I live in Atlanta, but I'm from Omaha and decided to have my wedding in Omaha as well. I didn't have a wedding planner, just help from family and close friends and my wedding was so beautiful!!!
1) Venue- Regency Lake & Tennis Club, B+
Pros: Great Regency location, with a lake onsite. We were able to have the wedding outdoors. It was Sunny and 80 degrees, beautiful weather that day. The reception area can accommodate about 120 people comfortably. This venue also allows you to use your own caterer and bartenders. We bought wine and liquor and had a friend be the bartender.
Cons: Tables and chairs are not included so you have to rent EVERYTHING. You also have to set-up EVERYTHING. Luckily we had a lot of guys in town for the wedding so set-up and take-down was a breeze. The venue has chairs and tables you can rent, but they look like they are from the 80's.
2) Cake- Grahams Goodies A-
Pros: Cakes are very delicious and very moist. Many flavors to choose from. The design for the wedding cake was exactly what she sketched. She delivered and set-up the cake about an 2 hours before the ceremony.
Cons: My husband didn't care for the design of the grooms cake. We asked for an Atlanta Falcons logo, it looked like the logo somewhat, but didn't seem like much effort was put into the grooms cake. Some people had very cold pieces of cake, it was obviously frozen and I guess she didn't let it thaw enough. Her communication isn't all that great, she usually would take a few days to get back to my emails. Also, she didn't provide a box for us to save our top layer of wedding cake so we put it in a box we found at the end of the night and it fell over, so we couldn't freeze the top part for our anniversary
Overall the cake was good and I'd use her again.
3) Caterer- Kaye Wayne Catering, A+++++
Pros: The food was great, we were able to have dinner nice the reception started. She's reasonably priced and I've never had such delicious wedding food. She offered several options. We had ham, chicken, meatballs, rice pilaf, sweet potatoes, pasta, salad, fruit salad, coffee and punch. We basically told her what we wanted and she did it for us.
I have nothing negative to say, if you want her info let me know.
4)Flowers/Day of Coordinator- Marsha Robinson, A+++++
Pros: Marsha used silk flowers for all of our wedding party bouquets and the flowers looked real. She did my bouquet, 7 bridesmaids, 5 junior bridesmaids and all of my centerpieces. She turned it around in less than a week. She also assisted with the set-up of my wedding and the day ran smoothly with her help.
5)Bridesmaids Dresses- J'Maries in Papillion, F
Pros: They carry Alfred Angelo dresses
Cons: HORRIBLE customer service. One of my bridesmaids dresses came in with the wrong colors and they blamed it on us, even though the other dresses had the correct color. They wouldn't take responsibility they preferred to argue with me instead of accepting responsibility for their mistake. We ended up getting the dress fixed at no charge to us, but they acted like they were doing us a favor. It just seems like brainless little girls a running the papillion store.
Hope this was helpful, Happy planning... Glad mine is over!
6) Photography- Captured by Tree, A++++++++++++
Pros: Tree is great, she was at the venue before we arrived and she got pictures of EVERYTHING. My pics were ready a day or two after the wedding. Tree is the best in Omaha, she even put together a video of pics and footage that I can share with people on facebook. Nothing negative to say, she is great! I knew she was great because she did my sisters wedding two years ago, if you don't use her, you're missing out on a great photographer. Here is a link to the video she did.
http://www.vimeo.com/14982060
7) Make-up- Blush Artistry A++++
Love Christine, she works with all skin types and did a wonderful job on my make-up. She also did my mom and junior bridesmaids makeup. She did a fantastic job.
8) Makeup- LaJoy Green A++++++
She did the makeup of my bridesmaids and did a fantastic job as well. We used her in my sisters wedding 2 years ago also so I knew she's be great. Love her!
9) Hair- Classy at JC Penny Salon at Westroads Mall A+++++
I gave her a picture of how I wanted my hair to look and she did it exactly like the picture. My hair was beautiful and held up all night.