Wedding date: April 10, 2010
Location: Inn at Middleton Place
Rehearsal dinner:
Sticky Fingers Summerville - A
Pros: no room rental fee, plenty of space, great food, was able to take bottles of unused beer home, given leftover food as well
Cons: none
Hair:
Renee at New Creations, Summerville - A
Pros: had another stylist do my sisters' hair so she could focus on me. Was very careful and precise in the updo. Did a fantastic job. Only charged $50, plus tip. Bridesmaids were $45.
Cons: She took 3 hours to do it.
Dress:
Bridal House of Charleston C+
Pros: bought a dress off the rack for 70% off.
Cons: their seamstress wouldn't listen to me and though she did fantastic work, made the situation more stressful than needed. (dropped the dress off for alterations in October, because it needed to be cleaned before the wedding with the assumption that it would be done before the end of the year. After many phone calls she finally started on it mid January and then the cleaning order had to be rushed so that the dress would be back in time. The bridal shop did pick up the cost of the rush cleaning, but things just didn't have to be this annoying. Stay away from Manaja - the seamstress.
Photography:
Tillman Branch - jury is out, haven't seen the pictures yet
Pros: customized the package because we didn't want a lot of the extra pieces - engagement/bridal portraits, guest book, etc, great to work with.
Cons: after further review, probably should have negotiated a better price because what was taken out of the package was worth more than the $400 in savings we received.
DJ
Lee Edwards Entertainment - B
Pros: Great to work with, fast responses, and was on top of the additional sound system for the ceremony.
Cons: Apparently his speakers weren't loud enough for all of the guests in the back of the room to hear the toasts/speeches. I had selected some songs to be played for the night and he pretty much just went with those, I didn't get the feeling that he 'read' the party well or was interactive enough. Everyone did seem to enjoy themselves though.
Flowers:
Wildflowers Inc - A
Pros: Beth was great and the flowers were gorgeous. The centerpieces were more beautiful than I thought they would be.
Cons: Had some issues with the boutonnières. They were either floppy and one of them broke. Fortunately she had added an extra one to the bunch so we were okay there, but extra pins would have been nice. Also, the corsages for the mothers could have been a bit more feminine.
Cake:
Michele Purser - A
Pros: Did a fantastic job on the cake, looked beautiful and tasted great. She had left Piggly Wiggly where we had left the deposit, but took our order with her and basically made the cake for half price since she didn't get to take the deposit with her.
Cons: none, she did a fantastic job
Location:
Inn at Middleton Place - A
Pros: Tricia took care of all of the details and made the wedding planning very easy. Food was onsite as well as all of the linens and serving ware. We were also provided with free candles for the table and had we known we would not have needed to purchase vases either. One of the cheaper venue rentals around - only $1200 site rental (depending on the number of guests) Were able to bring in our own alcohol.
Cons: the bugs were a bit annoying at the ceremony.
Ceremony musician:
Kathy Beres-Rogers, violinist - A
Pros - She was raising money for a TNT marathon and offered her musical services as a way of fundraising. We donated to her cause/paid up front in the fall and then she played for us in the spring. (Bonus tax deduction) Beautiful music, worked with Lee Edwards on the sound system for the ceremony. Fantastic job and has a wide repertoire of classical music.
Cons: Can be a bit hard to get a hold of, but is on top of everything even if she doesn't always respond.
Alcohol
Safeway Beer & Kegs B+
Pros: Very large keg selection.
Cons: All items had to be returned in 4 days, not a problem since we were leaving for the honeymoon and had to return then, but there was a lot of beer left over and if we had been around we would have still had to toss it because it wouldn't have gotten drunk in time.
Registries:
Macys, Kohls, Oneida
Macys - A
Decent selection, average prices - can get some dishes cheaper at BBB, wish there was one in Charleston
Kohls - D
Boy were they a pain in the butt, the gun didn't work right in the store so we set most of it up online. The registry count was never right, received duplicates on some gifts because of that. And there was a computer glitch somewhere that caused a gift my sister purchased to be sent to my husband's cousin. They were very nice to me about it and worked through the situation, but they were not nice to her at all and told her that she would either have to pay to ship the gift to us or pay to return it even though it wasn't her fault that the gift was sent to her. The situation has been resolved, but she didn't get a good impression of Kohls.
Oneida - A
No problems, great selection, love the normal sized, good quality silverware and the fact that it is a forever pattern so we can always get replacements.
Honeymoon - will review under honeymoon section of the knot - we went to Hawaii