Reviews part 2.....
Jasons Deli - Maryland Avenue Location - A+We ended up ordering Jasons Deli for snack trays for our Friday in suite meet and greet and for our bridesmaids breakfast on the wedding morning. Both times were great, they brought everything we needed as far as plates, cups, flatware. There was plenty of food and they were easy to order from and pay for online. In the evening, the security guard let them come right up. For the wedding morning someone had to go retrieve them from the elevator bank. We had no problems whatsoever once we got them from the elevator with them coming up. Prices were cheap and food was plentiful. We ended up walking to the CVS on the strip to get the alcohol for the meet and greet, along with plastic cups. Well my now-husband did anyway. LOL! He utilized his roller bag to go down there.
Aria Chapel - A+
What a beautiful place!! Even more beautiful in person. We worked with Erika, Mylin (who is still there) and Jesse throughout our wedding planning. As others have mentioned throughout...sometimes they take a little while to reply to emails, but this ended up being no problem. We provided all of our music...seating, walking down the aisle songs etc to them via thumb drive and advance email, electing to not use the pianist at all. That process went very smoothly. The bridal and grooms ready rooms were amazing and so nice to have. They allowed Gin & Sake access to take pictures which they certainly didn't have to do. The pastor there is amazing, my husband cried.
Our guests were very impressed with the overall feel of the chapel, as it is very luxurious. We elected to do the red uplighting in the chapel, which I think turned out amazing. The chapel let us use a $250 food & beverage credit we had towards adding webcasting. We also got champagne flutes, a bottle of NICE champagne, a wedding album and chocolate covered straw berries from them. While we were returning to the Aria from the Orleans in the early morning hours, I ended up dropping and breaking that bottle of champagne in the lobby of the Aria which is SO disappointing!!!
All Night Long Entertainment- B
We hired All Night Long for our DJ for the Stardust Suite reception. We were assigned Lazlo who wasn't the liveliest personality but did a good job observing what our guests wanted to hear and keeping that mood going. Late 90's-early 2000's hip hop. A couple times he strayed off into mood killer music but was quickly corrected. He was able to pull out some obscure television theme songs for the groom easily when asked. Giving them a B because I just saw that they charged us for an extra hour today, even though no one ever approached us and asked about that at all. I will have to work on getting to the bottom of that.
DDB - A+
We used the DDB both as a means of transport from Aria to Orleans, and as a mobile cocktail hour. We departed around 3:00 PM and arrived at Orleans around 4:15. So, we were on it a little over an hour, which is shorter than what most people use it for. That was perfect for our guests though. they would never have sat still much longer than that. We had gorgeous weather and everyone was able to ride up top. Mike and his assistant were so nice and personable and very easy to work with. They made sure to keep the wine coming for me. We stopped once at the Vegas sign. The line was very long so we took a few side angle shots rather than wait which turned out great!! The DDB was an experience we are so glad we did. Some of the people on our guest list had been to Vegas upwards of 12 or 15 times and it was a new experience to them and everyone, young and old loved it!
Stardust Suite & Orleans Hotel - B+
We are SO glad we canceled our originally planned reception and ended up going with the Stardust Suite once we re-thought everything. This suite is soooooo amazing and they threw in the presidential suite for free. This gives you about 5,000 square feet of space that is nice to have. We ended up with like 6 bathrooms I think. I was fully expecting the presidential suite to be dumpy and it is a GREAT suite! Huge bathrooms, lots and lots of space to roam and hang out and very impressive to our guests! The balcony is also a nice touch. The views from the Stardust are also unique because you can see the whole entire strip. You don't even get this at the best mid-strip hotels because the buildings are so large. Here you can see everything. We ordered the mexican buffet, a cake, and a mac and cheese bar. The food was tasty and hot and they served A LOT of it. My in laws were a bit concerned that we had ordered too much food, but we explained to them that it was a per person price. The buffet could've easily served 100 people, and we ordered for 35 people. There was so much dessert served with the three entree buffet it was insane! We did the three entree selections, chicken&beef fajitas, cheese enchiladas and carne asada. It was a hit but the mac and cheese buffet was the star of the show! It was served with churros, some kind of parfait and tres leches cake. The mac and cheese bar was served in martini glasses. We elected to do the bar billed to us on consumption and they kept me of apprised of where that total was at. I didn't close it until the last 20 minutes. Our guests were definently well fed and "hydrated". The extra sleeping room came in so handy, as my husband didn't eat all day and drank too much and had to leave the reception early....not by choice. We hadn't planned on sleeping at the Orleans...we had nothing there but I had no choice. We made for a hilarious picture heading back to the Aria at the crack of dawn the next morning. The reason I give Orleans a B....there were several smalll items missed. We had requested and paid for uplighting which was not there. We had requested the food items be labeled due to allergies and they were not. We had also requested signage notifying guests of our signature drinks and they were not displayed so I don't think people even knew about them unless we told them By the way, the Orleans happily designed specialty drinks for us, which was very nice. They turned out well. We also had cocktails (Roy Rogers & Shirley Temples) and the one of the bartenders didn't even know how to make the Roy Rogers. I will be emailing them to get a credit towards the uplighting they didn't provide. Our coordinator here was Pamela Eddy, who was easy to work with. However, she was not there the night of the event due to the holiday.
Gin & Sake Productions - A+++++++++++++++++++
BEST decision we made!!!!! Jill and Brandon are exceptional photographers. They are also so FUN to hang out with. They work fast and they are very innovative and unique. I really don't even have words to do it justice!! I could've hung out with them all night!! Our pictures were also ready quickly. We were able to meet with Brandon on Monday before we left Vegas to get a disc with all the pictures on it. I will post some here for you all to see. Their price is very reasonable as well, and they customize it directly to what you need. If you are searching for a Vegas photographer who is unique but has a wide-range you will not regret hiring them!
Cashman - A
The Cashman photos included in our package turned out surprisingly great! Our photographer was a young guy, whose name escapes me right now. I was expecting the worst, but was very impressed, although they certainly don't compare to Gin & Sake. They are at their best when you are walking around with them on the grounds. The posed ones in the chapel are ho-hum. Sweet, nice guy though. We took the 12 that were included during our appointment and didn't buy any extras, but we weren't given the hard sell either. If you aren't doing a big reception or photography isn't that important to you, you can certainlly get away with just using the Cashman photographer. Had it just been the two of us with no reception it would've sufficed. Although, I am sure in that situation we would've done a strip tour.
Final notes....we definently over scheduled ourselves in the days leading up to the wedding, running around taking care of last minute things. Had I the whole thing to do over again, I would've found more time to relax and would've made time for the spa. I also seriously underestimated the amount of walking. We were exhausted on Sunday and couldn't even make it past appetizers at Holsteins at the Cosmo. As cliche as it sounds....the whole experience went by SO fast and now I am just left wanting to GO BACK and be in Vegas again soon!! So enjoy it while it lasts and take time to soak it all in. Lastly, I would've made my hubby eat so he could've stayed up and enjoyed the party. He wishes he hadn't missed so much. Be sure and take time to eat and make sure your groom does too!!