Hey OBX Knotties! WE MADE IT!
DH and I got married May 18th at an event house called "Skipper's Jewel". My parents rented it for the week before the wedding and let us stay there alone so we had some calm before the storm! The house rents through Beach Realty and Construction (
link). They were great to work with - they let us tour the house a few times and accommodated all of our requests to put "finishing touches" on the house.
Black Pelican catered and they were awesome. Our tasting was fantastic and they were great about answering all of our questions in a timely manner via email and phone. We had great food - the mashed potato bar was a HUGE hit that people are still talking about! I loved that the catering staff brought apps to us on the beach while we were taking pictures with our families and wedding party. They were all super nice.
Our cake was SPECTACULAR - we went with Sweet-e-pies which is a one-woman operation based in her home in KDH. She was SUPER nice and easy to get up with. We loved her so much that we stayed WAY too long at our tasting just chatting and looking at Pinterest ideas. I actually drew her a (very crude) picture of what the cake should look like and it worked out perfectly. We had three tiers and each with a different flavor - the bottom was vanilla almond, the middle was lemon with raspberry filling and the top was pineapple-carrot cake, all with delicious buttercream.
Robin also made the groom cake based on DH's favorite candy - Reese's! It was definitely the most decadent thing I've ever tasted!
We had photography and videography done by Coastal Shots. Firstly, the owner Ryan is MAJORLY good looking. Thankfully he didn't shoot the wedding because everyone (including my mother) would've been distracted! The photos and video are amazing (my favorite is my siggy pic) and everyone had a blast in the photobooth. They were very quick to get the photos back to us on the website, and the CDs followed not long after. I was very impressed by their service and it was well worth the money spent.
We had Meredith Foust with Bliss Wedding Company officiate our wedding. She was SUPER nice, really laidback at the ceremony. We had a rehearsal with her which was good because I had four flower girls and she got through it pretty quickly. I would definitely recommend her - she wrote a beautiful piece for the ceremony and had a little humor, too!
We used Metro Rentals for chairs, tables, tablecloths, the trellis, and the cake stand. The products were good but the service was iffy. We had no problem with renting - everything arrived on time in great condition. However, we paid extra to have them pickup the products on Sunday and they were late - kind of a problem since we had to check out of the event house and another family was due to check in! We made it out with no time to spare, thankfully. If you don't have to rush to get things picked up or if you're able to take them back yourself, I'd definitely recommend it. Just be careful!
Randy Gill from Soundwavez DJ'ed the reception for us. He was really nice and had a great personality and sense of humor. He played a great mix of music from all different genres and ages and we all had a blast. He actually gave his mic to my junior bridesmaid so she could sing "Thriller" by Michael Jackson - one of my favorite memories from the night!
I can't really recommend my florist unless anyone is planning their wedding from the Tidewater VA area. We used Palette of Petals in Virginia Beach but they were really awesome. The flowers were gorgeous and we were able to transport them ourselves from VB to KDH with no problem - Shannon packed them up for us and everything. I truthfully found their prices to be much more reasonable than a lot of people I talked to in OBX, so if you're able to transport your flowers, I definitely recommend them.
I feel like I'm leaving something out, so if anyone has questions, definitely comment or PM me. Thank you to EVERYONE on this board that helped with all the searching, planning, and stressing!