This is way over due from our October wedding. So sorry! Here's the reviews from our Newport wedding.
1) St. Mary's Episcopal Church - Grade A - Our ceremony was held at my church since Baptism and Pam, our minister, was great. We had 3 meetings with her before the big day to prepare us. An old stone church on beautiful grounds it needed minimal decorations for our big day. It was perfect!
2) Regatta Place - Grade A- - Our reception was held here on a beautiful Sunday evening. The coordinator was so easy to work with in establishing our dream reception. They worked with us to stay within our budget constraints. The location was so amazing, our guests were blown away by the amazing views. Folks who didn't like the loud music or wanted to get fresh air could sit on a bench on the dock and watch the boats go by and the city lights of downtown Newport across the harbor. The only reason I gave them an A- is b/c of one screw up that nobody else noticed. They gave my new husband the wrong entree, which would have been forgiveable initially and our waitress April thoroughly apologized and fixed it. However, the day of manager there came over and told us that we hadn't ordered the dish we ordered. She said she double checked, and she just wouldn't let it go. I was fuming, especially when I got home the next day and checked our contract and I was right. To me that was super unprofessional of her.
3) It's My Party Cake Shop - Grade A - Amanda, the owner, is so sweet to work with and listens to our ideas. We went there and tried her cupcakes to figure out our flavors and they were so yummy. Her price was very reasonable - 3.75/slice. We gave her our unique design idea and it came out beautifully. Everyone said that the cake was SO moist and yummy.
4) Music Mixxers DJ - Grade A - Seann was our DJ and he was very easy going. We spoke the week before the wedding about the types of music we wanted and understood that we wanted to make all generations happy, especially during dinner. He played a mix of oldies and jazz and more current quiet music (Buble, Norah Jones, etc.) My parents were really nervous that the music would be too loud and not enough slow songs for everyone to dance to. I voiced their concerns to him and he totally got it. My parents were SO pleased with him, my Dad tipped him quite well. And their price was really, really reasonable.
5) Carlone's Florist - Grade AA - She was our favorite vendor by far. We had shopped around for florists and others had tried to talk me into doing the stereotypical theme at Regatta Place - ocean, beach, boating, whatever. But I wanted a wine theme b/c my first job out of college was at local Greenvale Vineyards and I love wine and everyone knows it! No, I'm not a lush... Anyway, she helped us think of ideas to make the wine theme even better, coordinate our burgundy color, everything. Her price was half that of other places we looked, and she delivered flowers that morning to 3 places! My parents house where the girls were getting ready, the church for the boys, and Regatta Place. Everything looked exquisite!
6) Armor & Martel Photography - Grade A - Chris Martel was so easy and fun to work with. At our engagement shoot he relaxed us and made it easy. My husband and I are not very slender people, and there's a 7" height difference b/w us so it makes us awkward in photos. Unfortunately, he didn't accomodate for this very well and we weren't happy with these initial photos. However, he agreed to do a redo and we were soooo much happier with these. Free of charge! He also made up for it by giving us total free use of the photos from the wedding. Our wedding photos were amazing - I'm having a hard time narrowing down which ones we want for our album. He also supplied the videographer and we just saw a teaser of our video. It looks amazing!! We're so happy with them.
7) Ana's Bridal Boutique - Grade D - This should have been the best and most fun part of the wedding but it was by far the worst experience ever. We ordered my ivory dress and beautiful ivory fingertip length veil with half inch wide satin ribbon border from them in February. The dress came in one month before the wedding, and the veil was 2 weeks later. The dress was gorgeous and perfect, so I have no complaints about that. The veil however was white instead of ivory, and had the wire ribbon border that's like 1/8th inch thick. It was completely wrong. They looked at my order form and agreed it was wrong so rush ordered another. I went back to East Providence when it supposedly came in, and it was still wrong, tho at least this time it was ivory. She tried to tell me that this was the right one, that they didn't have a wider edged one, and basically made me second guess my and my mother's memories. Luckily my mom was there b/c I was getting really upset as it was one week before the wedding and I had yet to see my dress with my actual veil! My mom pushed the woman who finally remembered that they had a cathedral length one in stock that might be it. She went and got it, and of course it was the right one. She hummed and hawed about how she wasn't happy she would have to alter this veil to make it my fingertip length, but in the end she succombed. So they did make it right eventually, it was just really emotional up until then. We also got my mom's dress from there. After hours of trying on dresses we picked one that they said they could order in black. Two weeks later they called to say they couldn't and we'd have to pick another dress. So back up we went and finally found another dress. It was frustrating b/c supposedly they had checked about ordering black before we left the store initally, but apparently not. What should have been fun for my mom and me was a nightmare.
8) Papers - Grade AA - We got our invitations from a shop in Newport. Judy, the owner, was so sweet and nice to work with, and my mom really liked her b/c she knew about all the etiquette for addressing and wording the invitations. She was so helpful with odd situations, like a married couple but she's a Doctor and how you address the envelope. The invitations were so elegant and well done, Price was reasonable.
9) Viking Tuxedo - Grade C+ - The initial meetins with John was nice and easy to talk to and get along with. Made us feel welcome and listened to our ideas and thoughts. He was really accomodating for getting out of state tux measurements via an online tool on his website. The day before the wedding my husband and groomsmen met there to do their fittings and it took a long time b/c he stopped helping them to help other customers even though he knew the guys were on a timeline to make the rehearsal. The day of, as the guys were getting dressed, one of the GM's shirts didn't fit even though the shirt measurements were labeled correctly. My husband's tie had a stain on it, a button on his vest fell off, too. They called the owner on several occasions to ask him to fix this, but required them to go to his shop to get the new shirt and vest on the way to the church. Once they stopped in, he did fix everything, but it was really inconvenient for them and made it more stressful for everyone. Not something you want to deal with 2 hours before you get married! At least he was local so it wasn't too far out of the way.
10) Rockstar Limo - Grade A - We rented a trolley for the wedding and it worked out so well. It was a bit on the pricey side, but they were very punctual and nice. The trolley was clean and it worked really well. We had 4 BMs and 4 GMs, both sets of parents, and photogrphers on there and there was plenty of room. It was also really easy to get in and out of in my gown, and I didn't trip LOL. We were really pleased with this decision.