Overall, our wedding was everything we could have dreamed. It rained and stormed in the afternoon so that was the only thing I was stressed about during the day of. It cleared up in time for the ceremony on the beach so all was well!
Pelican's Landing - this gets it's own review even though it's owned by Scott and Nina, just as Coastal Provisions is. As far as beach houses go, it lacked a lot of kitchen supplies as a lot of beach houses tend to (dull knives, not a lot of cookware, etc) but since we had so many leftovers, it was never a huge issue. It was a nice house and included a ton of things that caused us not to have to rent -- tables, dance floor, and all dishes. We had issues with the cable/internet while we were there which wasn't at all Nina's fault but she was very responsive and contacted Charter Cable to come to the house. DH texted her and it seemed to be a good way to get a hold of her while staying at the house. There were staff members that did set up on Friday; all tables, dance floor, and chairs, staff members that set up on Saturday, dishes on tables, benches on the beach, and Nina came back Sunday morning for clean-up. There was a lot of coordination included with having the wedding at Pelican's Landing (and the fact that they own CP) that I know you wouldn't get by renting a home that is classified as an event home.
Coastal Provisions - we used them for both rehearsal and reception. We had sooo much food both times. They delivered on Friday night and dropped it off. We did the Italian Night with baked ziti, Caesar salad, and garlic bread. I wasn't wowed. Not that it was bad, it just wasn't anything to write home about. We had enough leftover for pretty much the entire house and wedding party to have lunch the next day while getting ready. At the reception we had NC BBQ and we already knew how fantastic their BBQ was and they delivered as usual (you better believe I ate it!!). We also had mashed potatoes, salad, veggie medley, rolls, and the bluegrass slaw. For apps we had caprese skewers (moz, tomato, and an olive), a fruit and cheese display, and crab cakes. I only ate those as leftovers but even cold and leftover the crabcakes were amazing. Again a ton and a half of leftovers and since we were at Pelican's Landing, everything was just boxed up and in the fridge for the next day. The staff was absolutely a dream to work with. They made up our plates for us even though it was buffet and came over to us with a huge plate of apps to ask if we wanted them now or boxed up for us. They also took away our plates and boxed the leftovers up in special bride and groom boxes. One of the servers even saved the champagne cork for us.
OBX Music Masters (Johnny) - I worked with Matt Cooper on the phone and exchanged several emails to get our song selections to him and the wedding party intro down and Johnny was the DJ the day of. They did ceremony and reception music and all I knew going in for the ceremony was that I wanted to walk down the aisle to an instrumental version of "Here Comes the Sun". After talking with him, we decided on some steel drum-type beachy music for the other parts of the ceremony. Johnny did a good job picking songs that meshed well with the specific songs we requested.
Harris Teeter Corolla (cakes) - we did a cake buffet. When we talked to Raina during another stay at the OBX she said a small two-tiered white cake for us to cut would be no problem. When we called to order, she said that technically they're not supposed to do wedding cakes anymore because the frosting they use is not meant to hold up to the heat of the outdoors and Harris Teeter was afraid someone would either get sick or the cakes would just look bad due to melting. However, she said she would do it for us without an issue since we had talked to us previously, just warned us to keep in fridge until time to serve. We also had them set aside 10 assorted flavored cakes. We probably could have gotten away with about half that number but oh well. The caterers boxed them all back up and we ate cake the day after and my parents took almost three full cakes with them after that! I sampled almost all the flavors and they are all really good. They only needed a week's notice to place the order so they are great to work with, just not sure you'd be able to have an actual wedding cake from them anymore.
Harris Teeter Kitty Hawk (Maggi Kennedy) - this is pretty much my only negative review. And since two OBX brides had issues with her in one week, I think it's important to do. Maggi and I had been in contact since February after I made the decision not to make my own bouquets. I placed my order for bridesmaid bouquets, my bouquet, corsages, bouts, and 100 loose calla lilies since we used bud vases for our centerpieces. She confirmed that she placed the order with supplier about two weeks prior to the wedding. Then Monday (before our Saturday wedding) she calls and says that the flowers came in for bouquets and bouts but that she didn't have 100 loose callas and would have to special order them for $3/stem. Her original quote said $189 for 100 lilies. Why she needed to special order them five days before my wedding, I have no idea, the order should have already been placed. After some back and forth between she and my mother, I guess she thought it would be in her best interest to find our email exchange and soon enough, I had a voicemail from her saying she found the quote and had to honor her own price (ya think??). She did not ask what color ribbon for bouquets until my mom called the day before to pay for the flowers so Maggi could send the flowers to the Corolla location for pick up and at that point said the flowers wouldn't be available until noon because she had to wait for even more flowers to come in since she didn't like the look for some of them that came in. Luckily, the timing was ok and I guess it's good that she was watching out for the quality for us. I will say that work she did was gorgeous, I loved my bouquet. But, when my parents picked up the flowers the bouts were not what I ordered (wanted one pink and 6 orange and got the reverse), the moms' corsages were roses and not calla lilies and we didn't get a full 100 stems of callas. She did give us some snapdragons to make up for not having the full amount of callas needed but luckily we didn't need them. I certainly can't recommend her as other fully as people have prior to me have, even though the actual work was good, the customer service was not fantastic.
Matt Stanton Photography - Matt and Sarah are a married couple and are amazing people to work with. Their work is as amazing as they are. They're from Richmond so they traveled for us for the cost of two nights in the hotel, no additional travel fees. They came to the rehearsal to scope everything out and meet the key players in the wedding. They're still relatively new in the field and we got them before their price increase so they were a steal. I could go on and on about them but I'll try to keep it brief. They came at exactly the time I asked (no time limit, you just tell them when to come and when to leave!) and helped keep me calm when it was raining and stormy. I think I'm going to have to convince them to do family/kid pictures when we have kids because we've done engagement pics, a boudoir shoot, and now the wedding with them and we feel so comfortable, they're more like friends now!
HotHeads - again fantastic people. I booked them after I met them at the OBX wedding expo. I basically got a free hair and make-up trial because I approached their booth and they offered! It was a good approach, I got to see their personalities and they did a great job. They followed through on the wedding day, too. They traveled (for a fee, obviously, but worth every penny). Sofia did my hair and all bridesmaids' hair, part of my gift to them, and Kelly curled hair to help and did my make-up. They were a little later than the time we decided on but it was due to the nature of Southern Shores/Duck/Corolla traffic and Sofia called on their way to let me know. They still finished ahead of schedule and did their job perfectly. Seven very happy women! Since they came to us, they were able to work on two people's hair and the rest of us could work on set up.
Ocean Atlanic Rentals - my mom is upset by their policies because she needed to cancel some things and she didn't like having to pay a fee for this. I know it's probably perfectly common policy for this to happen and it was in the contract, sometimes the wedding industry is just going to get their money anywhere they can and that's the nature of things. They were there to set up the tent when we arrived on Thursday (we were expecting them Friday), they stayed out of our way and everything was great. They came to put up tent lights during the rehearsal and when they saw that we were doing the rehearsal, they asked if we wanted them to come back later. We were perfectly fine with them there and told them to go ahead but it was nice of them to ask. The only complaint I had was that they delivered the original number of chairs that we ordered even though we canceled about 50 of them and then we had random stacks of chairs at our reception. Out of the way, but odd that we had canceled them and got them anyway.
We also stayed in a house that my friends stayed at for two nights before we could go to Pelican's Landing. We stayed in a house called
High Tide in the Monterey Shores neighborhood in Corolla. It was a really nice house, the owners sent my friend (the one who booked the stay) an email about two weeks before we arrived with info about the house which was awesome because we were able to find out some extra things about the house and community that the website didn't tell you.