We got married September 3rd--and we do not have all our pictures back--but here are some of the vendor reviews...
General statement:
Our wedding was the weekend after the hurricane--wow, what amazing timing--and luckily all our venues still had water and electricity, unlike much of the local area. The weather which I was worried all summer would end up being hot and humid or pouring down rain, was quite nice. It was only just a little warm, as one would expect on Labor Day weekend, and it was all sunshine.
St. James Church was the best ceremony location we could have chosen. We had a ceremony co-officiated by an Episcopalian priest and a Roman Catholic priest (since my husband and I are likewise split). The church has such great acoustics that they host a local vocal group--and is said to have the best organ in the region. The church was then only a short walk to the reception site. The Thames Club of New London was likewise the perfect reception location for us (see my large review on that below).
Our wedding had a very traditional ceremony (which seems to be less and less common these days), but our reception was not very standard. People had lots to eat and lots of fun, but there was no chicken dance nor even a seated dinner with chicken. I had heard it recommend to make the wedding about you and your fiancé, and we certainly lived up to that rule of thumb.
Vendor reviews:
Rings:
Friend: A+
My engagement ring is a family heirloom. Our wedding bands were made by a friend who works as a jewelry designer across the country. We sent her pictures of what we liked and she very quickly made them. The cost was cheaper than most jewelry stores with a bigger personal touch.
Bridal gown:
Bridal Mall: A
Maggie Sottero purchased at Bridal Mall of Niantic. The gown was perfect for our wedding, and nearly everyone that is was an heirloom find. However, it was a huge stroke of luck. We made an appointment for their annual clearance sale when all gowns are sold for less that $800. I believe mine was $600. It was not a 2011 issue, and I honestly don’t know what season it is. We did some changes with a ribbon sash—and hemmed it up and permanently attached the straps—and it was unique and perfect, I loved it more and more after I bought it.
Tuxedoes:
Jos A Bank in Waterford: A+
By purchasing our tux we spent the same money as renting it, no joke! And, it was much nicer quality. We waited until a great sale came along, the store helped us with the timing, and placed the order for our groom’s tux and those of any groomsmen or ushers also desiring to purchase. Only one groomsman decided to rent (Jos A Bank also does rental). One groomsman already had a tux from his wedding which was the exact same style as the one we were getting! As our gift, we purchased the tux shirts and bow ties from Jos A Bank (also on sale) for all the men. I made cufflinks and pocket squares for everyone. Now all but one guy has their own tux, no pricier of an option, and it was a very nice tux. The store in Waterford was amazing to deal with and I love the people there—they have been so helpful. I would highly recommend this route for anyone.
Bridesmaid Dresses:
Bill Levkoff: B
We did not order these from a local store, so I cannot rate it. We finally settled on my 3 girls picking slightly different knee length styles out of Bill Levkoff. It was more a hassle in finding something that made every girl happy. Ironically, the one style that I loved above all others was by far the best looking style on the one bridesmaid that wore it. Sometimes us brides should trust our gut… We then price compared all local shops and one near a bridesmaid in DC undercut the others by far, so we ordered them there. The eggplant color on the Euro sating was beautiful and I would recommend Bill Levokff to anyone—but the sizing is horrible… just to forewarn you.
Flower Girl dresses:
Strasburg Children: A+
I finally found what I was looking for online at Strasburg Children, I highly recommend what they have: reasonable prices compared to these bridal salon places, but so nicely made and convenient.
Hair/Makeup:
Larissa Lake: A
She and an assistant came to our bridal suite to help us with hair and makeup. She does airbrushing, and it gave me the best not-heavy makeup look ever! I am so happy I decided to do this! I would recommend to anyone else to get airbrushing as it really gives a longer lasting but not heavy makeup. The hair style was also a perfect choice for me. I knew I would need an updo in the heat and humidity, and it lasted late into the night.
Nails:
Nancy’s Salon in New London: A
I decided on shelack, since my husband does not like the look of acrylic. They gave me a beautiful bridal look, that lasted my entire 6 days of wedding madness (and my nails will chip the day of in regular polish). I recommend shelack for any girl that needs something stronger than regular polish that does not one the fake nail look.
Nail Spa II in Waterford: A
I met the girls here on the day of the rehearsal for some pedicures and manicures (for everyone else). This place provides a nice hot stone back massage and let us bring in food and wine to enjoy—yay!
Invitations:
J. Solomon Stationary in New London: B+
Solomon’s gave us a much more beautiful product than we could have gotten anywhere, but we did pay for it. It is a family local store, and I love supporting local businesses, but some online places will save you lots of money. I like to craft and DIY, but my fiancé did not want me to DIY the invitations, I believe he was worried about them not looking professional or nice. We ordered them via Crane, in one of their thickest papers possible, it is almost like cardboard. We had copper beveling on the edges (meaning the edges were painted with copper metallic paint). And the text was letterpress. We then had a wide dark purple satin ribbon placed as a belly band around the invitation, that also held our other enclosures. On top of the ribbon, centered, was a coin/ token that my fiancé and I had made… (he collects coins and I collect stamps, so we wanted to incorporate that). On the inner envelope, we hand cancelled some old used stamps (1 and ½ cent stamps). On the outer envelope we used old unused stamps to account for the postage. They are worth face value, so no more expensive than regular stamps if you keep shopping around (we bought many from the internet). Friends are still talking about how these were the nicest invitations they had ever receieved.
Programs:
DIY: A+
These were very thorough to account for our wedding ceremony that took parts from both the Roman Catholic and Episcopalian churches. I purchased nice heavy resume paper from Staples and printed it on the church printers. They then let me and another friend come in and use their stapling and folding machine to bind them (they were printed onto 8.5 x 11” paper to be folded into a booklet of 12 pages). I think programs are sometimes superfluous, but for our ceremony they were critical. We tried to include a few personal touches like prayer cards tucked in the last page, and footnotes throughout with fun wedding facts or personal statements. We then wrapped the program in a purple ribbon (like the invitation was) and centered a different coin on it. I also made a kids’ activity book (we were to have 40 children)—and provided packs of crayons, I am very happy I did!
Coin:
Badger Mint: A+
This is the company that made our 2 coins: one for the invitation and one for the program. It was a great touch for us. One had our facing profile portraits and one had our monogram. They both had the same reverse.
Flowers/ decorations:
DIY: A
I did not have a florist, I made my own bouquets out of hand wired brooches and artificial flowers. I am happy with the personal touch and I am thrilled that I now have my bouquet in a vase in my house, what a wonderful, long term memory! I otherwise used some lavender from a friend’s garden and milk glass and old books and tea cups to decorate… ohh and wine and whiskey bottles with dried flowers. I also gathered old family photos from both sides of the family and collected old frames from yard sales. I scanned, copied, and printed the family photos to fill the frames and placed all around the reception.
Car:
A friend: A+
We did not have the budget for a limo, so instead a friend loaned us (and drove us in) his vintage car—and it was so perfect for the day. I was worried at first that I would miss the experience of a limousine, but, in fact, this was so much better and a limo would have just gone to waste. I would recommend something with a similar personal touch for other brides. My Grandmother was so excited to ride in it and said it brought back memories of her 20s.
Photography:
Capture Photography… A++
We have only seen the teasers, but they are amazing. Mary Beth is very talented and got the shots we wanted without being intrusive. She was a joy to work with and guests kept noting how good she was at capturing just the right moments without adding stress or awkwardness. She was also within our price range--which was not too big! The time we allotted to formal pictures was all but none, but she managed to rip through some really great portraits in that time. Nothing was forced or posed on the wedding day—and yet the pictures, wow, we could mot have hoped for more—and she was a few thousand less than other photographers of that caliber. I would highly recommend her as we were so happy we went with her!
Videographer:
DIY/ a friend: B
I implore all of you to at least do what we did, get a friend to run a video camera. It means so much that we can actually look back and watch part of this—and here the giggles and when my mom got up to sing Panis Angelicus, all of it. I also think it is wise if you can afford it to go the professional route. I am not upset we did not, but I know we would have had a more thorough version if we had.
Ceremony venue:
St. James Church: A++
Wow- Saint James Episcopal Church in New London is an amazing building--even if you do not plan to have your wedding here, I still recommend you visit it for its historical and artistic significance. The church has more Tiffany stained glass windows than any other building north of the Mason-Dixon line. It is also the site of the first American bishop, Samuel Seabury. It has the old dark wood floor boards and pews (with the doors on the pews). It can hold a lot of people or just a few and still feel intimate. They also have a much smaller chapel located beneath the church. I am a parishioner here, but I know they also do weddings for non-parishioners, so if you like the look of a gazillion Tiffany stained glass windows and a dark wood, old-world style church, then I would suggest you inquire.
Reception venue:
Thames Club: A+
Although Thames Club does not host too many weddings, it really is a perfect place for them. They do in-house catering and the old building and ambiance are old-world elegance to a T. The food was delicious.
My husband became a member back in January for a small fee. Members have free rental use of the building and its rooms. So we had the entire building--all three finished floors--at our disposal! We had everything from a brightly lit air conditioned bridal suite for getting ready in the morning, to a photo booth room (old fire place and couch), to the library, decorated with our own old books and family portraits, to 3 bars open for our guests' patronage, to the larger main rooms for serving the food stations, to duck pin bowling downstairs and an antique pool table in full use in the pub area. (This was not a standard wedding with a big open ballroom and a DJ, but it was perfect for us). For a seated dinner and a more standard wedding reception, Thames Club could probably only fit about 100, but for a wedding more in our style with all 3 floors open, they can easily fit more than 200.
With the membership fee, this wedding still cost less than had we had the wedding at any other nearby location, from Crocker House Ballroom, to the Garde, to the CGA Officer's Club--seriously it was the best deal--and beautiful... and there are lots of churches within walking distance--it was so convenient!
DJ:
None/ a friend: A+
We did not plan to have standard wedding dancing, but just wanted some nice background music for the night. A friend of a friend set up a great speaker and microphone system for us. My MoH brought her laptop full of an already prepared iTune list. This was a great way for us to prioritize and not go over budget, it was a great choice for us!
Cake:
You Take the Cake of New London: A+
I have never known wedding cake to look this good and taste this good. And Lisa was amazing to work with—we felt so lucky to have found her! I think she is probably the best cake maker in Southeastern CT… and yet the more we added to our order, the cheaper it became… add a groom’s cake, well, it’s cheaper per slice, and some cupcakes for the kids…. Even cheaper per person. Wow. I cannot recommend her enough. I have since started using her for all kinds of cakes, like birthdays, etc. She is at least the same price as Stop and Shop, if not cheaper, and immensely better!
Cake Lady: F:
I have to also mention the cake vendor we did not choose. We at first heard glorious stories of the Cake Lady and immediately decided we would try to book her. I visited her shop 3 times, once buying over a dozen cupcakes for a kids’ birthday party. Each time I visited, I expressed interest in looking at wedding cakes and scheduling a meeting. However, each time I entered her shop I felt like I was imposing on her and her staff, as if my presence was a hindrance to real work getting done or some such. After wrangling, I did manage to pick up a vague price list. And was told if I put a deposit down, then she would take time to schedule a meeting and do a tasting, but not before. She suggested I buy cupcakes instead if I was not 100% sold on her. So I bought cupcakes.
Finally a friend who has worked with a catering company at hundreds of local weddings, suggested a few other options to me. She told me that in her experience, the Cake Lady had once made amazing cakes, but her business has gotten a little big for her to handle and her personality is not… warm. So, I researched a few of her suggestions, and You Take the Cake was the polar opposite in all the good ways from the Cake Lady, that was part of the reason, I knew my choice to be a good one
Hotel:
None: there was not one hotel that was able to give me a better deal on a group rate than I could find online with no discount! I finally sucked it up, and was still planning to book a group package with Hilton Garden Inn in Groton (per my in-law’s request), but I spent 3 months chasing their event planner down. I never got hold of him, but Hilton had to send in some “help” so he could respond once to my many attempts to contact him (and I am sure many other frustrated customers). Seriously, 3 months of emailing, calling, talking to the reception—I finally got the response when I complained on Trip Advisor and on the Hilton website. Once our guests checked in, however, they had a wonderful experience, and it seemed one of the nicer hotels in the area.
Radisson Hotel in New London was by far the most conveniently located and no more expensive than the Hilton Garden Inn, but I had only heard such horrible experiences and reviews of them in the past 5 years (bad management) that I advised no one book there (seriously, disgusting, unsanitary, stuff). My mom still booked there and had all her side book there. Then the hotel finally sold out to a generic company (such bad management eventually broke it)—by the time guests arrived, it was known as the New London Plaza Hotel. But, the hurricane forced lots of local guests to seek hotel lodging (since many homes still had no water or electricity). NL Plaza Hotel was the only local hotel (we had 7 local hotels our guests were frequenting that weekend), however, that bumped guest with prior reservations. Yep, that is right, we had guests coming from out of town, that were bumped with no place to stay, we had guests that were unable to attend our wedding. If I was not going to recommend them before, I was even more angry after this!