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Vendor Reviews - Elms Mansion wedding on October 23, 2011
This review is a bit late but due to the wonderful experience I had with all of my vendors and the fact that I used these message boards to research vendors I felt like I needed to write a review.
I was looking for a small courtyard wedding in the French Quarter but realized shortly after starting my search that most of the French Quarter venues either were too small or had huge minimums. I ultimately decided to go with the Elms Mansion after a trip to New Orleans to look at venues (I live in Houston and was planning a destination wedding in New Orleans) and was blown away by the mansion and the gardens. I was looking for a venue that would require little to no work/money for decorations and the mansion is so gorgeous and ornate on its own that I did not have to do anything. You definitely get a good deal on pricing by going to the Garden District rather than the French Quarter and the Elms is right on the St. Charles street car line it was easy for our guests to get there. We had a block of rooms at the Hilton on St. Charles Ave so our guests literally could board right outside the hotel. After the wedding we chartered a private street car to take all our guests back and that worked out perfectly and everyone loved it.
Judy and her staff at the Elms were great and helped so much answering my wedding questions as I felt like I had no clue what i was doing and they really helped coordinate everything on the day of...the venue looks gorgeous in all of our pictures. Judy also provided us with a list of preferred vendors and that really helped us narrow down the rest of our vendors.
Speaking of pictures, we went with Michael Caswell. He put together a custom package for me as I wasn't interested in engagement pictures or bridal shots or an album. I just wanted 7 hours of coverage, 4 X 6 prints of all images and all images on a cd with copy right release. He showed up at our hotel 30 minutes early to set up which was awesome and was super flexible. He rode with us in our limo from the hotel to the Elms and worked around all my ideas of the typs of pictures I wanted...he got great shots at the wedding and everyone in both of our families are very pleased with the results...he was great and we would definitely recommend him.
For our band we used After 8, they have played at the Elms before and therefore were familiar with the set up of the place and where to go and what to do. They learned 2 new songs for our first dances and also learned 2 more for the ceremony. The guitar and sax players played for the processional and recessional and it sounded awesome. They were able to accomodate all my changing requests and had everyone there up dancing all night long and even allowed my drunk bridesmaids to stand up and sing into the microphone for a couple of songs lol. We were really pleased with them and so were all of our guests.
We used Christina O'Malley as our florist and she also was very experienced with weddings at the Elms and knew exactly what the requirements were for the gazebo and buffet table. I didn't really know what I wanted for flowers so I just told her budget friendly flowers that were in season and fall colors and she put together some really beautiful arrangements for a great price.
Finally, we used Flour Power for our cakes and they both turned out great and were really easy to work with. We used John Zimmer as our officiate and he was great as well even though we had never met before the wedding and had only spoken on the phone. He remembered details we had told him over the phone and made the ceremony feel very personal.
Any questions anyone has about these or any other vendors please let me know and I will be happy to answer. As I mentioned before, I used these message boards to find nearly all of my vendors so I really appreciated all the feedback from other people.
I was looking for a small courtyard wedding in the French Quarter but realized shortly after starting my search that most of the French Quarter venues either were too small or had huge minimums. I ultimately decided to go with the Elms Mansion after a trip to New Orleans to look at venues (I live in Houston and was planning a destination wedding in New Orleans) and was blown away by the mansion and the gardens. I was looking for a venue that would require little to no work/money for decorations and the mansion is so gorgeous and ornate on its own that I did not have to do anything. You definitely get a good deal on pricing by going to the Garden District rather than the French Quarter and the Elms is right on the St. Charles street car line it was easy for our guests to get there. We had a block of rooms at the Hilton on St. Charles Ave so our guests literally could board right outside the hotel. After the wedding we chartered a private street car to take all our guests back and that worked out perfectly and everyone loved it.
Judy and her staff at the Elms were great and helped so much answering my wedding questions as I felt like I had no clue what i was doing and they really helped coordinate everything on the day of...the venue looks gorgeous in all of our pictures. Judy also provided us with a list of preferred vendors and that really helped us narrow down the rest of our vendors.
Speaking of pictures, we went with Michael Caswell. He put together a custom package for me as I wasn't interested in engagement pictures or bridal shots or an album. I just wanted 7 hours of coverage, 4 X 6 prints of all images and all images on a cd with copy right release. He showed up at our hotel 30 minutes early to set up which was awesome and was super flexible. He rode with us in our limo from the hotel to the Elms and worked around all my ideas of the typs of pictures I wanted...he got great shots at the wedding and everyone in both of our families are very pleased with the results...he was great and we would definitely recommend him.
For our band we used After 8, they have played at the Elms before and therefore were familiar with the set up of the place and where to go and what to do. They learned 2 new songs for our first dances and also learned 2 more for the ceremony. The guitar and sax players played for the processional and recessional and it sounded awesome. They were able to accomodate all my changing requests and had everyone there up dancing all night long and even allowed my drunk bridesmaids to stand up and sing into the microphone for a couple of songs lol. We were really pleased with them and so were all of our guests.
We used Christina O'Malley as our florist and she also was very experienced with weddings at the Elms and knew exactly what the requirements were for the gazebo and buffet table. I didn't really know what I wanted for flowers so I just told her budget friendly flowers that were in season and fall colors and she put together some really beautiful arrangements for a great price.
Finally, we used Flour Power for our cakes and they both turned out great and were really easy to work with. We used John Zimmer as our officiate and he was great as well even though we had never met before the wedding and had only spoken on the phone. He remembered details we had told him over the phone and made the ceremony feel very personal.
Any questions anyone has about these or any other vendors please let me know and I will be happy to answer. As I mentioned before, I used these message boards to find nearly all of my vendors so I really appreciated all the feedback from other people.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Vendor Reviews - Elms Mansion wedding on October 23, 2011
http://www.michaelcaswell.com/photocart/
We gave our wedding party Ray ban aviators for their gift and we all wore them in some of the wedding photos and they turned out really neat...all of our wedding party (and guests) came from out of town so we really wanted to show them our appreciation for all the time and money they spent to come with a really nice dinner and a nice gift.
We used Nichols Transportation and got a hummer limo to take us from our hotel (hotel provincial) to the Elms and they were right on time and had the limo stocked with ice and sodas and mixers. The Hotel Provincial was awesome for the wedding party and the courtyard is perfect for first reveal photos...its also at the end of the French Quarter so we were able to take pictures walking out in the streets without so much traffic around.