I got married on Saturday (9/10/11) and I had a great day. I know that it's hard to find vendor reviews for this area so I'm hoping this will help future Las Cruces brides.
Dress and accessories: Alfred Anglo- (A) I know that with them it depends on the store that you go to. I got my dress, jacket, veil and headpiece in the Alfred Angelo signature store in Tucson AZ and didn't have one problem with them. In fact, the dress that was supposed to take 4 months to come in took only 2 weeks. The staff treated me very nicely.
I didn't buy any bridesmaids dresses there but that's because we found discontinued, off-the-rack dressed in my bridesmaids size and a great price at David's Bridal while we were just looking around. I had a good experience with them but I'm not rating them because we purchased them and didn't have to wait for them to come in.
Venue: Lorenzo's in Mesilla- (A) They have a beautiful courtyard where our ceremony took place. The reception took place in The Palermo Room. We worked with Peggy Smith throughout our planning process and she was great. She is very organized and keeps track of every detail you would like to have at your wedding. She makes sure all the information she has is accurate every time she meets with you. The food was great, the decorations looked very beautiful and the staff was very attentive. It is a little small (especially for dancing) but it was the perfect for our 85 guest wedding.
Photographer: Ryan Gonzales- We haven't gotten our pro pics back yet but we've worked with Ryan before. He did our engagement photos and they turned out great. He is very professional and easy to work with. He was on time to everything on our wedding day and had very creative ideas. He got along great with the bridal party and everyone had a great time. We had a photo booth at the wedding and it was the "icing on the cake". I'll hold back on rating him until we get the pictures but I'm sure they'll be awesome. I can't wait to see them.
DJ: Chey-town productions (A+) We are VERY satisfied with the job Cheylan and his crew did. It was better than we imagined. He took the time to get to know us and asked us to fill out a questionnaire. He was very professional and kept everyone dancing all night long. He has lots of experience and it shows! He was a great value and was very flexible...he even agreed to do our ceremony music with little notice before the wedding. I would highly reccomend him for your event.
Cake: Michael Garcia of The Cake Shop: (A) We decided to ditch the traditional wedding cake and have a cheescake wedding cake instead. It was great! We recieved so many compliments on it. It was decorated exactly how we had discussed and delivered to the venue. His prices are great and my mom and I were very surprised by the price he charged to make a cheesecake for 120 guests and a surprise red velvet birthday cake for my cousin (also delicious).
Florist: Loretta at Flowerama: (A): Loretta was great to work with. She wrote up a proposal quickly with everything we wanted for our wedding. We ordered ALL of our wedding flowers there and they were beautiful. I expecially loved the bouquets! Everything was very fresh and delivered to the venue. She was flexible and let me add and take away a few things only days before the wedding. Flowerama is a little on the pricey side but it was definately well worth it.
Hair and Makeup: Sha-Bang Hair Salon: I rate them an (A) while my bridemaids and mother rated them a (C). I really liked the way I looked. My hair and makeup looked beautiful and exactly how we had done it during the trial. While my bridesmaids and mother said that the girls were very nice they were not at all satified with their hair and makeup. My sister ended up going back and re-doing her hair and adding more makeup. My other bridesmaid couldn't believe a hairdresser did not know how to braid. She wanted the look of a braided headband and loose curls and ended up paying $45 for them to curl her hair,which is something anyone else in the bridal party could have done for her. The only advise I can give is that if you go with them, but sure that you have a trial run first because like I said, I really liked the way I looked.
I hope this helps.
