Hi Ladies,
I am finally settled down enough after my wedding on June 12th to sit down and do some quick vendor reviews for the several vendors I had for my wedding. Hopefully this can help some of you who are still in the midst of planning. Good luck to you all
Venue: Reflections at the Buttes
I looked around at several venues around town but after going to a friends wedding there last year I fell in love with the place. The price for the venue is about midrange for Tucson but is much cheaper than some of the resorts in town. The DJ, linens, ceremony, officiate, wedding coordinator, food and bar services are included. The only things I had to worry about finding were photographer, flower and cake vendors and purchasing the alcohol, which turned out well because you are able to customize the amounts of alcohol for your crowd. Debi, who is the wedding coordinator has this down to a science so everything you didn't think of, she'll think of for you. Everyone else at Reflections was also friendly and extremely helpful throughout the process.
Photographer: John Holman Photography
After going to several bridal shows and pricing out the price of photographers, I chose to go with John because of his fair pricing and good samples. Our package included an engagement shoot and unlimited coverage of the wedding. If you are looking for artsy pictures this is probably not the person to go with but if you like fun, natural and beautiful photos in several different settings, then John is perfect. We took save the date pics at Gates Pass, engagement pics at Trail Dust Town and some beautiful and fun pictures at our wedding.
Make-up & Hair: Khara Williams
I got the tip for Khara from another post on here and I'm definitely glad I did. She was great!!! She did a trial for 1/2 price of the wedding day which I used for my engagement pictures. On the wedding day she traveled to the site, we started at the Hilton El Conquistador and moved to the actual venue when they were ready for us to go over there. I naturally do my makeup very dark but wanted something a little more subtle for the wedding. She worked with me to find the perfect balance of my darker smokey eye style while toning it down with more neutral colors for the wedding.
Flowers: Xochimilco Flowers
Debi at Reflections recommended them because she's worked with them several times before and have some of the best prices in town. The guy brought all the flowers and bouquets and stuck around until everyone who needed a boutoniere or corsage was done. The only tip I have is to let them know EXACTLY what you want inlcluding flower colors, arragement of the flowers, etc. because the florist likes to get creative when given liberty to do so. I told her exactly what I wanted for my bouquet and it was perfect. The bridesmaids bouquets were very pretty the gerber daisies were a little more orange than I would've liked but at the end of the day they looked just fine.
Cake: Busy B's Bakery
After looking around at bridal fairs I really wanted Ambrosia to do my cake because their red velvet cake was to die for. There were two reasons that I didn't go with Ambrosia though: the price and the design. I had 205 people for the wedding and ambrosia quoted me an insane price for what ended up being a 3 tier all red velvet and cream cheese filling cake with an unusually large bottom tier. Busy B's had several flavors I liked and much more reasonable prices. My cake ended up being 4 layers alternating between red velvet and cream cheese and chocolate cake with raspberry filling. It was both delicious and beautiful, exactly what I wanted and ended up being over $300 less than the quote from ambrosia.
If you have any other questions on my vendors I'd be more than happy to answer them for you! Happy planning ladies!