Hey Everyone, My FI and I went to ME during our spring break to meet with people for some wedding planning, and I thought it may be helpful for some other people to hear about it all.....so here goes...
Caterers:
White Flour catering in Hallowell ME. Loved the owner, pricing is in the mid range, but the tasting was strange...she gave us food to heat up at home in "to go" boxes. The salmon was dry and not very good, both appetizers where okay, and the beef dish was cooked beautifully and was very tender.
Danielle Norwood (in readfield ME) Danielle is a sweetheart, really helpful and her pricing is great, I would say in the lower range. She has a very large variety of things to choose from for your menu, but she does not do tastings. I do believe her food would me a more of a "home cooking" feel if you were looking for that type of thing
Chefas catering in Portland- my MIL and future SIL met with this catering company for us because we had to rush to the airport but we were able to taste some of the food. The food was incredible, the only negative thing I have to say is that the communication has been more difficult with this company it takes a long time to hear back from her. Her pricing is in the higher range.
Photographers:
Clare Norton- Clare is really amazing, meeting with her was so enjoyable that before we knew it we had been chatting for 1.5 hours! She did my FI's brother's wedding and they were really happy with the pictures and the professionalism Clare brought to the day.
Samantha Clark- Samantha hasn't been doing wedding photography as long as Clare but she has a good price (1300 for 5 hours) and in that package you get two photographers! We ended up choosing her over Clare only because the price was lower and she had a more artistic view to her photography that my FI (who is a photographer as a hobby) really liked.
DJ:
The only one we met with was Jeff Rockwell...the guy is a talker, and will talk your ear off! But you can tell he LOVES his job and we decided to go with him because it sounds like he is very organized, helpful, and really cares about the events he does. He also has great reviews online and was suggested by a photographer to us.
Lastly I just wanted to share that the highlight of the trip was that we bought our wedding bands YAY!!!! One big check off of that list!
Hope some of this info helps someone!