This is it....thanks for reading!
Reverend – Jim Rehnberg – Very highly recommended
I have known the “Rent-A-Rev” for a very long time. He has married two of my friends, my brother, and was supposed to perform my ceremony for my first (broken) engagement many years ago. Jim is a great guy. I was worried that I might hear the same stuff that I heard at all of the other weddings of his I’ve been at, and I did hear some, but he put so much in there that just pertained to us. He had everyone laughing and having a good time. You do get to meet him before the wedding, so he learns a lot about you then. For instance, I call my husband Bob because that’s how I met him. But his family calls him Robert and his co-workers call him Rob. So, for the ceremony, when you have to repeat after the reverend, “I take you, Bob…”, he had me say that, but after I said “Bob”, he then said “Rob”, and “Robert”. Everyone got a big kick out of that, including me! He’s a great guy! Worth the money IMO.
www.rentarev.com
Photo Booth – Photo Booth of the Stars – Highly, highly recommended
These guys were great! Their price was well below anyone else (although I did get a seasonal discount I believe. We had them for 5 hours, plus an idle hour during dinner. We had over 175 photo strips taken. We got a copy of every one of them, plus a scrap book where they pasted them and people got to sign (if they wanted). Our scrap book was full after about the first 70 strips or so, but they just gave us the rest in a picture sleeve in the back. Within a week the CD containing all the pics was mailed to us. They have a photo gallery online also, where guests can copy the pictures for free (copy onto their computer – and the photo booth people told us to do it that way). They brought props – I know some places charge extra for that. Everything went perfectly!
www.photoboothof thestars.com
Cake – Sweet Dreams Desserts – Recommended
Sweet Dreams has always been my favorite. You can say what you want about the fancy cupcakes you can get in Chicago at various places, but these far surpass any of those. They are located in Sycamore, but have a small bakery in Wasco also. The bakery in Wasco is a satellite location, so they don’t actually do any baking there. So, they delivered our cake from Sycamore! I was so incredibly scared to see it. We had wanted a sort of Halloween theme, but then the topper that I got (Etsy) was more fall than Halloween, and then I just started rethinking the whole thing altogether. We had a burnt orange cake with chocolate ganache on the top of each layer and dripping down the sides. She then put white spider webs between the ganache drips. You can see why I was scared! It was the most awesome cake I have ever seen. Everybody loved it! And I also had her surprise my husband with a Jeep cake (he has a big jeep and is into the whole off-roading thing). It was basically a hill with rocks and stuff and the jeep at the top. I had to provide the “rocks” (chocolate boulders from Kimmie Candies) and the Jeep. I even sent along a picture of something I wanted it to look like. Again, she just blew me away with how incredible the cake looked. The whole reason I went with them was because of their cupcakes and how incredible they taste – the cake is just as good. People went back for seconds and thirds! There were some communication problems with them along the way that had me very worried. But all in all, everything ended up perfect.
www.sweetdreamsdesserts.com