My wedding was this past Saturday and for the most part, everything went perfectly. Most of my vendors were absolutely amazing, so for all of you still looking for vendors in the SA area, here are my thoughts...
Los Patios (venue and catering): Los Patios is a little oasis in the city just off 410 and Starcrest. They have a few different options for reception spaces. We had ours in the Hacienda, which is a two story building with lots of character. There's no fee for the reception space, just a minimum to spend on food and beverages. We had our ceremony of the grounds ($750 fee), and despite the triple digit heat at 6pm, I didn't even notice it since the whole area is under a ton of tree cover. John McClung did a wonderful job making sure we were taken care of during the planning process and the staff during the reception were so helpful that if anything went wrong, I didn't know about it. We had the fajita buffet for dinner and all of our guests commented on the quality.
BettyJane's Bakeshoppe (cake): Amanda and Peggy make the most gorgeous and delicious cakes! Everything is made from scratch (no mixes!). We over estimated the number of slices of cake we would need since we wanted leftovers. I had a piece last night and it was still as moist and delicious as it was Saturday. For $3.75 a slice, I couldn't be more happy and will definitely have them bake any cakes I need in the future.
Phenom Photography: Reggie at Phenom is amazing! I hate being photographed, but he made it totally natural and did a great job making our first look very private, despite everyone trying to get a peek. Our friend that was going to do our photography was unable to just three weeks before the wedding, and I really lucked out that Reggie was available, since he only had three dates left for the rest of the year. Here is his blog post with a sneak peek of our pics.
www.phenomimage.com/2011/09/sara-ian-preview/">http://www.phenomimage.com/2011/09/sara-ian-preview/
Budget Bridal (flowers and linens): One of the vendors I was a bit disappointed with was Jennifer at Budget Bridal. John at Los Patios called her the week before and planned to have the reception space open to her early (3:30). She didn't show up until 4:15 even though she knew we were doing a first look and pictures before hand and that we needed the bouquets and bouts. I also had left 4 extra mason jars with her to put the bouquets in, yet they were in square vases. The bouquets were not what we had discussed and the hydrangeas in the centerpieces were quite lackluster.
DJ Express (ceremony and reception music): Abel with DJ Express was just okay. The ceremony went mostly smoothly, except that it took him a while to get our recessional song playing at the end. It was rough going at the beginning of the reception. There was some feedback during dinner, and it was difficult to hear the mic since he didn't really turn down the music while talking. He also could not find the song for our father/daughter dance, so I had to pull it up on you tube on my phone. After all of the formalities though, he really kept everyone on the dance floor, including my 80 year old Grandma.
Congratulations if you read all of this, but I hope this helps anyone still scouring SA for good vendors!