DH and I got married on the 16th and just about everything was perfect! There were a few minor snafus, but nothing serious. I was worried about the weather because the wind was gusting at about 25 mph during our rehersal, but the wind completely STOPPED before our ceremony (it was outside). So here are my reviews...
Venue: The Orchard at Caney Creek in Wharton
A - The ppl that own this venue are great. The mother-in-law of the owner is the coordinator (her name is Sandy). The grounds are kept immaculate. The food they provide is awesome (they own Hasta La Pasta in Katy & The Lasagna House & Two Forks Catering). They are pretty cost effective and open to how you want things set up. When you want to add any of their "extras" thats where they start to fee you to death. We had to cut all of our extras to stay within our budget and their linen prices are HIGH...they only provide basic white. So here's what I did NOT like.....Sandy will pretty much let you do whatever, but if you have a wedding planner she gets very bossy and spouts her own ideas. Don't get me wrong, she is a super nice lady, but our rehersal was a complete fiasco (I will mention that later in another review). She wanted my brother to walk my mom down the aisle when I had said I wanted my dad to walk her down then come back for me. I stayed firm with my descision. She has been a wedding coordinator for a long time, so if you use the OCC and also have a wedding planner, make sure your WP is able to deal with that. Another problem I had with Sandy was that she was "pimping" her venue to guests at our reception. We had invited the president of our company and he had asked Sandy for some information. She proceeded to bring TONS of flyers and cards out for them and was basically selling business at MY wedding reception that we paid a lot of money for. I really think she should have just given him ONE business card and flyer and politely asked him to call or email her for more info. I just thought that was totally rude. She also harped alot on how long our photo time should be. She wanted us to keep it to 30 min after the ceremony. I really feel like we didn't get enough photos. Sandy said we should only take 30 min for photos so our guests won't get bored during the cocktail hour. Ok, I say WHO CARES??? I don't want to miss out on photos.....all of our guests were chatting and having a good time and didn't even care about how long we took photos. Anyway, I do stand by my A rating that I gave the OCC. We had a fabulous time, the food was awesome and everything was beautiful. We had our ceremony outside and our reception outside on their deck....the weather was perfect.
Linens: CV Linens
A+++ - LOVED these linens. Like I said, my venue charged way too much for the apple green linens I wanted ($35 per table). I found the PERFECT satin apple green tablecoths to BUY on CV Linens website. They were only $14 each and we got them in a couple of days. CV Linens wharehouse is in Austin, so that was a super plus!! The linens looked beautiful on the tables and I LOVED the color. They come compact folded, so we did have to take them to a cleaners to be steamed. We found a cleaners that did them for about $2 each and they did not have one crease in them at all.
DJ: LG Entertainment
A+ - Our DJ was Lewis who is one of the owners of LG. He did an awesome job at our reception. The only things that I didn't like was he played the wrong version of our first dance. It was mostly insturmental and I picked the song because of the lyrics. I had also chosen for just DH and I to be introduced, not our entire wedding party. So he used our entrance song for all of us. We also came into our reception from an entrance different than what was discussed, so it was a little weird. He played all of the music we wanted plus a few requests. He got everyone on the dance floor and we all had a BLAST!
Flowers: Petals By Design
A++++ - Lisa was able to TOTALLY capture what I wanted. What I got to see of the flowers were completely beautiful and I loved by bouquet. She also did the flowers on my cake and made it look amazing! I was a little stunned at the extra cost for my cake flowers, but I do think it was worth it because it was beautiful. Lisa was wonderful to work with and after meeting with 5 florists, she had the best designs.
Cakes: Sweet Delights
A+++++++ - Roslyn has the BEST cakes. I think she is probably a little higher priced than other cake makers, but she is totally worth it. She got the color of my cake perfect. I had butter almond with rasberry filling and DH's cake was chocolate. Both were super yummy! I also had her do a birthday cake for my mom and grandmother and it turned out awesome also! I will definately use her in the future.
Dress: David's Bridal
C - I give them a C just becuase of the level of service they provide. I loved my wedding dress. I first went to shop at the Sugar Land location late on a Saturday afternoon. I had the WORST experience. The consultant was trying to sell dresses to 5 other brides and I had to stand in the fitting room forever before she would bring another dress. I am SO glad I did not purchase the dress I had picked at that location. I ended up buying my dress at the San Felipe location. I went on a weeknight and the consultant I had was awesome. She had me in and out of 5 dresses in an hour. I thought it was funny that they told me it would take 15 weeks for my dress to come in and it ended up coming in less than 3 weeks. I also bought my veil there. I purchased my reception dress thru the website.
Bridesmaids Dresses: Alfred Angelo
A - They had the color I wanted, David's Bridal did not. Staff was great. Prices were a little higher, but worth it and my girls loved their dress and they looked awesome in them.
Alterations (and Tuxes): Katy Bridal and Tux
A - The hem was perfect, but my bustle looked a little weird. They were cheaper than where we were going to get the guy's tan tuxes. They all looked great. They messed up my dad's alterations - they hemmed his pants instead of letting them out which made my mom soooo mad, but they compensated for it afterwards. They are VERY nice people.
My Shoes: Brucettes on San Felipe
A+ - I paid almost $100 for the dyeable shoes I purchased, but the dye job was perfect. I had them dyed to match my bridesmaids dresses and it was an EXACT match. They even had them delivered from their other store so they could get my size.
Hair/Makeup: Adorne Artistry
A+++++++++++ - Jessica is AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME!!! She did my trial run and I did my bridals that day and my pics turned out great. My wedding day makeup and hair was amazing. I am so critical of myself, but she made me look so beautiful! She did an amazing job on my girls, my mom and my grandmother. Everyone looked terrific. She also did my spray tan and it looked amazing (I am super white!). The spray tan does kind of leave a funny smell, but only I noticed - I think it was the bronzer. I thought she was by far the most affordable out of the other hair and makeup artists I looked into. She definately does beautiful work.
Wedding Planner: Samantha with SoireeBliss!
Pre-Wedding grade - B, Wedding Day grade - A:
When I first met Samantha, she was the sweetest thing and was totally with it. I used her for just day of coordination, so the contract terms don't start until about 60 days before the date. She does give unlimited email and phone support before then. Unfortunately she started to disappoint me when our contract terms began. I emailed her to schedule the site visit at the venue and our logistics meeting for sometime in March. Her schedule fills up quickly so it was difficult to schedule meeting times. I was worried about our site visit being schduled so close to our wedding date (just a few weeks). Our visit was supposed to be at 10 am and at 9:30 Samantha called to say she wouldn't be able to make it because she got held up at a doctor's appointment. I was totally understanding of her doctor's appt, BUT if you were a wedding planner would you schedule a doctor appointment right before you had an appointment with a client?. My venue was an hour away from Houston. She took complete responsibility and rescheduled a visit on her own with Sandy. My parents and I went ahead with our site visit. I took super detailed notes, we took pictures and I put all of it into a document that I sent to Samantha so she would have a good idea of what I wanted. When she emailed me a few days after her site visit everything was totally off. It seemed like her and Sandy were NOT on the same page and it really upset me. I mostly blame Sandy because I think her note taking was a little sporadic. Things we had confirmed with Sandy, she asked Samantha to confirm with me so I was totally confused. We finally got everything straightened out in the end. The next thing that happened was that Samantha missed our rehersal because another one of her planners could not be at an event so Samantha had to sub so she sent another planner in her place. The other planner would tell us to do one thing and Sandy would tell us something different. Even the pastor was getting bossy. No one knew where they were supposed to be and it didn't make things better that my parents were 30 mintues LATE. Sandy kept overriding what the planner was trying to tell us all. I had to try really hard to not tell her to shut up and back off. Samantha had told me she would arrive at the venue around 12:30 on the day of the wedding. I ended up getting there late because I got really sick the morning of the wedding and I was a basket case because I was so nervous. I figured when I got there that Samantha would be there, but no one had seen her at all. This just added to my stress. I didn't see Samantha until after 2:30. When I had asked my dad if he had seen Samantha, he called her and she told him that something had happened that morning which is why she was late. I was freaking out because she and her assistant was supposed to take care of all my personal decor and light set up. She did great with the set up and keeping us on time and where we were supposed to be (I was cued way too early for my ceremony entrance). She even did some pre-tear down before we left so my parents wouldn't have to stay and do it all. I think I was really disappointed with Samantha because of all the awesome reviews she's gotten and from what other vendors had said about her. I was really expecting super star work. I think I would reccomend her, but if you use her for day of coordination only, make sure you plan your meetings and site visit well in advance.
Ceremony Music: Acoustic Production
A++++ - Danny was awesome. From what I got to hear, I thought the music sounded amazing. I really wish we would have been able to afford a videographer so I could have seen it again. He was really great to work with.
One more quick note about my venue and I think I am done with reviews!!! I was really on the edge of having a panic attack. I was dressed by about 4:30 (our ceremony started at 6), so it was difficult to stay comfortable. I thought Samantha would be by a few times to at least check up on me but the only time I saw her was when she asked "are you ready?". The venue had a special house just for the bride and her party. I didn't do any pre-ceremony pics because so many people arrived early and I didn't want people seeing me in my dress. I don't know who did it or why, but they sent all of the women over to the bridal house which made me panic. My maid of honor was so awesome in keeping people out of the room I was in so people wouldn't see me in my dress. We tried getting in touch with Samantha by phone but apparently she lost it for a little while. She finally came over and got everyone out of the house. Most of the ladies were members of DH's family and they said the got "kicked out" of the groom's house. As soon as they came in they all wanted to see me.
Despite all the weird things that happened, everything was amazing and awesome. Guests are still commenting about our wedding and how beautiful it was. I love hearing the comments because I worked soooo hard on all of the personal details. If anyone needs any contact info for any of my vendors, feel free to email me at
alb479@gmail.com. I won't give any pricing info because every vendor changes their prices like every 90 days, so it's useless to give their pricing.
Sorry for being so long winded!