Wedding Planner – Vanessa from Karma Goddess A+++++++++++++++
Vanessa went above and beyond and then some! She was there every single step of the way to guide me in the planning process. On the day of the wedding she was there for at least 12 hours for every part of the setup, wedding, and tear down. She never missed a beat. She handled every single problem that arose and never broke a sweat! She worked so incredibly hard and made my wedding absolutely perfect!
Venue – Lauderdale Yacht Club C+
The venue was absolutely perfect. The location is beautiful! Because I’m vegan they let me completely customize my own menu and I must say the food was fantastic. All night guests were telling me how delicious their meals were and how perfectly the steaks were cooked considering they had to make so many. The staff worked really hard and made the event run so smoothly!
EDIT: I told the catering director at least 3 times that I wanted the bar closed at 9:30 to avoid overages....now they're sticking me with a bill for an extra $1000 because they didn't close the bar in time....Make sure you have this in writing. I do not because she kept $)(#&ing up our contract so bad that I finally called her and did it over the phone...
Ceremony & Cocktail Musicians - Master Musicians – A+++++++
Masters Musicians was really great. I couldn’t believe their prices! They were able to play all of the songs that I requested on the guitar and steel drums.
DJ – Vision DJs A+++++
Vision DJs was the perfect choice. They were very professional and played every single song I requested! I would highly recommend Vision DJs.
Dress #1 – Patricia South’s - A for store, D- for alterations department
I purchased my first dress at Patricia South’s back in October with an expected arrival date at the end of January. My consultant was Amy and she was really helpful and listened to what I wanted/didn’t want and found me what I thought was a gorgeous dress with a few alterations I wanted done. She was also the only consultant from any store that followed up with me. The dress was over a week late but it was the manufacturers problem not the store’s and they assured me it would be no problem to alter it in time for my March 3rd wedding. The dress arrived and I decided to just get it altered there to save me the trouble. I brought it upstairs and tried explaining what I wanted changed on the sleeves to the seamstress. She didn’t say much but I thought I got the message across. A week later I went back and she had done the total opposite of what I wanted. Come to find out she and the other seamstress do not speak ONE SINGLE WORD OF ENGLISH. The issue here is that there were no consultants that spoke Spanish. 4 alterations later I decided I no longer liked my dress and gave up trying to get it fixed there.
Dress #2 – BHLDN
Due to dress #1 being “ruined” (it was still pretty but not anything that I wanted) I decided to order a dress from BHLDN 2 weeks before my wedding. Their sales people on the phone were very helpful and made the ordering process easy. I received the dress in 2 days. It fit me PERFECTLY out of the box but was a bit too long.
Alterations #2 – Reina at Angelus Bridals
With 1.5 weeks to my wedding and a too long wedding dress, I called Reina and she said no problem to hemming a complicated lace wedding gown in 4 days. I brought it in and was a bit nervous due to my previous experience at Patricia South’s but had no choice. She did a phenomenal job! It was also much less expensive than I had anticipated. I would definitely recommend her!
Officiant – Rev. Arlene Goldman – A++++++++++
Arlene was very sweet when I talked to her on the phone initially. She sent us some questionnaires to complete so that she could create a custom ceremony for us. I loved what she wrote and all of our guests said that it was incredibly touching and the perfect length!
Photographer – Brett Tyler – A++++ (pending photos)
Brett arrived right on time. He was very efficient at taking the family photos and first look photos before the wedding. His team worked all night and I never really noticed he was there except on the dance floor and for the cake cutting when they had us posing. He was very professional and though I’ve only seen one photo so far I’m so excited to see the rest.
Invites, Menus, Papergoods – Tasha Rae Designs – A+++++++++
All of Tasha’s paper products are printed on eco friendly recycled paper and printed with soy based ink. When I first contacted her, her invites were way over my price range but she worked with my budget and created beautiful invites for us! Her creation and shipping was also really quick.
Wedding Cake - Bunnie Cakes – B+
Because I’m vegan I really wanted to have a vegan wedding cake. I did a tasting with Bunnie Cakes and instantly fell in love. Their cake was so incredibly delicious and moist that I would literally have dreams about it. I’m not sure if it was the ingredients but when it came time to cut the cake it was obvious that it had melted a bit and some of the tiers were sliding. Also, I had requested all white icing with pink orchids and instead got pink and white icing which I thought looked a little sloppy with pink orchids. The candy orchids were absolutely beautiful though and the cake still tasted AMAZING!
MUA – Susana Betancourt – A++++++++++++
Sadly Susana had to return to Columbia the week of my wedding for a family emergency. She did send her replacement (Vicki) however and she was amazing! All night people were telling me how perfect my makeup was.