Hey everyone!
The wedding was fabulous! We could not have had a better day! It was 85 and the sun shined the entire day! Our ceremony was just beautiful...we had a family friend marry us and she catered the entire ceremony to us. It was just what we wanted.
Okay, so everyone mentions the one thing that doesn't go to plan. Ours was pretty funny. So when we were making our "grand entrance" into the reception, We came running out, hands in the air and when we made it to the dance floor, DH decided to dip me (he had not told me this beforehand) and he bent me back too far, and I fell backwards onto the floor, and then he slipped and fell on top of me! The worst part was because of my fluffy dress and corset, I couldn't get up! All we could do was laugh! Our photographer showed us the pictues of it...we have one where we are in a really elegant dipped pose and another where we look like a couple of dead bugs! It was one for the books, and FIL came over to inform me that I was "really in it now!" haha!
We got back from our honeymoon yesterday. We had an amazing time! So I thought today I might post my thoughts on my vendors to help out you ladies who are planning your days!
Venue-Granite Rose: FABULOUS!!!! They did everything for us. We did not have to worry about a thing. Erin was our coordinator and anything we needed, wanted, or had a question about, she took care of it, whether it was when we were planning everything, at the rehearsal, or the day itself. They really bent over backwards (no pun intended! haha!) to make sure we could enjoy our wedding and not be worrying about all of the behind the scenes stuff. We had our ceremony in the Embassy Garden and reception in the Embassy room and everything was just beautiful. Our guests are still telling us what a beautiful place it was and how great the food was. I cannot recommend them enough!
Photographer-Details by DiFranco: Of course we don't have our pics back yet, but Tony and Erin were great during our wedding! They were there right when we got to the venue to take getting ready pics and during the ceremony and reception, we hardly knew they were there! Also, during the formal pics, they were really fast so that we could enjoy our cocktail hour. They did our e-pics a while back and made our guestbook out of them and it came out great. We got lots of compliments on it. We are really excited to see the rest of the pics. The only complaint we had with them is that they are lacking a bit in their customer service. It takes forever to hear back from them if you e-mail or call (if you hear back) when you have a question or if you want to meet with them during the planning stages. However, as we got closer to our wedding, we definitely felt as if we were a priority. They got right back to us all of the time as we were leading up. Their work is great, but you need to be a bit patient when dealing with them.
DJ-Billy Rears-Main Event DJs: Billy was amazing! He did the music for our ceremony and reception. He did everything we asked for and more! Our guests are raving about him as well. Our dance floor was packed the whole time! And he had great ideas for the centerpiece giveaway and he did a twist on the garter and bouquet toss. One of our teenage guests caught the bouquet and a GM caught the garter and to make it less awkward, Billy had our GM hold the bouquet and our guest put the garter on him! It was really cute
He really kept our wedding going!
Hair-Christine Jolicoeur-Merlin's: Christine was such a sweetie. She did a trial for me about 2 weeks before the wedding and figured out exactly what I wanted. I loved it and then she came to do my hair for the wedding at my hotel room that morning, it looked great. My only complaint was that my hair started falling out right after the ceremony! It was a bit humid which I'm sure had something to do with it, but the pins were coming out and the curls started drooping. I had to have one of my BM try to fix it back up. Strange thing is, when she did it for the trial it stayed up the whole day and I still had curls when I woke up the next day! She did hair for my BM too and theirs stayed fine. Not quite sure what happened.
Makeup-Candice French: LOVE LOVE LOVE Candice!!!!! She is the sweetest thing! She came to the hotel the morning of at 6 am! The great thing is that when she was done, I still looked like me. I don't usually wear a ton of makeup, but I felt so pretty and glamourous and bridal after Candice did my makeup. She also did makeup for my mom and BMs and everyone complimented all of us on our looks. She did an amazing job!
Dress-Marry and Tux: Stephanie was our consultant and she was great. She made me feel so comfortable and made sure that no one tried to influence me on their choices. She ended up finding my dress for me in the end and it was perfect. I am still in love with my dress!
Tuxes-Men's Warehouse: They were great! All of our GM came from out of state and were picking up tuxes here. Everyone's tux fit and looked great.
Centerpieces-Susanne's Weddings: The centerpieces came with our package, and in the end they looked beautiful and were exactly what we wanted. When we first met with Susanne though, we told her what we wanted and she seemed to just be focused on getting us to upgrade to these giant displays that we didn't want. We ended up making another appointment with her to make clear what we wanted for our centerpieces. I got the impression that she was more into the big, fancy, glitzy, black tie sort of weddings. DH and I are more simple in our taste and we wanted things to be nice but not ridiculous. Like I said, she did what we wanted in the end and they looked great.
Flowers-The Village Bouquet: DH's uncle owns this shop and our bouquets, bouts, corsages, and arbor looked phenominal! He did our flowers as a gift to us for the wedding. They were exactly what we wanted. We could not have asked for more! He listened to our ideas and ran with them and only made them better!
Travel Agent-Karen Powell-Liberty Travel: AMAZING! We will be booking all of our future trips with Liberty Travel. Karen hooked us up great! We wanted to do a cruise to the Bahamas and we found something online. We brought it to Karen and she got us a better stateroom on a higher deck, a hotel room in Miami the night before the sailing, airfare, and transfers to and from the cruise port for the same price we found online for just the cruise! All of her recommendations were great and everything went smoothly! We didn't have to worry about a thing!
I think that is everything I can think of...I will post some pics as soon as I get some back from my photog. and/or family and friends.