I always liked seeing what other brides said about their vendors, and promised I'd write about mine once I got back from the honeymoon.
Ceremony Venue: Holy Redeemer by the Sea - this is a Catholic church so unless you or your soul mate is Catholic, you won't consider this. Both of us are Catholic and it was a must for us to have a Catholic wedding. My advice is contact the wedding coordinator as early as possible beause there are so many rules and intricacies involved in a Catholic wedding and each church has their own set of rules. Regardless, the church was beautiful and the contact is very, very nice and helpful.
Reception Venue: Pier House at the Hilton Garden Inn (Kitty Hawk) - I wanted a reception on the ocean and this is exactly what I got. The space is gorgeous and the room fee includes the centerpieces, so you really don't NEED any other decorations. Also if you use this venue you have to use their catering. We didn't have a problem with any of the meals. As far as the service, it could not have been better. The main contact I had is named Miha and she was AWESOME. Very prompt in her responses to emails or phone calls, somehow always had a picture of what I was thinking in my mind, etc. I don't remember the guy who was actually supervising the servers at the reception but he was awesome, and fast too. As far as pricing, I thought it was a fair price for what we got, and comparable to or cheaper than the other options we had considered.
Photography: The Love Project - also awesome!!! Just go to their website and give them a call or email. It is a husband and wife team. Their work is great and they are great people to be around. One of my favorite things about them is they have a lot of wedding experience so when you go over your timeline of the day with them, they can give suggestions. The other half of my favorite thing about them, is that they do things other than weddings too, so they aren't jaded by weddings, and I also think this outside experience helps them be more creative.
Flowers: The Embellishers - loved them too! Brenda and Gail are the ladies and I especially liked that they helped me decide what I wanted, but also helped me think of ways to lower the costs because flowers were not on my "splurge" list of expenses.
Ceremony Music: Club Violin - I went with the string trio, which was a great choice. I also hired an outside pianist/organist who plays with them at weddings sometimes. Ceremony music is one place I was willing to splurge but the prices were very reasonable and the results were more than satisfying.
Reception Music: Matt Cooper, Outer Banks Music Masters - I actually saw him recommeded here on the Knot and just went with the recommendation. I'm so glad I did. He nailed it! He is very organized but also laid back. Kind of calming when so many other things are stressful! Anyway, my perspective is that the point of a DJ is to kind of be an MC, and execute the timeline. Otherwise, the DJ knows the feel of the crowd and can decide better than I can when to play a slow song or a line dance or fast fun song. I also like the surprise of not knowing what song comes next. So we told him the first dance songs, cake cutting song, and final song, and only gave him 4 or 5 must play songs. Other than that we told him some of the current music we like to give him an idea of what we were looking for, and he totally nailed it.
Cake: Cakes by Robin - also great! We went with one of the beachy looking cakes. Robin is very sweet and makes a tasty cake. I also found her prices to be MUCH BETTER than the other options in the area.
Transportation: Luxury Limmosine - we got the escalade limo which is right on the homepage of the website. Kevin was super nice and calming and knew his way around the venues for pick ups and drop offs. His prices are good and the limo was clean and cool. He was on time and very professional.
Hair/make up/nails (Beauty services): Hairoics - I used hairoics for everything. First, they had great reviews and recommendations. Second, I needed a place that had enough room and staff for the large number of us to come in all at the same time, that was fairly close to the ceremony. Two days before, I went in for my regular waxes which went really well. The day before, I went in with some of the ladies for manicures and pedicures. This was actually really nice because the day before was SO stressful for me and I got to relax and get pretty with my girls :-). The day of, 7 of us had our hair done, and 5 of us had our make up done. We were ALL really happy with it! Additionally, all of the staff were friendly and also professional.
Rehearsal dinner: Lone Cedar Cafe - SO GOOD. We loved Lone Cedar for so many reasons. First we wanted to pick something a little out of the way to show our close friends and family another part of the outer banks (Lone Cedar was about half an hour away from all of our other festivities) and is on the sound side. We also wanted to give them a true OBX seafood meal. Boy was the food good there! They even have a garden where they grow some of the ingredients! We were in a private room, and did a family style meal. To sum it up, the food and the service was fantastic.
I hope this helps some of you with your vendor choices! Best of luck!