Can't say I didn't warn you!!
Venue – Twin Willow Gardens (A+) www.twinwillowgardens.com – The venue is gorgeous and DH and I fell in love with the outdoor bar they have on site! Jessi and her husband Richard own and run the place and just started last year and they have done a TON of improvements during the course of one year that we got to witness. Jessi is an absolute sweetheart and always answered my questions quickly and was super friendly with answering. You can tell she loves gardening when you see the grounds. They have 3 locations you can get married at which was a nice option. Only downside is for guests, they have portable toilets, but at least they were the larger portable toilets, not the tiny icky ones, and they have a handwashing station right outside the two toilets.
Wedding Planner – Exquisite Events (A+) www.exquisiteeventsseattle.com - Emily saved my sanity! She was always prompt with answering questions and was honest when I would ask what is worth it and what isn’t which I really appreciated. She and Erin busted their butts the day of and did a great job setting up the venue and being my buffer between vendors, WP, family, etc as needed. She hooked me up with our florist and got us a discount – I wish I had booked her sooner to so I could have booked other vendors and saved more!
Caterer – Chef Bert (A-) www.chefbert.com - Bert makes delicious food. He cooks on site so the food is fresh and his pricing is all-inclusive (except linens, but he does offer those at a reasonable rate) and is quite fair. His communication can be spotty – depends on how busy he is that day/week. We had an issue 10 days prior to the wedding when we went to pay the balance with a credit card online (for points & for finances, but mostly for our security) and although his site stated (and still states) he accepts cards and we asked about that when we booked over a year prior and he said yes, he apparently changed his policy after we booked. We worked it out, but it was an unnecessary stress to have 10 days before the wedding. On the day of the wedding, we had ordered BBQ meatballs but got Swedish and towards the end of the evening, the bartender he provided started just handing out bottles of our wine to guests without them even asking for it. But his food is great (received lots of compliments on it), staff was good, and I would recommend him.
Caterer (rehearsal dinner) Barry’s Catering (A+) www.barryscatering.com - They delivered our food on time and waited until we were done with the rehearsal before taking the food out of their warming containers so the lasagna and breadsticks were hot and the salad was crisp. The food was delicious and the price was totally fair. I would recommend them.
Cake – Kelli’s Cake Creations –(A) www.kelliscakecreations.com - What can I say? Kelli does DELICIOUS cake! I wish I had been able to eat all 4 flavors as I had intended!! The grooms cake I surprised with DH at the RD was a total hit with the guests and DH LOVED it! And of course it was delicious! The wedding cake was not quite as we had envisioned but I will not fault Kelli for that because we had given her free reign over the design of the waterfall cake and the one layer we did eat was…*drool* All the guests commented on how delicious the cake and her fondant is (not your typical fondant!). We will be using Kelli for future cake needs and I highly recommend her! She is difficult to contact because she pretty much is a one-person show and while she may take a bit to warm up to you, just trust that she really is a total sweetheart.
Florist – The Perfect Petal (A-) perfectpetaldesigns.com - I met with (literally) several different florists and got quotes from a total of nine. While Sharon wasn’t THE lowest quote, she was only higher by about $50 but of all the florists I met with, I trusted her the most. Florists are interesting – all of them seem to take FOREVER to reply and get information to you so that really seems to be the norm in the industry. The bouquets were beautiful and I absolutely loved them. The centerpieces didn’t quite turn out – I had ordered and paid for 3 monstera leaves and we got 2 under each bowl. There were no extra red rose petals for the cake table and sweetheart table as ordered and the toss bouquet was more like the BM bouquets (lavender alstromeria & white roses) vs. a smaller version of my bouquet (red roses, white calla lilies, and orchids). All in all, minor things, but I did notice them. Her pricing is fair and she delivered on time and the flowers looked great. Overall I recommend her.
DJ – Jeff Hill (A-) www.jproductionsonline.com - I’m not sure if it was the crowd or Jeff, but I just felt like the music selection could have been a little bit better. The songs we chose for our introduction was cut short as soon as we were introduced (maybe I’m off in expecting it to play out?), the wireless mic didn’t have a very good range so the MOH and BM had to give their toasts from a different side of the seating area than where we were, and perhaps it was the distance, but when he was off a little bit with commentating on the garter toss (I just thought he could have used the wireless mic to comment if he was going to). DH mentioned that when Jeff did speak, he is kind of a soft-spoken guy so it was a bit difficult to hear him at times. He does however get kudos for finding and playing the right songs, two of which were very obscure and I wasn’t sure if he would get it. Overall, I would recommend him, just be sure to walk through a few things with him (where toasts need to be made from, put together a must-play list, maybe have a friend MC, etc). He was on time and professional and I would recommend him, especially for the price.
Makeup & Hair – Taryn Hart (A+) www.tarynhart.com – Taryn has years of experience doing hair and makeup and I loved my trial and day-of. She listened to me and is very friendly. She can be difficult to get in contact with and can seem not friendly via email and phone sometimes, but once you meet her, she is super sweet. She was the most affordable person I came across and recently started doing airbrush which I did for my trial for the B-pics and day-of and let me tell you – it stayed (even through a cake smashing) and it looked flawless and didn’t piss off my skin. I was super happy! She can have a tendency to run about 30 mins late, but from what I hear, that seems to be a norm in the industry with MUAs running a bit late. I will definitely contact Taryn again should I need her services and will recommend her to everyone!
Handwriting – Pen & Quill (A+) email: pqhand@gmail.com – Meisha was the absolute best vendor when it came to communication. When I think about it, I still get blown away by how amazing she was with keeping me posted on status updates! She was able to do a rush job for me with addressing our invites. I knew I wanted something a little different than calligraphy to match our invites better and something that was more budget friendly than calligraphy and Meisha’s services matched perfectly! Her handwriting instantly reminded me of my grandmother’s – fluid, flowy, old-fashioned and just plain beautiful. Plus she has a few different handwriting styles to select from. I cannot recommend her enough!
STDs & RD Invites - Vistaprint (A-) www.vistaprint.com - I didn’t want to spend a ton, so I ordered the stuff from Vistaprint. The thing with VP is for the price, it’s great. That being said, they’re not perfect. Cut of paper/magnets and printing can sometimes be off, so if you’re that much of a perfectionist, I would look elsewhere. But with the coupons they had going, I scored our STDs for less than $50 for 100.
Photography – Jenny GG (A+) www.jennygg.com Yup, just another glowing review for Jenny! I knew I wanted her as our photog before we even booked a place or had a date set. She’s a total sweetheart and I’m sad I won’t get to work with her much anymore until we have a need for more pictures (which I do hope is soon!). Her communication is pretty good depending on how busy she is at the time which is understandable, especially when wedding season is in full swing. She does amazing stuff with lighting, colors, angles….she’s a magician and the camera is her wand! Okay, so she does have an assistant (Photoshop) but seriously, she has an amazing eye for shots! The only potential complaint I have is for our portrait/formals – there really isn’t a good formal picture of DH & I and half of our formals our smiles are not that great – we really didn’t know when exactly to smile. But we have plenty of excellent pictures to choose from and in hindsight, I should have spoken up a bit more asking her to say when the pictures were actually going to be taken so everyone would be prepared.
Hotel (night before & getting ready) – The Courtyard by Marriott, Kirkland, WA. (A) If you need to block rooms, it can take a day or two (or three) for their person to get back to you so their communication with that is spotty. However, the rooms were clean, price was reasonable (especially since we booked when they had a special), and location was great. We were running about an hour late in checking out and when we called to see if it was okay for us to check out an hour late, they were totally understanding and very nice about it. I would definitely recommend the hotel, but definitely book/block your rooms early since they apparently are pretty busy during the summer months with weddings, conventions, etc.
Dress – I Do Bridal (A+) – I worked with Bridget who KNOWS her wedding dresses and what works on a person based on their body and style. They weren’t pushy and were honest and I totally appreciated that. The dress arrived before the date they provided me and I was very pleased.
BM dresses – All That Shimmers (A-) – Karen is super sweet and cares about her customers. Communication was the reason for the minus – it was hard to reach them at times and the BM dresses arrived two weeks later than they were supposed to which added stress, however during the waiting time after the estimated arrival date, Karen did do very well with keeping me posted of status and immediately sent my CA BM’s dress down to her as soon as it arrived.
Alterations – Fragile Fit (A-) 425-918-1310 – Darcy is super sweet. It was difficult to reach her initially, apparently due to some health related issues, but once you got her on the phone, she is super nice. Her prices are fair and her work is for the most part good. The only complaints I have is on my second and original “final” fitting, we discovered that she had put in the wrong bustle and had not added in the extra tulle to the crinoline of the dress, both as discussed in the first fitting. She said it was because she couldn’t understand her handwriting/notes and was unable to recall what exactly “extra full crinoline” meant. I don’t know why she couldn’t just have called and asked me that and I could have jogged her memory or explained over the phone. I did have to drive up from Kent to her place in Lynnwood to do the fittings, but she did fix it and it was ready by the next, actual final fitting. My other issue with her work was the layer of tulle that was added to the skirt of the dress, on the front it was a bit longer (by 1-2”) and therefore stuck out a bit more, causing me to have to be careful as I walked. Other than that, her work was excellent and the hair fascinator I purchased from her was gorgeous!
Etsy Sellers:
Cake topper – Seller: Cake Topper Studio on Etsy (A-) This was my splurge. I saw some cake toppers that I fell in love with until I choked on the price ($2,000!?!). After searching for a few months, I came across a few cake topper designers on Etsy including Cake Topper Studio and loved her work and details she puts into the toppers. Seller gets a minus because of some communication issues, but as long as you keep on top of it when it gets close to the time of receiving the topper, she definitely comes through. I would recommend her, however she does book a ways out so give yourself time!
Tissue paper poms – Seller: OrangeKisses on Etsy (A-) A common issue with some Etsy sellers: communication. She gets props for being quick on turnaround time and being able to do my order faster than she advertised (however I did contact her first to confirm). My complaint is I specifically ordered the poms to all have rounded edges but she still did her usual mix with some with round and others with pointy. Still, totally worth paying someone else to take the stress of making these off my hands.
Gift Card Box – Seller: Mandmcold on Etsy (C-) The picture of the item looked great, price was right, I specifically asked about the size of the hole on top for the card-slot and then placed my order once all my questions were answered satisfactorily. She was late on shipping the item and when I received it, the bottom had come out because it was just duct taped (and not very well), the mat for the pictures looked crappy because they were homemade and had extra cuts in the corner, the top didn’t look that great (and had gaps along half the edges) and worse part was the card slot on top was too small – I couldn’t fit a normal sized card in it. When I measured, it was over 1” shorter than she said it would be. When I brought up the concerns with her (namely the size of the slot) she didn’t offer to correct the matter just said I am so sorry! To be honest I dont really know why that happened...I cant apologize enough, I dont think you will have too much of the larger cards....but if you do have someone attending your gift table they can always help your guests.” WTF is the point of a cardbox if cards don’t fit in it!?? After giving her a couple options to rectify the issue (refund enough for me to purchase materials and make a new top or refund full amount) she offered to remake the top. The new one was much nicer, bu even then, she did horrid on communicating with me. I had to ask for a tracking number for the new top after waiting a while and her reply was “Yea it was, then got sent back because the post office messed up on your address…” Riiiiiight.
Rhinestone embellishments – Seller: PeaceLoveRhinestones (A) – Excellent work, great communication, super sweet and even though she messed up and forgot the deadline to have my 3 items to me by (gave her a little over 3 weeks to do them and send them out) she rectified the issue and I got them in time. Ordered rhinestuds in “No Peeking!” for the eyemask, regular rhinestones in new last name and date for hoodie, and sapphire rhinestones in new last name and year for my white boyshorts (something blue!). I will definitely buy from her again.
Labels – Seller: Amyolsaver (A+) – She made the labels we sealed the favor cellophane bags with. Excellent communication, excellent price, I was happy.
Honeymoon Related (Cancun, Mexico):
Airline – Delta (D) Every flight we took left late, thus arrived at the next place late. The lady at the counter in our layover to Cancun in Salt Lake City was rude – basically ignored us and other customers to text someone on her phone. We spent our first 24 hours in Cancun without swimsuits because our bags didn’t make the transfer in Salt Lake. Then coming back, our flight out of Atlanta was overbooked by 60 (yes, sixty – as in basically half the plane) seats. That flight left an hour late because they were trying to get people to take their offer of a $400 voucher and a night at a hotel if they would catch the flight the next day. DH went up to see if they had first class seats still available (they did) and said we would pay the upgrade for him and I to get first class so they could give our seats to two people, but they apparently couldn’t do that because DH’s ticket was obtained by redeeming his frequent flier points. I won’t fly Delta ever again and told DH to start booking his cross-country work flights through someone else.
Timeshare/lodging - The Royal Mayan (A) – This was a timeshare that MOH’s dad gave to us at a very discounted rate and it was GREAT! Not fancy, but so convenient. Best part was we were able to use facilities (pools, chaise lounges, beaches, etc) any of the Royal Resorts (two others were right next door)and we only needed our room card to charge things like dinners, drinks, stuff from the grocery store, and even our excursions we booked. It’s right on the Hotel Zone so we were able to take the city bus up further along the hotel zone into the shopping areas and the place was kept very clean. We were very happy with them!
Travel Agency – Thomas More (A) – They’re considered a travel agency, but basically they book excursions for you. They had a desk in each of the 3 resorts we had access to and we booked all 3 of our excursions through them (Isla Murjeres for dolphin swimming, Chichen Itza & cenote swim, and Selvatica for ziplining, off-road vehicle driving, and cenote swim). I didn’t think they seemed to care when we mentioned to them the problem we had with the boat transportation to Isla Murjeres, but it turned out they did – the guy we talked to spoke with his supervisor who conveyed our complaint to Dolphin Discovery and they in turn sent us a letter of apology and two pretty nice shirts. We’ll definitely use them again for booking our outings next time we’re in Cancun. 
Family fall photo session with Ashley Hoyle Photography
Married 7/10/10
Wedding Planning Bio - Updated 6/13/2010
