I took my sweet time doing this, I know. But I figure better late than never. As soon as I am done with this I will go update my profile with pics so you can see everything.
DRESS - Little While Dress in Castle Rock, which is now in Highlands Ranch (5stars)
PROS - They were amazing through out everything. Cassie was my consultant, and I would not have found perfection without her. She pulled things off of the hanger that I would never in a million years have tried on and they looked incredible on me. They even let me try on a 10k Valentino gown just for fun, knowing I would never even think of getting it.
When I was torn between two dresses they encouraged me to try them on as many times as I wanted/needed and I never once felt hurried. They let me go on a payment plan when the one I fell in love with was Way over my budget and facilitated a custom veil for me.
CONS- They moved to Highlands Ranch with out really letting me know, so when I went to pick up my veil and they weren't there I had a mini heart attack. I thought they were franchising and not moving the whole thing. But they payed for next day air FedEx when I called and told them I couldn't get all the way up there.
VENUE - Margarita @ Pine Creek (4stars)
PROS - On the day of my wedding I could not have asked for a better place. I originally wanted my wedding outdoors in a mountain meadow or in a scenic park, but the convenience of having a wedding and reception in one place was too alluring. But the patio in the back where I had both the ceremony and the reception was the best of both worlds. It had a killer view of the mountains, and a TON of flowers that are part of their normal decor, so many in fact, that we didn't need to spend any money on decorations other than a few table arrangements. There were sails and table umbrellas provided at no charge to keep the heat down and the service and the food was excellent. I got a lot of compliments on both. We used the downstairs area for the bridal party to get ready, and that was also included.
CONS - The event coordinator was not as pro-active as I would have liked, I almost always had to call her for follow up on something, and she was not appreciative of the week of coordinator that I had who helped me immensely.
They refused to do a formal cake tasting with me citing that all of their cakes are made to order (no other explanation), they did however let me know when they would be serving a certain flavor and gave us (myself, my mother, and the week of coordinator) a free slice. It turned out not to be an issue as the cake was amazing. I had lemon poppy seed with lemon filling and a chocolate with mocha filling, both covered with buttercream. But it still annoyed me to no end.
They also failed to let me know until the day before where the person who was going to be hitting play on my iPod(classy, I know) would be so I could determine whether they would be able to see the ceremony or not. They could.
FLOWERS- Ambiance Floral, Liz Ash (4stars)
PROS- She was very intuitive. I brought an overwhelming amount of photos with me to the initial meet of just stuff that I liked and she helped me sort through them taking what I liked about each and narrowing everything down.
She was very organic and did not give me cookie cutter, matchy matchy arrangements, which was my biggest fear. She listened and remembered every thing I asked her to do or not to do with the flowers.
They came out perfect and everyone was asking who had done them.
CONS- She lost my paperwork with the notes she had made between the first meet and the second, but was very pro active about it. She made sure to get me in for the second early enough to go over everything again and make sure she had time to order everything. She threw in a flower girl basket and cake flowers for the mistake and it did not effect anything.
She forgot to write down, or I forgot to specifically request a Groom's boutonnière, so when my flowers arrived at the venue (my Aunt picked them up morning of) I had a best man and a grandpa but no groom. I called in a minor panic, and she made and delivered one with in the hour, in plenty of time. I would recommend her in heart beat.
HAIR- Pam at Salon Rain (5stars)
PROS - I have been going to Pam for years, she almost always hits the nail exactly on the head with style and color, and when she doesn't, she fixes it for free immediately.
I had a pre day trial to go over generals and how I wanted my hair to look and feel. When it wasn't looking right how I was telling her, she used her experience to listen to how I wanted to feel like I looked(if that makes sense) and made my hair perfection.
She arrived earlier than I did on my day of, was awesome the whole morning, she helped calm me down So much. And my hair turned out like something from a movie.
CONS - It took longer than we thought to finish it, which was exacerbated by me being late. And so I was 15 min late walking down the aisle, which I hated. But it wasn't really her fault, and it was totally worth it.
JEWELRY- Rhonda Sunde (5stars)
She custom made me earrings based on pictures of my other potential jewelry (family heirlooms) and my dress, and it only took a week or so. The pricing was amazingly reasonable, and they were the best something new ever.
PHOTOGRAPHY- Elisha, Eternal Blessing Photography (5stars)
Elisha was probably the best find in this whole experience. We didn't need a huge package of photos or albums and she had a package that offered us exactly what we needed. She was there all day for a flat rate and the pictures came out better than I could have ever hoped for.
She is extremely professional, but fun and personable, so it was never awkward or stiff.
Best of all we had electronic copies of our photos in less than a month, where as our engagement photos took 6 MONTHS.
All in all my wedding went very smoothly. The minor things that went wrong were hardly noticeable if they weren't immediately fixable.
Please let me know if I forgot anything.
Edited for grammar.