Vendor reviews! Loooong post!!

lindsey.moore · August 2010

What's up knotties! I got married on July 17 at the Foundry. Here are my vendor reviews! These are long, sorry to be so wordy, but everyone was amazing so I need to gush. I am highly recommending all of these vendors!!

Venue - The Foundry: This is a gorgeous wedding venue. It used to be a working foundry, and the design is airy and sculptural -- the walls are brick, the celing is metal and glass, there are huge skylights that go all the way up to the high roof, and the space has beautiful details like urns and tubs. They share their courtyard with a landscaper, so on weekends the courtyard is filled with greenery and flowers. Their terrace is gorgeous with a fountain and really simple, lovely furniture, and has a view of the water, the Manhattan skyline, and the nearby bridge. The design, look, and feel of this place sets it apart from other venues and was the single biggest reason we booked it. Cons: The space is on the more expensive side. You have to be in and out on the same day, no exceptions, so you can also incur costs for late-night rental returns. (Although they do allow 12 hours instead of the 8 given by some other spaces.) There wasn't a ton of space to get ready -- just one smallish dressing room for the bride -- so the groom and the wedding party did the majority of their getting ready offsite. Pros: Obviously, the space itself. So amazing. The people who run the venue are great, very professional and responsive. They are also great at giving you lists of recommendations for vendors. There is a big, full commercial kitchen for caterers. The venue also has some furniture already -- we used their bar tables upstairs, benches for tables we set in the alcoves downstairs, and their large black table for gifts and escort cards, so we did save some money with rentals. You also save on decorations, because the space itself is so gorgeous that you don't need to embellish much.

Catering - Seasons Distinctive Catering: I'm recommending these guys with just a couple of notes. The important stuff first: on our wedding day, they NAILED IT. The food was delicious and came out hot, and everyone raved about the hors d'oeuvres. The waitstaff was AWESOME -- they were professional but warm, and everyone felt incredibly well taken care of. It could not have been more perfect. Working with Marc beforehand was usually fantastic. Cons: It seems like Marc is spread pretty thin and his responsiveness wasn't always great -- he always got back to me but sometimes it would be a few days. I'm an email corresponder, and he is probably more responsive over the phone, so I would say to just call if anything is urgent. This was never a problem for me except that I sometimes get impatient if emails sit for a couple of days. The other thing is that they don't have a great selection of rentals. We wanted very simple linens, chairs, etc., so we were fine with the rental stuff that they had and very happy with how everything looked, but I would also say to just look at the book well in advance and set rentals up yourself with a different company if you're not happy with Seasons' selection. Pros: Everything else! Seasons was around the middle of the road when it came to costs, definitely not too expensive, but not dirt-cheap either -- I think you get what you pay for. We definitely got value for our costs and were happy with the pricing of everything. The food was delicious! Our guests raved about the food and the service too.

Photographer - Allan Zepeda Photography: I will come back and review him once we see the photos! I will say that he was really easy to work with and a sweetheart, and we loved his galleries. He and his business manager/second shooter were so much fun on the day of the wedding and really put us at ease. They were also really flexible with our short time schedule. We are having to wait 7-10 weeks for the photos, though -- it's because they do really good photo editing, I know, but I'm impatient!

ShootBooth is a kind of photo booth, but their services are really unique. We used their "sidecar" setup. They bring in a big antique camera, which is gorgeous, and outfitted with a digital camera. They set it up in a location you guys decide on -- in my case, it was just a corner upstairs that had exposed brick -- and your guests go to get their photos taken. They bring a screen on which the guests can see their photos and choose the ones they want printed. They print them right there and put them in a protective bag and the guests get to take those photos home with them, and at the end of everything, you get a CD with all of the photos on it (just the ones people actually printed, not the outtakes). Our guests loved it! Especially our friends, who split their time on the dance floor and at the photo booth all night. We ended up with some wonderful, hilarious photos! We did the most simple set-up, but they are super-flexible and will work with you on whatever kind of photos you want. I could have set up a backdrop, or brought props, or whatever. The guys who run it are a delight to work with, very responsive, and at the event they were fantastic as well. Nothing bad to say about this, it rocked, and it added a fun little extra to our evening.

Florist - Rebecca Shepherd Floral Design & Adornments: REBECCA IS AMAZING. I give her ten stars out of five. She understood exactly the look we wanted -- black and white flowers with touches of green in a modern, sleek styling -- and she completely nailed it 100%, even better than I imagined it. She was incredibly responsive, always getting back to me in the same day, sometimes within a few minutes. She showed us tons of photos of what she was planning and talked us through everything. And on the day of the wedding she was there even before I was! She spent hours setting up and making everything look perfect, and it absolutely was. Everyone raved about the flowers! And she worked with our budget; everything was really affordable. I cannot recommend Rebecca highly enough. I saw photos of other weddings she's done and she would work just as well with a romantic bride, or a simple-sweet bride. I felt like she got my vision completely and tailored everything exactly to my tastes. Plus she's a sweetheart.

Cake - Betsy at Nine Cakes: Betsy is also 110% awesome. She deals a lot in buttercream, we ordered a buttercream cake from her. I absolutely loved working with her -- at the tasting she was really warm and had everything set up really well, and it was DELICIOUS. She was enthusiastic and really fun in the brainstorming session on design. We were able to pick two different buttercream frostings to go with our lemon cake. She delivered the cake herself…and it was so perfect. There were buttercream leaves all over the cake, which were adorable, and did I mention that it was delicious? Her pricing was similar to other Brooklyn cake bakers we checked out. Again, nothing bad to say – we loooooved Nine Cakes!

Dress Purchase - The Bridal Garden: I loved shopping at the Bridal Garden! I tried a couple of traditional bridal salons, but I really hated trying on sample sizes -- I'm a 14 and I don't fit into the samples, so they have to bring out the Embarrassing Back Sling, and I can't really see how the actual dress would really look on me. Plus, they are just so pushy and it always made me uncomfortable. I much prefer the hands-off approach at the Bridal Garden, and I also loved being able to shop a rack of dresses that I could actually buy like a regular shopper. Their prices are awesome, and the best part is that you don't have to use a bridal salon's insanely priced alteration services. But overall, it just depends on what you want. If service is more important and you want to be pampered and given champagne and talked into buying a gorgeous $5000 dress, go to Kleinfeld. But if you want to see everything they have in the store, try on the actual dress you would buy, and be free to make your own decisions, this is the place for you.

Dress Alteration - Laura & Melinda: Loved it. The guy who runs the place is really nice, very talented, and it was $100 for both shortening the length and taking in the sides. I totally trusted the tailor. I found him because he had great reviews on yelp, and they did not lie. Very highly recommended!

Ceremony Musicians - NY Ceremony Music: I love Randy and Topu. They were absolutely professional, and they play so beautifully. They gave our ceremony a really beautiful, solemn, special quality; the song they arranged for us is absolutely gorgeous. They have a huge range; we mainly had them play their beautiful cello-and-guitar versions of popular songs before and during the ceremony, and then bossa nova at cocktail hour (so much fun). They were on time, very responsive, flexible, and they are super-talented guys. They were just perfect!

DJ – Gotham DJ (Andy Anderson): Andy, along with Rebecca (the florist), was the star vendor of my wedding. This is the best wedding DJ any of my guests had ever seen. We wanted someone who wouldn't have the awful DJ patter, who wouldn't play embarrassing line-dancing songs, who didn't have some kind of signage ("Check out Fist-PumpDJ.com for your next killer party!" or whatever)...generally someone who wouldn't be embarrassing. And who could play a few of our favorite indie-rock songs without bringing the party to a screetching halt.

Andy killlllled it. He was so much fun to work with, and really got our music tastes and was able to balance what we wanted with songs that people love dancing to. Everyone was on the dance floor the whole night, and having a great time! He is a little on the expensive side because he has an amazing pedigree (he's played at trendy Manhattan clubs, and spun for huuuge clients) and because he's completely awesome and worth it. He worked with our budget, and I was happy to pay a little bit more for him because I trusted him 100% from our first meeting. HIGHLY recommended, especially for people who don't want a cookie-cutter wedding DJ, but someone who knows how to play fun, good, dance-y songs and spin your personality into the mix as well.

Officiant – Reverend Thomas Lawrence: We loved working with Reverend Lawrence. He does religious or non-religious weddings, same-sex weddings, interfaith weddings…we really loved that he was flexible and liberal about marriage. He was a total professional, and he's also a couple's therapist, so he talked to us about some of the larger issues about marriage and respect on our first meeting -- no counseling or anything that official, just a nice chat about what we were expecting from marriage. He accepted that our wedding parties were co-ed with just a little raise of an eyebrow.

He was all business, but we liked that; we wanted someone who seemed like an authority, like his word holds weight, and we felt that with Reverend Lawrence. We loved his standard non-religious ceremony and used it as it was written, and it was really meaningful to us. We did our own readings and vows, and his ceremony fit into all of our choices really well, so it felt unified and personal for us. I would recommend him definitely, although just because it's such a personal choice I would say to read his ceremony before you book him, in case it isn't as meaningful to you as it was to us.

Transportation - WiroLimo: I contacted WiroLimo after reading great reviews on yelp, and I wasn't disappointed. A guy named William books everything, and he is really nice and very professional. We rented a limo for 8 hours. We probably could have found one for cheaper elsewhere, but booking with William I knew that the driver would be there on time, and be dependable and professional, and we wouldn't have to worry about anything -- and that was all true! Definitely recommended for anyone who doesn't want to have to worry about transportation at all. This can be a difficult area to find dependable service in, and WiroLimo is definitely dependable!!

Invitations – Catherine Casalino Designs: My good friend Catherine Casalino, who is a graphic designer and works mainly on book jackets, did our invitations. It was actually the first time she had ever done wedding invitations! I love them completely, they are exactly what we wanted and I think they are beautiful. I’ll paste a photo of our invitation below so you guys can see Catherine’s awesome work! We had them printed in Brooklyn at Peter Kruty Editons. We were pretty happy with their services. The invitations look and feel absolutely beautiful, I love the quality. It was a tiny bit more expensive than other places, but well worth it for the quality if you don’t mind spending the extra. They were changing a staff member and we experienced a little bit of a delay getting our order, and they gave us free thank-you notes to ammend for the delay, which we really appreciated. I recommend them if you just need printing services.

Hair – Jennifer Lusardi at Aveda: Jenn was awesome. We know her well; she is a stylist at the Aveda salon, and she’s been doing my new husband’s hair for a decade, and mine for the last year or so. It was so nice having her in the dressing room with me – not only does she do great hair, but she also was such a calming presence. She did my hair and my mom’s, and I loved both! Mine was down and curled, and the curls stuck all night, and into the next day! I just couldn’t have been happier with Jenn. I recommend her to everyone, even if you’re just looking for a new hairstylist!

Hotels - The one not-glowing review I have is the Country Inn and Suites in Long Island City, where we blocked off rooms for our family and out-of-town friends. They definitely had the cheapest rates around, and the hotel itself is very nice – it’s brand new, very clean, nice basic design, and the rooms are pretty spacious. Nothing fancy, just a good, clean, nice hotel with decent rooms and a continental breakfast. We were very happy with the place itself. But there was SO much confusion dealing with the staff. I had to give them a credit card number, which they said they were maybe going to charge a deposit on, but they never did. We had a block with slightly cheaper rates then their normal prices, but half of the guests were not put in the block and we had to call and sort it out. Several of my guests had booked two or three rooms under their name for various family members, and those were almost always screwed up (they wanted 2 king rooms and a single and got only 2 single rooms, or whatever). So there was a lot of work involved on our end, figuring things out and fixing mistakes and etc. My groom and I stayed in the Verve Hotel, which is just a couple of blocks away from the Country Inn in LIC. It’s a little bit more expensive, but WELL worth it. Their rooms are really well designed and spacious, all of the public areas are nice/clean/pretty, there’s a small parking garage, and their customer service is TOP NOTCH. They were so friendly and helpful. I would absolutely recommend them with flying colors.

Sorry that was so long! I hope it’s helpful to someone!!