I know this board is really dead these days, but I hope future brides will find these reviews helpful!
Our wedding day was amazing and it was great to see all the
plans come together. Of course, we had
some small issues, but mostly our vendors were great. Here are my vendor reviews. J
DJ – Melodies and
Memories: A+
Melody is just an all-around great person and great DJ. She made sure everything ran smoothly at our
reception. She even bustled my gown
before our grand entrance! Our venue’s
coordinator or staff was supposed to bring us a plate of food from the buffet
and didn’t, so Melody did. My husband (love
to say that!) had recently lost his mom, and so had Melody. They bonded over that, and on our wedding day
she wore some items that reminded her of her mom since she knew my husband
would be thinking of his mom. Melody
stuck around until the end of the party, even after the venue started cleaning up early. I
don’t know why anyone would hire anyone other than Melodies and Memories. J
Flowers – Difiori: A+
Katie is great. She
understood my vision, sent us multiple proposals and made all my little and big
changes, and always had a positive, responsive attitude. I thought the prices were very reasonable,
and the flowers on our wedding day were stunning. I had wanted peonies but because of the ice
storms the week before our wedding, peonies weren’t available. My bouquet was still stunning and Katie was
able to use gardenias in place of peonies, and they were beautiful. I would not hesitate to recommend Difiori to
anyone.
Cake – Panini: A
Panini did a great job.
The cake was beautiful and tasty, and they were right on time,
responsive, and easy to deal with. I
think their prices are more reasonable than some of the other well-known Dallas
bakeries, too.
Rehearsal Dinner-
Blue Mesa (Northpark): A
Blue Mesa did an excellent job, and their prices can’t be
beat! My husband and I expected to have
to pay for the RD ourselves, so it was really, really important to find an RD
location with reasonable prices. Blue
Mesa’s were the best I could find (that wasn’t booked on our date – a word of
advice: if you have a wedding near the holidays, be careful to book everything,
even the RD, well in advance!), and I got numbers from lots of places. The food at Blue Mesa was delicious, the
service was flawless, and although the room was a little loud (because of a
company holiday party next door), it was great.
Definitely recommend Blue Mesa.
Bridal Gown Purchase
and alterations– Bridal Couture of Addison: A+ (shop)/B- (alterations)
I really enjoyed working with Sarah, my consultant at Bridal
Couture. I especially loved that the
shop has a variety of sample sizes for us thicker girls. Those samples were too big, as I’m a 12 and
the regular samples were 10 and the plus sizes were 18+, but it was still nice
to get to try on gowns that zipped.
Sarah is a cheerful, smiley, and excited consultant, which made the
process fun. This was definitely a
contrast from some of the consultants I’ve met at other Dallas and FTW-area
shops. They also do online appointments
and are responsive to email, which is seriously key to me as a young lawyer who
works ridiculous hours and can’t be making wedding-related phone calls all the
time.
I got my lace Maggie Sottero gown altered by their
seamstress at the insistence of my mom, who bought my gown and paid for the
alterations and wasn’t comfortable going elsewhere for alterations. First, I have to say I really enjoyed the
seamstress they use on a personal level….we just clicked and she was very
sweet. Unfortunately, my gown didn’t fit
as perfectly on my wedding day as I wanted it to. This is partially her fault and partially
mine. The chest area of the gown didn’t
fit right as of our last fitting because it was a little gape-y. The boning stuck out in a way I hated on the
left side. I didn’t insist that it be
fixed – not sure why. Then I didn’t have
a fitting after she added the bra cups, and she added them really high, which
was problematic for me (I’m 30 and have had a kid lol)…perhaps I should have
worn a different bra, but during the fitting when I manually added the cups I was
fine. The other issue was I lost
additional weight between my last fitting and our wedding, so the gown was
looser on top than it even was at the last fitting. I think I should have insisted on another
fitting, but the alterations were so crazy expensive that I didn’t want to ask
my parents to pay for anything else. So
I have to give Bridal Couture’s seamstress a B- even though I really liked
her. My gown’s fit was a big disappointment on our wedding day.
Photography – McGowan
Images: A
I love McG and I am
in love with their photography. They
were super responsive (Chelsea responds to emails to fast that it gives me
professional motivation to respond to my clients faster!) and informative. I love that they are a husband and wife team
because not only is their love super-cute (and kind of reminds me of us, since
Chelsea had a little boy when they got married, like I did!), but it helped
with posing and having Mack around helped my husband feel more
comfortable. I’m so glad they encouraged
the First Sight because seeing my husband first thing made me soooooo happy (I
tear up just thinking about it). I also
loved that Chelsea took care to remember that I had specially requested some
shots of my flowergirl and her mom.
We had a little miscommunication about the faux exit, which
really wasn’t McG’s fault (see the Melrose review). When I mentioned the issue to Chelsea by
email afterward, she was super sweet, not defensive, and that was so appreciated. Before I talked to her, I had a bad taste in
my mouth that McG rushed to leave, but Chelsea talked me through it and
reminded me that I quickly agreed to the faux exit and why (they gave us a
credit toward a canvas, which I know we will love). This means a lot to me! It is one thing to have great customer service
when everyone’s happy (which they definitely do!) but another, more challenging
thing to have great customer service when a bride has an issue with you. McG rocks and I know they will enjoy
continued success in photography in the future.
Hair and Makeup –
Pure Color, April Ruiz: B+
I like April and she is really talented at hair and
makeup. Her prices are also great
compared with other prices I’ve seen.
She and her assistant did my hair and makeup, my matron of honor’s hair
and makeup, my mom’s eye makeup, and my sister-in-law’s hair. Because our ceremony started at 10:30 April
said she would have to start on my hair and makeup at 6. I completely overslept and was sleeping when
she got there! April was cool toward me
about it but seemed to get a little frustrated that the other ladies weren’t
there at 6. My matron of honor felt like
April was kind of mean to her, and my MOH is probably the most laid back person
who ever lived. So I have to not give
her an A.
I loved my makeup and my husband specifically has said he
really liked my makeup. At our trial, I
asked for really dark eye makeup, which she did a great job on. The day-of, I asked for much lighter makeup,
and she delivered. I would have
appreciated more communication from her about color choices, but it turned out
really nice so I can’t complain.
I didn’t love my hair, but I honestly can’t blame that on
April. I was a freak about my hair in
the months leading up to my wedding and had two trials with someone else before
I not only switched to April but also changed my mind from an updo to a half-up
and side-do. So April and I didn’t get a
chance to do a trial with the new choice.
However, April answered my questions, came to the rescue when I wasn’t
happy with my other hair person, and really helped out in the planning, so I
can’t complain. And I didn’t hate my
hair, I just didn’t love it….which honestly was because of the style we chose,
not because of her methodology.
Ceremony – Oak Lawn
United Methodist Church: A
First , we loved Pastor Anna and her
service. The ceremony was the most
important aspect of our wedding for us, and it was absolutely perfect and
beautiful. So many guests raved about how
beautiful it was. Pastor Anna took our
conversations from our pre-marital sessions and really incorporated what we said into her service. Even little details that I mentioned in
passing. Ahh I get teary thinking about
this too! Both my husband and I had lots
of happy tears from what Pastor Anna had to say about God and love. She understood our relationship with God and
understood US, and that means soooo much to me.
I really wish we had a videographer just for the ceremony because I
would love to hear what she said again and again. We love Pastor Anna so much and she made our ceremony perfect.
Everything went very smoothly with planning. We really loved the pastor and everyone else
we had dealings with. There was a little snag during planning, the then-pastor
and the wedding coordinator were both replaced.
It worked out really well, though, and we planned early so it isn’t as
though anyone left us hanging close to the wedding date. The pianist’s cell phone also went off very
loudly during the ceremony, which was a little annoying to a guest or two, but
we didn’t even notice. J
Reception – Warwick
Melrose Hotel: B-
First let me say I enjoyed working with Kelley at the
Melrose and she was responsive, sweet, etc.
Initially they had a different coordinator, who I also loved, but she
left to stay home after she had a baby.
When I heard she was leaving to have her baby, I had a feeling she
wouldn’t be back and was kind of worried about it because she was one of the
reasons we chose the Melrose. Kelley
stepped right in and seemed to really know what she was doing. We didn’t have any problems until the day-of.
Of course, the ballroom looked stunning
for our wedding day and from what I noticed, they followed my instructions for
set-up (probably not an easy task, as I am really detail-oriented).
However, the Melrose unilaterally ended our reception over
an hour early. The contract said we had
the space until 4pm. The itinerary I set
up with the coordinator said the private last dance would be at 3:30. But then came the faux exit. When my husband and I got back from our faux
exit, the staff was clearing our tables and had turned on all the bright
lights. The coordinator has since told
me the DJ told her the party was over….which is not true at all (I personally
heard Melody repeatedly telling guests the party was not over after the faux
exit, and I implicitly trust Melody). In
any case, the hotel would have had to clear anything through me or my husband
since we were the ones who paid and signed the contract. They had a huge event that night, so it is
obvious to me that they were clearing us out to prepare for the next event.
I ran into Katie from Difiori at around 3:30 or so, and she
told me the Melrose had gotten on to her for arriving late to clean up – this
may have ticked us off more than anything because Katie was the one actually on
time! There is no reason they should
have given her a hard time for actually following the plan.
I reached out to the hotel and they did give us a sizeable
discount due to their f-up. Before doing
so, they put me off for a couple weeks, and I sent multiple “sh**** lawyer
emails,” as I like to call them. I ended
up discussing the issue with the catering manager, and the Melrose cleared the
discount with their General Manager before they finally credited our
account. I kind of doubt they would have
discounted us if they hadn’t had an
attorney contact them. We paid a 22% service fee on top of everything. For such a big
service fee, we should have gotten perfect service and didn’t.
Other stuff happened with the hotel that was
disappointing….for example, the bellhop delivered my gown to the wrong room, they lost a
package from a guest, the fees for parking were ridiculous, and generally I
felt like they acted like our event was an afterthought. I understand the holidays are a busy time for
events, but frankly that shouldn't make a difference. The
10+ grand we spent at their hotel may not be a lot to them, but it
was a huge investment for us. We had a 22 month engagement so we could afford to pay for it. Together
with the amount our guests spent staying there, they made more than enough
money from our event, and they should have treated us much better than they
did.
I still don’t regret choosing the Melrose because it is
beautiful, unique, and was a perfect look for our event. If I were to choose it again, I would hire a
day-of coordinator, which sucks considering the aforementioned 22% service fee.