It's official! Married! I've posted reviews on everyone I used below but I have to prefice this with I did A LOT of research, googling, knot reading. A LOT or reasearch and it really paid off. Every one of my vendors is highly recommended and did an amazing job. I do believe this is due to the vast amounts of energy I put in to finding the right people and not just because I think (as all brides do) that my wedding was perfect.
Note: For reference we had a $30,000 wedding budget. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions or want specifics on anyone.
Venue: Courtyard on St. James Pl.
- Amazing! Absolutely amazing! Lori, our day of planner was awesome. She thought of everything and even took care of things she could tell I didn't want to worry about. The venue itself was beautiful. We had the garden room and had the ceremony outside. Ceremony was beautiful with the ivy background. The garden room was set up perfectly and they were very accomodaing for my random table arrangement requests ( I wanted the headtable to hold about 20 people and had some tables with 9 chairs and some with 8). They got everything right. Everyone raved about the food. We took home the left overs and ate wedding food for days! Even our DJ mentioned how awesome the salad is with out our mentioning it! We added the mash potatoe martinis and they were delishious and a big hit! Food wise we went with the fish and prime rib. Everything we tasted at the tasting was delicious but we decided against the chicken as we heard it can get rubbery when made in mass. Over all highly recommended.
Florist: Flowers by Lisa/ Blooming Gallery
- My wedding was Hawaiian themed making Tropical Flowers key. I had a very tight flower budget and Lisa was able to give me all the tropical flowers I wanted and stay in budget! Our flowers were the most praised aspect of the wedding. She made gorgious arrangements with Birds of Paradise, orchids, roses, and all kinds of tropical flowers. She was amazign at substituting other flowers to help with my budget but still maintain the look I was going for. I told her I loved Calla lillies but knew how expensive they were so she incorporated them into just my bouquet so I could have them but not pay to much! Our bouquets were nice and big as were our arrangements. All perfect. My only complaint is that after we had signed the contract we changed our minds and decided we wanted flowers on the cake as well. The price she quoted for just the flowers for the cake seemed ridiculous to me so we bought our own and had the cake baker decorate the cake. I would just say to make sure you are sure what you want before siging the contract so that there are no surprises later and she can be sure to incorporate everything into your budget.
DJ/Ceremony Musicians: Accoustic Productions
- Danny was great. My Husband and I's (husband!) taste in music does not translate well to the dance floor so Danny incorporated those songs into the cocktail hour and dinner and then transitioned smoothly to dancing music afterwards. He played every song we preped him we wanted and played everything we requested on the spot. He was a pleasure to work with, such a great personality, very congenial. You can check out his facebook page to see his performance schedule and go listen to him play. I'm focusing more on the DJ side of things vs. the ceremony music (though I used them for both) since I was able to find lots of reviews about their guitar/cello music but none about the DJing. Frankly, the music they play speaks for itself (you can listen on their website) and the DJ was tailored to exactly what we wanted.
Cake: Eddible Designs by Jessie
- The cake was delicious. We went with an almond white cake with raspberry filling that was awesome. For the grooms cake Jessie made up a delicious tres leches cake. Honestly, I ate more of the Grooms cake than the wedding cake. It was just that good. Since my husband didn't really have an opinion on how he wanted the cake decorated Jessie added strawberries in chocolate tuxedos for no charge. Jessie was great about taking our Michaels bought fake flowers and decorating the cake with them at no charge. In all the pictures you can't tell the flowers are fake at all she did such a great job decorating. The cake looked exactly as I wanted it to. She matched our colors perfectly. Everyone raved about how good the cake was.
Side note: we had ribbon decorating the bottom of each tier of the cake. If you decide to do this don't forget it's ribbon when cutting the cake! It made for a slightly awkward cake cutting when the groom tried to cut through the ribbon!
Photographer: D.C. Stanley Photography
- the one thing we did not want was the standard everyone stands in a line bridal party shoot. David Stanley took this and gave us some awesome pictures! He is unique, has a keen eye and misses nothing! We were also concerned about having to take a lot of picture between the ceremony and reception and David was so efficient! He was a pleasure to work with and takes such amazing unique and traditional photos. We did an engagement shoot with him as well and just love his style. D.C. Stanleys prices were a bit above what I had wanted to pay for photography but he was worth every penny. Meeting the photographer was the first time my Husband got really excited about planning the wedding. You can check out his work on his website and I promise those aren't his rare best shots, ALL his shots are that good!
Dress: Maison de Mode
- LOVE my dress! The sales person was great about only showing me dresses in my budget and the service was great. I did my alterations here as well, very reasonably priced. I had a full, ballgown skirt of tulle and was really worried the bustle would turn me into a victorian lady with a huge fluff butt but the alterations woman worked it out so my bustle looked great and was not a giant fluff mess. The only sad thing was my bustle did fall out a few times on the dance floor. Not sure if this could have been helped but it was obnoxious.
Hair/Make Up: Belle Cherie
- I wanted an updo that wouldn't fall out, was not a huge thing (I have a lot of hair) and didn't look like I was going to Prom. Nailed it! I also wanted natural looking makeup but bridal appropriate since I don't normally wear a lot of make up. I Was a little concerned about this since most of her online shots are of very done up make up styles but she did awesome. She had reasonable prices, especially for my bridesmaids, and came right to my house to do both hair and makeup. I just loved her. She was funny and got along great with all my girls. I was concerned as we had some communication issues in scheduling my trial and she was not the best at responding to email but on my wedding day she was right on time and did an amazing job, exactly what I wanted.
I would recommend everyone I used. Again, if you want any details on prices, pictures, more info. Feel free to message me. I'm always ready to help out a bride!