I decided to review my Vegas wedding experience because the few reviews I was able to find on here really helped me out. Hope this can help someone else as well!
Mandalay Bay Resort - A
We love this resort! Front desk staff was very helpful with us moving around from room to room. They even let us use our Mlife account on multiple rooms at a time (score!). The rooms are awesome, especially the bathrooms. We even got upgraded to a Great Room Suite for our wedding night and remaining nights at the resort which was amazing! Only complaint would be that we didn't have a strip view. I kept saying that I wished we could pick up Mandalay Bay and move into the middle of the Strip. I don't like that such a nice hotel is at the very end of the strip! Overall, love the resort, love the staff, and will definitely stay here again.
THEweddingchapel at Mandalay Bay - A
Amazing! Our planner was Ashley and she was wonderful. So helpful and always replied to my many emails quickly. She really made it easy to plan a wedding in Vegas from another state. We chose the Luxury Enhancement package for our wedding and I am so glad we did. It came with so many perks including our honeymoon suite for 2 nights, which was upgraded to 3 for free, a spa credit, dinner at Stripsteak, Shark Reef tickets, breakfast in bed, a photography package,and more! Our ceremony was held at 3pm on a Saturday. Rudy was our minister. Ceremony was short and sweet, just what I wanted. I do wish the cameras used to record the ceremony were better. They are like surveillance cameras and it looks pretty awkward. The ceremony went off without a hitch and it was great in my opinion. We also had a rehearsal the night before which I am so glad we paid the extra money for. the minister pronounced our last name wrong at the rehearsal so it was good that we could clear that up before the actual ceremony. I didn't give it an A+ because I do not love the video recording.
Cashman Photography- B
We went with Cashman Photography (affiliated with the chapel) because you can not have an outside photographer in the chapel. I was very nervous about this because of some poor reviews I had seen about both photographers and pricing. However, I ended up loving all of our photos. Donata was our photographer and she was fantastic! We had her for 3 hours so she came up to our suite while I was getting ready. In hindsight I would have had her skip the getting ready part and stay longer into the cocktail hour. I don't care for the pictures of me getting ready. She also came the night before for our rehearsal and I am glad we have pictures from that as well. Ceremony pictures and our after pictures of just the two of us are amazing, I am so in love with them! Because of this we ended up forking over $1000 for all of the photos. They knew we didn't want to spend $1700 for the master cd so they offered all of the pictures printed for $1000. I am still in the process of scanning them all onto my computer which is annoying, but it still works. I think that $1700 is just outrageous! Even $1000 is nuts but I really wanted all of my photos. I would highly recommend Donata!
Media Suite cocktail hour & reception - B
I really wanted a Vista Suite for this but none were available for our night. The media suite is nice but I wish it was more open/had a bigger bar like the Vista Suite. We tried to play music from the movie theater in the suite and it just did not travel into the entire suite the way we wanted. We supplied our own alcohol and snacks in this room. We were nervous about a self serve bar but one of our guests was kind enough to step up and help out as a bartender. We also ran out of beer, so my brother had to leave to make a trip to the liquor store but that is our bad. Overall, the suite was big enough for our 40 guests and everyone enjoyed it. We never git a noise complaint.
Bayside Buffet Dinner - B
We went with a semi private room in the Bayside Buffet for the sheer money saving factor of it. It was about $2000 less than having the suite catered. We also thought it was a good idea to do a buffet so everyone could get what they wanted and no one left hungry. The semi private room turned out wonderful. Though it was considered "semi private" it felt very closed off from the rest of the restaurant.The staff was very attentive to making sure everything was satisfactory. I'm giving it a B because the food is just mediocre. Though it was nice to have a big selection, the food just wasnt that great.
Buca Di Beppo Rehearsal Dinner - B-
We hopped over to Excalibur to Buca Di Beppo for the rehearsal dinner. We picked Buca for their large group servings. We had a little hiccup when we arrived and told them we were here for our private room. We did not end up getting a private room - not sure what happened there, my mother in law put this meal together. We were instead put in a corner of the restaurant not separated from the other tables. It ended up being fine, but the private room we requested and expected would have made their rating an A. The food was great and there was plenty for everyone.
Premiere Photo Booths - A+
This photo booth was a blast! He came and set up in the suite while we were downstairs at dinner and it was all ready to go when we came back for the post reception. They made a cute end cap with our names and wedding date under the Welcome to Las Vegas Sign on each strip of photos that was so cute and unique. The props were fun, though I wish there was some more "wedding related" props. We got an enclosed booth so it wouldnt take up too much room in the suite and it was perfect. Everyone really enjoyed it! 100% recommend!
Sprinkles Cupcakes - A-
We went with Sprinkles cupcakes for our wedding cake because I am obsessed with them and thought they would be easier than actual cake at our suite reception. We had no problems with the ordering or delivery of the cupcakes. They even showed up early. My big complaint is that their selection of cupcakes available on Saturdays did not have the flavors we wanted for our wedding. They cannot special make a batch of a specific flavor so we had to compromise. We had a vanilla cake with milk chocolate frosting and a strawberry cupcake. They were still delicious so I can't really complain too much! Also, the cupcakes came with a tiered display. On the website it looks like a nice study white tier. In reality, they turned out to be cheap cardboard tiers that really didn't look nice at all. Again, the cupcakes were delicious so they still get an A.
Overall review - A-
We had an amazing wedding weekend! We went with a Vegas wedding because it was easy from afar and it definitely was easier than I thought it would be. The wedding chapel exceeded my expectations. If you have to go with a destination wedding like we did, I would highly suggest looking into Las Vegas, specially Mandalay Bay. The process was smooth, fun, and rewarding!