$45-50 per person if include the upgrades that we made.
3) Centerpieces: Glamour Floral Creations -
A+. This florist was in our package. We had the simplest package and the flowers that went with it were really limited. It disappointed me at first but I couldn't really upgrade the package too much because of our strictly set budget. Since I had to figure out how to make that all work for us, I played around with the possible choices and came up with a very simple style that I hoped would work well. On the wedding day I was amazed by how beautiful the flowers came out and we received many compliments on them
By the way, my bridal and made of honor bouquets as well as the groom's bouttoniere were made by my made of honor who used to work in a flower boutique! This was her first time doing stuff for a wedding and she exceeded all the expectations! I hope she decides to open her own company one day!
4) Cake:
Divine Delicacies -
A+. This was another vendor included in our package. We were limited to a buttercream cake and would have had to pay extra for a fondant one. Fortunately, buttercream cakes can be very beautiful too and they look "soft". DD were so easy to work with! They don't ask for placing an order a long time before the event. My order was placed about 6 days before the wedding and even though it wasn't a simple cake, they were absolutely cool with that. I came up with a cake that combined the features of 3 different cakes that I found in their gallery and it came out amazing! They surprized me by putting sugar flowers on the top even though I asked for cream flowers (sugar flowers were another extra I didn't want to bother about but they looked absolutely stunning on the cake, I have to admit). Yes, and it tasted very good too!
5) Photographer:
Dana Lynn Photography -
A. We chose Dana because she had beautiful pictures and affordable prices on her website. I didn't even think much about booking her and did it through emails without even meeting or talking on the phone and I don't regret this choice. Dana took very good pictures at the wedding and sent us the CDs very quickly. We didn't order any prints from her, just the CDs, thinking that we can always print whatever we want later. The CDs themselves look cool - I didn't expect them to have pictures on top and they do
Our pictures came out very nice. Even those that have not been edited look very good with all the details like lace on the dress or cake design showing up. My only regret is that we didn't take any pictures before the ceremony and then had no time to get away and have enough "couple pictures" taken but that was because of the terrible traffic. We kept getting stuck everywhere that day! Dana Lynn, however, was on time everywhere, ready to take pictures and I just wish we didn't waste the time designed for our first look photo session in traffic.
$550 for 6 hours and 300 pictures on a CD.
6) DJ: All Request Music Man -
A. A DJ was the most difficult of all the choices I had to make while preparing the wedding. I had reard so many reviews and saw so many people regretting their choice that it seemed nearly impossible to find a DJ, especially because I was trying to find a not very expensive deal. I remember talking on the phone with numerous DJs and every time they would make the same mistake that I just couldn't stand - start criticizing the other DJs! Finally, when it was almost too late to find anyone decent, I found Eric from All Request and the conversation on the phone with him encouraged me to hire him. He was very professional and very accessible. I emailed and called him with many questions and he helped me a lot with choosing music and organizing everything. His website has convenient planning tools and a big music library. At the reception Eric took care of all the timing and made sure we did everything we were supposed to do. He was our MC too and announced everything. Unfortunately, we couldn't enjoy much dancing because of us being almost an hour late to the reception
. Oh, yes, the service was
$395 for 4 hours which is not bad at all.
My hair was done by my husband's aunt and I did my own makeup
Despite the hectic preparations and the time issue on the day of, I miss my wedding day! It went by so unbelievably quickly!!!