Finally, my vendor reviews! Everything went extremely well on the day of my wedding, and for the most part, my vendors were great. You can check out pictures on my Married Bio (link in my signature)! First, our rehearsal dinner... VENUE: North Bank Park Pavilion Everything was great. They let us come in 1.5 hours early to make sure everything was being set up properly, and opened the truck bays for us. Street parking was a breeze. As most of you know, NBPP is an beautiful venue with amazing downtown skyline views. Everyone loved it. CATERER: Catering by Sammy (kosher): A Everything was delicious and extremely well priced! They even made kugel and blintzes which were amazing. And they set up a Jeni's ice cream bar for us at no charge (we supplied the ice cream) even though it wasn't kosher. The days leading up to the event, he was great with communication and solving little issues that came up. FLORIST: Whole Foods I'm not going to rate them, out of courtesy, because... they delivered the flowers on THE DAY BEFORE. Somehow the mixed up the day of the rehearasl dinner because mine was on a Saturday and they thought for some reason all RD's are on Fridays! But I won't give them a poor rating, because I know they do amazing work, and they were extremely apologetic, and more than made up for it (double refunded my money plus a $50 gift card), and they said they've set up things better so that such a mistake would never happen again. In the meantime, we found another florist who came through at the last minute... FLORIST: Designs by Doe: A+ They were amazing! We called them at 20 minutes before the event (they were recommended to us by Giant Eagle, who we called first), and they had flowers ready for us within 45 minutes or so. Not only were they gorgeous, but they were in the same colors I had wanted (white and yellow)! They were truly miracle workers. Then they pestered everyday afterwards for my payment, which was annoying because we were dealing with a family emergency at the time, but not a really big deal. BARTENDER: Creative Cuisine: A Sam was very friendly and helpful. He even helped us set up the tables! Okay, onto the wedding! VENUE: Franklin Park Conservatory: B+ Franklin Park Conservatory is one of the most gorgeous spaces in Columbus. It is costly, but for the most part, is worth every penny. Also, money can be saved by having an afternoon or Sunday wedding, which is one of the reasons we had our wedding on a Sunday. Also, the staff at FPC are very knowledgeable and since they are basically a wedding factory, they know what they are doing. Our wedding was absolutely gorgeous and memorable for our guests, and we couldn't recieve more compliments. The weather even cooperated for our outdoor ceremony on the West Terrace, and our reception in the Palm House. There are two things the FPC staff do need to work on: flexibility and communication. There are many, many rules at FPC and the staff are very unwilling to budge on them. They are many fees, many excessive, should you break any of the rules. I will say there were a couple of issues we had that they were flexible on, but it took much convincing to get there. Also, we were miscommunicated to regarding the price (they wanted to charge us a Saturday night rental rate even though we were on a Sunday, just because it was during Labor Day weekend, without telling us before) - they ended up adjusting the room rental but never the beverage minimum. Overall, I would recommend FPC to others because the day of the wedding, everything was absolutely beautiful and our day went very smoothly. CATERER: Catering by Chani (kosher): A Everything was delicious. The food was expensive, but kosher is not cheap, so it was within our financial expectations. She also did our wedding cake, which was delicious (especially for dairy free!) and the exact simple pleated design I wanted. For dessert we had a *dairy free* ice cream sundae bar, which was amazing! And candy buckeyes! She has some issues being organized but nothing too major. FLORIST: Mikelle Hickman-Romine: A- Flowers were amazing. She came through on my must-have flowers (burgundy cymbidium orchids and mini black calla lillies) and came up with other great ideas. She also made amazing branch centerpieces with white orchids and hanging votives, exactly what we wanted. She also did our chuppah, which was awesome, and our flats of wheatgrass for the placecards. The only reason I gave her an A- was because she had some issues with communication. See my Married Bio for pictures. PHOTOGRAPHER: Karen Evans/KISO Fotografia: A Karen does photojournalistic, artistic and unique photos. Our wedding pictures were beautiful; you can see them on my married bio. She is very quick on communication and helped come up with my day-of timeline. She had a very quick turnaround on getting the photos to us. My only complaint is that she conflicted with our videographer a lot and seemed to get frustrated easily. VIDEOGRAPHER: Blue Skies Wedding Productions: A We haven't gotten our video back yet (but that's partially our fault too because we didn't get our song selections to them until a couple of weeks after the wedding), but Chris and Julie were a pleasure to work with and we loved the previous work we've seen them do. They also have top-of-the-line equipment that allows them to tape without using an obtrusive spotlight. We can't wait to see the video! CEREMONY MUSIC: Fermata Music: B Fermata Music provided us with a live instrumental trio for our ceremony. The musicians were talented and played what we requested. Mitch was great to work with as well. Our only complaint was that they didn't have a very extensive list of music to pick from. DJ: TEAM DJ (Pete): A+ We had Pete as our DJ and he was AWESOME. He gave us great ideas and recommendations, and was realistic and honest about music selections. He was extremely flexible with the different little things we had going on - my husband planned to sing/play guitar for me as a surprise right after our first dance, and he made it happen with me ever knowing! He also kept things on track all night, was a coordinator of sorts. Pete is very friendly, knowledgeable and professional. He really cares about his clients! TRANSPORTATION: Creative Coach/Fun Bus Trolley: A+ We used their trolley. They first took us and our wedding party around town to take pictures, and then took our guests to our venue from the hotel, and back at the end of the night. They were extremely flexible! We and the wedding party got held up at the venue well after our time was up to clean things up, and the trolley stayed to make sure we could get one last ride in it to the hotel, and also to pick up guests who had stayed a little late as well. The trolley was gorgeous, fully enclosed and air conditioned! HAIR: Jennifer (Motter) King: A Jen did my hair and my bridesmaids' hair. Everything came out beautiful, and her prices were extremely reasonable. She came to us, to my downtown hotel where we got ready. MAKEUP: Alison Feamster: A Alison did my bridal makeup and also the makeup for my five bridesmaids. The airbrush makeup looked amazing and stayed on all day and night. She was extremely flexible - she allowed me to change my mind on my eyeshadow on the day-of, and she dealt with some particular picky bridesmaids.
She was calm and patient throughout, and everyone was very impressed by her work. RENTALS: Lasting Impressions: A Lasting Impressions was the rental company recommended to us by our caterer, and because our wedding was kosher, we wanted to make it as easy on our caterer as possible, so we looked nowhere else, so I don't know if the prices were reasonable or not. We rented glass dishes, flatware, glassware (including wine & water glasses and bar glasses). We were satisfied with the quality of the rental products and how well they worked with our caterer. We had an ice cream sundae bar for dessert, and our main color of the wedding was purple, and they had these perfect little purple stemless martini glasses, they were so cute and fit so well with our wedding (they weren't cheap though!). They also had good recommendations for how much glassware to rent for our bar. HOTEL BLOCK: Westin Hotel: A I had my wedding block at the Westin, and I was very happy with everything. My husband and I already love the Westin, because of their big cushy beds (well that's more me) and because they are dog-friendly and do not charge you any deposits or fees for it. As we got closer to our wedding weekend, many of my guests found that there were promotions online that wer offering slightly lower prices than our wedding block, but the Westin, while not being able to change our agreed-to price, did manually add to our wedding block all our guests who booked their rooms online, or directly through the hotel using AAA or other discounts. This way they still got booked together and got their OOT welcome bags. They also allowed my husband and his groomsmen to use an unused conference room to get ready on the day of the wedding. Also, I was able to negotiate my wedding block price with them, so please be aware that you can do this too! LINENS: Connie Duglin: A Great prices, quality and variety. They were very patient with us while we explored the different color options. They even ordered samples for us so we could test them out at our venue, and allowed us to change our order even as soon as a week before the wedding. WEDDING DRESS: Bridal & Formal, Cincinnati: A- I had a great experience at Bridal & Formal. They are tied with Kleinfeld's in NYC as being the largest bridal store in the nation. They have tons of selection in all price ranges - I told them my price range and they directed me to an entire room of dresses right in or around that range. I ended up buying a dress that was exactly in that range. I didn't expect to buy a dress when I went, because it was very early on in my wedding planning, but I tried on 15 or so dresses and they were all excellent and beautiful. I had a tough time deciding between the last two. Norma was my consultant and she was extremely friendly and helpful. While I was happy I got my dress from B&F, I was disappointed to later find my dress priced online at other bridal stores for a lesser price. I would recommend taking two trips to the store, first to find the dress(es) you like, and then come back with the price matches. Unfortunately I don't live locally so this probably wouldn't have been an option for me. Secondly, I wasn't very bothered by the group dressing rooms, but I can see why some brides might not feel comfortable changing in front of other brides. I was also disappointed that I couldn't take pictures of the dresses I tried on, just for memory's sake. TUX RENTALS: Romanoff's: A They had a great promotion giving the groom a free rental AND a free suit to keep after the wedding! Prices were average, and they were very accomodating, allowing all the groomsmen (all of whom were from OOT) to come in the day before the wedding for final fittings, and picking up all the rented tuxes from the Westin the day after the wedding, on Labor Day. BOUDOIR PHOTOGRAPHER: IQ Foto, Maria Hall: B+ Maria has a very edgy, sexy style that is perfect for boudoir photography. She is excellent at communication and is very friendly and passionate. Her and husband made me feel very comfortable throughout the photo shoot. My only complaint was that she harped so much on how much she values editing, and considers that the foundation of all that she does, that I was disappointed to get the photos back with certain things completely looked over, like a bruise on my thigh, a white tag that showed through my lace panties, and a couple shots where my belly was clearly unflattering (I was a bit bloated that day, lol). She did some editing, but it looks like she only focused on certain parts of me, like my face and hair, but completely ignored the rest of my body. When I emailed her about it, she never got back to me. DAY-OF COORDINATOR: A Wedding by Sylvia: A+ Sylvia Harris-Douglas did an AMAZING job. Even in the time leading up to the wedding, she helped answer questions for me, come up with ideas, and even brought up issues to me I had not thought of before. On the day of the wedding, she was extremely professional, friendly, calm, and prepared! She even had a mini hot glue gun on hand when my father's shoe sole broke right before the ceremony! She handled so many logistical issues behind the scenes without worrying me, and fielded questions and issues, many of which I probably never knew about because she didn't bother me unless absolutely necessary. She knew a great deal about Jewish weddings as well, and knew all the different aspects of it, all the little things that happen, and made everything ran smoothly. My vendors LOVED working with her. In fact my own bridesmaids couldn't stop commenting on how amazing she was, even long after the wedding - and they have asked for her name to recommend her to friends they know planning their weddings. The icing on the cake was that Sylvia took some pictures at my wedding, and uploaded them that very night, so that when I got back to my hotel room and had a second, I was able to look at the pictures from my wedding that I had just returned from! We had the most amazing wedding, and we owe much of that to Sylvia! I also used a bunch of Etsy shops for my hairpiece, bracelet, guestbook, cake topper and invitations, let me know if you have any questions about those. I printed our programs and menus off VistaPrint, and got my shoes from Zappos.