We just got back from our week long adventure in Vegas. Here's a list of reviews....
Southwest A+ First time flying southwest. Friendliest company out there. No hassles, we were able to check 4 bags and carry on a few things. We carried on the dress in a garmet bag. No closest but we did the early bird check in for early boarding and had no issues laying the dress on top of our carry on bags.
Mandalay Bay A+ We stayed at MB for the first few nights. I got a free room with the MyVegas game and then we had the Vista Suite for 2 nights. I tried to get them to upgrade us to the suite for the first night, but they wanted $200 for the upgrade. We decided against it...but looking back, we should of went for it. Just would of gave us more time to prep the room. Overall experience there was great. We had room 31235 on the 31st floor. Our view was the strip to the left, airport infront, and pool out the bedroom window. Everyone was amazed by the view. It really was incredible. It could of been better if we had a "direct view" of the strip, but people didn't care. they were able to see the strip from any spot in the room and loved watching the airplanes and helicopters land. Zero issues. Any staff members that had to stop by the room to deliver things (bags, ice, etc) were great. Everyone asked when the party was, but no one seemed to really care that we were doing it. Everyone was super helpful and friendly. By the end of the night the music was blasting and no knocks on the door. Even with a guest room connected to us. We did have a small hiccup....during the night the bartender brought one of the rented garbage cans outside and called housekeeping to do a pick up for the trash. They ended up taking the entire can and never returning it. After a few calls from the bartender that night and by myself in the morning, and the housekeeping manager stopping by, no luck. The can was gone. In the end it cost me $55 out of my security deposit from the rental place, not the end of the world.
Culinary Pros A+ Dealing with Culinary Pros was super easy. I dealt with Sari over email...forgot who i spoke to over the phone. Easiest thing to book and got to pick their dress code for the night. The day before I got an email with the names of who we were getting. We had Kevin as the bartender and Adriana for the server. The both of them were fantastic. They showed up about 5 minutes early and instantly started prepping and working. About halfway thru the night Kevin knew what everyone was drinking. I would just give him the "i need a drink" nod and he would make the drink and bring it over to me. Super friendly and personable. Adriana was awesome as well. Constantly picking up garbage and abandoned drinks that were left around. I had her make herself a plate of food and told her to take a break and eat. She insisted on standing and eating by the food to make sure everything was ok with the trays of food. By the end of the night they asked if I needed help with anything. I asked them to help clean up and they said no problem and went to work. I received a call the next morning from their office as a follow up to make sure they met my expectations, showed up on time, cleaned up etc. Can't say enough good things about them.
Masterpiece Cuisine A+ We started planning with MC 6+ months in advance. After 100 emails back and forth we finalized our menu. We dealt with Tammy the whole time. She was incredible. We had a guest with a severe gluten allergy and some other food allergies, and a vegetarian guest, they were more than accommodating with helping us. We ordered for 35 people...we had about 32 including vendors. Sure enough we had a ton of food that was left over. We ordered everything from Caprese skewers, to shrimp skewers (with sauce on the side for allergy reasons), 2 types of pasta, meatballs, chicken burritos, mushrooms, pork, etc. Everything was great. People were talking about the food for the whole night. I think the shrimp skewers were the majority favorite. We got a phone call the day before for a room confirmation, and then a call when they were on their way. I had my friend meet them in the room while we were doing pictures and they got everything set up. No complaints.
Current Events A We used them for our tables, chairs, linens, etc.. Tammy from MC suggested them and we were glad she did. We first tried using RSVP but their delivery charges and other fees were just too high. Current Events had competitive pricing but better deals with deliveries. The best party is that you get a 3 days rental. They deliver the day before and pick up the day after. This way you are not scrambling the day of. Keiara helped us out and got everything all set. The only reason why they got an A and not an A+ is that the delivery guys had some issues finding the room. Not sure exactly what happened, but i think they didn't get the room number right or something. About a half hour later they did show up and dropped everything off. The day after I called up Keiara and asked her when they are picking up the stuff. About a half hour later they were at the door.
Retro Bakery A+ After emailing Brian and getting all the pricing and options squared away I gave them a call to set it up. For some reason we ordered 96 mini cupcakes and 12 or so Gluten free peanut butter cookies. We also opted for the Styrofoam tower and set up for a small charge. Brian called me the day of and said they were going to be a little early. No issues there....they met someone in the room and set up all the cupcakes and off they went. The cupcakes (the 2 that i tried) were great. Everyone loved them. We had about 14 different flavors. Our guest with the gluten free cookies said the cookies were incredible. Once again we over ordered and had to give a bunch away at the end of the night. They say 3 mini's per person.....but not everyone does dessert/cupcakes so think about your numbers then.
The Palette A+ Great service by Pam. I can see why she has the reputation that she does. We emailed and called her with maybe 3 weeks to go and she assured us there would be no problem. We explained what flowers the bride to be wanted and what style she liked and Pam went to work. She showed up to the hotel nice and early the day of and met me in the lobby. The flowers were great and everyone complimented them. Great stuff.
Rentmywedding.com A+ We used them for uplighting since DIYuplighting was sold out. They were the exact same price with the same equipment. We found them 2 days before we left. We called them and had to pay for expedited shipping, reasonable cost, and had them delivered to the hotel. Unfortunately, to pick up packages you have to walk all the way to the convention center of the hotel. Which is a really far walk. The FedEx location in the hotel charges a handling fee which is a rip off. It goes by weight...so $15 bucks to receive them and $15 to ship them out with a prepaid label. Nothing we could do. We did get 6 lights, and they were super easy to set up. It did add a nice touch to the room.
Audio set up....The room had 2 tall speakers in the room and a cable that you would plug into the headphone jack on your iphone/laptop. Now i'm a tech/computer guy and I couldn't figure out this monster system. I got it to play at first, but the controls were really bad. I ended up bringing my Sonos system. I brought my home router and the sonos equipment with a Play 5 and a Play 3 speakers. I set one at each side of the room and let the music go. Sounded great.
Photos A++++ We had 2 photographers for the day. A local guy from the Tristate area www.inkuphoto.com and
http://imaginephotoaz.com/. I have known Inku for a few years now and he has done a few of our friends weddings. His pictures blow me away every time. He gave me a deal we couldn't turn down. He also asked if his buddy can tag along. His buddy just happened to be Jason from Imagine photo. Insane work on both ends. Jason was awesome. I can't wait to see the pictures. Check out their work. Jason is under 2 hours aways and shoots vegas often.
I think that's everything....We stayed a full week. Stayed at Signature at MGM for the rest of the time. Did some buffets, saw love, and ended the week by eating at Gordon Ramsay Steak at Paris. Holy crap, the whole experience and the food was out of this world.