venue (ceremony & reception)
Texas State Aquarium: OMG this place is beautiful and the staff is amazing!! We got married in the underwater dolphin bay room with the dolphins swimming behind us (so romantic and cool) and had our reception in the main lobby with food and bar within the exhibit chain. I cannot speak highly enough of the staff and especially Sam and Amy. Sam was our wedding coordinator and worked with me to answer questions and get all the small details worked out. Her expertise also helped out during the ceremony and setting up the venue. Amy was our day of coordinator with Sam and after Sam left for the night. She kept the night rolling smoothly, followed what we wanted, and assisted as needed. They also set everything up for us (the decorations that we brought/made) which was true blessing since we only have an hour and wouldn't have been able to do it.
10/10
Dress
David's Bridal (San Antonio- Ingram): ughhh. The first visit was lovely, even being an hour early. I wasn't expecting them to help us until our appointment time, but after we walked around and picked out dresses, a sales rep came over and helped us into a room and try things on until my appointed sales rep was available. Both ladies were nice and helpful. I don't like shopping and I ended up picking out my dress in about an hour. Unlike the first place I visited, these dresses fit my hips and my body perfectly. The manager at this location is =/ sometimes she was nice, other times she was downright rude and not customer friendly. The alternations lady was an hour late for my first fitting and I almost left, but then she came. She was pretty helpful and listened to our concerns.
6/10
Caterer
Jack's Dinner Bell: professional, responsive, great food.
10/10
Flowers
Blossom Shop: Beautiful flowers and Jennifer was a pleasure to work with. However, getting in touch with them and getting a response was not fun. I had crossed this place off my list due to lack of responsiveness and jennifer called me right as we were leaving corpus. I only went because I hadn't found a flower place yet. The prices are a little higher than everybody else, but they were perfect.
8/10
HEB Plus: I got my toss bouquet and flower petals here because they were a lot cheaper than going through my flower vendor. My mom went the day of the wedding to get them and the lady she talked to was super nice and informative and she even put the toss bouquet together for us and wrapped it in matching ribbon.
10/10
Cake
Janet's Cakery: the cake was beautiful was expected and tasted great. Rebecca was a pleasure to work with and called me the day before to remind me and ask about the cake topper since we weren't sure when we ordered the cake.
10/10
Hair & Make up
Endless styles: not many places had reviews in Corpus so I kinda just choose this place. I'm happy to say that I made a good choice. It's a small family owned business that opened just a few years ago. They listened to what I wanted and the lady made sure she understood what I wanted and helped me find a picture since I had forgotten to print mine out. They were also able to do my mom's also when she decided she wanted her hair and makeup done also.
9/10
Photography
Silver Eagle Photography: My father in law did our engagement and wedding photos. He did a great job and listened to what I wanted and also did the natural shots. He also did video interviews with some of the guests and key moments. Plus it was free so can't beat that
10/10
Decorations & paper
Me: I did a largely DIY wedding. I planned and organized and made pretty much everything (with some help from Sam and family and approval of ideas from my hubby). I debated becoming a wedding coordinator during this process (no joke, I'm still thinking about it). I received lots of wonderful comments during and after the wedding on how beautiful everything was and how I did such a great job. It was a wonderful feeling and all the stress was completely worth it.
10/10
Officiant
Friend: We asked one of my hubby's friends to be our officiant. I created the ceremony from various non religious ceremony writings I found online. He did a wonderful job and we couldn't have been happier.
DJ/emcee
Brother: my hubby's brother emceed for us during the reception. I provided a script/timeline a few hours before the wedding because I didn't want it to be too rehearsed and I know that he could ad lib it. He did a wonderful job.
10/10
Ipod: Music was played and organized on an ipod and I had music request link on our website. It worked out well. For the ceremony, I put all the songs on one playlist and set it to repeat song that way it wouldn't skip to the next song before we needed it. I also brought my laptop as backup just in case.