Our wedding was yesterday, and I wanted to share some vendor reviews. I grew up in Cville (my parents still live there), but we planned the wedding from the UK, so almost everything was done via email or phone. Overall, we were VERY pleased with how everything turned out.
Venue -- King Family Vineyards. They were AWESOME. The venue was beautiful, the weather was perfect, and everything went very smoothly. We got a lot of compliments on the venue. We worked with Annie. We had tons of compliments on the wine.
Florist -- Couture Designs in Crozet. Again, they were fabulous. We worked with Ken, and pretty much gave him our (not very large) budget and had him design whatever he wanted. Everything was gorgeous, local, and relatively inexpensive. And he was amazing to work with.
DJ -- Rick Haggard. He did a great job, was very professional, and liased well with our other vendors. We didn't have any specific requests or requirements, but everything turned out perfectly nonetheless.
Photographer -- We used Hilary Mercer, who is not local (I used to be stationed with her husband), but she travels to weddings, and her fees are very reasonable. And her photos are amazing! You can check out her blog by googling if you're interested.
Cakes -- We didn't have a wedding cake, but did cupcakes from Capelinos (on the Downtown Mall) as favors. They tasted amazing, our guests loved them, and were VERY inexpensive for trendy yummy cupcakes. Did I mention how delicious they were?
Caterer -- This is by far the highlight of the whole wedding. We used Beggars Banquet Catering (in Orange), and I can't say enough good things about them. Curry and Marty were amazing, the food was fantastic (the best wedding food I've ever tasted), and their service was impeccable (without feeling to formal, stuffy, or impersonal). They were so easy to work with, and added a lot of little personal touches to make our day fantastic. We got a ton of compliments on the food and the friendliness and professionalism of the wait-staff. Again, we planned almost the entire wedding menu and rentals over email. They made everything so easy (and helped me solve a last-minute crisis when I realized I had forgotten to pack the table numbers!). Their prices were a little bit of a splurge for us, but they can probably work within just about any budget. I HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend Beggars Banquet.