It’s so hard to believe the wedding is over and it’s time to write my reviews! Enjoy every minute of your wedding, ladies, and I know you all know this by now, but you have chosen a spectacular destination, rain or shine, and it will be amazing!
All the OBX brides were tremendously helpful to me in planning, so hopefully my reviews will be helpful to some of you! If any of you want more info on any vendor, let me know and we can correspond more individually.
Weather: Thumbs down! Ha. The day of my wedding there were tornado watches on the OBX! It was like a tempest! The wind howled all night the night before the wedding; I don’t think I got more than an hour of sleep! So we had to go with the rain plan and have just about everything inside. But – even though it was super windy all day, we managed to find a time when the wind on the beach died down enough for pictures (the calm before the storm!), and just as we were wrapping up, the rain drops started to fall – quickly turning into a downpour! So my advice to the outdoor reception ladies is – truly think about your rain plan because you just may need it! I’m very glad I walked through the whole thing in worst-case-scenario or I would have been scrambling!
Ceremony musicians: Kim Kalman (guitar and vocals) and Leslie Erickson (violin). We had a Catholic Mass ceremony at Holy Redeemer with Kim and Leslie performing. The music was beautiful; Kim's voice is great. She is the only person who has ever been able to make me want to "jam" at a Catholic Mass - ha!
Twiddy/ Rendezvous (E093): This house is AMAZING. Absolutely perfect for a wedding. Overall it is in great condition too. We did have several maintenance issues (pool not heated though we paid the fee, Jacuzzi never got hot, air conditioning didn’t work in various places – which was key because it was almost 90 a few of the days!, and air conditioning leaking caused wet carpet issues). I did try to cut them some slack since I know Twiddy was flooded with maintenance calls that weekend (4/23-4/24), and it was Easter. (No kidding – someone actually followed the Twiddy maintenance truck into our driveway at one point and asked the driver when he was coming to her rental. Yikes.) However – I did grow tired of being told someone had been called and they would get back to me with an update when updates never came, and neither did maintenance people. We had to call several times each day and it took days to get things fixed. The a/c in the carriage house was not fixed until 1 hour before we left for our honeymoon though it had originally been reported 5 days before. To their credit, Twiddy has since apologized and offered us a refund, which is nice, but we would much have preferred better service and fast resolution of issues to money back afterward.
Aqua S Restaurant/ Lynette Sumner: Site of the welcome/rehearsal dinner. Absolutely delicious food for each of our 3 entrees – fish, beef, and risotto with vegetables. The sauce the fish was served with was so good I told Lynette I would have eaten cardboard if it was in that sauce! Fabulous, attentive (but not too attentive) service, gorgeous sunset… I have nothing but great things to say about Lynette, her chef, her staff, the food, and the venue.
RD Entertainment/ Buster B. Curtis: We hired this guy Buster who had been playing at the Aqua S bar when we went for our tasting to play at our RD. He is just a guy with a guitar, singing Buffett, Eagles, John Denver, etc. He was inexpensive to book for the whole night (especially compared to a DJ or a band) and totally set the laid-back, beachy vibe we were going for.
Red Sky Café/ Eric Kallestad: Eric was my MVP throughout the process. He helped me with many, many things outside the scope of our engagement (guidance on rentals, set up, etc.) without a second thought and always had a quick, thorough response. On the day of – his staff were early (!) and did an outstanding job of unracking and setting up the rented glasses, plates, etc., and breaking down at the end of the night. I have no idea what I would have done without them!! It was picture perfect when they were finished setting things up, and it was all put away and cleaned when they were done. They were very professional and truly a pleasure to work with.
Now for the food: Absolutely everyone raved about the food. It was ALL soooooooo good. We did more of a tapas-style reception with one “main event” carving station and late-night snacks (pizzas, chips and dips, sliders, etc.) – which were a HUGE hit with the guests. And, we ended up with lots of great leftovers for the next day. Red Sky brides, if you want to know what we served or have questions about any of your menu items, let me know. I could rave about Eric and Red Sky all day!
Great Cakes/ Marsha Johnson: We had three flavors of cupcakes – most Key Lime Bliss – which everyone agreed were to-die-for, vanilla with raspberry filling, and chocolate with peanut butter filling. They looked beautiful and all three flavors were delicious. The cakes were moist, the icing not too sugary-sweet, the chocolate shells a delicious decorative touch, and the fillings yummy yummy yummy. I cannot personally vouch for the chocolate since they were all gone by the time the groom and I were looking for seconds (we went straight for key lime)!
Sugar Snap/ Shirley Cook: Shirley was fantastic throughout the process, and her portfolio is stunning, so I had high hopes for my flowers… and she did not disappoint! We had a mixture of hydrangeas, peonies, calla lilies, stephanotis, baby’s breath, orchids and freesia. We also had Shirley make us an “H” monogram out of yellow carnations and it came out great. Everyone loved it! She made starfish wands for the two flower girls… if you haven’t seen these, they are SO cute! The two flower girls loved playing with their wands, and it’s a keepsake for them as well, double bonus!
DJ/ Matt Cooper: Matt was also great to work with. Before the day of, I had given him a schedule, but the bad weather delayed photos, which delayed everything else, so from there I just checked in with him on when to do the “formal” elements – toasts, dances, etc. – since we mostly had an unstructured reception. I was super happy that he was so flexible to change/ reconfigure on the fly. Also, he was really great about suggestions for lighting, and he was able to move the speakers outside when the bad weather had passed us by so that the last few dances were outside, which was awesome!