Photography: Jen Lowe: A+
Amazing!! I met with about 10 different photographers and while their work was all very good, it was Jen’s personality and professionalism that put her over the top. I knew she would be great to work with and she didn’t disappoint. Because of the timing when we booked her, we waited to do engagement pics until late spring/early summer so it wouldn’t look do dead and dreary outside. Of course it was about 100 degrees that day! She made us look great despite the intense heat and my not very well thought out outfit choice.
We did some more planning closer to the wedding, and then just let her do her thing! She (as well as a second-shooter and assistant) came to the hotel and got shots of us getting ready and was there until the very end (which made for a super long day!). We just got our pics back last week and they were better than we could have hoped for! If only her blog was working and we could have a slideshow J But really, we can’t say enough good things about her and would unequivocally recommend her. She is well-worth her price!
Videography: JD the Mobile DJ/Encore Media Pro: B
I will be honest and say the main reason I hired this company was because the price for videography was so cheap. It was all day coverage, editing, multiple copies, etc for less than $500. That was good enough for me. I was much more concerned about amazing pictures than an amazing video. I just wanted something decent. John was very nice over email with the planning. He is actually the editor (and DJ, although we didn’t use him for that), his wife is the actual videographer. She was perfectly nice the day of and for most part she stayed out of the way.
We got the finished video in a little over a month and it was pretty good. I was disappointed that the “reception dancing” portion was so heavily edited – lots of short slips of different songs. The whole 2.5 or so hours of dancing was edited down to about 10 minutes. I mentioned this to him and he said he would re-edit to add more footage. The rest of the video was fine. Everything is divided into chapters and looked nice. The only other complaint I had was the angle at which she shot the ceremony. She wasn’t completely centered (despite there being open space in the center from which to shoot), so basically I’m shot from the back (not so flattering!), and half of the time I am blocking our officiant (not as important). My H has a pretty good angle, though. I know with ceremonies it’s hard because of the angles we’re standing, but it was just kind of weird. So overall, if you’re just looking for something basic, this is a good choice. I do think you get what you pay for.
Wedding and Bridesmaid’s Dresses: Alfred Angelo, Glen Burnie: CUltimately I really liked my dress - until the end of the night when the buttons kept popping off from the bustle. My dress was very lightweight and the bustle was a simple loop on the back to hang off one of the buttons. About ¾ through the reception I felt my bustle come undone. So we hung it on another button. This continued throughout the end of the night when I only had about 2 or 3 buttons left on the bottom of the dress (otherwise they would have had to hang the bustle off my back which would not have been cute!) It didn’t bother me too much, since the majority of the photos had been taken and we were all just having fun and not really worrying about things, but I would have rather it just didn’t happen, obviously! The dress was pretty inexpensive though, so I guess you get what you pay for. The store itself is another story. My initial consultant Christa was great. I had no problems and she was very sweet and helpful. When we went back for my bridesmaids (2 times), everyone that “helped” us was pretty unhelpful and obnoxious. Our needs were simple – black, satin, knee length, different styles for each girl. One lady was showing us all kinds of off the wall things, and another wasn’t showing us anything! However, we did find beautiful dresses that were inexpensive and further discounted since I purchased my dress there. Every experience after that was negative. From them not calling me to let me know my dress was in, accusing me of giving them an incorrect phone number, stepping on my dress when I went to try it on, not being able to bring me 2 matching shoes with which to try my dress on, and yelling at me when I didn’t immediately book an alterations appointment. My bridesmaids all basically had the same experience with picking up their dresses. Needless to say, we did not get our alterations done there.
Rehearsal Dinner: Sabatinos: A+Sabatinos was excellent, as always. They are my very favorite restaurant, and the site of our engagement. We thought it was only appropriate that we include them in our wedding festivities J The package they put together was very reasonable and the event contact there was very easy to work with. The food was great, the service was great, and we were able to share such a big piece of our relationship with our friends and family.
Hotel: Hyatt Regency: A-
We used the Hyatt for our guest room block, suites for getting ready on the day of, and morning-after brunch. First and foremost, the Hyatt is gorgeous! Our harbor view suite was huge and the view was amazing! At various parts of the day while getting ready we would just sit and stare out the window and enjoy the scenery J
My mother worked with them on all arrangements leading to up the big day and aside from having to follow up a few times about some responses in the beginning, she had an easy time. As it got closer to the wedding her contact there would call just to see if she had any other questions or needed anything else done. My mom arranged for them to bring a nice luncheon spread to our suite while getting ready on the day of, which they did free of charge. The brunch the day after was very reasonably priced and had a great assortment of foods. It took place in the Pisces room on the top floor with more stunning views. The hotel staff was also great with getting our guest bags to everyone at check-in.
There were two reasons why they didn’t get an A+. One was on the night of the wedding, a lot of guests (including me!) had issues with their keys not working. It wasn’t really a huge deal, since we were all pretty happy and tipsy anyway, but it was kind of annoying. The other issue was that after we left to go to the wedding, my room wasn’t completely cleaned. Because we needed a big room to get ready in the day of, we figured we’d just get the same suite the night before and have my girls stay in with me, then my husband and I would stay there the night after the wedding. As we were leaving my mom called the front desk to let them know the room was ready to be cleaned. When we returned that night, we noticed not everything had been cleaned. Housekeeping had been in there because some things were picked up (trash had been emptied, furniture was put back, etc) but other things, such as our lunch leftovers and the bedding remained untouched. We were too tired to deal with it that night, but they have since apologized and they are working on making things right. It was such a random fluke though; I definitely wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them in the future.