Cake - Veronica Blanco ~~A++ Veronica is a family friend who started her own cake business a few years ago, she offered to do our cake and I was super excited about it. It cost in total a little less than $1 a head, so it was wonderful. The cake itself was delicious and super beautiful!
Flowers – Costco – Dee Scott ~~A+ Costco provided the flowers – a family friend provided the arrangements. They turned out beautiful, the flowers were very bright and crispt, none of them were brown or wilted by the time the wedding day came around. I was very pleased!
Photographer – Jillian Zamora ~~A+ (but can’t rate fully) I meet with Jillian at the beginning of the year, and knew immediately that I loved her work and style. She’s very kind, and very helpful….not to mention patient! I hired both her and her husband for the day of our wedding, and they seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. She made sure both Alex and I were comfortable during our little photo-op after the ceremony and was wonderful to work with. I’m excited to see our pictures from the day – but – I’ll have to wait : )
Vistaprint – A+ I wouldn’t really put them down for anything specific – I got a custom shirt for both me and Alex to wear the day of the wedding, we also got a wedding sign, and other small knick-knacks for around the reception/ceremony. They have a lot of specials where you can receive products free, the shipping, even the slow shipping is either on time or weeks early. All the products we ordered and received were high quality.
Linens – www.linentablecloth.com ~~A The linens I ordered arrived quickly. They were all good quality, easy to wash/steam and seemed to be quite durable. The one and only complaint I have was they accidently sent me 18 table cloths that were X size and 1 table cloth that was Y size, instead of 19 table cloths that were X size. It was a very small difference in size though, and my mother tacked the misfit cloth with a glue gun. : )
Hair – Heather Cannon from Shawn Kristopher Salon ~~A+++ I can’t say more how much I enjoyed working with Heather. She’s a wonderful hairstylist! Not to mention easy on a tender head. She both colored and styled my hair as well as put in extensions. I was SO happy with how my hair came out during our trials, and it came out looking exactly like before come wedding day!
Music/DJ - Hunter Vaughn & Partner ~~F F as in fired. This was by far my most disappointing vendor. At the beginning Hunter was very pleasant to work with, he was always quick to answer voicemails, texts or emails. He was always on top of what seemed to be everything! I was pretty confident that everything would go smoothly come wedding day. When wedding day came however, that was far from what happened.
To start off with, we agreed he would be there at 5:30. As he was not playing any ceremony music and this would put him at the venue 1-2 hours before the reception started. He called me almost at six, asking for the address of the venue and saying he would be leaving PLANO to head to Fort Worth. He arrived at 6:50. 10 minutes before the ceremony was set to start. My venue being down stairs and upstairs meant he had to walk through my ceremony area (where all my guests were already seated) to get upstairs to the reception area. I was very unhappy about this. We started the ceremony a tad bit late, on account there were still guests being seated. As the ceremony was just starting, Hunter and his partner decided to do a sound check….causing every one of my guests downstairs a headache from the absurd sounds his equipment was making.
After the ceremony the reception began, our guests had NO music to arrive to, none whatsoever. When it was time to announce my new husband and I he failed to do that, or play our song either. It took him 10 minutes at least to find the songs I had given him for our first dance, father daughter dance and such. You couldn’t hear what he was playing, but it sure wasn’t any one of the songs that was on the list of 150 songs I had given him as the approved to play list. When one finally did come on, it was a slow song. And for the first time guests actually hit the dance floor, when the dance floor was full he proceeded to change the song…in the MIDDLE of the song, from a slow country song to rap. This, threw me over the edge….enraged a few of my guests and set my father up for being upset. To make matters worse, he started an argument with my bartender when he tried to order a beer without an ID. In my opinion, you shouldn’t be drinking at your place of business – whether it’s a party scene or not. After that we told him to pack up and go home. Luckily we had an ipod that we hooked up to the sound system to play music from for the rest of the night. Lastly, it took a good 45 minutes of him arguing with my father about payment for them to settle on $100. To assist in the payment for set-up/break-down and travel. He’s lucky he got that – or so I thought. Until I spoke with my father and his damage deposit got put on hold because Hunter or his partner damaged a piece of equipment. Needless to say, I will never work with him or anyone associated with him again. Nor do I recommend him to anyone, under ANY circumstance.
Ceremony/Reception Venue – YWCA Fort Worth ~~A I really enjoyed working with Stephanie, she’s wonderful. I asked her many questions and she had plenty of answers. The venue itself was absolutely beautiful. I loved the convenience of having the reception and ceremony in one place. It IS a do-it-your-own kind of place though, they assist in setting up chairs, and tables, but that’s about it, this is one of the main reasons why it’s so budget friendly. I was a little late on our final payment, mostly due to the fact that I had so much going on I completely forgot about it. They never called with a reminder, which surprised me. We weren’t charged a fee, which I was grateful for – especially since we were almost a month late on the payment. (ooops). My only complaint, which isn’t even much of one, is that there’s really only one person in that building you can ask questions to – even if they are generic – such as “do we need to provide the trashbags?” They have someone at the phone 24/7. But no one but Stephanie could answer even the simplest of questions. Which was slightly frustrating. Other than that, the venue was wonderful, my guests loved it. I would highly recommend it any day to any bride!
Catering – Olive Garden ~~A+ Although they didn’t “cater” persay, they did provide the food. Going into working with them I knew up front they don’t cater/deliver. BUT they do supply a “party-to-go”. My guests are still raving about the food, because they don’t do catering either I was able to get food for around $6 a person. All 5 pastas, were cooked wonderfully (so I hear), the salads were all fresh, and the bread sticks were all warm. The appetizers also came out well.
Beer/Drinks – Goody Goody ~~A+ No complaints here, they don’t offer discounts on bulk buys unless its special liquor or wine. But the beer prices were still outstanding and they were very kind to help my father load up the 30+ cases into the back of his truck bed.
Bartender/Server – JC Bartending, Inc. ~~ A++ Because we didn’t hire a caterer we also hired a server from the same place that we hired our bartender. From what I understand the server was very on point about making sure all the pasta trays were rotated out when they became empty. He also cleaned the tables of trash, and things of that nature – this was important because we had a lot of guests at the tables. The bartender and server were both very nice the one time I approached them, and seemed to be eager to help. I would definitely recommend them.