Vendor Reviews
I promised to be very honest so I will. Feel free to ask any questions! I'm gonna rate everyone on a 1-10 scale, 1 being horrible and 10 being excellent.
Karen Gingerich wedding planner @ Just Marry
10! 10+ even!
Karen was so great to work with. I have nothing bad to say about her, the entire experience from start to finish exceeded my expectations. She always replied to my e-mails the same day; often times within an hour or two. She answered all of my questions, helped me save money and was ok with me changing my flowers completely about a month before the ceremony.
The day of the ceremony we got a surprise rain shower 15 mins before the ceremony was to start and she ran out there, brought my guests to safety, saved my Mickey head fans and pomander balls AND brought the violinist and guitarist in. If that all wasn't enough, she dried everything off, brought everything back and we only ended up starting 15 mins behind schedule. Karen was without a doubt my favorite vendor to work with!
Randy Chapman Chapman Photography
9.5
The only reason I didn't give Randy a perfect 10 is because he was difficult to reach via e-mail during the planning process. I had to send 3 e-mails to find out if we could shoot at the GF a few weeks before the ceremony. With 3 kids it is not always easy to communicate over the phone so e-mail is my preferred method of communication. I do understand that he's busy though, and he did eventually get back to me but I still took .5 point off.
Randy was so great to work with! He showed up early and we ended up getting lost on our way to GF so I called him to let him know and he was so cool about it. He just has a relaxed way about him that made me feel at ease. He's a pro too, he knew all of the great shots to get without me even asking. He just directed us where to go, what poses to do and let us know when something was off. He was also OK with me coming up with shots of my own. I love the chandelier at GF so he took a ton of pics in front of it for me.
My favorite part about Randy is that he let me know when something in a shot was off. He'd tell me to relax my bouquet if I was holding it up too much, he fixed my zipper, fixed my hair when it looped behind my earring and he even brought me paper towel and told me my deodorant was clumping! I'd rather know now than when the pictures come back! He also made us laugh a whole lot. He was really fun to work with!
Petals by Design Floral
9
I didn't work with them directly, Karen booked them for me. I think they did a beautiful job on the flower arrangements, they showed up to deliver the floral about 20 mins early which really made me happy but the ribbon wrapping on my bouquet was a bit sloppy that is why I took 1 point off. The bouquet itself was beautiful, flowers were fresh and it looked lovely. The stem wrapping wasn't so beautiful though. I'm not a perfectionist but I could see how some brides would be really annoyed with it. You could see the knot where the ribbon was tied right on the top, the hidden mickeys weren't together so I had to fix the pins and the ribbon was frayed where it had been cut. It wasn't horrific or anything, just not how it should have been. I know it isn't too difficult because I made dd's bouquet. Other than my bouquet's stem wrap I was really happy. The flower arrangements were beautiful, I really loved them a lot. The guys bouts were beautiful, the owner suggested the flowers for them and they looked great with the rest of our floral. Their prices are fabulous too, my whole package was just over $600!
Jennie Rudberg violinist and guitarist
10
Fabulous vendor to work with! I worked with Jennie directly and booked her myself. Her price was great. She hired a guitarist and I paid her directly. I had wanted Married Life from up as our recessional but her guitarist didn't know that song so I sent them a
YouTube video and a link to the guitar tab and he learned it for us! They did a great job. They were contracted to play from 3:45-4:45 but because of the rain they had to run to safety and our ceremony ran late. They stayed without even being asked too and played a bit longer than contracted. H absolutely loved the music, I didn't get to hear as much as he did but what I did hear was very beautiful. I'd absolutely book them again!
Il Mulino Swan restaurant where we had our dinner
8
I really struggled with what to give them. My planning experience with Erica Yerton was an absolute 10. She was quick to get back to me and allowed us to have a menu tasting and adjust the menu when we didn't like one of the salads. She always got back to me quickly and was very helpful. BUT, I didn't realize that she would not be there on the day of our event. I assumed she would. On top of that, the other manager that we worked with (Brian) had transferred to another restaurant and they had a new manager that we did not know (who also was not there when we arrived), and when we arrived there was no manager at all in sight.
I'll start with the bad:
Our contract listed that we'd need 4 tables and the number of seats and high chairs at each table. Erica told us the room would be set up for us the night before and we could arrive as early as 9 am to set up our centerpieces. We arrived around 9:30 and the tables were set up, but the number of place settings was wrong at each table which was an issue because we were using place cards. We left them as they were and set them up anyway. When we arrived back just before our ceremony was to start the servers were polishing the glasses and the tables were still wrong. Luckily I had my binder and was able to hand them my copy of the seating charts so they could fix it. Had I not checked back who knows what would have happened? All of this was clearly outlined in my contract though, which made it frustrating.
Also in my contract was that we would arrive at 5pm and take 30 minutes to have a drink and mingle with our guests. That didn't happen either. We arrived a few mins before 5pm and the servers immediately started taking dinner orders. H was annoyed because he wanted to do a speech and have our Pastor do the blessing. He stepped outside the room to ask the servers to please not put any food on the table until after our Pastor had said the prayer. They cooperated.
Because Il Mulino has tons of really expensive wines we chose our own white and red wines to be offered. They were to be offered in addition to drinks from the bar. Only 1 table was offered drinks other than wine (and it wasn't even our table!) which annoyed us because the wine we chose was $58 per bottle. H realized when he saw some of the guys who are usually beer drinkers drinking wine so he went to each table to let them know that they could order any drinks from the bar that they wanted and they said they hadn't been told. During the planning process we were also asked if we wanted servers to free pour without asking or to offer guests more wine before pouring and we asked that they offer, but they did not. It felt as if they were trying to get our bill as high as possible and that was annoying, we already had a guaranteed minimum of $3,000!
The good:
The room was beautiful! They let us in at 9am to set up which was really helpful. They also let our florist deliver the flower arrangements to our private room and be held there for our wedding planner to set up when she arrived. The food was really good, our favorites were the misti platter of meats and cheeses and the desserts. The tirimisu is to die for! The flow of the meal went well and the servers didn't let anyone's glass get empty. Our guests really, really enjoyed the food and wines. Erica was wonderful to work with and made the planning process easy. The new manager, Daniel, was great once he arrived (sometime around the main course he came in to check on us). When we were done Daniel had the servers empty the water from our centerpieces for us so we could wrap them up and bring them home. He also called bell services right into the restaurant to pick our stuff up for us, which was really helpful!
Would I still book them again? Yes. I would, however ask in advance which manager would be present for the dinner. I'd also bring a copy of my contract and give it to the servers before the start of the meal to be sure it was followed. I'm not sure why I didn't do this because I did have my contract in my binder. Despite the issues I'm still happy with how the meal went and I don't think our guests noticed that anything was amiss.
Caribbean Beach Resort Grand Gathering
8
We booked a grand gathering through Disney so all our our guests would be in rooms that were close to one another. The grand gathering process was tricky and involved lots of work on my part but it was worth it. When our guests tried to check in early most of them could not, which annoyed them. I understand check in isn't until 3 but the people at the front desk said they'd receive a room within an hour and about 3 hours went by. It wasn't too bad because we already had our room from the day before and let people freshen up in there. Magical Express lost my aunt's luggage too, but they did locate it by the end of the evening for her. The rooms were semi-close together. Not many were side by side though. One of our aunts ended up in a different building completely and when she complained they tried to upgrade her but she just really wanted to be near us so she refused the upgrade. Eventually they got her semi-close to us. I'm not sure why that happened because she did give the grand gathering number when booking. We did get our building request though, and we were all on the ground level as requested too. The best part was that we all faced into a courtyard and that became our unofficial gathering spot every night.
Swan Front desk/bell services/security
5
The Swan staff members left a lot to be desired. A 5 is generous. When we were checking in to the hospitality suite (see notes on that in my TR) there was some sort of problem. The room she was supposed to give us was booked or something, so she kept having to go into the back room and come back. We didn't have a whole lot of time and this took up 20ish minutes. She came back and said security held the keys to the suites so they had to bring her the key, then they brought the wrong key, etc. After a long time she finally told us to just go upstairs to the room and security would meet us there and give us a key. The security guard was there and he was really not nice at all. He kept saying Who is this room for? and H said us, didn't the front desk tell you to meet us here and rather than ask our names he kept asking the same question over and over. I finally caught on and asked Are you asking for our names? and he said yes. H was pretty pissed though, the guy was rude for no reason at all. We were completely nice and polite with him. Then he let us in and left without giving us the key so H had to go follow him and get it.
Bell services coming in was great, they were very nice and helpful. Leaving was another story. The guy packed up the push cart horribly and dropped my makeup box onto our flower arrangement. He picked it up, put it back in the same spot and it fell again. It destroyed the flower arrangement, half of it fell off onto the floor. I took my makeup box and said I'd carry it and when I made a sad face about the flowers he said At least your bouquet didn't get ruined Aghhh. I was carrying my bouquet, that is why It was still safe! We only tipped him $2.
The suite they gave us was dirty. Now that I think about it, I don't think this is the one we were supposed to get so I think they just put us anywhere. I can't complain too much because it was a free perk of booking with the Swan. It was just a big empty room with a table, a water dispenser and a table with chairs. It wasn't nice at all but it served the purpose. It also had a great view of the courtyard, so that was nice. It was convenient too, which was really helpful.
Jackie from Beaute Speciale - hair & makeup
10
Jackie was great, I worked with her once for a trial and then again for our VR. She was really friendly, arrived early both times and was just a great person. I showed her inspiration pics and she made it happen. She kept me involved in the process and stopped to show me certain things along the way to make sure I was happy. I was really happy with how my hair and makeup turned out on the day of. I left it intact from 10 am until about 11 pm and it was still in pretty good shape when I took my hair down and washed my face. It easily held up for 10 hours! I'd definitely recommend Jackie!
That is about all, feel free to ask any queations, I know reviews are really important because most of us are booking from afar. Next up Glad I did/Wish I had
I think I've looked at them 7 times now!
I'm gonna post vendor reviews now and work on glad I did/wish I had soon. I found the reviews so helpful during my planning so I'm happy to do them!
I'll definitely do reviews and glad I did/Wish I hads!
) I am starting to feel more confident about him... I know this sounds wrong but i was starting to doubt myself about my pick of photographers but he did such an AMAZING job of your big day.. U looked STUNNING!! 
