Hi ladies. I didn't post here often but this board was a lifesaver during the planning process. Everyone has been so nice and helpful in all of your posts! I hope some of this helps with the ladies still planning. Photo & VideoThe day went by so crazy fast that without all the photos and video so many awesome memories would have been lost. I didn't have a budget for the $5000 photographers out there but I wanted their style of shooting. After months of searching I found Memories Through Time with Amanda Howard. She was great! I chose to have a second photographer and the all day package. Her husband Mike does videography and we hired him too! To view my photos go to
www.memoriesthrutime.comClick on event ordering/viewing and choose Lloyd/Fowler wedding. Password Fowler. Warning - there are 542 photos!Our getting ready video clip is available at
http://tinyurl.com/km8m5zDressMy dress is Maggie Sottero "Symphony Royale" in vienna cream. I bought it from Azteca Wedding Plaza. I looked everywhere else first cause I was avoiding that place after hearing bad things but in the end they had my dream dress at a great price. If you don't need the Scottsdale Bridal Salon experience this is the place. The hardest part of the wedding being over is knowing I won't wear the dress again. It was my princess ball gown and I loved it! Bridal PartyThe dresses were from David's Bridal, F12385 in Truffle. It shows as strapless online but we chose to go with straps. My daughter was our flower girl but she is 7 going on 17 and had to have a junior bridesmaids dress to match the girls. All of our shoes were from David's Bridal too. My son Max is 5, he was our ring bearer, and looked amazing in his tiny tux from MW Tux. All the guys got their tuxes from MW Tux too. The vests matched the truffle dresses and my DH's vest matched my dress.Hair & MakeupMy makeup was done by Allison Pynn. I love her so much! She is an amazing person and a great artist. She came to my hotel room where we all got ready. Two of my bridesmaids had a friend do their h&m. Afterwards they both said they wished they had gone professional. Totally worth every penny (in case anyone is still on the fence!)
www.makeupaz.comChurchWe were married at Atonement Lutheran Church at 43rd Ave and Beardsley in Glendale. This is not our home church since ours would not marry us because we live together already. Pastor David was so great and did an amazing job. They take donations in any amount. We did a Unity Tree ceremony in case you are wondering what the tree is doing on the altar!ReceptionThe reception was at Embassy Suites North Phoenix. We had cocktail hour with full bar in the lobby. Dinner service had wine and beer on tap. Our guests had RSVPd with their choice of steak, chicken, pasta or kids and I color coordinated their escort card to their food choice. Ricardo, our banquet manager, was so fabulous. The service was amazing and he anticipated everything we needed all night. Tami the catering manager was great too. She helped keep me sane over the past year of planning and multiple visits to the ballroom! Flowers The bouquets and boutonnieres were done by Jacque Dearing from Endearing Floral at Thee Wedding Warehouse. I had black magic roses and dahlias. They were gorgeous. The flower girl basket and ring bearer pillow came from her store too. She also gave me the bouquet I threw. It was a handful of roses for several people to catch. Beyonce "Single Ladies" set the mood for that!The flowers on the cakes were from Greenleaf Wholesale Florist on 9th and Indian School. Great prices and great people.CakesSpeaking of cakes, I had Fleur de Lis make 15 table cakes for my centerpieces and a two tier cake for the bridal party. We chose five different flavors so guests ended up trying other table's cakes all night. It was so much fun and so yummy. My favorite was champagne raspberry.DJI can't even begin to tell you how amazing our DJ was. He is a family friend and a local club DJ. He brought his entire DJ table set up (lights, speakers, turntables, etc.) and kept everyone dancing all night! He is not for hire for weddings so unfortunately I can't put his name out there. I just want to stress to those of you still planning: The DJ runs the reception. Interview a lot until you find one that really gets your vision. If you have a bad DJ the reception can be a flop. We did bridal party intros to the old Suns theme song. We wrote their intros like bad singles ads. It was really funny! We did fun bride and groom trivia throughout dinner for lotto scratcher tickets.Sparkler Send Off
www.sparklersonline.com We used the 24" sparklers and they were great. If you are up for a drive, you can buy the same ones for half the price at the fireworks stores off the I-40 in New Mexico. Paper StuffI LOVE the paper at Paper Plus (51st Ave south of Bell). I made the invites (with help from cardsandpockets.com), table numbers, signs, escort cards, and programs. There aren't too many photos of the paper stuff. Paper was the biggest DIY of it all but totally worth it. Nich bought me a new printer (HPC6380) and it was a lifesaver! TreesMy husband (I love that word!) has had a thing for pine trees ever since he got one for Christmas and they planted it in his parents backyard. 15 years later and it is a beautiful big tree. We watered a unity tree in our ceremony that we bought at Summer Winds Nursery that we will plant in our yard. We gave our guests trees from
www.greenworldproject.net We chose the 2" plug seedlings in the 2" coir pot. They were wrapped in ivory organza circle with cute ribbon and a thank you tag. It took 4 people a couple hours to assemble everything on Friday. LimoWe had the limo take the girls from the hotel to the church then go pick up the boys and take them to the church. We didn't see each other before the ceremony so this allowed us to get our pictures done separately. Nich & I rode back to the reception alone. We used Mirage Limo. Great price and everything was perfect.Wow, that was a lot longer than expected. I hope you find something from it that helps. I have a couple weeks to do thank you notes and put away presents before I have to go back to work so if you need prices, templates, advice, you can email me at fowlerwedding2009@gmail.com. Happy Planning!