Hey everyone! Finally got around to writing some vendor reviews from my November 6th wedding. They are a little long, but I hope they help someone out!
Venue - Artspace111 (ceremony & reception) A
We really loved our venue! We got so many compliments on how unique and fun it was. It has an intimate feel about it, which is just what we wanted. The owner Margery is really nice and will answer any questions you have. We definitely dropped by the venue a few times leading up to the wedding and she just let us walk around as long as we needed to so we could figure everything out. I wish she had been the one there on the day of our wedding since we had been talking to her throughout the whole planning process, but it was actually just an intern in charge for that day. The ONLY complaint we had was that there were no paper towels in the bathrooms and my MOH's boyfriend actually had to go run out and buy some, and that the bathrooms really weren't all that clean. I didn't even notice this, but my mom is the one who dealt with it so she was a little annoyed. When we first toured the venue and booked it, Artspace111 had an actual event planner in charge of these type of events, but she stopped working with them the week after we booked (no idea why?). I think it would have been really helpful to us if she had still worked there. This venue is definitely DIY, so be prepared to have to think about every little detail (including renting all the tables, chairs, and linens). Overall, all of our hard work was DEFINITELY worth it and we loved the venue.
Photographer - Sixfourteen Photography A+
I am still waiting to see pictures from our wedding, but I know they will be fantastic. Colton did our engagement pictures also, and everyone loved them! He's really great & easy to work with. When Colton showed up everything was still a little crazy with us trying to get everything ready, but he was totally cool with it and didn't make me feel rushed at all. His wife Jessica was also a huge help too! My curls were falling out a little bit while Colton was doing our bride & groom pics and she ran and found my MOH and some hairspray to help the situation
They both also helped us out when a bunch of guests had already eaten some of our cupcakes from the cake table before we even got to do our "cake cutting" with them. I also heard afterwards that one of the groomsmen lit off like 15 sparklers in his hand right before we did our exit, creating a huge fireball, and Colton had to dodge it a little bit ... oops... haha.
Caterer - Black Eyed Pea A+
We are so glad we used Black Eyed Pea! Heather was great to work with. The catering was the ONE aspect of the day that we didn't have to worry about at all (thank god!). Heather even made sure to come for a little bit since it was a new venue for them, and made sure that everything went as planned. She had our plates made for us and made sure we got a bite to eat. We also enjoyed our to-go boxes they made for us, we chowed down on them later that night in our hotel
We did have a slight mix-up with having enough tables rented for them to use at our venue, but with one call to Heather we solved the issue and ended up renting a few extra tables from Black Eyed Pea the day before the wedding. Another plus was that we won some drawing from the bridal show with them, so we got a nice basket with wine, wine glasses & stopper with our initials, chocolates, and BEP gift cards to take back to our hotel with us.
Rentals for ceremony & reception - Celebration Event Rentals, A
We didn't really have a choice on this vendor since Artspace111 works exclusively with them. That said, everything we rented looked great and was delivered on time, so I'm glad we used them. It did take a while to get our final contract from them, I kind of think they forgot about us. I ended up having to call back and remind them, so we were down to the wire on getting our final payment submitted and ended up having to drive out to their store and take them a check to make sure everything went through. They were very helpful though, and let us add a patio heater to our contract the week of the wedding when we found out it would be a little chilly outside.
DJ - Something New Music, DJ Sean P and MC Paul Calvin, A++
LOVED OUR DJs! They seriously made the night exactly what I wanted it to be. Since they were doing our ceremony music also, they came to our rehearsal the night before to rehearse all the music cues with us. They were really thorough with everything, and we really appreciated that. Paul was awesome at directing people where they needed to be at the reception. This was so important since our venue is inside and outside, and our guests were spread out in both areas. So when we needed them to be in a certain place for toasts or dances he had everything under control. Things also ended up not running exactly as we had scheduled them, and they were really great with pushing things back and making sure nothing was rushed. They kept everyone on the dancefloor all night, and even made sure not to play "Cha cha slide" even though I know someone requested it (thank you "do not play" list!). I also sent them an mp3 that I cut for my father/daughter dance (a hip hop dance) and they ended up putting some awesome sound effects on top of the track for us, we loved it! Here's the link to our video on youtube that I posted last week too, you can hear their awesome DJ & MC skills
I can't say enough good things about them!
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nrsciQS7ZICupcakes - Tabitha Ballard A
I found Tabitha on craigslist (and saw someone else's review of her on the knot), her prices fit our budget and her cakes tasted good so we went with her. Looking back, I kind of wish we had just had her make a wedding cake for us instead of cupcakes. We just did one 6" tier for us to cut (which she did for free, awesome), and then 4 different flavors of cupcakes underneath. I ended up loving the cake on top more than the cupcakes. If you use her, I would definitely go with cake!
Flowers - The Connection Florist A
We DIYed our flowers, but Kathy at the Connection was a HUGE help when it came to ordering everything we needed. My mom also took the flower class they offer there. It's definitely worth it if you are interested in doing this for your wedding.
Wedding Night Hotel - Omni Ft. Worth A+
We had been wanting a reason to stay at this hotel since it opened, so this was the perfect opportunity! We paid for a normal room, but they upgraded us to the honeymoon package and gave us champagne and chocolate covered strawberries for free. Also, we called that week to see if they had any drivers that might be able to come pick us up from our wedding since we got married less than one mile away from the hotel in downtown Ft. Worth and didn't really want to pay for transportation to drive us right down the street. They were amazing, and sent one of their drivers in a nice Escalade to pick us up. He was there right on time and we were so grateful! They didn't charge us any extra, we just tipped him nicely.
Officiant - Dennis Nixon B
We found Dennis online, and met with him in person and liked him - so we booked him. His price was cheaper than a lot of other ones I had seen online & it included him coming to our rehearsal the night before. We were happy with everything he did, he was just a little "grouchy" (as my dad put it). He was also not happy with the lighting we had at our outdoor ceremony, but at that point there was nothing we could do about it. I guess you get what you pay for! Overall we were happy with him.
Day of makeup - Brittany @ Bobbi Brown Northeast Mall - A+
She did a great job! My face was horribly broken out the day of the wedding, so she had her work cut out for her. However, she is my cousin, so there's really no point in writing a review haha.