Hi Knottie Brides! Here are my reviews. I turned to a lot of reviews during my planning process so I hope these help anyone out there!
Reception - Ocean Edge Resort - Jennifer McAnaw - A: During the planning process I was very picky and requested everything in writing as well as asked three million questions. Jennifer always answered my questions within reasonable time. When I arrived at OE on Thursday to start dropping items off Jennifer made me feel like I was her #1 priority for the next couple of days. She handled the ceremony rehearsal very well. We got married in front of the Carriage House on the lawn. The beginning of aisle there is a huge hill from the road onto the grass that we originally were going to walk. However, Jennifer accommodated my concerns and we all stayed on the grassy area instead of walking on the road then trying to walk up a hill onto the aisle. There was some minor landscaping renovation going on near the site of the ceremony on Thursday but OE rented white screens to block out the dirt which I thought was very accommodating! They even stopped the traffic while the entire wedding party and myself walked down the aisle. Guests were escorted right after the ceremony to behind the Carriage House for the cocktail hour on the terrace. The view from the terrace is unbelievable looking right at the ocean. During the cocktail hour we wanted to go down to the beach for some pics and Jennifer made sure there was a shuttle to bring us down, wait until we were finished with photos, then take us back to the Carriage House for the start of the reception. OE provided a beautiful setting for our wedding. Our guests were blown away by the location and beauty of the grounds. We heard back from guests that the service was top notch. We served chicken and salmon which everyone seemed to like. Of course I barely ate so I could not give a personal review except at the tasting the food was very good! The only review that I cannot give quite yet is the open bar. We are waiting for the bill! My Mom had some concerns that the bar was open while serving wine with dinner and Jennifer told her not to worry that she wouldn't be charged for those drinks! Overall Jennifer did a phenomonal job!!! She even helped me unpack everything and on Sunday she had already packed up all the leftover decorations to take home. One thing that I want to mention is that the room and dance floor are small. The room capacity is 120 and we had 117 guests. The tables were very close to one another and I felt it created a hard time for guests to get to the dance floor. I wish we had a bigger room and a bigger dance floor. I think the room really accommodates under 100 guests comfortably because you can make the dance floor a bit bigger. On the plus side the bridal suite in the Carriage House is a great room to get ready. I literally sat in front of a large window looking out onto the ocean for the natural light for my makeup. It was a beautiful view to look out onto while getting ready for my wedding!
Cake - Casual Gourmet - A: Perfectly decorated cake and it tasted great. It was part of our wedding package so we really didn't have a choice on this vendor but they did a great job.
Photographers - Scott Kretschmann Photography - A+: Scott and Lisa were awesome. I only have one pic so far so I am only rating them based on how professional they were on my wedding day and the one picture I have seen. Scott and Lisa were very accommodating and extremely professional. They made me feel very comfortable with the cameras always being there but not being instrusive. They helped out a lot during mini emergencies. One being that the florist had dropped off the boutinneres with the bouquets and we needed them to go over to the guys. Scott was more than happy to take the boutinerres over to them when he was heading over to take their pics. Very nice! Second, after we took the formal family pics it was time to head down to the beach. There was no site of the shuttle to take us down so Scott ran around like crazy trying to find the wedding coordinator to resolve the transporation issue. They were very flexible with us with our ideas even though they take a photojournalist approach and also the fact that we dragged them down to the very windy wet beach!
Florist - Bellas Blooms - Cathy - A: We were originally going to have a family friend do my flowers as we wanted to keep it simple and inexpensive. I wasn't having floral centerpieces so it came down to my bouquet, 3 BM bouquets, 2 parent bouquets, and 5 boutinneres. Cathy did an amazing job on my flowers considering I booked her last minute. Here is a description of the flowers and prices.
Bride; White hydrangea, white roses, white ranuculous, no greens. Style is compact with texture, hand tied, ribbon to match dress, and a charm with picture of Bride’s father attached - $85-125
Groom; White rose bout maybe some blue added- $12.00
Bridal Attendants: Three (3) total attendants; light blue hydrangeas, no greens, ribbon to match indigo blue dresses- $40-55 each
Best Man, 2 ushers,1 Dad; Four (4) total; white rose with ivy leaf- $12.00 each
Mother of bride & groom; small nosegays with white roses & white ranuclous, lemon leaf; $40-50 each
Music - DJ Imho - C: We originally wanted his brother who seemed to have awesome reviews. Since he was not available and since he strongly encouraged us to meet with his brother we agreed. Our first meeting went really well and he was very receptive to our ideas (specific wedding dance, playing videos, and other specific songs). We had met with two DJs on the Cape, DJ Lemire, and DJ Chris, and neither of them were very receptive of our ideas so we went with DJ Imho. He was very organized and thorough with our questions. Leading up to the wedding we were very confident in his abilities. However, there were some glitches. During the ceremony he switched over to the bridesmaids song too quickly as one of the groomsman was still walking down the aisle. He also played the wrong part of the song when we were announced as husband an wife. Very dissappointing! At the reception he announced the parents of groom at the wrong time as a video was supposed to play first. Then he announced my Mom and my sister, who was the Maid of Honor), together and they were not coming out together! He announced the Best Man as a groomsman and said his last name incorrect even though he had asked him how to announce his last name! When we were announced and dancing to the dance floor he had the wedding party create a tunnel for us to dance through but it completely messed up our wedding dance routine. I was very annoyed with that! He did some cheesy games where guests had to use their napkins and dance around the table. He also kept saying "if you think Jennifer is the most beautiful bride, please clap your hands." It was nice the first time he did it but he must have said it 3-4 more times throughout the reception. It was overdone and cheesy! He played our last song way too early so then afterwards he started playing a bunch of club dance music which we did not agree on. I have to say that our guests were always dancing and everyone enjoyed the music. However, when you make the kind of errors that I mentioned above I would never recommend this DJ to anyone. Even though he was very professional and accommodating, played great music, and provided free uplighting, I was very displeased with his errors. Oh, he even requested time out of our busy, busy weekend before the wedding to videotape us answering questions about how we first met, our first date, etc. He said he was going to play it during dinner but never did! Ugh. He also had an assistant who was taking pics and videos but it seemed over excessive with our own photographers and videographer. We have some shots wheret he assistant is in the way! Ugh. I am happy that the DJ showed up on time, set everything up without any errors, the sound quality was great, he provided two LCDs on stands to play videos, and the uplighting was free. He was $940 so I guess we can say that we got what we paid for.
Hair - Justine Salon - Justine - A: I started going to Justine to highlight my hair figuring she would highlight my hair according to how I was going to wear it. She could never get the coloring right. She got it to a great blonde color but her highlighting skills are just not as good as hair stylist in and around Boston. I do have to say that she did an amazing job on my wedding day and I think that is all that matters in regards to rating her. I had two hair trials with her becuase I wasn't sure if I wanted to wear my hair up or down. She always wanted to make sure I was happy even though I felt during the trials that she never seemed to get it 100%. However, on my wedding day she made my hair look gorgeous! Really!!! From the minute I arrived she made me feel very calm and confident in her. She got all dressed up and brought gifts for everyone (hair product samples and a carrying case for me!). She is very sweet and very excited for my day!
Makeup - Samantha - A : My trial went okay and I was a littled concerned how she used a lot of pastels on me and I was afraid that I was going to look washed out in my pics. After the trial I stressed my concerns. On my wedding day she used brighter colors and a lipstick that I brought to be used. She made me look gorgeous! Of course right after she did my eye makeup I got a huge rush of emotions and started to cry.....yikes! She was awesome and helped fix everything. Samantha was very calming as well and excited for me at the same time.
***Hair and Makeup note*** We started at 11am with 5 of us and we were finished by 3pm. Justine and Samantha were very efficient with the time we had and make sure we were done on time.
Rehearsal Dinner - Ocean Edge Resort Captain Bowen Room - A- : Beautiful room and a gorgeous terrace outlooking the ocean. The dinner package is a bit expensive considering we were having our wedding there. It was out of convenience that we chose this location which was nice. The food was pretty good but I blame it on nerves on my part to thoroughly enjoy my dinner :-) When we originally looked at the room we noticed they had a LCD on the wall which excited us b/c we wanted to play a slideshow during the dinner. No one clarified to us that we would be charged to use it! We didn't find out until the week of the wedding and it was $300!!! Very dissappointing and ridiculous that we had to pay to use it for 15 minutes and we even brought our own DVD player.
Invitations - Cards and Pockets - B+: Loved the quality of the paper and how quick they delivered the orders. My only complaint was the promotion that they had offered right when I put in an order for all the supplies I needed to make my invitations. I was not granted the promotion because you have to have the order proofs approved within the deadline of the promotion! I thought that was unfair that even though I put in my order before the promotion expired and I could not control the timeframe when I could approve the proof that I ended up not getting the discount. That is why I gave them a B+ otherwise I would have given them an A for the quality of the paper and the paper samples were an exact match to the actual paper I ordered.
Save the Date - MagnetStreet.com - A: I was very happy with the product. Kind of expensive but the quality of the magnets were worth it. However looking back I think I would have done something simpler like a card announcing the save the date. I don't think many guests actually put it on their fridge!
Alterations - Chris O'Hare - A: Chris did a great job slimming my dress. I was supposed to wear a petticoat underneath but I really did not want the poofy look. Chris slimmed down my dress and added just a little layer of a petticoat to make my dress fall beautifully. She did an amazing job with the bustle considering the back of my dress was not asymetrical. She does alterations out of her house in a small room with stacks of dresses everywhere. She only has one mirror which made it difficult to see the changes in the dress but I trusted her and at the last fitting I brought my Mom to make sure everything looked right.
Manis and Pedis - Oceanside Hair and Spa, Brewster - C: I went to this salon the day before my wedding for manis and pedis for myself, my Mom, my Aunt, and one of my BMs. I also decided to get my hair and makeup done for my rehearsal (why not, it's my wedding, right?!) They messed up on my order of appointments which was the last thing I wanted to deal with days before my wedding. I wanted to just cancel but since I signed a contract I was committed. They scheduled me to have my hair and makeup done first then my mani and pedi. Why would I want my hair and makeup done first?! They changed it around for me so it was resolved. The woman who did my manicure never gave me a hand massage and she did the same for my Mom! The french manicure was awful! She only put on coat of the white nail polish and the overlay pink nail polish was very sloppy. My Mom's polish was applied the same way....very poorly. The pedicure was a bit better. My hair was overly done and same with my makeup. I was somewhat happy with it. They overcharged us on manicures and overcharged us overall as they treated my appointments as if I were getting married that day and they were doing my wedding hair and makeup. I should have said that I was going to a party but I was truthful when I first booked and explained it was for my wedding dinner rehearsal. They made me sign a contract and put a $100 deposit down.
If I am missing any reviews please let me know. Also, if you need additional information and/or pricing on any of the vendors above please let me know. I am planning to put together a website with pics of everything in hopes it helps any brides with ideas during their planning. Good luck with all the brides to be and enjoy the planning process!
Jen
