I planned our wedding while working full-time. Brides’ online reviews
of vendors were very useful. I was so happy and impressed with our own vendors
that I had to share!
Musee Conti Wax Museum – ceremony & reception venue – A+
The upstairs Legend Room is a beautiful, open space that comfortably
fit our 150 wedding guests. The Wax is a historic building located in the
French Quarter with exposed rafters, hardwood floors, brick and plaster walls,
skylight…this is the only venue we visited in person and we instantly fell in
love. The New Orleans history wax museum is located downstairs and can be
opened to guests. It’s very unique and creepy to say the least. We decided to
open it to guests following the ceremony since we had an October wedding –
let’s set the tone for Halloween! I worked with Beth and Alex while planning,
and their help was invaluable. Beth was an excellent source of advice and
recommended a good portion of my vendors to me. Alex and his team executed the
rehearsal and wedding flawlessly. This is a good, laid-back group of
professionals who want their couples to have the time of their lives. We mainly
communicated via email leading up to the wedding and I made, maybe, 3-4 visits
in advance. The ceremony and reception fee is reasonable, especially
considering the location. The bar package is booked through the Wax. Their
proposal includes a selection of caterers, but you are welcome to choose your
own. We did our research and actually ended up booking one of the Wax’s partner
caterers, Benedict’s Plantation. A freight elevator is used to load decorations
and equipment to the upstairs space, and it is available for handicap guests
(while operated by Wax staff) to access the Legend Room. We had a few DIY
decoration pieces which we were able to drop off a couple days in advance for
the staff to store and set up on the wedding day. The team is very
accommodating. Beth and Alex are the main contacts for arriving vendors and
they will make sure everyone has the access they need for day-of set up. We
were on the dance floor most of the night and our attendant, Amber, would check
in to make sure the groom and I had everything we needed. The Wax is a gem and
I highly recommend for weddings and corporate events.
Plum St Snoballs – B-
After we choose our venue and set the date, I immediately booked Plum
St Snoballs. I’ve grown up going to Plum St every summer and wanted to share
this treat with our guests. The event fee covers the first 100 snoballs and is very reasonable. They even agreed to pack three extra flavors so the
‘bride’s favorite’ and ‘groom’s favorite’ snowballs could be included on an
extra menu that I designed. The reason why I’ve given them a lower grade is
because I had a few issues while working with the event coordinator. Long story
short, I had a month and a half email correspondence with their event
coordinator which I felt should have been completed well within a week. Her
responses were blunt and borderline rude and the experience caused me
unnecessary stress. She was not accommodating to my (I thought) reasonable
requests. At one point when she took over two weeks to respond, she would not
return my or the groom’s follow up phone calls. I was so frustrated, that I
decided to visit their Uptown location in person to have someone from their
staff answer my questions. The lady I spoke to at Plum St was very sweet and
put me at ease. I learned that for wedding events, the staff dress in their
Plum St Snoballs polo shirts and wear black slacks. They provide their own serving
table with black linen and only require space for the table and an outlet for
the ice machine. As far as I know, the snowballs were served in the lobby
without a hitch and the guests enjoyed after our ceremony during ‘cocktail
hour.’ I will be a Plum St patron 4life, but I’m hesitant to recommend them for
an event based on my own experience with the event coordinator.
Luminous Events – candle and ceremony décor – A+
We wanted a romantic feel at our wedding and I had seen some photos of
candles hanging from the Wax Legend Room rafters. It didn’t take long for me to
learn that Luminous Events was responsible for the beautiful candle décor. I
booked them well in advance as they’re very popular. A couple months out, I met
with Lisa at the Wax to discuss details. I shared my budget and she reviewed
all the decoration options with me and made sure we kept within that number. We
got to cover the ceiling with beautiful hanging candles and had a few larger
candle decorative pieces for the ceremony aisle and in the staircase. They also
took care of tea light candle details in the lobby window and on the cake
tables. I had a special request to suspend a wrought iron piece with a white
drape behind it as an altar marker for the ceremony. I weighed the iron piece and
shared a few inspiration photos for the drape, and Lisa said yes, they could
absolutely handle that for me. It was beautiful. Everything was set up by the
time we arrived. I was very pleased with twinkling lights throughout the entire
space.
Courtyard Kings – ceremony music and traditional dances – A
This was one of my favorite vendors to work with. This is a gypsy jazz
group. We booked the trio with violin, bass and guitar. I worked with Michael
via email to choose our ceremony music and coordinate the traditional dances.
For a small additional fee, the group learned Starlight by Muse to play for our
first dance. Michael gave very helpful advice and even provided their own
recordings of Starlight and Georgia On My Mind for us to practice our dances to.
The ceremony music was beautiful and the dances were a hit!
Janis Hornsby – dance lessons – A
I’ve always wanted to take dance lessons with my now-hubby, so I
figured now was a good time to get started so we could look good for our first
dance. Over the course of about two and an half months, we scheduled three
private dance lessons with Janis. We probably would have been fine with one or
two lessons, but we had so much fun that we kept scheduling more! She
choreographed a lovely routine for us to an instrumental rendition of Starlight
by Muse. I somehow convinced my Dad to join me for a lesson, where she gave us
a simple routine to Georgia On My Mind. Janis helped us determine when was a
good time to wrap up the dances so I could communicate with Courtyard Kings
when to cut short the song (better than awkwardly dancing around with everyone
watching you for 3+ minutes!) If you’re nervous about your dances, I highly
recommend a lesson with Janis.
Crescent City DJ – reception music – B+
Harold was recommended to me by Beth at the Wax. I reached out to a
couple DJs, and Harold took the cake in terms of rate and his planning website.
Once the contract was in place, I had access to his site to assign specific
songs to wedding events and build a request list. He has a large music library
but, if there wasn’t a specific song I couldn’t find, then I was able to add to
separate list for Harold to collect up to 10 additional songs. We only
scheduled the DJ reception music to play for two hours, but he still showed up in
advance of the ceremony so he could be set up and introduce Mr. and Mrs. for
the first dance. There were maybe a couple song requests he didn’t play but I
wasn’t too upset about that considering the number of songs I requested and the
limited time he had to play. The songs that were most important to me and my
parents were played so we were satisfied. I felt that Harold read the crowd very well. The dance floor was packed all
night. The reason why I haven’t assigned a higher grade was because he didn’t initially
keep to our wedding timeline which worried me. Right after Courtyard Kings
completed their music, Harold jumped in and started playing the bridal party
song an hour in advance. About half the bridal party didn’t make it to the
dance floor because they weren’t expecting it at that time. That wasn’t a major
deal to me, it was just my first impression and I was scared that he wasn’t
going to keep to the timeline for the rest of the night. One of my cousins went
up and fussed at him, and he kept to schedule from that point on haha. Also, I
requested that he not use his laser light machine (which he provides
complimentary) because I didn’t want lime green pin lights on our faces for
pictures. But sure enough he turned it on anyway. I didn’t say anything though
since he turned it on later in the night and I felt enough dance floor photos
were (hopefully) taken by then. And finally, I had a short list of MC
announcements that I felt he called out at too low a volume. I asked that he
remind guests to visit the photo booth to take a pic and fill out our guest
book. He only announced that one time and I’m not sure anyone heard. Those are
my nit-picky issues. He’s otherwise familiar with the Wax and, again, read the
crowd very well and kept everyone entertained.
Debbie Does Doberge – wedding and grooms cakes – A
My parents had doberge cakes at their wedding, so it was a given that I
would have doberge at mine. We first met with Gambino’s Bakery and they offered
a reasonable rate for their standard chocolate, caramel and lemon doberge
cakes. Gambino’s does not tier doberge cakes, so we were prepared to display
individual cakes as my parents had done for theirs. Before committing to
Gambino’s, I wanted to meet with Debbie Does Doberge as I had learned about
their wide array of doberge flavors via online reviews. We tasted a slew of
flavors including chocolate, chocolate raspberry, pistachio, smores and root
beer float. As soon as we found out that Debbie DOES tier doberge cakes, we
booked them. We ordered a three tier wedding cake and three individual 10”
grooms cakes. The team was accommodating with my design requests for each cake
and they came out beautifully. The cost was hefty (double the cost as
Gambino’s!) but we got such a kick out of the flavors and tiering that we
splurged. The cakes were delicious but I was disappointed to see so much cake
leftover. I’m not sure if we overestimated the amount of cake we needed or if
guests were too busy dancing to grab a slice or two. Fortunately the leftover
cake was packed up for us so we have that to freeze and enjoy for a while.