First, I just want to say thank you to everyone who has posted on this forum, your comments, suggestions, and opinions helped me tremendously in my planning an OBX wedding while in Oklahoma.
The week in Nags Head and day of worked out better than I could have imagined. It was such a happy and laid-back time and I'm not sure that any of us wanted to leave... In fact, I think some of the family is already planning a 1-yr anniversary reunion for next year, whether or not we can make it
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Ceremony Location: The Chapel at St. Andrew's Episcopal Nags Head.
We started out thinking we wanted a beach wedding, but in discussions we realized that my husband really wanted a church wedding. I loved the historic chapel and it removed my worries about weather, sound, seating, etc... However, the rules! They are sticklers for rules... no photography during the ceremony. No video equipment on the other side of the alter. Also, their 'wedding coordinator' didn't listen to us very well (and wasn't a very happy person in general). Luckily, we brought our own priest from Oklahoma and the service ended up being quite personal. I don't know if I would recommend using them unless you are a member, as they seem to nickel and dime you for every little thing...
108 Budleigh: We loved it in our first visit and loved it during our reception. It looks beautiful bathed in candlelight! The thing is there really is no one to help out the day of your reception. They gave us a passcode to get in and everything was totally up to us to either set up or move out if didn't need it (e.g., the many extra chairs stacked up in the main room). This is the biggest reason I wish I had hired a wedding coordinator. There really wasn't time for me to get over there to help w/set up day of, so we visited earlier in the week, discussed a plan w/some members of the wedding party who went over that morning to set-up. Things didn't look entirely like I envisioned when we showed up for the reception and it bothered me a little more than it should have. You can get into Budleigh the night before for $250 extra if its not booked for something else, but between the rehearsal / rehearsal dinner I just didn't see it happening...
Catering - Red Sky Cafe: Amazing. Simply Amazing. They took care of all the place settings, the bar, and the cake service. Absolutely everyone told me how great the food was (vegan or otherwise). Eric K. was easy going from the get go through all the planning and Amy was there the day of to take care of anything I needed. They were also able to do special drinks at the bar (mojitos, toasted almond, etc) at no extra cost and when I apparently didn't rent enough glasses for mixed drinks they had their own plastic ware to fill in.
Photography - Daniel and Kate Pullen. We loved them both. They are incredibly laid back and work so well together as a team. They arrived one hour before the ceremony and Daniel went to take pictures of the guys getting ready while Kate came with us... I liked the mixture of formal and informal shots they were able to capture and we had so much fun doing a TTD shoot with them before we left. We almost forgot to do the cake cutting (had to be reminded by a guest around 10:30 pm)... and Daniel and Kate were still there even though they were only booked for 5 hrs. They ended up leaving around 11 pm and never complained or even mentioned the extra time they were there!
[Sorry for the long post, I'll try to hit the rest of the vendors in a follow-up and also be a bit more brief]