I had my wedding last weekend and it went well overall. : ) Here are my reviews of my vendors. I hope these help some people in the planning stages!
Harbor Point Restaurant (Barnstable)
Excellent. We had both our ceremony and our reception there. It was extremely affordable compared to other Cape venues (paid about $29 a person for dinner, a $1000 deposit was needed). The whole back of the dining room has large windows offering a nice view of a marsh with Sandy Neck beach in the distance and there is a cute little beach about a minute down the road where we took our formal photos. Bob, the owner, was very experienced, friendly, and helpful with the planning. We received many compliments on the food. Also, the renovation they just finished looks very nice and much more up to date than the old decor. I would highly recommend Harbor Point.
Records on the Road DJ
Acceptable. This was a case of you get what you pay for. Reggie was quite affordable and decent overall. There were no major problems, but a few minor things happened. One of our song requests was played twice and he didn't play my mom's special song request. He indicated that we were all set to go for our first dance and then we were left standing out on the dance floor waiting for another song to finish for about a minute (it seemed like a really long minute!). Also, he asked my husband for an example list of the types of songs we wanted to hear and then played mostly those exact songs so my husband felt like he did most of the work. Finally, although friendly most of the time, Reggie was a little brusque with my maid of honor at one point. If you have a lower music budget and aren't super concerned about the DJ stuff though, he's fine.
Rhonwen Churchill Photography
Very good. I don't have my photos back yet, but she left me very confident that there will be lots of good ones after seeing ones she did for other people and what she did at the wedding. She was very professional at the event and good at managing people to get the photos that would look best. She wasn't too obtrusive. Because I didn't want prints, only the files, she made a special deal for me for 3 hours for $500, which was very affordable compared to others. I only slightly downgraded my rating because at times before the wedding she didn't seem completely organized. She didn't cash my deposit check for a long time or send us the invoice when she was supposed to and she misplaced the list of relatives names and formal photos we wanted. This may have been because of some difficult personal situations she was experiencing the time however and not her normal way of doing things. It didn't effect anything she did on the day of the wedding and I would still highly recommend her.
Enchanted Florist (Centerville)
Very good. My mother handled all of the florist stuff, so I can't review them in much detail, but the flowers looked very nice and she was satified with her interactions with the staff. She said she knew nothing about flowers and they were very patient adn helpful showing her different possible combinations. The boutonnieres did get a little wilted by the end of the day, but I don't know if anything could have been done to help that.
Dotty Lovely "The Cake Lady" (Yarmouth)
Excellent. Dotty is very down to earth and willing to do whatever you want, although she'll explain why certain things would work better than others. We decided at the last minute to go with real flowers on our cake instead of frosting flowers but we didn't even know what kinds we would end up with. She told us to just leave whatever ones we found and she'd make something work. She made the cake look completely beautiful and amazing! It looked way better than our original design, but still had everything we wanted. Also, it tasted awesome.
I hope these help.
Good luck with your weddings everyone!