I’ve never posted on here before, but I always found the vendor reviews helpful so I wanted to return the favor! Sorry if this is really long. Hair/Make-up: Lisa George A
I know she is on the pricier side, but I think she is worth every penny! She and her assistants did a fantastic job on me, my 5 bridesmaids, and the 2 moms. Everyone looked absolutely gorgeous. She knows what looks good and totally put me at ease on that morning.
Flowers: Fancy Flowers, Meredith Fancy A-
Overall I was really happy with Meredith Fancy. She was very easy to work with. Our bouquets were beautiful and just what I was looking for. The centerpieces also looked great. My only 2 minor complaints were that I didn’t love the church arrangements…they weren’t quite what I was picturing. She said they would be pinks, whites and greens, and it was mostly white, with a little green and a touch of pink. And the other thing was that the bridesmaids bouquets were a little on the large side! I know that’s a weird complaint, but they were basically the same size as mine and I guess I just thought they’d be a little smaller. Lastly, I ordered flowers for the cake table but they didn’t appear. They were on the final bill so I questioned her and she said they were delivered but the venue must have done something else with them, so she didn’t make me pay for them.
Photographer: Studio Atticus, Connie Miller A+
I couldn’t be happier with our photographer. She is based out of Boston but she traveled to the Cape. She does amazing work! We haven’t seen all of our pictures yet, but the preview looks great so far. Everyone we’ve shown them to loves them. She is also extremely sweet. She does a photojournalistic style, and I didn’t even notice she was there for most of thenight! I can’t wait to see the rest.
Band: Mike Benjamin Band A
The Mike Benjamin Band is based out of Martha’s Vineyard. They are more of a real band than a wedding band, so they aren’t cheesy at all, they just play great music! They play music that people of any age will dance to, and our guests were dancing all night! We got lots of compliments on them, and I even had a friend say they think they would choose a band over a DJ at their wedding after hearing them. Mike Benjamin is also really easy to work with and was very responsive to emails.
Ceremony: Our Lady of the Cape A
My parents have a summer house in East Dennis so this is the church we go to when we are there. It’s a beautiful church and all of the priests are very friendly. We didn’t use one of them for our ceremony because I brought my priest from our church in CT, but that wasn’t a problem at all. For our ceremony music we used the organist Becket Senchur, and soloist Mary Levasseur, and both were great!
Reception Venue: Ocean Edge, Jennifer McAnaw C
I don’t want to scare any brides that have already booked Ocean Edge for their reception, I just want to hopefully help to ensure that others don’t have our experience! And I will preface my review by saying that all our guests that attended had a great time and as far as they were concerned, everything went perfectly! However, my family’s experience with Ocean Edge wasn’t as great.
Over the course of when we booked OE up until our wedding, we were assigned 3 different wedding coordinators. They just kept leaving for personal reasons. We were finally assigned Jennifer. We weren’t concerned because we’re not very picky people and we had already laid everything out in writing with Antonella and just met once with Jennifer to go over it.
The only excuse I can think of is that Ocean Edge was understaffed and Jennifer must have been doing another wedding the same day as ours. She was not very responsive to our emails or phone calls in the days leading up to the wedding which was a little nerve-wracking. On the day of the wedding she was barely present. I was getting ready at Ocean Edge in a suite upstairs. She stopped in twice briefly, and then to bring us a couple umbrellas once it started raining. I also had both my florist and my photographer calling me to ask questions, which I had been told wouldn’t happen because she was going to take care of them. When we got back from Our Lady of the Cape to Ocean Edge there was supposed to be a shuttle waiting for us to take us down to the beach for pictures. We waited for no less than 25 minutes for the shuttle, just the entire wedding party standing outside in the driveway as all our guests arrived and checked in to the hotel.
The cocktail reception was supposed to be on the terrace (which I was SO excited about), but they had to start setting up at 1:30 inside because it was raining, but she assured us they would still direct people up to the terrace if it wasn't raining. It stopped raining and not one single guest we talked to after the fact was directed up to the terrace. There were 200 people outside the ballroom, in the foyer and outside on the landing between steps. My mom said it was so crowded and she and the rest of the parents weren’t even able to get a drink or any appetizers. Everyone wanted to be outside so it was dangerously crowded and she was nervous that someone was going to fall down the steps.
The only other thing we really wanted besides cocktails on the terrace was to be able to be done with everything so we could have from 7-9 for dancing. We had been told that it was totally feasible. I think that because the shuttle was delayed, that delayed everything else for the rest of the evening. Jennifer didn't seem to be around to keep things on schedule. We weren’t done with all of the formalities until 7:45, and then we had just over an hour for dancing because our reception ended at 9 which was disappointing.
Like I said at the beginning, all of our guests really enjoyed themselves and thought it was a great wedding, which I’m happy about. Most stayed at Ocean Edge and thought that was great as well. It is a beautiful location for a wedding and good to block rooms at, but the staff was a big disappointment. Even though it rained a little, I was hoping everything else would go smoothly and that wasn’t the case. Most of all, I feel bad for my parents who were generous enough to pay, and were so unhappy with Ocean Edge. My mom wanted them to make amends, either with a little money back, or even just an apology but got neither. She talked to Jennifer’s boss, Brian Webb, who basically called her a liar and didn’t believe anything she said. He was extremely rude to her. All he had to do was apologize!
All in all, the vendors were really great, with the exception of Ocean Edge. I guess my only advice would be to really get everything in writing with them, and assign someone you trust to stay on top of them on the day of! I hope that our experience was abnormal, but let me know if you have any questions!