I was just married in Charleston last week, and wanted to pass on some reviews of vendors that we used.
Wedding Planner - The Cordial Cricket (Elizabeth)
We weren't originally planning to use a wedding planner, but as some friends that have some event experience to help us out. We were lucky enough to have a chance encounter with Elizabeth, and let me say OMG! I cannot now imagine her not being a part off our day. She. Was fantastic, and I was able to relax completely. If anything went wrong, I was completely unaware of it! I know that planners seem like an excessive expense, but even if you just do day of coordination - 100% worth it!
Florist - Keepsake Florist (Karen)
We planned our wedding from afar, and met with Karen once when we were there in April (wedding in July). In total honesty, of the florist we met with she wasn't on the top of my list. Chance had it, and we ended up selecting Karen to do our flowers. Holy cow! She exceeded our expectations, and worked within our budget. Achieving both was incredible. (Also, 5 days later and a drive back home we have flowers from the wedding in the house.)
Cake - Declare Cakes (Chef Deb)
Again, we were lucky enough to meet with Chef Deb when we were in Charleston in April. The tasting was amazing, and we had a hard time choosing which flavor s and combinations we wanted. We finally narrowed it down to hummingbird cake and almond cake with raspberry filling. We ended up with 1 layer of hummingbird cake that wasn't eaten. The raspberry and almond... CRUSHED!!! We stayed at a house with our friends, and we took the leftovers back with us. They were gone in a matter of an hour. No one could get enough of it.
I wanted to pass these great vendors along, as I remember exactly how hard it was to weed through all the vendors out there.