Planning an Ames Wedding, long distance

ebie614

HI all--

My FI and I live in Peoria, IL but are getting married in Ames on May 21 (we just got engaged a week and a half ago!).  We managed to book our church and reception hall with no problem, but I'm starting to stress out about finding all of our other vendors from a distance. 

Do any of you have suggestions for photographers, DJs, florists, hair salons, transportation, etc.?  This is my second marriage, but my first was in my hometown, so I was familiar with my options.  This is proving to be more difficult!

Any help would be appreciated!

Cate

ebagnall

Hey I'm an Ames Bride too and I've lived here my whole life, so hopefully I can help!  What kind of weding are you having?  What's your budget?  My personal favorite photographer in Ames is Dan McClanahan, but he's pretty pricey,  you can check out his work here: http://www.mcclanahanstudio.com/ I know a lot of photographers here, seeing as my dad is a photographer so if you let me know the look you're going for I can probably help you out a little better.

For flowers, we're goin with Mary Kay Flowers, it's a local flower shop that does beautiful work but isn't very expensive.  Otherwise there's Evert's which is awesome but the people who work there can be pretty rude and it's more expensive.

Let me know anything else you're looking for I'll try to help.  Plus there's lots of other Ames brides on here who are really awesome and helpful!

jesscmpls

FI's friend lives in the ames area and he is our dj, I can give you his name if you like. I'm planning my wedding out of state and having it near story city(10 mins away from ames) I've also contacted Cynthia Betts, she is a wedding planner and even though we have only exchanged e-mails she seems to be pretty awesome, two of my friends have used her and she does do great work!. Let me know if you want his name and number his prices seem to be pretty reasonable.

anastasiakral

I second Dan McClanhan.  We splurged a bit since photos are so important to us.