Hi all, my wedding was 9/25 and I am now back from our HM so I want to put my reviews out there because in my planning process I loved to hear others experiences with their vendors. Feel free to ask questions about them if you want.
Venue-Casa Blanca-B:First off I must say that place is beautiful, especially when your tables, linens, and flowers are in there. The venue owner/coordinator is extremely helpful they week before the wedding and day of. She actually calls all of your vendors a couple of days before the wedding and works out what time they need to be there. Don't expect alot from her before that though. Which was fine with me, I knew she would have everything put together for the actual wedding. She wound up loosing my cake cutters though which sucked, but oh well. She helped the day fly by smoothly, making sure everyone was where they needed to be. She made sure me and husband had everything we needed and checked on us frequently. During the planning process with her you will have to remind her everytime you talk to her what you talked about previously. Double check all details with her before the big day comes. DJ-1st Class Entertainment,Blake Hunter-A:I never met with him until a week before the wedding and we went over the songs we wanted. He had plenty of ideas for the things we didn't know what we wanted. The morning of the wedding we were still missing a couple of songs that I needed to assign to grand entrance and stuff and I emailed him that morning at like 8am and gave him a list of those songs and about 15 other "must play" songs and he emailed back "ok" haha and they all got played I would hear random songs throughout the night and think oh I emailed him that this morning. Very nice and professional yet down to earth!
Florist-Park Crest Floral-A++: Martha is absolutely amazing, I can't even express how much I loved her. I first went to BOA to get an estimate and they were at 3300 dollars, I then went to Park Crest and she was at 2300 and I actually added 5 boutonnieres and 7 corsages (for grandparents and parents), I couldn't believe her prices. She is so funny and down to earth. At our initial visit she knew exactly what I wanted with out me even knowing the name of the flowers and actually had most flowers there in the shop and she came out and showed me. She even gave me and my MOH, who went with me that day, mini arrangements that included most of the flowers I was using. Her flowers were so fresh the day of the wedding. I got back from a week long HM in Maui and the flowers were still living when I got back home!! She made my bouquet the perfect size and the BM bouquets were pefect as well. I highly recommend her!!!!!!!!!!!
Photography-Peary Photography-A++: Bill and Karen (a husband/wife team) are amazing. I found them at a bridal extravaganza a year and a half before my actual wedding and I knew then he would be my photographer. I met with him in person once before the wedding and he showed us multiple books and pictures. I emailed them about every 2 months or so just to check in and mail payments and etc. The day of the wedding they were awesome. They are both so caring and love what they do. They were helpful with everything that day. They made everyone feels so comfortable, their not pushy at all when trying to get family pictures like alot of photographers I have ran into. My entire family loved them. Their prices are awesome as well. Love them!!!!
Catering-Catering with a Twist-B+: Kassie who is the owner was super friendly and helpful in the planning process. I can't even tell yall how many caterers I talked to before choosing them. I initially went to her with the basic wedding food like a chicken and beef meal. Then I changed my mind to BBQ (due to prices I was getting from other catering companies). Kassie then emailed me a BBQ menu and it was perfect, she had a twist on BBQ that I didn't really think could be done. She made it so classy and nice. We scheduled a tasting and everything was amazing. I would email her frequently with questions or ideas and she would answer that day or the next morning, I met again with her in person about a week before the wedding and finalized all details. The day of was alittle bit of a let down not because of the food because that was awesome but because she wasn't there except for a little bit when they were setting up. Which she told me she wouldn't be there in our meeting but she would have another catering manager there during the wedding. Well I never met him, I don't know who he was or what he looked like. I know people try not to bother the bride the day of but you can introduce yourself to me. Overall the food was good and the buffet line went by fast.
Cakes-Simon Lee Bakery-A: First off the cakes tasted amazing. At our first visit to the bakery Judy helped us and had so many ideas of what we could do. Ofcourse I had been picturing my cakes for years but for our groomscake I didn't know exactly what we wanted. I knew we wanted to do something with Coors Light Beer, and she came up with the idea to do a beer bucket. So the day of the wedding the cakes showed up (they didn't tell anyone they were there) someone walked out of the bridal suite and said "you're cakes are here". My cake looked awesome and perfect, it was simple yet every detail I told her was exact!! The groomscake was amazing the beer bucket was perfect. The top had actual beer bottle sticking out and they put dry ice on top which was smoking and looked awesome. The price is expensive but worth it to me!
Dresses-Alfred Angelo(bride)B: They are what you would expect from a chain bridal store although they were much better than my experience at DB. My dress was on sale which took 230 off the price which brought it to 760 dollars which was amazing but when I was ordering my dress the last told me which size I should get according to my measurements, well the dress comes in and it's huge. The alterations lady at AA said they will have to take it in 2 sizes which cost 260 dollars. That sucked, I almost think they wanted me to order the dress to bug because that would make them more money in alterations.
Customary Couture (bridemaids)C-:I will admit they have a good selection of "not the norm" BM dresses. But their customer service is horrible. They have 2 ladies to run the whole shop. I found my dresses alittle late in the game, so from the point I figured out what dresses I wanted I was about 3.5 to 4 months away from the wedding well I told my BM's (3) which dresses to get and they can go in and pay for them or over the phone. Well my MOH paid fast, and the other two didn't which I thought was no big deal because I knew how many weeks it would take for the dresses to get in. Well one of the ladies from the store calls me one day and says your other 2 girls haven't paid for their dresses so there is now a 40 dollars rush fee. And they won't charge my MOH it because she paid hers on time. And then they told me they can't order the dresses until all the dresses are paid. So eventhough my MOH had paid for hers 3 weeks prior to that phone call they hadn't ordered her dress yet. Needless to say I told the lady from the store that she was going to have to call my girls an explain the late fee to them. I would have covered the late fee for them but I had already put 100 dollars to each dress because they were more expensive then an average BM dress. I guess my biggest complaint was why didn't she call me and say "hey your girls have 5 days until I will have to charge them a rush fee" but I never got that call and she never mentioned a rush fee when I was in the store or on the phone with her.
Favors, napkins, matches, BM totes-The Knot-A: TK was awesome, I got all my stuff fast. Everything was personalized and it came fast. My favors were pint glasses that had our names and date and alittle quote on it and none of the glasses were broke chipped or anything, and the glasses were thick and alot better quality than i though they would be. BM were perfect, not any imperfections, they were bigger than they looked in the picture but bigger is better. haha Napkins were cute all the typing looked good, no smudges or smears.
Officiant-Kim Session-A+:She was awesome, she came to the rehearsal and day of (obviously) for 300 dollars, she will do a non denominational ceremony which is exactly what we wanted. She has a great voice and so nice. She also gave us a typed up copy of our ceremony. She mailed our marriage license for us and we had it back by the time we got back from our HM.
Suits-Macy's-A:My husband and GM wore suits not tuxes and we got my husbands (and one GM) from Macy's which was awesome because we caught one of those suit sales and we got a 560 dollar suit for about 200 dollars. All of macy's suit sets come with unhimed pants, so we did alterations through them and they sent them off and they were back 2 days later (cost was $30).
I think thats everything. Sorry I know that was long, but you have relationships with these people for in my case over a year and theres so much you have talked to them with.
The advice I have for the wedding day is just relax, let everyone else do they hard work, and if you can, have your hair and makeup come to you at your venue. That helped a ton that me and the BM's were able to hang out at the venue all day and relax. Weat comfortable shoes, walk around you house in them for about an hour and see how they feel after that.