Dress- Purchased from David’s Bridal. The sales person was nice and helpful. I probably tried on at least a dozen dresses. The only thing that I will say that I did not like about my experience there was that once I said that I wanted the dress and wanted to purchase it the sales person then told me that all sales were final. I guess because it was fairly early in the planning process it just took me back a bit. And maybe it was her bluntness. Idk. They also did my bustle, which was the only alteration that I needed. The bustle was beautiful and so I would say they did a pretty good job.
Accessories-I had an idea of the shoes I wanted so I searched at stores and online for months. I finally found a pair on eBay for $15. These same exact shoes are sold at David’s Bridal for $60. So I would recommend looking around. Honestly, you are probably not going to wear them that long and not that many people are going to see them so I would not recommend spending a lot of money on them. I bought a necklace and bracelet from Macy’s to wear. Both on sale relatively cheap with a lot of bling. I wore earrings that I already had. I also borrowed a slip from my cousin. I also bought a clutch that I thought was cute from Macy’s.
Tuxes-Men’s Warehouse-Not much to say here. Pretty basic, but they did a good job overall.
Flowers-Secret Garden-I used them before and they are great. They have lots of pictures to look at and can really put together anything you want. When they delivered the flowers there were some lisianthus buds sticking out. I voiced my concerns(mainly that they didn’t really look how I envisioned.) and the delivery person cut them off and made a quick fix so all was well. My flowers contained roses, hydrangeas, lisianthus and orchids. Our centerpieces were four white hydrangeas in a vase. We provided the vases to them and they put the centerpieces together. For $848 we got 1 bridal bouquet, 5 bridesmaids, 5 groomsmen boutonnieres, 2 mothers corsages, 1 father boutonniere, 1 grandmother corsage, 2 program attendant corsages, 2 ring bearers boutonnieres and hydrangeas for 21 centerpieces and orchids for the cake. I thought that was a good price for all the flowers and two deliveries.
Cake-Fantasy In Frosting-The lady that we met with was great with suggestions. They charge $3 a slice. It is a little more than what you can get at other places but there are no charges for fillings or flavors. We had a four tier square cake. I wanted our cake to be bigger than as many slices as we needed so the bottom layer was fake. And by fake I mean a piece of styrofoam covered in icing. We choose chocolate cake with chocolate ganache filling, vanilla cake with bavarian cream filling and then the top layer was marble with Bavarian cream. The Bavarian cream filling is sooo good. And they have many other filings to choose from. The cake was delivered and looked great. The only gripe I have about Fantasy In Frosting is that while I paid $75 for the fake layer of cake and was supposed to return it to the bakery along with the other pieces. Someone at the reception told the Syndicate that they could throw it away. When my mom returned the pieces they charged her $8 for the Styrofoam. Really? I thought that was a little unnecessary. So my fake layer cost me $83!!! It looked nice though.
We also got a Makers Mark grooms cake from them for the Rehearsal dinner. It was cute and really good.
Limo-M&M Limousine- We used an Excursion SUV for the twelve adult members of the wedding party. They charged me $115 an hour. They were a little early picking with pick-up and the driver (I forget his name) was great all day long. They ended up driving to eight different locations throughout the day and the driver knew exactly where he was going the whole time. They had a bottle of champagne poured for us after the ceremony. No worries at all. He even stopped so we could pick up more beer for the limousine.
Rehearsal Dinner-The Madison South-We used a room at the Madison South on the Thursday before the wedding. We highly recommend doing the Thursday RD. It just gives you that extra day to get last minute things done and relax. The service, food, décor, and staff were all so great at the Madison. The chicken parmesan was fantastic. We really can’t say enough about our experience there. Highly recommend!! They ended up giving us bottled beer and an extra hour for free. Just ask, all they can say is no!
Ceremony-Highland Ave Wesleyan Church, Ft. Wright KY-We chose this site mainly because it was available and cheap. We are religious but couldn’t get married at our own church but it was important to us to get married in a church. Honestly, the pastor there is a little strange, but he is very nice and really let us run the show. Our ceremony was only 15 minutes long. All was fast and on time. I really had complete control over the ceremony, vows and music. He is very open.
Pianist-Brianna Matzke-We found Brianna by contacting the College-Conservatory of Music at UC. If you contact them they will give your name and contact info to a few musicians and the musicians will contact you. It is completely up to you to make the deal. I goggled Brianna and saw that she was an accomplished musician. We met in her home with our vocalist, a friend, and they immediately were speaking each other’s language. Thank God because my husband and I know nothing about music. She made several suggestions and was helpful making a playlist. She was responsive, on time and played beautifully. Also, not terribly expensive.
Paper Products-I ordered my wedding invites, response cards, reception cards, menus, rehearsal dinner invites and thank you cards all from VistaPrint. They were cheap and delivered on time. I had several compliments on them and they were all coordinated. I couldn’t make the programs on the site so I purchased make your own from Michaels. They were great, easy to format, print and put together. And definitely less expensive than ordering online. I also used place cards from Michaels. They too were easy to lineup and print. Also purchased the card box, ring bearer pillows(2), and flower girl baskets from Michaels. I always used a coupon so I had to make MANY trips to Michaels to purchase all of these items.
Favors-We purchased coasters from theknot.com. Honestly I am not sure if most people took them or not but I will be selling the leftovers (I bought too many) so stay tuned.
DJ-Ryan Kellinghaus/513dj.com-We used Tom from 513dj.com. I liked the online organizer and payment system. We met with Tom once before the wedding to just talk out the details. He did a great job of announcing everyone’s names correctly and running everything exactly how we planned. Although I didn’t get a chance to dance much, people were dancing all night long and everyone had a great time.
Hair-Elizabeth Miller-I found Elizabeth through my cousin. She is a fun girl who works at Vintage Salon in Ft. Mitchell. She also is a photographer. I don’t have a review for her photography because I didn’t use those services. She was on-time and did a great job with everyone’s hair. We ran a little long at the end but I think that is because my hair is soooo long. She charged us $50 each.
Makeup-Bridgette Hon/Dollface Glamour-I found Bridgette by goggling and looking at a lot of different makeup artists. Honestly I found all of them to be just too much $$ for putting makeup on my face. Bridgette was great. She did another wedding party earlier in the morning before us and she even arrived a little early. She uses airbrush foundation and it’s so much better than someone smearing their hands all over your face. It stayed on all night and did not rub off. She was fast and efficient. She put fake eyelashes on most of us and did four girls total. She charged $30 for the makeup and $8 for the lashes. Highly recommend!
Photographer-Jonathan Gibson Photography-We found Jonathan through my husband’s brother who got married in May. He is very accommodating, gives many suggestions but is not intrusive at all. He was so fun to be around and really just blended well with everyone. His pictures are amazing. He went to a lot of different places with us and got some great photos. He was with us from 11 AM until at least 11 PM. I’m not sure what time it was, but I remember when he told me he was leaving I asked him why he was still there! We also used a photo booth from him. His assistant took those pics at the reception and everyone had such a great time with it. I highly recommend Jonathan and the photo booth. Very reasonably priced too!
Reception-The Syndicate, Newport, KY-We booked with the Syndicate because we liked the location, liked the lighting inside (you don’t have to pay for uplighting!!), and they gave us a great deal. We met with Sarah originally but later worked with Danielle. Danielle was great and very detailed oriented like I am. (Which I like) Everything leading up to the reception was great. I really think that we got a great deal for what we paid. I did pay $75 to have them take that god awful tulle down from the ceiling on the dance floor. It made my eyes hurt. We dropped off all the items they needed the day before (table numbers, signing mat, champagne glasses, etc.) Each side of the room has a server that will bring drinks around. We had Miles. He was fantastic. The two servers we had always kept fresh drinks in everyone’s hands all night long. We really can’t say enough good things about the service to us and our guests. They did a great job with the exception of three things, here comes my rant…The first item is small but non-the-less disappointing. We requested Ranch and Italian salad dressing because they were pretty middle of the road. They sat out Ranch and some type of red vinaigrette. Normally it wouldn’t be that big of a deal and I probably wouldn’t have noticed except that I wanted Italian and the menus that I had printed up had Italian listed on them. Not the end of the world, just really a stupid mistake that could have been avoided. The second item is that the beef we selected (which was so good at the tasting) was very rare. My husband and I both enjoy rare beef but it was cold and therefore chewy. It was not even edible, in my opinion. The third and issue I have with them is that the package included four hours of bar service. We stated many times that we did not want a cash bar and that we would pay tab for the last hour of our reception. I wasn’t aware of this the night of, but the next day I learned that at 11 PM they started a cash bar. There were only two things that my husband and I were adamant about while planning the reception and that was one of them. UPDATE: While you cannot turn back time and there really be any way to undo the cash bar situation, we feel like the Syndicate provided us with an adequate apology and reimbursement for the time and aggravation of the situation.
Honeymoon-Secrets Royal Beach, PuntaCana, Dominican Republic-It is an all-inclusive adults only resort. It is great for couples and honeymooners. Please see my review on Tripadvisor.com at:
I will be posting items for sale soon with pics.
Thanks for reading and I hope these are as helpful to you as everyone’s that I read were helpful to me.