Everyone- I have been super slow about these, but I wanted to get my pictures back to remember a bit more about my wedding before reviewing anyone. So, here we go... Southwest School of Art and Craft- San Antonio (A) This is a great venue at a great price. There are a few big issues with dealing with this space though (which is why it only gets an A). First, they have no real supplies at the venue, you must rent everything. Next, they want to rent every night to someone, so Friday and Sunday will often also get rented. If the day before your wedding is rented, then you have a very limited time frame for your rehearsal. We were only allowed a morning rehearsal, and everyone was coming in from out of town later than our time. It would have been fine, if they could have given us our time slot earlier, but you only learn it 3 weeks before. Way after a lot of the bridal party had already booked their tickets. John Kearney- BP Lighting- San Antonio (A+) A fantastic guy and a great lighting designer. Originally, I did not want lighting but the band required it in their contract. John did a great job and made the whole venue look beautiful. He is very hard to reach by phone or email, since he is often really busy. I wish I had lit the ceremony area as well, after seeing the great job he did with the other areas of the Craft Center. RTC Floristry- San Antonio (A+) William is also a great guy. When I looked at florists, I was really looking for someone who would pretty much take the reigns with our basic ideas about flowers. I wanted a lot of texture, and weird plants were fine and even encouraged. William did an awesome job with this. Our chuppah was magnificent, due to the flowers that he put on it and everything fit the vibe of the wedding well. Stella Alesi- Austin (A+++) Stella and Brian are amazing photographers and people. When looking for a photographer, one of our goals was to find someone who shot other things, besides weddings and was more of an artist with the camera. Stella is a painter, and I think that shows up in a lot of her camera work. I hate having my picture taken and I am also kind of awkward. Stella was really good and keeping me at ease and chatting with both DH and I. She loved that we were willing to do funny things, like the mustaches, in our wedding photos. Both Brian and Stella provided excellent coverage of our day and created some great shots. They are also really fast. I already have all of my photos ready for viewing and ordering, two weeks after my wedding. I highly recommend Stella. Fresh Horizons Catering – San Antonio (A) Kathe was really great at helping us to coordinate and cater our event. The food at the wedding was excellent. Kathe was also really good at maintaining a balance in all of our different preferences for food. DH is a vegetarian, I do not like beef, and my parents have a really bland palate. After our tasting, she was willing to tweak the menu and make everything better. She also was a great person to go to for vendor suggestions. In the end, she probably helped us find 75% of our vendors. She also was a big help when I had a huge issue with transportation to the venue (more on that later). In the end, we also hired the company for coordination services, which might not have been as worth it. We hired her late to help organize the ceremony and to coordinate the day of. We probably should have hired Fresh Horizons a lot farther in advance for this, because there were a few small details that were not worked out in advance. Fresh Horizons was willing to bring all of the things I had made and purchased to the venue. We never worked out who should bring everything back! My in laws had to convince them to take all of the decorations back on the truck, which they were eventually willing to do. Anyways, it was somewhat my mistake as well as the caterers. Rio Taxi- San Antonio (F) I had wanted to use the water taxis to get everyone to the venue. Since the Craft Center is right on the river, what could be nicer, right? Rio Taxi is one of the most disorganized businesses that I have ever encountered. When I initially called to make my reservation 7 months in advance, they kept losing my information. They also had no clue if they actually had taxis for the time slot that I wanted. I signed my contract, and they emailed me another form that I could not open and sign. I called them and asked them to mail me a copy of it, which never came. They also never bothered to call me back after, so I thought that my reservation was complete. It was not, so they canceled my reservation without informing me. I called back later to confirm, and they would not tell me that they had already sold out all of the slots during my wedding day. In fact, I called them three days in a row, trying to get information. I was okay with the idea of not using them, but I could not believe that they would NOT tell me that they were booked and make me delay finding someone else. Stay far away from them. T Bird and the Breaks – Austin (A) They are an amazing band! We were looking for something that the older people at the wedding would enjoy, but we did not want a cover band. T Bird and the Breaks played an almost all original set of soul for the party. Everyone loved them and they kept the floor hopping. I was complimented on them many times. One of DH's friends is a music executive from LA, and thought they were the best band he has ever heard at a wedding. They are a new band and not used to doing weddings though, so there were occasional gaps in their performance and they did a loud sound check during dinner. Marshall Ford Swing Band -Austin (Ceremony) A+ They did a great job. The band was willing to learn a lot of songs for our ceremony and reception. Jeremy was really mellow and great to work with. I can't wait to see them again in Austin. Serendipity Bridal- Austin (A+) I had an awful time shopping for dresses. I am a plus sized pear shaped girl. Dress shopping was not easy for me. I was lucky and got a great consultant, Linda, at Serendipity. She let me try on a whole range of dresses and I found one that I really loved. Rosa, the tailor at Serendipity, is amazing. She had to take in my dress a lot on top and it ended up fitting me wonderfully. Highly recommended. They are a bit expensive for their accessories though. Unbridaled- Austin- (B-) I used Unbridaled to order the bridesmaid dresses. They had a nice wide variety of designers there, and give you 10% off any order of 5 or more dresses. They did lose one of my girl’s order forms and did not call me about it. I checked in and found out a week after the order deadline that they had lost her fax. I ended up calling my friend and forging one for her, in order to get the dresses ordered on schedule. They were much better about dealing with the shipping and communication after the dresses were in and paid for. Occansey Veils- Online (A+++) Very good internet vendor. I ordered a simple cathedral veil. It showed up at my door within 3 days of ordering it. They were fast and the veil was very soft and good quality. Lo Boheme Online (A+++) Also a wonderful online vendor. I found Lo on Etsy.com. She created a custom feather head piece for me that was really beautiful. She was also a really responsive and prompt vendor. Seventh Heaven Cakes- San Antonio (A-) Michelle makes a wonderful tasting cake. People were raving about how good my bridal cake tasted. It was an unusual flavor (Watergate) and very moist. The flavor of all of her cakes is excellent and that is basically why we chose her as our cake baker. I left most of the decorating up to her, except I gave her a few guidelines. One thing was that I wanted one layer in the middle to be taller than it should. She did not quite exaggerate that layer enough in the cake, and it did not really look any different. It was the same height as the bottom layer, so the effect did not work. Also, the cake was a bit crooked! She was supposed to decorate our grooms cupcakes with gumpaste acorns and leaves. A majority of the cupcakes had sprinkles on them (which I am not a huge fan of) and there were basically only three acorns clusters that laid on top of the cupcakes. It was not quite what I had thought it was going to be. Mandy Morrison- Makeup- Austin (A+) Many is very responsive and professional. She did a great job tweaking my makeup until I had something that I liked. I am not used to wearing a lot of makeup, so she did not put tons on my face. She did a very good job with all of the bridal party’s makeup. Everyone seemed very satisfied. She did a great job. Mandy Granado- Hair- Austin (A+) Mandy was recommended to me by Mandy Morrison. She also was a pro. She put my hair up in a pretty basic chignon, which I loved. It was really simple, but made my flat hair look like it had a lot of body. Her prices were reasonable and she was really professional as well. She did a wonderful job, as well.