Texas-Dallas and Ft. Worth

Vendor Reviews

Finally posting vendor reviews from our June 1 wedding! Hope this is helpful to my fellow Knotties :)

Florist/Linens: NTF Design (Becky Evans)- A
Becky was wonderful from start to finish. She was very sweet and flexible. I was on a budget, and she was able with different options to help it be affordable. She was very helpful with lots, and lots of pictures of her work to help give me ideas on what I would like. She is very experienced and knows what will look good and how best to execute that. Day of the wedding, I first caught a glimpse of the bridesmaids bouquets and thought they looked beautiful. Then I got my bouquet. It was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. It was perfect, and I loved that she included soft white feathers in it as well as flowers that would smell good too. Becky was amazing to work with, and we are very glad we went with her for our wedding. Everything looked gorgeous, from the centerpieces, flowers on the cake, to tablecloths and chargers.

Cake: Cakes by Design (Tabitha Ballard)- A
I got an idea from Pinterest, and Tabitha was able to re-create it no problem. The cake was beautiful, and the prices were great. We did alternating layers. Some layers were champage cake with strawberry filling, other layers were lemon cake with raspberry filling. On a side note, anyone looking to do a vegan cake for their wedding, you should check out Spiral Diner. The girls got a corset cake from there (we did chocolate on chocolate with a very edible fondant), and it was the best cake I've ever eaten. Took leftovers to work, and people were LOVING it. It was perfectly moist and delicious, AND actually cheaper than any other cake bakers I found. Even though it was vegan, it didn't taste weird or different, it tasted like any other cake but better.

Rehearsal Dinner: Spiral Diner in FW- A+++
We LOVED the food! And it was very affordable. We had spaghetti & meatballs and lasagna. Came with asparagus and salad. Only $10-11 a person, and they let us use their nice catering containers (not just the disposable stuff). The owner herself even came to deliver it to us (from downtown FW to Keller) and get everything set up. She was very easy to work with and so sweet! So glad we used them. Also, my girls got my cake for the bachelorette party from the Spiral in Dallas. It looked so cute! Looked like a pink corset, and was the most delicious cake I've ever had. It was chocolate on chocolate, and even the fondant was good! Every bit of that cake got eaten. Shared it with the people at work, and they loved it too! So moist. And my DH was eating the leftovers like 3 times a day the week before the wedding too lol.


 Dress Alterations: Becky Fowler- A+
As everyone on here says, Becky really is amazing. She is so sweet and goes above and beyond to make your dress be its best for you. I drove to her (Irving) all the way from Denton. Well-worth the drive! She is affordable too.

Venue: Fort Worth Botanic Garden (Fuller Garden for ceremony, Oak Hall for reception)- A-
We loved the venue. They were affordable and beautiful, and I like how much flexibility we had with bringing in our own alcohol, bartender, having whatever caterer we wanted, etc. The only problem I experienced was that they could be difficult to get ahold of sometimes. I was also a little frustrated sometimes with talking to so many different people there. During our time with them, I believe they had 2 ppl leave and 2 new ppl come in. So I talked with 4-5 ppl there, and sometimes the newer people would tell you the wrong thing. Leslie has been there the longest and is the biggest help if you need something. Also, I was told when we put down the money for the ceremony/reception space in August that I wouldn't have to worry about paying for the bridal suite until like 2-3 wks before the wedding (June 1) when I pay for the chair rentals. I called 2 months or so before the wedding to check on things, and the bridal suite had already been reserved! I was not happy about that. I would have put the money down much sooner if I knew that was going to happen. Me and the girls just ended up getting ready at my house.

Catering for reception: Abuelo's- A
Everyone loved the food! Very delicious. Just a little disappointed that I was told that the plastic plates/cups/silverware would be packed up for us to keep, since it comes with the price, and we were providing our own. We didn't end up getting this stuff taken home with us. Maybe I should have mentioned this to the DOC as a heads up so she could make sure they followed through. And when we met for the tasting a cpl months before the wedding, the lady was maybe half an hour or so late. We had changed the date with her, and she forgot to update it on her calendar. But she was still very nice. Also, the prices were the most affordable I could find, and I was very glad they had so many different options. We did enchiladas, but we're vegetarian. Lots of places would only have cheese and maybe a spinach option, but Abuelo's had a good variety to choose from. Very tasty!

Transportation: Vintage Limos (Jamie Alexander)- A++
We got a 1934 Packard for our getaway car. Loved it! The guests really got a kick out of it too, and it definitely made DH happy. The driver was very nice too.

Coordinator/DJ: C&C DJ Entertainment- A+
Carrie Ebbeson is the Coordinator (we just had her for the rehearsal and Day-Of), and her husband, Chris is the DJ. They are a very sweet couple, and they did a great job with the wedding.
DJ- B+
He did a good job (although there were 1 or 2 cheesy songs in the mix, and a cpl songs I requested in advance were not the rt version I asked for, they were by a different artist, and we'd also requested some songs from our fav band, Motion City Soundtrack as "must plays" but they didn't play them at all... Not sure if they just couldn't find it to download or what, but if they'd told us that, we could've supplied them with their CDs or something). Everyone had a lot of fun, and there were lots of good dancy songs, and there was always a lot of ppl on the dance floor.
Coordinator- A++
Carrie was always easy to get ahold of, and she was so sweet and understanding. Through the wedding process, there had been issues with MIL and MOH (drama, etc), so I told the DOC to keep an eye out for them and help diffuse situations if need be. Of course, she came in handy for this. 15 minutes before I'm supposed to walk down the isle, MIL comes up to me and causes a scene, screaming at me, then at MOH (bc MOH stood up for me and told her to just calm down, so then MIL yelled at MOH)... then MIL storms off, (the coordinator walked in in the middle of the scene MIL was causing), Carrie was "hot on her heels" (as I heard it described) chasing down MIL as she storms off to yell at DH. Carrie caught up to MIL just as she reached DH. Carrie tried to diffuse the situation, telling MIL, "Before you say anything, just remember, this is the last thing you're going to say to him before he gets married." Then, MIL yells at the DOC, telling her she doesn't need to be told what to do, and that, she was just going to tell DH that she loves him and is proud of him... Rrrrriiiight... Anyway, just glad DOC was so on top of helping with these problem ppl. Also, we were so unprepared for the wedding. DH told me nt before that he grabbed everything we needed to bring to the wedding (it was all together in boxes), then it turns out he didn't grab everything. Nothing we could do at this point. Some of the nicer "cut crystal" cups and plates were forgotten at home, the special streamers I bought on Etsy for the exit were forgotten at home, the special peacock toasting flutes from Etsy... also forgotten at home. And I managed to accidentally drop my nice peacock garter set from Etsy before I left the house... My mom was supposed to bring the bar cart for the bartender to set up on. She couldn't figure out what that was, so didn't bother to call and ask or bring it, so DOC helped figure this out & got another table for the bartender to use. Florist didn't bring the little table we were supposed to use for the wine box unity ceremony, DOC figured out something else here too... Anyway, she was very sweet and helped when things were going wrong. And her & her husband were pretty affordable too.

Tuxedos: Men's Wearhouse- A
They were able to help match prices we were quoted at Al's Formal Wear. Everything here was very easy and uncomplicated. DH LOVED his Vera Wang tux & the way it fit.

Wedding dress & Bridesmaids dresses: David's Bridal- B
The wedding dress I picked out here was an Oleg Cassini, and was a $1050 dress I believe. Then there's the slip & veil too. Anyway, wrote down the item #s and found them online on WeddingBee classified for much cheaper. Everything new, ended up saving $500. The BM dresses came in much quicker than they quoted. They were cute and comfortable, the girls loved them & they were only $99. Only problem was the material (cotton sateen I believe) gets pretty wrinkled. Did TOMS for their shoes (purchased online) (and my shoes for reception), and they were great. Loved that we got to include that in the wedding and have a "good cause." While everyone was sweet there in store, I did have a big problem with DB. They called me about their credit card, and I told them they could tell me about it, but I would want to know what the rate is before I sign up, so she started entering my info to give me an idea, and before I could get the interest rate, she said she had to enter my info again... She just went ahead and opened a credit card for me THEN told me the interest rate. Was not happy about this, because then I had to call a different number to immediately close the card, and that shows on my credit history, which was disappointing, because we were getting a house only a few months later.

Re: Vendor Reviews

  • How much was your budget and how many guests did you have?
  • Glad everything went well and thank you for the Vegan cake vendor rec--that has been asked here before and I will definitely save it for future reference.

  • Thanks! Glad everything went well!
  • Our budget was $10,000, but we ended up spending more like $10,700 if I remember correct after tips, & everything. We had planned on 150 guests, then ended up having more like 115 say they'll be there (this # is how much food we ordered for). Cake, tables, table cloths, center pieces, etc was based on the 150 amount (so ended up overspending there, but it was too late to change things with the vendor by the time we got all the rsvps in). Then we only ended up having about 75 guests actually show up I believe. So we over-spent on everything guest-number related as it turns out. I knew there would be ppl that would say they'll come then not show, but I didn't think it would be that big of a difference. Oh well. What can ya do.
  • LynnJaredLynnJared member
    First Anniversary First Comment
    edited July 2013

    I thought to include this, but it was a friend and not sure he does wedding photography / video very often. It was Joseph Anzaldua (link). He was very affordable!

    Who was your photographer?

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