Vendor Review: Caterer

Our caterer came highly recommended from some family friends.  From the moment we met with Monte, the owner, we felt comfortable and knew that he would take care of all the details of our special day.  Oh...and the food was DELICIOUS!  They also took care of all of our rentals, china, flatware, glassware, tables, linens, dancefloor...the list goes on and on!  I can't say enough about how smoothly everything went because of our amazing caterer and his staff.  They took care of everything and we were so impressed!  

View of the reception area

Cocktail area and buffet set up

Our favors (in each glass) and of course...THE FOOD!

As with our florist, I would HIGHLY recommend our caterer, All Seasons All Reasons!  They were fabulous in every way and there wasn't one single time that I thought we should have hired someone else.  They were fabulous!

Vendor Review: Flowers

I decided that I'll share with you some of the details of our wedding and do vendor reviews with the pictures that I have...still waiting on the CD of professional pictures!

Soo...first up...my favorite! The flowers! We used Ambience Floral Designs based on the work that they did for my MOH's wedding 2 years ago. They also have great reviews on Yelp and after meeting with them, I didn't even look anywhere else! The ladies there were AMAZING and were in contact with me every step of the way. The owner even called me the night before to wish me good luck and tell me congratulations! Without further ado...the flowers!

Bridesmaid Bouquets

Bar Menu with Flowers

Cake Flowers

Centerpieces

(love the ribbon on the vases!)

And finally...

MY BOUQUET!

Please excuse the bad picture of me

I absolutely loved all of my flowers! They were so gorgeous and exactly what I had hoped for. I just wish they lasted forever...sigh...

Moving along

Mr. G and I have been on vacation all week so we have been taking care of little things. We went to Macys and Crate and Barrel to finalize our registries and make sure we had everything on there that we wanted. Something about registries still feels so greedy to me...but I'm excited to start receiving presents...I won't lie about that!

Yesterday we went over to our wedding site and met with all of our parents, the home-owners, and our awesome DJ and caterer. They were so impressed with the site and we got the layout planned out and the details of where everything will be, how the lighting will be and how everything will go on the night of our wedding. I was very exciting leaving and knowing that my vendors were happy and they were genuinely excited about our big day.

I have been eyeing a few things on etsy.com for awhile and think I will purchase them soon. One being a clutch for my on the big day and another being something cute for my girls...I can't resist another gift! Seriously girls...I wish I could show you the bag of loot you're getting! I can't wait!

I think that's all for now...I'll hopefully have an update on my first shower here shortly and even better...my dress should be here in a month! :)

Updates

Another week has come and gone and I'm almost down to 4 months! Holy cow!

This week we accomplished a few things. One of which was Mr. G's responsibility and that was to call the limo company for a quote. He fulfilled his duty and we now have a limo and a shuttle bus booked for the wedding party and for our guests. Whoo hoo!

Also, I met with our florist on Thursday to go over possible centerpieces. We decided on a floating dahlia in a wide mouth vase for most of the tables and I will get my vision of the lush flower centerpieces for a few tables. Those were quite expensive ($70 a piece) so I compromised with my mom and we'll get 5 of those for the family and bridal party tables. The other 22 tables will have the less expensive floating dahlia surrounded with many, many candles. Something like this but with a bright pink/purple dahlia. I'm so excited because my florist is going to wrap the vases like you see in this picture (ivory and green ribbon) and she is also going to wrap my bouquets in the same fashion. Yay! (I really can't say enough about my fabulous florist, Ambience Floral Designs...LOVE them!)

I'm so glad to have that one taken care of. We were considering doing the centerpieces ourselves, but I just decided that a bit of extra money was well worth the saved headache and stress on my part.

So really the only thing that we still need to do is find a way to rent bathrooms. Anyone know of reasonably priced bathroom rental companies?? I'm so mortified to think that my guests may have to use port-a-potties!

After that, things are pretty much done! I still need to make table number cards, finish assembling the invites, decide on seating chart or escort cards and make those, and...hmm...can't think of anything else at this point!

How could I forget??

We booked our honeymoon suite at the Embassy Suites downtown and I also booked my room for the night before and the day of to get ready!

AND...I found a fabulous make-up artist that I absolutely adore!

I decided against doing my own make-up and found someone else to do it. I'm so glad I did because she is amazing and I love that she does facials and skin care also.

Shana Beals http://www.makeupandskinbyshana.com/

Here are the pics...

Checks!

Whoo hoo...feels so good to get things checked off the list!

1. Mr. G's wedding band is picked out and on lay-away at ShaneCo.

2. We booked our honeymoon flights a week ago! Sooo so exciting...St. Lucia here we come!

3. Yesterday my mom and I took advantage of no sales tax at IKEA and bought 400 tealights, holders for all of them, a few bowls to serve as ashtrays for Mr. G's cigar bar, and 8 vases for the bridesmaid bouquets at the reception all for under $150!

4. We also made our way over to Men's Warehouse Tux and picked out all the tuxes for all the boys.

5. I FINALLY found my match boxes so now I can start on those. (See here)

**Question...what do you think of putting a few match boxes on each table and having the guests light the candles?? Tacky or no??

6. Scheduled an appointment with the florist to discuss potential centerpieces. Details to come!

My new idea...not quite these colors but this kind of concept I guess...

So far...

Here is our ceremony and reception site:

So far we have the big vendors booked...

DJ - Mike Anderson, Creative Memories

Caterer - All Seasons, All Reasons

Florist (only for bouquets and boutonnieres) - Ambience Floral Designs
Photographer - Katie Fretland, Platinum Photography

I am also working on many little projects that I will be doing myself. These include, escort cards, table numbers, guestbook, centerpieces, and more to come...

Centerpiece ideas...will be white, green and deep pink instead of the blue flowers.

Picture from Jill and Shane: An Beach Wedding in Half Moon Bay, CA - the knot real weddings.

Painted initials for the guestbook table. (The color looks different in the picture!)

Escort cards will look something like this, but in green, pink and black. They will be pinned on a ribbon that hangs in between 2 columns. (More on these when I actually get them put together)

Picture from knottie Tdiddy