Nevada-Las Vegas

MARRIED! PICS! LATE REVIEW 7.11.15 Mandalay Chapel&Vista, Glam Squad 702, Retro Bakery, MasterPiece

I AM SO SORRY IT TOOK ME THIS LONG! its been a crazy year!  I want to thank this board so much for all it's help! I think the delay in review will be helpful to you planning because in retrospect the weeks after your wedding you are replaying and overanalyzing every detail but the time has given me so much clarity to reflect on the awesome things that happened and some not so awesome things. Ok here we go!

Mandalay The Hotel:B- We stayed in vegas for a week. 3 days at Luxor. 2 days at Mandalay for the Wedding. 2 days back at Luxor. Luxor was awesome because we were close to Mandalay for pre wedding appointments. Now checking into our Vista Suite was not awesome, once we checked out of Luxor. We decided to book the Vista Suite Friday and Saturday so we can set up Friday and have the wedding Saturday. Check in was at 4 but we had asked that morning if we could check in earlier with a fee because we had a show at 7. I know the deal with the suites, they are never ready on time but they told us it was doable. We get a page that our suite was ready at 3 so we go with all our luggage, wedding dress, décor etc from luxor to mandalay. Long story short, they gave our suite to someone else by accident and OUR SUITE WASNT READY TIL 9pm. I was in tears. The front desk did give us a $150 food credit and took some money off the suite. But that was super stressful.

VISTA SUITE A: SO WORTH IT! We were amazed when we were finally able to get into our suite. The sun had set by the time we entered and the view of the strip was to die for. We had about 40 fit comfortably with DJ and bartender and catered food. The décor was perfect for a wedding, classy but not over the top, so any décor you add wont clash. Not extremely new but you really cant tell. We were also able to move things easily around and put back easily when we were ready to check out.

Mandalay The Chapel A: These guys were great, professional, and quick to respond when planning. Day of Coordination was superb. I had dropped pew boys my Mother in Law had made and wedding programs and they were arranaged perfectly for my ceremony. My bridesmaids have slight floral allergies so we were allowed to use faux bouquets for them. The bouquet that came with my package was gorgeous I upgraded to have ostrich feathers and crystals on the stem bow. GORGEOUS! It is pricey though but the I was pleased with the Chapel. Way prettier in person than the website. Very clean and Modern esthetically.

GLAM SQUAD 702 A+++- This team was awesome! At least for me personally. We had them come to the suite. One gentleman arrived first to start me and my 2 bridesmaids hair and than a team of 3 came about 45 minutes after to do makeup. I loved my airbrush makeup and falsies, I showed them a picture of what I wanted and they pulled it off perfectly. One of my bridesmaids thought her hair was a little big but they had no problem adjusting it to her liking. Gorgeous Job. And very fairly priced.

CASHMAN PHOTO A+- So we actually had 20 pictures included in our chapel package and hired a second photographer to capture portraits. the reception and strip photos for afterward. We were going to use the 20 Cashman pictures for just the ceremony. That is until we had our appt with Cashman a couple days later to pick out photos and holy cow! OUR PICTURES WERE AMAZING! We liked them so much we bought the disk, got small prints of every picture, a couple 8x10's, and like a coffeetable magazine package for like $800 so worth it. Honestly liked them better than the second photographer we hired. We were shocked.

Black Chicken Photography c- My only really not so great rating. Its run by a really established photographer who sends out other photographers who she trains. At first communication was great until we got to Vegas. We were supposed to get notified of who our photographer would be and get contact information so we would know who they were and where we would meet them. Didn't hear anything the day before or day of wedding. Luckily after the wedding we were able to spot him outside the chaple by guessing. He brought us to a staircase near the chapel at Mandalay and than outside. Which I though was pretty generic, we wanted this particular photographer to give us kindve fun vibrant modern pictures showcasing unique aspects. But he didn't really seem to know the venue. His posing was awkward when we took shots outside. Reception was fine. But when we went out on the strip. Again a mess. Posing and navigation was a nightmare, The day after the wedding I finally got a call from the owner of the agency, she had told me she was shooting another wedding and her phone had died. Really?! We got our pictures by USB a couple weeks later and Oy Vey! While I must say they are some really beautiful shots out of 800 pictures I maybe love 50.  Versus Cashman which only took like 115 and every single one is gorgeous.  Eyes were closed, squinted, quite a few shots the lighting was just blah. I'm not a photography expert but I will say a bride should feel beautiful in her pictures, I did not feel beautiful in my BlacK Chicken Pictures like I did in my Cashman Pictures.

MASTERPIECE CUISINE: A+++- Food was delicious! We did heavy hordeurves dropoff and the presentation was to die for. Everyone loved the bruschetta crostini, lobster mac and cheese, prosciutto wrapped asparagus. Ordered for 30 ppl and had sooo much leftover. I feel so bad, I had a person in charge of my phone for vendor calls when I was taking pictures and they got distracted during cocktail hour. The poor delivery guy waited almost an hour for us in the hotel lobby. Thankfully we ran into him on our way up to the suite for the reception. He waited for our grand entrance than went into set up. Fantastic customer service!

FIT FOR A BRIDE MVP A+++++- Dude, these people were awesome!. Night before my wedding I realized I had no where to get my dress steamed because the place I had originally planned on using couldn't pickup/deliver. Frantically I remember this place from the boards, called and asked is there anyway they could get my dress done for tomorrow. They asked the time of wedding, where it needed to be picked up and said not a problem. I needed to have my dress by 3:30 for my 5pm wedding. They picked up my dress at 10am, along with my  chapel length veil,3 suits for the bridal party, as well as a couple dress shirts. Had it all done by 2:00 right in my suite. ALL PERFECTLY DONE AND PRESENTED WITH TISSUE PAPER for $250 with tip.



Honorable Mention: BLACK ELVIS A++++
Looking for impersonators I guess I had accidently booked him months before the wedding while looking through gig salad. I got a text confirming his appearance for later during the reception while getting hair and make done. I was so confused! lol and immediately was like I'm so sorry but I did not mean to do that if I did. I googled Black Elvis and he was pretty ridiculous looking and by pretty ridiculous I mean pretty great. He kindve is like Snoop Dogg and James Brown were sitting on the couch together one day smoking something funny while listening to Elvis and then decided to make a baby. I told no one to close out the reception at 9:30 promptly he came to the suite in red jumpsuit and gold chain glory escorted by his lovely wife/manager. My new husband was shocked at first but was so excited. Everyone thought it was hilarious and was the Old Vegas Twist on our Modern Penthouse Suite Vegas Wedding. In the middle of the 2ned Elvis Song, a groomsmen yelled out "Snoop Dog" ( probably because the man looks like Snoop Dog dressed as elvis) and our DJ remixed the elvis song into "Gin and Juice" and Black Elvis started rapping right along, every single word! We are all in our mid to late twenties in the bridal party and all love 90's hip hop so this was AWESOME. Gin and Kuic turned into THIS IS HOW WE DO IT!" and that is how we closed out the reception. Best $65 dollars I ever spent.






















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Re: MARRIED! PICS! LATE REVIEW 7.11.15 Mandalay Chapel&Vista, Glam Squad 702, Retro Bakery, MasterPiece

  • I don't personally see anything wrong with the photos, in general they look very nice to me.  Are they all taken by the black chicken photographer or are some of them from Cashman?
  • The ones without a logo are Cashman.  I only put up the small amout I like from Black Chicken. I was too embarrassed to put up any bad ones lol
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  • The ones from Cashman are spectacular; I'm actually really impressed! Who was the photographer you had from them?

    I would have been soooooo angry in your position on that Mandalay Bay mix-up. $150 food and beverage does not make up for that imo.
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  • I hate to say I don't remember her name. She was awesome though, blonde lady in her late 30's and she had an assistant. So sweet, really professional, and made posing a very comfortable process.
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  • Haha your telling me. I think they should've comped a whole night but I refused to let myself get anymore upset since the wedding was the next day and I wanted to retain my bridal glow lol. I will say once in the suite, all of the staff was awesome. Noone bothered us for loud music or for bringing in food, while getting ready I ordered mimosas and breakfast for me and the bridesmaid were given extra mimosas, and had no problem calling room service to pick up a tooonnn of trashbags the morning after the wedding. It all worked out in the end :)
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  • How was Retro Bakery?

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  • OMG! I forgot to add retro?! They were great. We got exactly what we asked for, price was decent, delivery on time, and everyone loved the mini cupcakes which were more than enough. So glad we didn't get the big ones. We used a black cupcake stand that I had bought from a party store for 7.99 and looked and fit in perfect with our color scheme and it fit all 4o mini cupcakes and 6 inch tier. So we didn't need their 25$ Styrofoam cupcake stand or help with setup. Really easy. Highly recommend retro.
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