I know a lot of these don't pertain to the DE area

This venue really set the scene for the look of our wedding overall. The property is absolutely gorgeous and well maintained. It is so romantic and historic. The staff at Holly Hedge is incredible. My biggest piece of advice for anyone looking for a venue is to get reviews on how they are with responding to questions. I had zillions of questions through the course of our engagement, and all I had to do was shoot them an email and I always got a response the same day. The day of our wedding, we had Sarah as our day-of event coordinator and she was great. She would check in to see if we needed anything, and if we were good she would let us be. Our wedding day could not have been more stress-free because of Holly Hedge. We dropped off our decorations a few days before with instructions on where everything should go and the staff took care of it and did it perfectly. The wait staff was great too - DH and I had our own server, who got us drinks whenever we wanted and event brought a plate of hors d'oerves to us while we were getting our photos during cocktail hour. We received so many compliments from guests on the food (especially the cake!) and we were amazed how everything ran on schedule! Holly Hedge is a little on the expensive side but they are good about not having hidden costs and include things that many venues do not such as gratuity, dessert, linens and centerpieces. I am so happy with decided to have our wedding here!

Marc first impressed me by showing up an hour and a half before we did at our venue! He was concerned about traffic so he planned for it far in advance. The day of our wedding was great. Marc was friendly and outgoing toward us and our guests and he did an incredible job at making sure we got to enjoy our wedding rather than having to spend too much time doing the posed, family photos.  Marc asked ahead of time for a list of people for the portrait shots and he did a great job of remembering all of them. We left for our honeymoon the day after the wedding and Marc had already posted some photos on facebook. The turnaround for all of the photos was very quick too. I will say though, that there were some shots that I was disapointed in. Obviously all photographers take a ton of photos and they can't all be perfect, but we did all of the family shots in one spot and in every one, the lighting is really bad. The sun was just not in a good position and I'm disapointed that Marc didn't catch that. Those are the photos that our family would want to buy prints of and display and none of them are usable. I know Marc was concerned with getting us to our cocktail hour, but I would have rather had good portraits than go to our cocktail hour. Another thing we weren't happy with is the second photographer. Marc did the pre-wedding shots with the girls, while second shooter did the with the guys. DH said that they really had to direct a lot of the shots themselves. When we got the photos back most of the second shooter ones were pretty poor. BIL dabbles in photography as a hobby and he said it seems like the settings on the camera were incorrect. Overall Marc was nice, and professional and there were a lot of photos that we did like. If I could have done it over though, I wish I allocated more money to our photography budget and hired someone at the top of their game. Photography is too important to skimp on!

All of our interactions were with Ed, the owner of Branded, who is the nicest guy around. The day of our wedding we had Matt as our shooter and he was very professional and unobtrusive. My favorite thing about Branded is that before the wedding, Ed sent me a long questionnaire to fill out that asked about various preferences and song choices. I told him that I loved close-up detail shots and I had a very specific song request for our cinematic trailer. The trailer was better than I could have imagined. He did such a great job with listening to exactly what I wanted. We are very excited for our dvds. For the quality of the work, I think the price is extremely reasonable.

Our DJ, Todd, was probably the most friendly and outgoing vendor we had. In weeks leading up to the wedding, I would call with a question and he would spend a lot of time explaining it to me, and then we would just talk casually, he would tell me funny stories etc. Silversound has a great and easy to use website for making the play and do not play list as well as the introductions. Todd did a great job at including songs from our play list while also reading the crowd to decide what would be most appropriate. He seemed to really understand DH and my taste in music too. We didn't really have any specific songs for during the meal, but some how knew all these songs that we both really love. At some point during the dancing, the groomsmen requested a song that Todd didn't have in his library so he looked it up on his phone and played it from there. I had forgot to tell Todd about announcing a few things too - our adlib guest book and our sparkler exit, but Sarah from Holly Hedge let him know and he had no problem with doing it on the spot. Todd would also periodically come up to us, see if we needed anything, took pictures. I was extremely happy with having Todd as our DJ. Also, FYI, Silversound does a $200 off promo for Sunday weddings!

The Bridge String Ensembles is a group of music teachers near the Reading area. Brad is the contact person and he was very helpful in deciding on songs, and they have a wide variety of music in their repetoire. I honestly didn't hear them much - we were doing photos for much of cocktail hour and I wasn't really paying attention to them during the ceremony, but we did get a lot of compliments on them and they played all the songs we requested perfectly. When I researched string trios, they seemed to have the largest repetoire for one of the lowest prices. Brad also provided recorded samples beforehand and played for me over the phone.

Kim did a great job with our flowers. I wasn't very specific with what I wanted, but she did a good job of understanding the look of our wedding and incorporating our flowers to go with it. Holly Hedge has a beautiful fountain on the grounds where the ceremony is and most brides will have a huge floral piece to go in it. We wanted to have one but they were hundreds of dollars that we didn't have. When Kim got there to set up our flowers, she saw the arrangement left over from the day before, which was red, pink and white. Our colors were lavender and purple so she just took out the red flowers and then asked me what I thought of it. It looked really nice, and I'm so glad she thought to do that for us. I noticed after the wedding that in photos, our lavender roses looked pink, and I didn't really think that on our wedding day. In retrospect, I think I would have been more specific to Kim on the shade of lavender for the flowers. Like I said though, I didn't even notice that on our wedding day, so it wasn't a big deal at all.

Euphoria was the only vendor I chose without doing tons and tons of research. I chose them because one of my bm's sisters had them do their hair a few years ago, and I've been to Euphoria before for hair cuts and massages and have been happy (btw, if you want the best massage of your life, go here!!!). The neat part was that they were supposed to be closed that day (Sunday before the fourth) because of the holiday but opened just for us so it was really cool to have the studio to ourselves. We brought with us muffins and mimosas and had a nice and relaxing time there getting ready. The owner, Melissa and another girl were there to do our hair. My bridesmaids all really loved their hair. My hair though, I hated and I didn't know I hated it until I saw photos. I should have done something after the hair trial. At the trial, Melissa just quickly put up my hair, let my sister take a couple photos with her phone and then took it out right away. She hardly asked questions or took notes about what she was doing and I was there for no more than 10 minutes. On the wedding day, she seemed to not remember at all what I wanted. I explained it to her again, but she said she would have to do it a little differently because of the weather (it was pouring and humid in the morning but cleared up by our wedding)and because my hair doesn't hold curl well. So she did her thing, and I thought it looked fine even though it was different than what I originally wanted. It wasn't until I saw photos that I had a good idea of how it looks (advice - take photos to look at right after you get your hair done! Photos are different than mirrors). The style was so not me and took away from the look I was going for. I wish that Melissa tried harder to do the style I wanted, even if it was just changing it a little bit for the weather. I also wish I knew to say something to her about it. When I booked Euphoria, she gave me a range for all of the bm's hair. When they paid, all of them had the max price, and not all of them had very complex hair styles. It was also way more expensive than other places. I would recommend Euphoria for other services, but wedding hairstyling would not be one of them. 

Lisa was recommended by Melissa at Euphoria. Lisa is a bright and cheery person, which was nice to have on our wedding day. Lisa only uses Mac cosmetics and I was impressed with how well it stayed on me and didn't cause breakouts. Lisa did a nice job with all of our make up and my false eyelashes. She gave me lipstick to reapply later, which of course I totally forgot to do. I was overally very happy with the make up.

I did most of my wedding dress shopping in New York when I was living there for grad school. Bridal Reflections was recommended by a friend and I was really happy with their sales and alterations. They have a lot of the same designers as Kleinfeld's, but is much smaller and comfortable. Dresses are generally a little more expensive but they have discounts for trunk shows.

Boy did I love my veil! I saw an ad with my wedding dress and a drop lace veil and fell in love. I went to look at it and it was over a thousand dollars! I had heard of Marisol before and she was recommended as someone who does great work on custom lace veils. I showed her a photo of what I wanted and gave her a budget. Marisol sent me photos of different laces she could use that would work within my budget. The laces were pretty, but I really wanted a think lace like my photo. There was a lace on another veil in her shop that I really liked and I asked her about that one. I had to increase my budget by a little but it was worth it. The veil came very quickly and was exactly as I wanted.

I know most people have had great experiences with JCrew, but mine were somewhat mixed. We went to the store in New York to pick out dresses and the staff was friendly but gave us some incorrect information on dresses and when the spring collection is out. We waited for the spring collection, picked out a dress, most of them were back ordered and they didn't come until just a couple months before the wedding. The fit on the dress was really awful (that dress was the Evie)so we ended up switching to the Arabelle, even though I didn't want strapless. It ended up fine, but another thing that bothered me was that all those times I went to the store, no one ever said that we could have ordered extra fabric to make sleeves, and instead I found that out from a knottie. I will say though that the returns and customer service over the phone was really easy and great.

I never would have thought that I'd do boudoir photos, but I knew DH would love them so much and so many girls had such great experiences with Sarah that I decided to go with it. I did a group session 4 days before the wedding. The sessions come with a disc of all the images and then you can choose 20 that Sarah will make into a book. I knew she wouldn't be able to get the book to me in time to give to him before the wedding, so instead she sent me the link to the online gallery the day after so I could choose a "teaser" pic for her to print and overnight to me. DH absolutely loved the photo and is dying to see the book. Working with Sarah was so great. She made me feel so comfortable and she directed all of the shots, so it wasn't awkward at all. I'm very happy that I chose Sarah to do these!

Let me know if you have any questions!!