We just got married at Bishop's Lodge in Santa Fe, just last month and I finally got it together to share my reviews and recommendations for Bishop's Lodge and all the local Santa
Fe vendors who made our big day possible! So check it out if you are think about getting married in Santa Fe!
The Bishop's Lodge ( 5 STARS) - This is where we held the ceremony and reception.The lodge itself is wonderful, although if you don't want an outdoor wedding you may want to look elsewhere. But we had a early October outdoor ceremony when all the leaves were changing colors and it turned out even more beautiful than I ever could have imagined. It was absolutely amazing! The venue, the food, the service, the bar, all of it was provided by Bishop's Lodge. But I could not have been able to handle all of the stress of planning a wedding, or be able to plan it without Kristina Kohl (event coordinator for Bishop's Lodge) and the staff at Bishop's Lodge. Kristina is an amazing, wonderful person who will work with the bride and groom throughout the whole process, and really helped relieve the stress of the planning process for us. She has wonderful suggestions for local wedding vendors and without her recommendations I never would have met the wedding vendors we went with. And on a side note: Perhaps you may have some pushy opinionated voices regarding your wedding choices, and they may try to change something about your wedding behind your back, but don't worry. We had a few instances in our wedding planning process that this happened to us. Bishop's Lodge works with all family members involved, but Kristina and her staff will not change any detail, even the smallest,without the Bride and Groom's approval first, no matter who is paying for what.
Flowers (Marisa Peluso, www.apassionflower.com) ( 5 Stars)- I absolutely loved our flowers. My husband and I were not super particular, but we knew we wanted to keep the flowers in a sort of rustic outdoor type them. And wow Marisa and her team delivered beyond my wildest dreams! Our colors were red and yellow but mostly a fall theme color palate. We had sunflowers, Asiatic lilies, ranoculus, dahlias, and much more! We had a natural chuppa that was birch with hanging flowers. I highly recommend Marisa and her team, she is so creative and just a great person to work with!
Music ( Absolute Entertainment, www.musicsantafe.com) (5 Stars)- We used Absolute Entertainment for all of our wedding/reception music. We had a string quartet for the ceremony, mariachi for the cocktail hour, and Vicky Speers and her band Soulstice for the reception. I give my absolute highest recommendation possible to Absolute Entertainment. The music was wonderful and Vicky is a great emcee who kept the dance floor going the whole night! She truly runs the whole show, and did an amazing job. So for the bride and groom who are looking for a great mix of live music and an emcee who gets everyone involved I really recommend Absolute Entertainment!
Photography ( InSight Foto, www.insightfoto.com) ( 5 Stars)- This is by far the best Photography team out there! We also got our engagement pics taken from InSight Foto and I highly, highly recommend using them! Our wedding pictures are amazing! I could not believe how the pictures turned out, it brought me to tears of joy many times! Hands down the best in the business and well worth every penny! I will cherish all of the pictures forever and we can wait to see the video!
Cakes ( Maggie's Cakes, pics available at www.insightfoto.com) ( 5 Stars)- The best cake maker in town!!! She is a great, fun person to work with and her talent is incredible. She designed the cakes to our ideas and really went above and beyond. The brides cake was almond white cake with pinon (native new mexican nut) buttercream filling and the groom's cake was chocolate ganache cake with a capichino buttercream filling. The brides cake was designed like a tiny adobe home! Keep in mind though that Maggie is quite popular and reserving her as early as possible is highly reccomended. Also if you are looking for a novelty type of a cake, she really does not make those.
Hair & Makeup ( Jonathon Girard, www.egocosmetics.biz) ( 5 Stars)- I cannot express enough thanks or gratitude to Jonathon & Sally at Holiday Salon, not only for the amazing work they did, but also for the wonderful people that they are. I have never been a high maintenance girl and when I was looking for wedding makeup/hair I wanted to find someone who could make my mother, sister and I look natural but also amazing. Kristina from Bishop's Lodge recommended Jonathon and I could not have been happier with my results. If you would like to see their work for yourself, check out his website. I would not go with any other makeup artist in town! I live in Las Cruces and I would drive up there to get my makeup/ hair if I had to attend another event, they are that good!
Well ladies, that's it I have no bad reviews of my wedding vendors. I hope this may have been some help to the New Mexico brides out there, and I wish all of you expectant brides good luck! One last point....they say you never get to eat much on your wedding day or during you wedding and I cannot express how true this is! So just a bit of advice, make sure to have a good breakfast, because time flies by really fast!