Hi there,
I have some AMAZING vendor recomendations from my wedding in July:
CAKE! First off, PastryGirl in SE Portland on about 79th and stark is to DIE FOR! She charges $4 per person for her wedding cakes, uses all local and fresh ingrediants and is a new locally owned business. And get this....she charges THE SAME FOR FONDANT AND BUTTERCREAM WORK!!! NO jacking up the prices for fondant! She was the head baker for Heagen stores for 20 years and recentally ventured on her own to open her own shop. I have literally NEVER tasted cake so good in my life! She did my shower cake, the grooms cake, and the wedding cake. OMG! Here are the pictures, but they don't do justice to the flavors! She loves her work and it shows in her masterpieces.
Shower cake: Chocolate cake with Peppermint mousse filling, and pepperment flavored fondant. the small cakes represend the brides maids, flower girl, and candle lighters.
Grooms Cake: Chocolate with orange mousse filling, with whipped cream frosting and hand painted over homemade fondant.
The most beautiful cake EVER: scroll lace detail with pearls between layers and homemade fondant picasso calla lilies. top tier: Strawberry shortcake: White cake with marscopone and fresh strwaberry slices in the filling
middle tier: Chocolate cake with Peppermint mousse filling
Bottom Tier: Apple Spice cake with cream cheese filling.
You have never tasted cake so good in your life I swear!
here is PastryGirl's aka Laura Widiner's info
7919 Southeast Stark Street
Portland, OR 97215-2341
(503) 254-5433
oh and check out her facebook page at
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Portland-OR/Pastrygirl/186569647495AlterationsMy next recomendation is for dress alterations. I found this website doing a google search for affordable alterations:
http://www.bridalalterationsonline.com/The lady who runs the website is actually the in house seamstress at Burlington Coat Factory in Jantzen Beach. She is a professional doing this over 30 years and does very nice work! She is very affordable, and does things for maybe half of what shops would charge! I was very impressed and infact have already recomended her to a friend who is getting married this month, and she is highly impressed also.
FlowersMy last recomendation is for the
www.theflowerexchange.comI could not get my flowrs afforably anywhere in town, so I had to order them online and make the bouquets myself. No big deal, I wanted simple stuff and it was easy to do with an online video or two. I spent $330 on 2 boxes of vermeer calla lilies (Was talked into vermeer over picasso because they are prettier according to David who works there), and he was right. The flowers were beautiful, out of the entire box, there were maybe 2-3 dead. Remember they were picked the day before in Equador, and overnighted to my house in Oregon. They showed up early, gave me time to get them in water. There were a few picassos in the mix, which were not that pretty, because they all seemed to have a second blossom starting to form with a second staimen coming from the throat of the flower. We used those for the bouts and it turned out find though. They usually call and they did not call me, but I did go online immediatly and ask how to take care of them. They lasted until the wedding and were actually beautiful weeks after!