Posted by codydog on August 08, 19101 at 13:28:09:
In Reply to: Vendors from our 4/28/01 Wedding (VERY LONG!) posted by Lisa on July 27, 19101 at 08:11:20:
I'd be interested in more info on your florist - I've done flowers for friends weddings, and know the cost savings of not working through major florists - however, I'd like someone else to be in charge of at least some assembly and delivery. I'd appreciate contact info if you thought this person was good -
Thx, Amber
Codydog2000@hotmail.com
: This vendor review is a long time over due. I got a lot of information from this board during our planning, soI wanted to return the favor.
: Our wedding was April 28. It was a beautiful day in the Nation's Capital! If you want any other details or have any questions, please let me know. Here we go. . .
: Church:
: Universalist National Memorial Church (1810 16th St. NW, 202-387-3411, http://www.unmc.org) We struggled with this decision for a long time. We looked into a number of options. We do not regularly attend church now. My parents are devout Catholics and pushed hard for a Catholic wedding. For personal reasons, we decided to go a different route. Our first choice was to have our wedding at the chapel at UMD, but since we were unable to find a suitable date and time we had to explore other options. We explored the Universalist Unitarian Religion and found that to be the best match for us and luckily found UNMC as well. UNMC is what I would describe as a medium sized church. It's capicity is technically 400 people, I think, if you use the balcony and side chapel. We had around 240 and filled the church nicely. It gave it an intimate feel while still having the grand nature of a cathedral with high arched ceilings and beautiful stained glass. Most people who weren't at the wedding and only saw the pictures assume we were married in a huge church.
: Officiant:
: Rev. Scott Wells (wells@olympus.athens.net)
: Much to our disappointment, the minister that we met when we first booked the church, moved to Pennsylvania before our wedding. We met with the new minister when he was assigned, and luckily liked him very much. Rev. Wells, allowed us to write our own ceremony, and was very excited to help us incorporate my families Filipino traditions. He was a bit hard to get in touch with at times, and was quite busy with things with the church, but in the end everything worked out very well and we got many compliments on our service.
: Ceremony Music: Kevin Denton (Contact through the church)
: Kevin is UNMC's regular organist. We met with him briefly after a service one day. He has a huge repertoire. He gave us advice as to what would work and what wouldn't. We selected specific songs for the processional, my entrance and the recession. We selected one piece for an interlude during the ceremony. He asked if there were any other pieces we'd like played, and incorporated them into the prelude and recessional, but otherwise we let him play whatever he wanted. He played from the time the first guest arrived at the church until the last left. It worked out well and he was very professional.
: Reception: JW Marriott, (Contact: Surgut Selassi, 202-626-2602, http://marriotthotels.com/WASJW/)
: Our reception was wonderful. The ballroom looked good and the food was exceptional. Our guests seemed to really enjoy themselves. Surgut was wonderful to work with and very accommodating. All Marriott's seem to have exceptionally trained staff and really go the extra mile when you're planning an event. There were so many special details that made the whole experience so special, that they'd all be impossible to list. There were a few things that didn't run as smoothly as we would have liked, but nothing was show stopping. We were told that the wait staff had a little difficulty serving the meal properly, since our guests were all on the dance floor all night. The cake wasn't exactly what I had asked for, but no one noticed but my mom and me. Overall, it was wonderful.
: Reception Music:
: Mixed Company (Booked through Bialek's Music, 301.340.6206/410.484.7978, http://www.bialeksmusic.com)
: They were absolutely wonderful. Mixed Company is a large dance band with horns. They kept our guest on the dance floor all night. We added an extra half hour at the last minute because people were just not ready to leave. Working with Bialek was pretty easy as well. My mom and I met with Robin in the office and she showed us videos of bands within our price range. We picked out our top five choices and she put together tapes for us to show to everyone else for their opinions. We then were able to narrow it down to Mixed Company. We also used Bialek's to book a pianist and a violinist for our cocktail hour. I myself never heard them, but have heard that they were fine and added a lot to the cocktail hour atmosphere.
: Transportation:
: My father booked the limos for the day. He booked two - a 6/8 passenger and a 10/12 passenger. I'm not sure which company it was or any of the other details but it all worked out pretty well. There were a couple of glitches, but everyone made it to where they needed to be on time. The owner of the company is Louie Ling and he's based out of No. Virginia.
: Dress: Bridaltown, USA (1-800-330-GOWN, http://www.bridaltown.net/)
: I made an appointment one Saturday morning in June of last year and my mom and I drove up to Bridaltown in Collegetown, PA.. The reason we wanted to go there was so that I could try on dresses in my size instead of trying to squeeze into samples. The plan was to try on many different dress styles to see what I liked and what I didn't. We had no intention of buying my dress there. All the dresses there are bought off the rack and you can't special order dresses - it's kind of like an outlet. But the store is not as large as the name suggests. The store is arranged by size making it quite easy to find dresses that would fit. Well, I tried on close to 20 dresses - which is much more than the average bride, according to the saleslady. After we pretty much exhausted everything in my size and a few sizes up, the saleswoman I was working with, went upstairs to the next size down and found the perfect dress and it fit perfectly. I couldn't believe it, but I bought the dress right then and there.
: I also bought my headpiece at Bridaltown - I found one that I just loved and matched my dress perfectly. Part of me wanted to wait and shop around a bit, but I didn't want to risk not finding anything that I liked as much. The headpiece also came with an elbow length veil. I wore that and my mother in law also made me a detachable cathedral length veil for me to wear during the ceremony.
: While I love what I found at Bridaltown, I don't think it's worth the trip. I've been shopping for wedding gowns with two friends and they both found large assortments of beautiful, reasonably priced dresses locally.
: Alterations: Anita, AJ Designs (410-586-2746)
: Anita, does work for a local bridal salon in Prince Frederick, MD. My dress did not need much in terms of alterations. All she had to do for me was the hem and the hooks for the bustle. She's a very nice, friendly woman who was able to do the work very quickly for a price that seemed pretty reasonable.
: Bridesmaids' Dresses: After Six Dresses ordered from Netbride.com http://www.NetBride.com
: After for dresses in many of the local dress shops, I ordered my bridesmaids' dresses from NetBride. Their prices were great, the service and speed amazing and everything came in just as promised. My bridesmaids were from different areas so they were all responsible for getting them altered on their own.
: Hair:
: Diane of Hair by Diane (703-683-0026, http://www.hairbydiane.com)
: Diane did my hair for my wedding. Her salon is in Old Town, but on the big day she came to us at the hotel. We did a trial run a few weeks before the wedding. She did a great job on my hair. She works super fast and brings an assistant to help set hair if necessary, but she does all the styling herself. She did me + 5 others in no time flat. My one friend with short hair wasn't all that happy with her hair style (they re-did it twice, and she admits to being overly picky about her hair), but everyone else was really happy (three of us with long hair in up-dos, two with short hair, one with medium length hair).
: She was very friendly and does a lot of weddings and understands what it's like to work in the highly emotional situations that weddings can be. (She told me that she's worked with her fair share of difficult brides, bridesmaids and MOBs.) I can't begin to stress how nice it was to have her come to us than to have to go to a salon. Her rates are pretty reasonable and she was quite understanding about when she received payment. (We had a check ready, but then added another girl to get done at the last minute, so the check was for the wrong amount. Since we were so busy, she told my mom just to call her later the next week with a credit card #.)
: Make-up:
: My mom booked our makeup guy, Joel Adriano. I don't have much information about him, except that he's from New York and does all kinds of other things like hair, dress design, etc. I was a little nervous since we weren't able to do a trial run. But he did a fabulous job with everyone! Everyone! - even the pickiest of the group. Diane, the hairstylist, said that she's worked with a lot of make up people and he was by far one of the best she's seen. Once again, I'd like to stress how wonderful it was to have him come to us instead of us having to go out to get our makeup done.
: Tuxes: Martin's Bridal and Formal Wear (Contact: Steve, 410-247-5552, http://members.aol.com/tuxedomart/)
: The guys made all the arrangements for the tuxes themselves. They seemed quite happy with the service and the selection. Steve ordered a "sample" of the tux and vest that they wanted so they could see it before putting in the order. Three of the groomsmen were from out of town and were able to mail their measurements in. Everything was ready when promised. The only complaint is that the shirt sleeves all seemed to be the wrong length - most were too short, one was too long. Their prices were reasonable and my husband got his rental for free. And now our friend is getting tuxes from the same place for his wedding, and my husband's will be discounted since he's a "return customer". We rented 5 tuxes from Martins, (both fathers own their own and the kids in the wedding rented theirs on their own since they don't live near us).
: Flower Girl Dresses: David's Bridal (Http://www.davidsbridal.com)
: I truly lucked out with the flower girl dresses. I searched and searched many, many places for dresses that I liked that were a reasonable price. ($200+ for a little girl's dress just seemed ridiculous to me.) I finally found some that I liked at David's but was having trouble locating any information or pictures of them. Finally, once I decided on them, I went to David's to order them and it turned out that they were an older style and had been discontinued. My friend and I scoured the racks for something else, but ended up finding two of the dresses I wanted in the right sizes on the rack - and they were even marked down! The girls were adorable!
: Photography/Videography: Bradley Images (410-902-6669, http://www.bradleyimages.com)
: We selected Bradley Images because we had a really good first meeting with the owner, Brad. He was very enthusiastic and excited about his work. We like the fact that he was young and seemed willing to go the extra mile for us. We were also impressed with the business's desire to stay on the cutting edge - all pictures online, all pictures on CD, etc. We were also impressed with the reasonable price of the packages they had available.
: The photographers that we worked with did a pretty good job. The shot pictures from about 1-11pm and we got quite a few proofs back. There were a few things missing, but that may have been our fault for not being more specific. I think the atmosphere of our wedding may have been a bit more "action" then they were used to - the live band kept people on the dance floor ALL night.
: The videographers were fairly unobtrusive. We still haven't seen any of the video so we can't really be sure of anything. We're a little afraid that they may have missed some of the key moments.
: I have to say that getting in touch with Brad, can be a bit of a chore. It sometimes takes a while for phone calls to be returned and it took well over the promised time of 6 weeks for us to get our proofs back (8 weeks) and I have yet to hear anything about our video.
: Florist:
: My mom heard about our florist, (a young guy just starting out), from some recent mothers of the brides. With the help of the florist, we planned the arrangements ahead of time, purchased the flowers and supplies a couple days before the wedding, and he came to my parents' house to arrange them before taking them to DC for the big day.
: Invitations: Rexcraft (http://www.rexcraft.com)
: I was overwhelmed by compliments on our invitations. We went through many catalogs and ended up ordering them online from Rexcraft. They turned out beautifully. When we were assembling them, we noticed that about 25 of our reception cards were off center. I called the company and they rushed replacements out to me immediately.
: We had a few special paper projects that we printed ourselves. I needed heavy weight vellum (for wedding entourage prinouts - a Filipino tradition) which I ordered from The Paper Pallette (http://insta-site.com/ThePaperPalette/); I purchased white cardstock and brochure paper from Office Depot; and I got iridescent paper from the Paper Zone (http://www.paperzone.com/) for our program covers, place cards, and menu cards. Everything worked out fine, except for the Paper Zone order, but that was due to problems with UPS, not the supplier. Printing these things ourselves gave us a lot of control over how everything looked, but it was a lot of work.
: Favors:
: We had a few different "favors": We had bubbles which I purchased from Wal-Mart and decorated with silk flowers and ribbons.
: We also had watch-part tins (ala Martha Stewart) filled with mint lentils. I ordered all the supplies for these online from various sources - The tins from a bead crafter in Canada, the candy from a candy store in Pennsylvania and the ribbons from a scrapbooker I'm not sure where. All these vendors were so helpful and cooperative.
: Tins: http://www.comnet.ca/~tatsall/index.htm
: Candy: http://www.romolochocolates.com/
: Ribbon: http://crafts.dm.net/mall/ribbons.html
: Our other favors were petal shaped fans from the Philippines in assorted colors. My aunt took care of ordering these for us in the Philippines and had them shipped to my parents house where my mom and I wrapped and decorated them.
: Honeymoon: Travel Agent: Accent on Travel, Towson, MD Cruise: Carnival's Sensation
: My husband took care of booking the cruise through Accent on Travel without any problems. Their prices were comparable to what we could find on our own on the internet. The cruise itself was nice and relaxing with a good number of days at sea and three very different ports of call (Grand Cayman Island, Cozumel/Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and New Orleans).
: Rehearsal Dinner: Maggiano's, (Contact: Christine, Chevy Chase, 202-966-5500)
: My wonderful parents in law planned the rehearsal dinner. It was absolutely wonderful. We had a fairly large group - around 55-60 and they rented a nice sized room w/ bar in the Chevy Chase location. We all love the food at all the Maggiano's so it was a wonderful choice. We selected 2 appetizers, 2 salads, 3 entrees and 2 desserts to serve family style at each table of 8. We were easily able to accommodate our vegetarian guests with dishes that everyone enjoyed. I didn't think that I would be able to eat much the night before the wedding, but I was wrong! The food was wonderful. The intimate atmosphere was the perfect setting to visit with our family and friends and present them all with our gifts to them.
: Dance Lessons: Towson Dance Studio (410-828-6116, http://www.towson-dance.com/)
: We took the first part of the studio's Wedding Survival Course. It was well worth it. We had taken lessons years before but had forgotten everything. We also had one private lesson, where our instructor had us concentrate solely on the type of dance we'd be doing for our first dance. We planned to arrange a series of figures for our dance, but ran out of time before the wedding. We ended up just winging it and I guess it looked good enough. It nothing else, the lessons gave us the confidence to not feel like complete fools and to not just stand on the dance floor swaying back and forth.
: Gift Registry:
: We registered at three different stores, and overall had a pretty good experience with them all. Our requirements when selecting stores were that 1) we had to shop there and actually like their merchandise, 2) they had to have store locations convenient to our guests and 3) they had to have the ability to make purchases online.
: Crate & Barrel: Everyday dining and miscellaneous kitchen items. We had a few problems with our registry here including receiving duplicates of some items. Their system is a bit slow to update. They have since implemented online registry updating, which may help to alleviate some of the problems we had. Overall, we were still very happy with our registry there - returns were easy and we really like a lot of their merchandise. One downfall, they have no completion discount and they rarely have sales.
: Hecht's: Formal china, crystal, flatware and luggage. Everything with Hecht's went pretty well. We had a few duplicate items and received some gifts that were shipped to us without any information regarding who they were from. We were able to return duplicates with no problem and a phone call to the store always led us to solve the mystery of the anonymous gifts. Pro: The selection was pretty good in most stores. Con: They have no online updating capabilities.
: Bed, Bath & Beyond: Kitchenware and linens. We had no problems at all with our registry at BBB. Everything with them was so easy. This was the only registry that we had the ability to update online and we really liked that feature. They have a pretty good selection, however the availability of some of the items we registered for often changed.