First, I'd just like to thank everyone here for your help while I was planning. So many of you provided great advice and tips and it was much appreciated. I hope some of this information is useful for others.
I've included a brief description of my experiences with the vendors below rather than giving grades.
Ceremony and Reception Venue: The Village Inn
I loved this venue for the ceremony location (we had it outside on the sundeck overlooking the bay - we lucked out and had the only sunny Saturday in April) and ballroom. I honestly couldn't have pictured getting married anywhere else. It was the perfect mix of a relaxed venue with the right amount of formality. We also did our hotel block there, which I'll include in another review below. We had plenty of room for mingling and dancing and the views were beautiful. The food was excellent and the serving/bartending staff was great.
We did have some issues there, though. We probably contributed to the issues more than we think, and to be fair, I didn't speak with the managers there after our wedding to voice our concerns and get their point of view (mostly because we were generally pleased with the event). Ultimately, if you're considering this venue or the catering company, I wouldn't discourage you in the least as we had a generally positive experience, but I would recommend hiring an external day/week of coordinator to help facilitate the event. If anyone has specific questions, I'd be happy to answer them over private message.
Hotel block: The Village Inn
I feel like this review is important, because the Inn often gets some negative reviews on the board and we had nothing but a fabulous experience in terms of our hotel block. First of all, Annie (the reservation manager) is fantastic. She's responsive and very friendly. She'll bend over backwards to make things work for you. Our guests all loved their rooms (which were completely renovated over the winter, a huge improvement overall). My bridesmaids and I had a beautiful family suite from Friday to Saturday and a really nice honeymoon suite for Saturday night, which we ultimately booked through Monday night. The front desk and housekeeping staff are really pleasant and helpful, and it was so nice to have continental breakfast in the cafe each morning for our guests. Our block rates were less than those at the Holiday Inn and the Hampton Inn by a significant amount and no one had to travel anywhere, which was great for our (mostly) out of town guests.
Flowers (bouts, corsages, bouquets, ceremony pieces, cake decorations): Florals by Alisa
What can I say about them that hasn't already been said? They were the most responsive vendor (often getting back to me within a couple of hours), and they gladly changed my order several times as our plans changed. They understood what I was looking for before I even really knew what I wanted, and they completely delivered in every way! Our flowers were gorgeous, full, and lasted throughout the whole day.
Officiant: Reverend Mary Powers
RI brides have lost a great officiant in Mary Powers - she recently moved to MD and won't be performing RI weddings anymore, but she was great for us. She understood our senses of humor, worked so well with my parents who were singing during the ceremony, and gave us so many options for our ceremony readings/vows/ring exchange blessings, etc. She also was a huge calming force during our rehearsal, which was appreciated by everyone involved. She's also very affordable, so if she comes back to RI, I couldn't recommend her enough. In fact, several friends of ours who are getting married in the next few months approached us at the wedding to see if they could get her contact info!
Keyboardist for ceremony/cocktail hour: Bruce Lewis
My parents are musicians, so it was important to us to incorporate live music but I couldn't afford a band for the ceremony and the reception, so I hired Bruce through GigMasters. He is an outstanding keyboardist. He was also very flexible - he learned a new piece for our ceremony and happily (and beautifully) accompanied my parents who sang during my ceremony. My guests also said he played a great mix of 70's, 80's, 90's hits through the cocktail hour. We couldn't have been happier with his service.
Hair: Sam C
I feel like I'm preaching to the choir with this one, but Sam is fabulous. She's so flexible - works off of pictures or can create a style on the fly, will do basically anything you'd like and is really honest about what will/won't work for you. She ended up getting to our venue a little late due to a GPS issue and still ended up finishing about an hour early. Everyone's hair looked great and lasted throughout the entire day (from about 11am through at least 2am) of dancing, running around, wind, and everything the day threw at us. Plus, she was just so much fun to have in the suite on the day of. And as we've all said before, her rates are ridiculously good. I would highly recommend her!
Makeup: Kristin Greene, Simply Beautiful by Kristin Greene
Another Knot favorite and she lived up to the hype! Kristin does beautiful and natural, but glamorous makeup. All of my girls and I looked gorgeous. I had a couple of minor issues after the trial (largely just that I get a little oily under my eyes so the liner started to run after a couple hours), she listened and completely fixed everything for the day of the wedding - no questions asked. Also, I have horrible skin after years of acne problems (scarring, pockmarks, etc) and you would have never known it after her makeup application. My skin looked as close to flawless as it possible could and it photographed so well. I couldn't have been any happier. Plus, she's so much fun and gives you a little goody bag after the application with lipstick/gloss, blotting sheets, and a cute straw! She's awesome!
DJ: Andy Gomes of Men of Many Hats Entertainment
Andy DJ'd a friend's wedding several years ago, and as it turns out, he's also a friend of my husband's from elementary school. He's super easy going but organized. He played a lot of good (but relatively quiet) Motown/swing/crooner type of music during dinner and then ramped it up during the dancing portion of the wedding. He kept everyone on the dance floor and while he interacted with the crowd, he didn't make himself the center of attention. He was flexible and downloaded whatever requests he didn't have on hand and just made the whole night a lot of fun. We didn't hear any of our do not play songs and most of our favorite songs, plus a few we love but didn't ask for. He just read the crowd so well and made a lot of choices based on our song choices for the big events. The quote from the owner of the company, Steve Bishop, was also less than many of the DJs in the area and they were well worth the amount we paid. My dad (who typically hates DJs) commented that he was excellent and that says a lot to me.
Nana's Gelato: We had a gelato station and it was served with our cake. We chose four flavors and it was a huge, huge hit with our guests. They really loved it and it was a great option for those people who aren't huge cake eaters.
Bridal gown and bridesmaids gowns: Aria Dress
I purchased my gown and my bridesmaids purchased their gowns through AriaDress. My dress was unbelievably comfortable and fit well. It also had pockets, which I loved so much. I also really liked that my bridesmaids could pick dresses of similar lengths and color but they offer so many styles that each woman could choose the style they liked and suited them best. That was a huge plus for me and for them. Unfortunately, however, two of the liners in the bridesmaids' dresses came unstitched just prior to the wedding after they were pressed. This was disappointing given the price of the dresses, but it was something easily fixed with some hemming and double sided tape.
Photography: Mark Turek Photography (our wedding album is the first on the wedding portion of their site)
Although it would be difficult, if I had to choose a favorite vendor of the day (sheerly because of the amount of time we spent with them), Mark and Anne of Mark Turek Photography would be it. They arrived very early to our venue to scout out locations and took tons of detailed shots before they began to take photos of us. They went out of their way to introduce themsevles to everyone in our bridal party and our parents, and they really did act like coordinators for the day - Mark kept us moving along throughout the day, and Anne helped all the guys get dressed/pin on bouts! More than anything, they were just tons of fun to be around all day - fun, upbeat, and amazingly great at catching moments and not making us stop what we were doing to pose in a moment. I'm sure a lot of this stems from their full time jobs as production managers and photographers at Trinity Rep in Providence. The final pictures are gorgeous, we have full rights to them, and they're even working on editing a few to a further degree for us. Finally, the biggest compliment I can pay them is that, outside of the first 10-15 minutes of shooting, I hardly realized they were there. They got every shot we wanted and more, but I never once felt like a camera was in my face or making everyone feel uncomfortable. They were awesome in this regard, and I really can't recommend them enough. Thanks to aazano for recommending them to me! I should just say that they are a bit selective in which weddings they take since wedding photography isn't their full time job and they like to make sure everything will be a good personality fit, but if they're available, I would definitely recommend them highly.
I think that's all I have. Thank you all again so much, and if you have any questions about the specific vendors above, please feel free to message me.