$0, Tom Joseph (friend of the bride), A++++++
Ceremony Music/Sound System
$0, venue supplied sound system, Bride supplied laptop to hook up, D
This rating is purely attached to the venue. The venue would not let us test the sound system at the rehearsal the night before, and then a half hour before the ceremony they realized they didn't have a cord that they needed to make it work.
Reception
Reception Site
$2,000 (for 160 headcount, costs more or less depending on QTY of people - also prices have gone up for 2013), Ford Piquette Plant (http://tplex.org/), Detroit MI, C- There are so many things that I can say about this venue. It is hands down the most unique wedding venue I have ever seen and I absolutely loved that about it. All of the guests raved about how awesome the museum was and were thrilled to have docents show them around and talk about the history of the Model T. We were able to bring in our own food and alcohol, which was the hugest selling point. The staff of volunteers (particularly the venue coordinator) is incredibly hard to work with though and their stubbornness and unwillingness to communicate properly created a lot of issues with my wedding day going smoothly. Specific examples include...
-Air Conditioning: I asked the venue coordinator (Pat L.) about who her preferred vendor for heating and cooling was, because the weather is so unpredictable and we wanted to make sure that our guests would be comfortable in this historic building that does not have heating and cooling. Pat's response was to tell me that air conditioning would be pointless and not do anything for the space if it was humid out. I'm very disappointed that she got combative about this rather than just providing me the information I was asking for. The day ended up being miserably hot and myself and my guests would have been much more comfortable with air conditioning - I found out after the fact that events held in the middle of summer at the venue most definitely rent air conditioning units and they work marvelously to cool the space. I feel as if Pat outright lied to me about this because she didn't want to deal with another vendor.
-Sound System: When initially talking with Pat about the venue, she told us that the sound system was provided by the venue and they had a microphone and speakers. My husband looked at the equipment and said it looked like it would do what we needed to, so we left it at that...till the rehearsal dinner. We asked if we could run through our rehearsal with the sound system to which we were told "NO, absolutely not". We were told we could not touch the sound system, that there is one guy specifically who is allowed to touch it and he was unavailable. This wouldn't have been too bad...except because we weren't able to test the system, it wasn't discovered that they were missing an essential wire till 15 minutes before the ceremony was scheduled to start! The ceremony started over 20 minutes late because their "guy" had to run out to a radio shack to get the missing wire. On top of that, the speakers are of a very poor sound quality and the microphone barely works (hardly anyone could hear).
-Setup/Tear Down: For the longest time Pat said we would have a week to set up the venue and a week to clean up. We live out of town, so we could only make it in on the Friday before to do setup. Upon our arrival Pat made no mention of when we would have to clear out for the night, and rather than bring it up at any point she just decided at 8pm that we had to get out. We were given 15 minutes to gather our purses etc. and then kicked out of the venue - we weren't even done decorating yet (HUGE problem!). The day after the wedding, we went back to clean up after meeting with family and friends for a brunch...we got there around noon and began cleaning up - this time we were kicked out at 4pm with no warning! We essentially had to put all our stuff on the freight elevator and dump it into the parking lot to pack it up properly/finish organizing and cleaning it.
-Communication: It was a battle to get in touch with Pat and get straight answers out of her. She would not respond to e-mails and when making a call or going down there in person it was hard to get her to actually answer your questions (she would always start talking about a tangent and end up not fully answering what you had initially asked).
-Unprofessional: This in particular applies to Pat. At the very end of the evening when I was exhausted and ready to go home, she approaches me as we're leaving and says that she still hasn't received the final payment. I sent her the check in the mail and inquired multiple times before the wedding if payment had been received with no response from her...she waited until my wedding day to bring it up? She knew we would be back the next day to clean up and decided to harass me on my wedding day instead. I'm so very unimpressed with her unprofessional attitude. The biggest problem with this venue is hands down her. If they were to hire an actual professional to handle the weddings I think everything would be so much smoother.
Caterer
We got 65 portions of Chicken, 60 portions of Pulled Pork, 180 portions of mashed potatoes & broccoli/carrots, and hundreds of rolls and cinnamon butter from them. My sister's boyfriend is a manager for Texas Roadhouse and he really took control of this and got us a fantastic price for the food and even went so far as to pick up the food from Slow's BBQ for us as well. The workers were competent and so very very helpful. The Manager also was a life-saver and made sure that everything worked out. I can not say enough nice things about them, I think the buffet line would have crashed and burned had it not been for them.
We got 35 lbs. of beef brisket, 5 pans of Mac & Cheese and 3 pans of Corn bread from Slow's. This pretty much wasn't worth the cost and hassle. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Slow's BBQ food...their RESTAURANT is fantastic. Slow's to Go catering is a joke though. Communication from them gets an F - you have to fill out an online inquiry and the first time I did it (6 months before the wedding), I never received a response. A few weeks out from the wedding I tried to send in my actual order and get it paid for and it was like pulling teeth. The manager is incredibly hard to get ahold of (even though he gave me his "direct number"). They already had an event they were catering the same day as my wedding, so they told me they would not be able to deliver the food to our venue but that it wouldn't be a problem to make it and have someone pick it up...which was a hassle but I understood. When the Texas Roadhouse staff went there to pick up the food, they were told the food hadn't been paid for (I paid over a week in advance over the phone with a credit card)...so five minutes before I'm supposed to be walking down the aisle I've got this poor Texas Roadhouse worker on the phone saying they can't pick up the food because it's not paid for. That is not what I wanted to have to deal with at that particular moment in time. My mother had originally offered to pick up the food - if she had, she would have completely missed the ceremony or the ceremony would have started an hour late. I will never work with Slow's to Go ever again. The only reason I gave them a C rating is because the food really is stellar, but you would have to decide for yourself if it's worth the headache.
Servers
3 servers for 3 and a half hours.
We had a buffet line set up and pretty much once the food was delivered only needed the servers to refill all the food. We released vegetarians and people with food allergies to retrieve their food first and then the bridal party went up to get food - by the time I reached the line many of the buffet items were empty. Multiple guests relayed to me that the buffet line was not full when they got up there. In addition, some of the items were never even put out (such as butter for the rolls). The servers were combative with the MOG when she approached them about some of this stuff and they directly ignored her requests. Completely unacceptable.
Bartenders
2 bartenders and 1 bar back for 7 hours.
The Bartenders were a heck of a lot better than the servers! They don't get an A though because they didn't know how to mix all of our specialty drinks, and instead of asking someone they just "guessed" and made drinks waaaay too strong (multiple comments from guests about how their drink was all liquor). The bar was a bit of a mess but I will have to hold myself accountable for that because we purchased all the alcohol and beverages ourselves and it wasn't arranged as well as it could have been.
Table Cloths
$311, 25 round white, 10 rectangular white, 4 round black, 3 fitted rectangular black, B
Bought all the table cloths used from other brides on The Knot. The cost was cheap but having to iron them all the week before was strenuous. They looked great though.
Table Runners
$57.36, LinenTablecloth.com, 16 black & 16 red, A
Looked great, easy to use.
Bakery
$500, Just Baked, B+
Got 180 cupcakes plus a tower and a small cake for on top and they delivered and set it up. Everyone seemed to really like the cupcakes and we got a selection of 6 different flavors. I didn't give them an A because the tower itself looked so clunky and not elegant, it didn't look as cool as it could have and they sent over a tower that was way larger than we actually needed for 180 cupcakes, so it didn't look full - quite awkward.
DJ
$0, DIY, Venue Provided Sound System, F
The sound system provided by the venue was sub-par and because of this the music was either way too loud and breaking up, or so soft no one could hear it unless they were right next to the speakers. Most of my wedding playlists didn't even get played because the quality of the sound was just so awful.
FavorsKey Fobs
Not sure what the cost on these was. The groom's mother got them for us as a gift.
Lighting
The effect these created at the venue was awesome. I had 80 lanterns of varying sizes and they were hung at different levels. I got many compliments on how cool it looked.
$212.14, LED Throwies, B
Got batteries and LED bulbs from Amazon - the throwies took forever to assemble and get into the paper lanterns. The effect of the lit lanterns was super cool, but unfortunately it wasn't till super late at night that it could be seen properly. I think each lantern needed 10-15 more LEDs to achieve a proper level of brightness.
Other
Limo
$560, First Charter Bus, B-
We chose to do a bus because it was significantly cheaper than the alternatives - we got two 4 hour chunks (8 hours total). I think the idea of using the bus is fine, but the execution just wasn't what I needed it to be. We used the bus before the ceremony to take the wedding party around the city and take photos, then the bus dropped us off at the venue, went back to the hotel to get guests and come back to the venue before the ceremony - that portion went okay (though the bus driver seemed less than excited about how many stops we were making around the city). The problem was the latter part of the evening when the bus was supposed to act like a shuttle and take guests back to the hotel throughout the evening. Part of it was definitely not the bus driver's fault (traffic was horrendous from the Tigers/White Sox game), but I'm extremely dissatisfied that during the whole 4 hour chunk of time at the end of the evening, 2 trips were made to the hotel and back to the venue....we had guests who waited for over an hour and a half to get back to the hotel. The bus driver attempted to call my cell phone once to notify me of the delay (I did not receive the voicemail till the next day). I feel that the driver should have found an alternate route if traffic was as bad as everyone tells me it was, to take more than an hour and a half to go less than 2 miles is ridiculous. While I'm extremely unhappy with how this all went, I can't give them a truly bad rating because the first chunk of time did go pretty smoothly and the second part is definitely not entirely the driver's fault.
Florist
$0, Tiffany Esshaki (friend of the Groom), A+
Tiffany put together the gentlemen's boutineers. They turned out great and lasted the entire day! The only other flowers were for the bouquets and I made them with paper flowers.
DOC
$350, Grand Jour Events, A+
I worked with Stephanie from Grand Jour and she was absolutely fantastic. Her communications before the wedding while planning helped smooth things out in advance and helped keep my husband and I on track (she would ask us questions and I would go "hmm, I hadn't even thought about that!"). On the day-of she was instrumental in making sure things didn't go more epically wrong than they did (none of which was her fault or could have been avoided by her). She was constantly running around and made sure to come up to me and let me know everything I really needed to. This was absolutely the best money we spent for the wedding. I can not recommend the services of Grand Jour Events enough, particularly Stephanie!
Dance Instruction
$175, Swing Detroit, B+
We hired dance instructors to come to the venue and teach our guests how to do the Charleston and the Lindy Hop. We did a 1920's themed wedding so we thought it would help get people in the mood. The instruction part was great - Paul Carryer and his partner did a fantastic job. It was so hot that not many of the guests participated, but the performance itself was still great. B+ because communication prior to the event was not amazing - I would still recommend this vendor though.
Photography
Photographer
Unlimited time, no assistant or prints. Amy Pruder is such a wonderful person. She is kind and on her game! My only critique is that I wish she had been a little more commanding and suggested more poses/set-ups. I also feel that she did not snap enough pictures of each pose to ensure that people weren't blinking and everyone was smiling nicely. I was disappointed that I didn't see any photos of guests at their tables, which is one of the requests I made on the photo list I gave to her. Everyone is really impressed with the photos and in the end I am very happy and would definitely recommend Amy.
Videographer
$0, Ronnie (soon to be cousin-in-law), A++++
My cousin's fiance Ronnie was kind enough to take our video camera and film all the important moments, and then he also went around and filmed some testimonials from our guests. I didn't cry once during the wedding, but watching the testimonials and everything on film definitely made me tear up.
Picture Locations
The Westin Book Cadillac, Detroit, A+
The Westin is absolutely GORGEOUS. What a fantastic building! The staff was kind enough to let us into one of the ballrooms to get some photos. There are so many great spots to get photos here.
The Guardian Building, Detroit, A+
The art deco architecture was gorgeous for snapping pictures for our 1920's wedding. The staff didn't bother us at all and visitors to the building were excited to see the bridal party posing (lots of people ended up taking pictures of us). Lots of great spots to pose.
The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, B+
I love the DIA - I used to volunteer there. The exterior of the building has some beautiful fountains that we posed against, and the building itself looks really awesome. Only gets a B+ because we weren't able to photograph on the interior (costs a lot of money to get permission to get photos inside the building).
The Ford Piquette Plant (T-Plex), Detroit, B
I love this location, the visuals (especially for formal photos) are such an interesting juxtaposition. The venue coordinator combined with no air conditioning made it pretty miserable to take photos at though.
Engagement Pictures
$0, Kim Gusway (friend of Bride), A+
We went to Yates Cider Mill and just had some fun. It was very informal, but we got the photos we needed for our save the date cards.
Beauty / AttireHis Ring$30, Amazon, A+++
He loves his ring, he wanted to start wearing it before the wedding.
My Ring
$229, Amazon, B+
I love the design of my ring, but it is incredibly thin. I worry about it breaking. I will probably take it to a jeweler and ask to have something added to it to make it a bit more sturdy. It is 14k white gold with a blue topaz (stylized claddagh)
Wedding dressI love love love Bombshell Bridal. They are hands down one of my favorite vendors. They actually ended up picking out my wedding dress for me, they had figured out my tastes and found the perfect dress for me. I will always recommend them to brides or anyone looking for formal wear, they are absolutely a pleasure to work with.
Alterations$120, Marianne (through Bombshell Bridal), C
The top part of my dress ended up being really ill-fitting. She managed to take the top in a lot (I lost about 20 lbs. after buying the dress, and the top was already going to have to be taken in because my hip measurement was so much bigger than my bust to begin with), but it just...looked funny. The cup size of the dress was probably a double D and I am only a C cup, so I felt like it looked really silly and nothing was done to modify the cups. The photos of me in my dress without my bolero jacket are what made me realize just how ill-fitting the top was. I'm disappointed that the seamstress didn't say anything at the fittings and that I paid so much money for a dress that didn't look as great as it could have.
Groom's Suit$174.88, JC Penny, A+
Exactly what we were looking for - we got it during one of their sales.
Simply wonderful. None of my girls had any issues.
HairSylvia Farmer was great to work with. She asked all the right questions and made sure I had all the information I needed in advance. Sylvia is the owner of the company, but Amber K. was the hairdresser who actually came to my hotel and did my and my girl's hair. Amber listened to what I wanted and worked from reference photos and she ended up giving me a fantastic hairstyle that is exactly what I was looking for. I would definitely recommend this vendor - super easy to communicate with and them traveling to me saved me a LOT of hassle.
Makeup$0, DIY, A+
We did our makeup ourselves. Between me and my bridesmaids we had enough makeup and we helped each other out.
A lot of people loved my lipstick and wanted to know where I got it from. I got KAT VON D lipstick in red from Sephora. The lipstick was absolutely what I was looking for - I needed something long lasting that was kissable, not to mention the color was perfect! People were astounded that I was kissing the groom with such red lips and not getting it all over him.
Paper
Save the DatesThe price was right, but the quality is not the best (image quality is grainy) and shipping takes foreeeever.
$232, DIY, A+
Most expensive part of my DIY invites was the postage! I got my pocketfolds from http://cardsandpockets.com/ along with the cardstock and envelopes I needed. I'm a graphic designer so I was easily able to design what I wanted using Adobe Illustrator. I received numerous compliments on these.
Buffet Cards/Escort Cards/Bar Menu/Table Numbers