Scioto Reserve Country Club (Wedding & Reception venue, wedding catering): A
This was a beautiful venue for an outdoor wedding and an indoor reception. Ann Marie was wonderful to work with and very responsive. She did so much more than I had planned on when we signed the contract. She helped during the whole planning process, set everything up the day-of, and coordinated the set up and arrival arrangements with other vendors (e.g., DJ, flowers, etc.). She was also very flexible with our numerous requests – she even allowed our dog to be on the grounds so she could be in the wedding!
They had a huge bride’s quarters (and groom’s quarters) for us to get ready in and leave our stuff in all day. It was perfect.
The food selection and suggestions were also great. The guests LOVED the candied bacon hors d'oeuvres. My only complaint is that we added a late night snack to meet the minimum (less guests RSVP’d than we expected), but it was set up out of the way and nobody informed me or the DJ to make an announcement about it…so guests didn’t know it was there.
Gabriele European Bridal & Formal (Wedding Dress): A
After trying on a ton of dresses, I went online to find a dress that had all the features I liked. I found an Essense of Australia dress that matched most of the things I wanted. Gabriele’s was the only local place that carried it. Once I visited, I loved it. I received personal attention, the dress was ready to go when I arrived to try it on and for the fittings, Gabriele and her staff were very knowledgeable, and overall they were so nice. I even found my wedding earrings there. My only complaint here is that it was kind of pricey, even for the alterations. I had lost 8 lbs for the wedding, so they had a lot of alterations to make that added up. I wish I had told them more details on the weight I planned to use so they could order the dress size accordingly.
David’s Bridal (Bridesmaid Dresses): A
Simple process and very economical! Once I picked out the dress, they noted it so that they could order the right one when my bridesmaids went in to do so. I appreciated that they emailed me when each dress arrived, in addition to contacting the bridesmaids.
MakeYou, LLC (Engagement photos & wedding day makeup): A+
I can’t say enough nice things about Leigh Ann and her work. She did a trial and took a few before/after photos – before being my typical makeup application and the after being her makeup magic. It was amazing what showed up on camera and how washed out I looked in the before photos. Once I saw that, I also booked her for my engagement photos and I’m so glad I did. She did a great job on nailing the natural look with only a little eye drama that I wanted for the engagement photos and wedding day. All my bridesmaids, mom and mother-in-law loved their makeup too. We also appreciated that she traveled to our wedding venue to do the makeup.
Salon Lofts – Morgan Oates (Engagement photos & wedding day hair): A+
Morgan is so sweet and so talented. My bridesmaids and I loved her work! She did everything we asked and it looked good.
Rouxby Photography (Engagement & wedding day photos): A+
Ah-mazing! After looking at the work of the billion photographers in Columbus, all of it started to look the same. But once I saw Claire’s photography, I was sold! She is so talented. She found the perfect shots, no matter the location. All of her photos have an artistic touch – so they didn’t even need much editing to give it that look. I have to admit that my husband and I aren’t big fans of getting our photos taken, but she made it fun during the engagement session and we didn’t even notice her snapping away during most of the wedding & reception.
Buckeye Sounds (Reception DJ & Photobooth): A+
Book Rod and you won’t be disappointed. I can’t say enough great things about him. He got to know us and our likes – and matched the music selection to that perfectly. He made suggestions on the flow of the reception, and then he made sure it all happened. He got people on the dance floor and kept them there all night. He even surprised us with a short video he strung together from clips on his phone. He captured the sweetest moments, which was perfect because we didn’t have a videographer.
If you are questioning whether or not to do a photobooth…do it, and do it with props! That was a guest favorite. The best part is that the Buckeye Sounds photobooth allows guests to leave a video message after they take their photos. We looked at all of the photos and videos on our honeymoon (they handed us a flash drive at the end of our wedding night), and loved it.
Floral Design Studio (Wedding & reception flowers): A
Daphne was great to work with, and she even came to our house for the appointments. She proposed similar flower arrangements as well-known companies like Petals & Leaves, but her prices were so much better. The flowers were beautiful the day-of, and she took care of everything from set-up to take-down.
The Cake Studio (Wedding Cake): C
This isn’t completely their fault. The cake came “free” with the Scioto Reserve Country Club meal package, but that also meant we had to coordinate the cake through Scioto and couldn’t communicate directly with the cake maker unless we wanted to pay extra. We decided to do cupcakes. They looked beautiful, but didn’t taste that great. We also requested the top layer of a cake for us to cut into as part of the wedding tradition and to put our cake topper on. The cake topper was placed on one of the cupcake tiers and never made it on the cake. We didn’t even notice it until we saw the wedding photos.
Fermata Music (Wedding Ceremony String Quartet): B
They were hard to coordinate with because they took a while to respond, or didn’t call at the scheduled times agreed upon. They also didn’t finalize the music selection until a week before the wedding – so it would have been impossible to include in the programs if I wanted to. That aside, they were very nice and had a good menu of contemporary songs in addition to traditional wedding music. From what I recall, the music was beautiful. Unfortunately, that is one of the details of the day that I didn’t notice as much because I was so distracted by everything going on.
Rev. William Glazer (Officiant): A+
What a great guy! He is so sweet, so organized and so easy to work with. We didn’t want a religious ceremony, so he pulled together a detailed ceremony with only a couple of religious touches that we requested. He made this piece of the wedding as smooth as could be.
Hilton Garden Inn - Polaris (Guest hotel): B
We negotiated a good rate and making reservations was easy. They were also the only hotel in the area that offered free shuttle service to and from our wedding. And because we had more than 20 room night reservations, we got a free room for our wedding night. We were supposed to get a “romance package” of champagne and chocolate covered strawberries on our wedding night because of a special promotion they were running when we set up the room block, but we never received it. They offered to give it to us the next morning, which didn’t make sense at all.
Milo’s Catering (Rehearsal dinner catering): C
Easy to work with, and they set everything up as requested. But overall, the food was only okay.