So after many many months of stress and planning, my wedding has come and gone just as you ladies warned it would - in the blink of an eye! I cannot believe how quickly that night really goes!
I know how much I relied on everyone's reviews and advice so I am hoping to both repay that favor and also recognize the vendors who made my wedding so wonderful (and maybe warn people against a few problems we had as well.) The only thing is that some of our vendors are in Staten Island and actually traveled to Jersey for the services.
Venue: The Merion, Cinnaminson, NJ - A++++
If there was a stronger way of putting how much I LOVED this venue, I would do it. The entire staff made this whole process amazing, they and my DJ were truely the ONLY things during my entire planning process that I did not have issues or concerns with. Anything and everything I wanted, they said yes. And they delivered. We have people calling us and telling us it was the best wedding they have ever been to and they totally understand why we went so far out of the way from Staten Island to get married here. My coordinator Stephanie was unbelievable, the owners Jimmy and Cliff that we worked with bent over backwards to make the day what we wanted and the staff the night of the wedding was FANTASTIC. I had several issues with my family that evening and not only did the staff pull me together and get me on the right track to having a good time, they stepped into that parenting role for me for the evening. My guests absolutely loved the staff and even they were tipping the wait staff and bartenders on their own they loved them so much. I know on here I often see people talking about a "wedding mill" factor to the Merion. Being that I was the only wedding there that evening, I didn't have to find out if that was true and we basically were given our run of the entire venue. That being said, there was another function there at the same time - a 65th birthday party two levels down from us however it was right next to the chapel. I have to be honest, we had NO issues, their guests were so gracious and everytime one of their guests saw myself or my husband, they wished us luck and told us how wonderful we all looked so it was really nice being in the venue with them! Maybe I'm not one of those people who needs to feel like they are the only person celebrating that evening but I really enjoyed meeting those people and having them give us advice and well wishes.
On a totally seperate note - Diane, the pastry chef... there are no words to describe how amazing she is. Due to a problem with my local vendor who I was getting my wedding cake from, our wedding cake was canceled a week before the wedding. On the Tuesday before, I contacted Diane to see if we could get a sheet cake to serve to guests or a one layer round cake for us to cut the night of. Diane went TOTALLY above and beyond and surprised us with a four tier wedding cake in the theme of our wedding with a flavor they don't even offer on the menu. In addition to that - the grooms cake she made was absolutely incredible!! I have pictures because there is no way to even describe it.
Flowers - Harkers Flowers, Cinnaminson, NJ - A
We were originally NOT going to go with flowers as it was a January wedding and I did not have a lot of room in my budget for floral. Two weeks before the wedding we finally decided to do the baiscs... bouquets, boutaineers (did I spell that right?) corsages and flowers for the memory vase. They were VERY reasonable price wise (Two hundred dollars less than the initial "I can't go higher than this" number I had in my head), did the arrangements exactly as I wanted and only charged 10 dollars for delivery! The owner delivered the flowers to my hotel the day of the wedding early and refused the tip we tried to give him. Very pleased!
Makeup - Gina Sullivan, Staten Island, NY - B
Gina was recommended by a friend and has many many positives. The ONLY reason it was a B and not an A is because unfortunately, my curls fell out pretty early on through the night. However she was very accomodating on the budget for the girls and very reasonable for my own hair and makeup as well. She and the owner of the salon she works for traveled to the hotel and started work 20 minutes early. The girls absolutely LOVED their hair (their curls did stay in...) and their makeup was absolutely gorgeous. No running makeup, it stayed on all night and photographed beautifully. In addition they were very pleasant to work with!
Photographer - Kacey Semler, Staten Island, NY - A
I have not gotten my proofs yet however based solely on seeing her previous work and actually working with her the day of the wedding, I could not be more pleased. My bridal party absolutely LOVED her and her assistant because they actually treated us like people. Several of my girls have either been married or we've been in bridal parties before and dealt with nasty or curt photographers and this was so nice for people to actually be fun to work with. They were so unintrusive but at the same time people kept telling us that everytime something was going on, the photographers were there catching it when none of us even noticed! They had very cool visions for our posed and group shots and I didn't have any of those cliche shots I wanted to avoid.
DJ - Platinum Entertainment, Staten Island, NY - A++
There are not enough awesome things I can say about these guys. My husband and I have already said we cannot wait to plan another party just to have them perform again. We actually used our DJ from the wedding to privately work our engagement party so this is our second time working with him and he took the time to really know us as a couple and catered the company's performance to really suit US. He knew exactly what I did NOT want (no line dances!!) and played a great mix to get everyone out on the floor. Like I mentioned, I had some family issues during the evening and they were able to completely redo our photo montage to take out pictures that would upset me that night. They gave us two copies that evening of all the montages they produced with the music and have mailed out a copy of a DVD with pictures they took throughout the evening of us and our guests. They ARE pricey however again, worked within our budget and threw in a LOT of extras for us as well.
Hotel - The Wyndham, Mt. Laurel, NJ C
There always has to be one I guess and this was it. The hotel itself was fine, really nice rooms, comfy beds and they were a great size as well (we had LOTS of room to get everyone ready the morning of the wedding.) They had my entire wedding block on one floor which we absolutely loved because we were all able to leave our rooms open the whole wedding and just ran back and forth between them without having to worry about disturbing other guests.
The problems? Some were minor like the fact that the showers has NO water preasure which was more annoying than anything else. But the big thing was that the reservations were not very accurate. They lost two guests reservations, one of the rooms I had booked was in the system as being checked out of ON my wedding day, the guests were told when they booked their rooms that they could cancel until 4pm the day of the reservation when in actuality they needed to be canceled within 48 hours of the date due to us qualifying for things like the free shuttle. They had a free breakfast in the lounge for our guests on Monday morning however didn't TELL anyone about it, it wasn't until they had paid for breakfast in the restaurant that everyone (including me) found out about it. Some of the guests didn't get the OOT guest bags we provided to the hotel. One of the guests out of the entire wedding block somehow ended up on a different floor and since we needed keys to get to our floor she couldn't get up there easily to be with us. Overall I would probably STAY in the hotel again however I don't know that I would do a block like that there again because there was just a lot of confusion and they told us they don't have managers there on the weekends to take care of things like that which just seemed weird. We did get a really good rate though so I guess I can't complain TOO much.
Limos - ETA Transportation, Cherry Hill, NJ - B+
We actually did NOT use limos for the wedding since we only went from hotel to hall however we had our joint bachelor/bachelorette party on Friday night and we used them. We got the 12 passenger Escalade Limo which was GORGEOUS and the rate we got was awesome. The reason they didn't get an A was because when our friend booked the limo he was told the price included everything including the gratuity. When they gave the money to the driver, he told them it DIDN'T include the tip. So I'm still not sure if the driver was just trying to get extra money or if my friend was given the wrong information. Other than that he was a nice guy who got us where we were going and back in great time and it was a great ride!
Dress - David's Bridal, Springfield/Union, NJ - A
I LOVE my dress. I was so happy for the day of the wedding just so I could wear it. The Store Manager was absolutely amazing because when I got my dress, David's did not do layaways for special orders and my dress had to be special ordered but I could not afford to pay for the dress up front. She found ONE store in the entire company that had my dress in stock in my size and worked with corporate to get it transfered to her store just so I could put it on layaway. It is from the Oleg Cassini line and looks just as gorgeous as dresses three times as much money!
Tuxes - Men's Warehouse, Various Locations in NY, NJ and CT - B
Pretty typical MW experience, overall the day of the wedding everything fit and looked great but my husband and three guys all needed things reordered because they didn't fit properly. Just annoying for people to have to make two trips in the middle of everything else that was going on.
I hope this helps everyone! I've included links to my pictures we put up from the friends and family so you can see things like our AMAZING cake.