Before I start my vendor reviews, I just gotta say... YEAY!! It's over! lol I can have my normal life and brain back.
Overall everything was awesome! I'm still getting phone calls about how beautiful everything was. I'm very happy with everything overall and I'm glad everyone had a good time.
There were a few glitches, as expeceted, but overall, everything was great.
Ok.. here goes, in no particular order.
Bridal Suite South - Vero Beach - B+The little old ladies here are nice, but you can tell they are either ready to retire or just very desperate for business. They were a bit pushy when I was trying to decide on a dress. They were nice and sweet, but lack a bit of patience. I felt a bit pressured to buy. I had ordered a swatch of the fabric so that I could start searching for a veil in the meantime and they didn't call me to tell me it was in, until my Maggie dress came in.
Reina - Alterations - A++++++++++++++++++++++I love Reina. She made me feel like part of her family the way she treated me. SO incredibly sweet. Thanks to the recs from here, I went to her for my alterations and I'm so glad I did. She did a great job and was super inexpensive. Loved her!
Men's Wearhouse - A-This one is hard to review only because every guy rented from a different location. I can only review where Alex and his son got theirs. The Stuart location. They were very helpful. Thankfully we went to pickup the tuxes on Wednesday. Alex's jacket was 2 sizes too big and they were able to order another one. They shipped it to the Hialeah store where my mom could pick up along with my dad's. We were able to return them all at the Hialeah location and not have to run around. I gave them a minus only because of the price. $180 is very steep, in my opinion. Even the ringbearer's was the same price, which I think is wrong. This was without shoes, too. It would have been an even $200 with shoes. Ouch! Other than that, they were fine. Word of advice, make sure your guys go early to pick them up. Not like my brother the night before. :-)
Tuxedo Warehouse - Men's shoes - BI rented different brown shoes other than what Men's Wearhouse had because I didn't like those glossy, shiny melted Hershey Kisses shoes they had. This guy was very hard to understand but was helpful. He gave me extra pairs of shoes in case some didn't fit since they guys couldn't try them on before hand. They were in very rough condition, but it was better than the Hershey Kisses. He also gave me one pair with a Right 9 1/2 and a left 12. Poor FIL wore two different size shoes all night.
Carino's Restaurant - Rehearsal Dinner - A+ The staff worked within my tiny, tiny budget and I was able to pre order the food that afternoon. When we arrived, everything was setup and ready to go. The food came out hot and DELICIOUS! The staff was very attentive and the food was delicious.. did I say that already? lol Well, it was.
Hyatt Miami at The Blue - Hotel - A+++If anyone is getting married in the Doral area or close by, please consider this as your getting ready room. It's a studio apartment and super comfortable. It's beautiful for pictures and very spacious. It has a full kitchen and full fridge. The staff is super courteous and attentive.
Hair by Alcira - Hairstylist - A-/B+I had seen hair done by her and loved it. I did my trial with her and loved it. I posted pics of it here at the time. I sent those pics to my MUA as well. She asked to be paid for the day of at the time of the trial, which I was ok with. On the day of the wedding she didn't seem the same. Almost as she was upset or preoccupied with something. She did 2 of my chicks hair and they looked really good. However, when she was doing mine, she couldn't remember what I wanted. Thankfully my MUA had the pics on her phone. Even so, it didn't look the same. I had it picked up for the ceremony and it kept coming apart. I told her I was going on a convertible so she would add lots of hairspray in the front. It wasn't enough, but that's ok. The front did not look like I wanted anyway, but I went with it. I'm sure there was something going on with her because she didn't seem the same. That's the only reason I gave her that A/B score. I really did like how the girls hair turned out and they held up throughout.
MakeUp by Claudia - A++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I'm gonna start playing the lotto so that I can hire Claudia to be my personal makeup girl! I wish she could do my makeup everyday! I LOVED it! I'm a hard cookie to please.. very hard... but I was in love with her makeup. To quote one of my brideschicks.."I looked Gorgeous!" lol I don't think you can find better makeup at a better price. She did individual lashes on me and I loved it. My chicks looked awesome, too! So, so,so,sooooo happy with her! Superb! Oh and she's super sweet and fun, too.
Rev. Pedro Martinez - Officiant - A+He was super nice and friendly to deal with. His rate is negotiable. He did annoy me a bit when he lost the ceremony we had worked on and wanted it sent to him. I wasn't home, I was having my rehearsal and rehearsal dinner and he kept calling/texting/emailing to get it. It's a good thing, but it annoyed me. The day of the ceremony, I think he did a great job. He's not hard to look at either (is that ok to say? Am I going to hell? lol) He did a good job and I was happy.
Paulo Diaz - Violinist - A+++++++++Totally cool guy. He worked on my song choices from scratch since he had never played two of them before. He has excellent communication and is totally reasonably priced. Paulo brought his own amp for the violin and I could hear the music from far away in the open air. I was told he played from the moment the first guest arrived to the very end of the ceremony. Wonderful!
Hitched Events - Luis Marquez - A+A+A+A+A+A+++++++I originally had Event Outfitters as my chair vendor. However, the Wednesday before the wedding the venue told me that my ceremony chairs could not be delivered the day before like the vendor wanted to. I emailed EO and tried to work it out, but they wanted to charge me more for a Sunday delivery since they were closed. I remembered a knottie had recommended Hitched Events and I called them again. I was able to work out the same price for the chairs and a Sunday delivery and pickup. Within hours everything was setup and paid for. The day before the wedding my linens vendor, who I rented a sweetheart table from, brought the wrong table and then told me they could not get me the right one because it was not on the contract. BS!!! But I'll go into that a little later. I called Luis from Hitched Events and he said.. NO PROBLEM! You will have your table there tomorrow. On wedding day, the driver called me at 9am on the dot to ask where I wanted the chairs dropped off. They were VERY punctual, both for delivery and pickup! The following day, they went to get the table, at no extra charge. Pleasure to work with!
Nataniel Design - Nellie - Florist - A+++Nellie is a dream of a person to work with. She is super nice. All the arrangements, I had 4 different centerpieces (1 for cocktail and 3 for reception) were gorgeous. My escort card table tree was gorgeous! I loved my bouquets, mine and the girls! My sweetheart table design I left up to her, I told her more or less what I wanted and she did a fantastic job with it! Overall, everything she did was spectacular! And for the price, I could not be happier. There were a few glitches with the flowers, though. I'm pending to call her to see what happened because it just seems odd. The main thing was that the "memorial rose" in memory of Alex's mom was forgotten. This was very important to me since it was how we were remembering and honoring his mom. The corsages were made for the wrists instead of the shoulder. I had to cut my mom's all up to make it wearable on her dress. My "initial charms" were put on with string rather than through the ribbon how I had specified. There were no crystals on the tables around the centerpieces, even though I gave her a HUGE box full of crystals. My bouquet, while absolutely beautiful and gorgeous, had too much ivory in it. I had told her I wanted basically no ivory in it. I understand that I had a lot of components and not all the tables were the same. However, regardless of these few things, I TOTALLY loved my flowers and how everything looked. We even had a small argument break out with the guests towards the end over the flowers. Everyone wanted to a piece of them. lol Oh! And my monkey tails!!! Ohh my monkey tails! These suckers were hard to find but she did it, she found them. I had my heart set on them and she got them for me. So happy!!!
A B Cover Designers - Chivari Chairs/Linens - C-I was sent here by my venue because they prefer to work with them. My first meeting with Ana went really good. We went over everything with much detail. I rented from them Chivari chairs, linens, napkins and my sweetheart table. She handwrote a contract for me and gave me a copy. The deposit I sent over the mail was lost in their office for almost a month. This should have raised some flags for me. It was not only until I had sent a second check that the first one appeared. Before last payment I called to confirm everything and reduce the number of chairs and napkins rented. I was told that the balance was different, that I was given the wrong total. We agreed that I could give them final payment on Saturday when they came to deliver. On Friday night, on my way to my rehearsal, I get a call from them that they can't deliver unless I make final payment. To avoid issues, I paid it. They told me they would deliver at 11am on Saturday. I asked my DOC and my cousin to meet us at the venue at 11am to start setting up. Around 1pm, they had still not shown up. We decided to have lunch while we waited. When they showed up, they were gonna sit to eat lunch first. I told them to please set up first, because we were already a few hours behind waiting on them. They brought me the wrong sweetheart table. When I told them it was the wrong one, to bring me the correct one, they said that it was not on the contract and that they couldn't bring it because they didn't have one. So why did they bring a sweetheart table if it wasn't on my contract? That's when I called the Hitched Events to rescue the table issue. They started laying linens and the had brought the wrong size for the oval tables. The delivery guy said I had told them the wrong size. What??? I don't know what size they needed. I had told Ana what tables I had and she knew exactly what I was referring to since they do work at my venue often. Their solution was to double up the linens, having an ugly seem at one end of the table. Fine. The bust out with the napkins. The WRONG napkins and already folded. They brought one sided pintuck napkins, when I had rented double sided pintuck and flat on the other side to coordinate with the cushions. Fine.. no problem. Ana had told me that they would fold the napkins onsite so that they would go with the size of the menus. They were already folded to be longer horizontally instead of vertically, like the menus. The guy said he didnt' have time to refold them. Basically, the lack of communication and lack of care to details was very dissappointing. In the grand scheme of it all it didn't matter since it still all looked very pretty, but it was not what I had rented. Why bother going there and selecting everything if they are just gonna do whatever. It wasn't cheap so I was expecting a higher lever of service.
Miami Springs Country Club - Venue - A+As you know this was not my first or second or even third choice of venue. I did not want an indoor wedding, but I settled. Although the owner and I got to a rocky, very rocky start, at the end it was all ok. The food, as expected, was really good. The snapper was DELICIOUS!!! I want to eat it everyday. Their service staff was really good, always attentive and helpful.
Leo - DJ/MC (provided by venue) B+He was nice and helped me out with my CDs when they didn't work. He transferred mine into his and they worked. His MCing was fine. Although my family is mostly older and don't dance much anymore, the music wasn't helping any. The dance floor was mostly empty for most of the night and he would not change it up to see if he could get people out there. Towards the end, we were able to dance a bit.
Vintage Car - Driver Sam H. - A+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++I had searched everywhere! Been to several car shows and nothing. I posted messages on car club pages and Sam replied to one of them. He is the mechanic for these beauties. He owns a couple but the man he works for owns a TON. He was gracious enough to allow Sam to use any car I wanted (except the '57 Corvette - lol). I wanted to skip the reception and go for a joy ride in this car. lol. I loved it. I can't wait to see my photog pics.
Gina Carter Photography - (grade pending)I'm gonna reserve my review until I see the pics. So this one will be pending.
Fotos-R-Fun - A++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I saw Gregg and Fotos-R-Fun in Knottie Karen's wedding. We had so much fun with it that I got home and looked for a credit card with available balance to get book it. I called Gregg and made the reservation ASAP. He was great to work with and even knew where he could set up at the venue since he'd been there before. Everyone found it to be so much fun. Some had never seen this before and asked how much it was to take a photo. lol My mom even commented that how rude for these people to just come and setup there to try and make money when this was a private event. She thought they were crashing my wedding and trying to make a buck! LOL Leave it to my mom to come up with something like that. When they told her I had rented it, she couldn't believe it. She's so nosy and I was able to get something past her. lol This is a great thing to do! The props were a hit!
Elite Cake Creations - Grooms Cake - A+Alex wanted our wedding cake to be from here, but we couldn't afford it. So I got his grooms cake there. It was very, very good. I think I've ate about half of it myself. Ugh!
Nail Spa - Michelle Conde - A+++++++++++++Not only does she do great nails, I feel like she was put in my life with a purpose. We had such a strangely quick connection, we are so alike, it's scary. Anyway, she used first Shellac for the trial, then Gellish for the wedding. It's great nail polish to use for your wedding especially since it lasts so long and doesn't chip. Michelle is simply fantastic at what she does and she's super awesome herself.
DOC - Nikki/Natalie - A+A+A+A+A+A+A+A+A+A+A++A+++++++++++++Nikki - She is a childhood friend who has been in the industry as long as me. We worked together and covered for each other for many years. Naturally I trusted her and she was very helpful.
Natalie - Our fantastically awesome knottie Natalie -There are no words to express how truly awesome she is. My parents, the venue owner, Nikki and everyone else that had contact with her instantly fell in love with her and expressed how awesome she is. I think my parents want to adopt her. lol Nikki could not stay due to a mix up in dates with my cousin's banquet hall where she works at as well, so Natalie took over completely and I could have not been happier that she offered to help. It is because of her that everything happened as it was suppossed to and without a glitch. THANK YOU!!! I truly love you Nat!
Alex Casey - Gazebo builder/patio lights - A++++++ 
Yeah, I know, he's not a vendor he's my husband (woo hoo) but he helped so much he deserved a review. He and my cousin built the gazebo the previous day and Alex and his son took it down the next day. Alex put up the patio lights for the cocktail area. And he did all this without complaining or bitching. :-) I told him I was reviewing him and he said not to because he's not building or putting up jack sh*t for anyone else! LOL!!! Gotta love him!
Everything else.. my cake, my video and my limo were all gifts. The cake and video I do not recommend to anyone (even though the cake look OK - even if he didn't put the butterflies on it). So I'm not reviewing them nor recommending them to anyone.
Since this is so long, I'm not proof reading or spell checking, so forgive any mistakes.
That's done.... back to doing nothing! :-) Thanks for letting me share.