Major lulz. We've probably upped our daily drinking intake by at least a drink and a half a night for the past couple weeks. My tolerance should be through the roof for the wedding/honeymoon!

10/23/2013 12:46:16 PM

What's a good honeymoon spot? Are the Caribbean islands the most sensual of all tropical getaways?

10/28/2013 3:50:27 PM

We are married! Yay!


I am going to break my reviews up into a couple posts.

Venue: All Saints Chapel – A
It seems like a lot of people who have a wedding here don’t have the reception here, which seems like a shame. I loved it. We had the ceremony, then guests went downstairs for cocktail hour while the room was flipped, and we got to party in a church. It’s deconsecrated, so you don’t have the issues of having a nonreligious officiant, or not being able to drink. I got some comments about how pretty the old wood floors were, but they also snagged my dress pretty often.
The on-site venue coordinator (Diane) was very helpful with what goes where and who does what at what times. But she did make our DJ stay in the loft when we’d wanted him to be down on the dance floor. He also didn’t set up the dance lights we’d asked for, but I don’t know if that’s because she asked him not to or if something else happened. They weren’t really missed, so I'm not even going to bother asking.
They only issue I had was that I had been told I could go in on Friday morning and set up the downstairs. There was a wedding on Friday afternoon, but it was starting at 2, so I was told I could come in until then, then leave until our rehearsal at 6:30. The week before I stopped by for something else and the booking manager (Katie) told me the wedding party had extended their use of the building to 10 a.m. and I wouldn’t be able to come in. I think the fact that nobody had told me that was because the person who had told me had left for another job about a month beforehand, so the new girl didn’t know I was hoping to set up early. She also told me we were allowed to use birdseed for our send off, which apparently is untrue in downtown Raleigh. But they let us anyway.

Rehearsal dinner: Humble Pie – A+
At the meeting I had with the manager, he told me “we know weddings are very stressful on you, so we try to make this as easy as possible.” We picked our menu choices and they did everything else. The food was SO good. Their party package is 5 items of your choice served family style. We did a salad, fried green tomatoes, short rib tostadas, fish, and pork wraps. It seemed like every course tasted better than the previous one. It did take a bit long between the first few, but nobody really cared.

Photographer: Carolyn Scott – A
She and her husband Geoff shoot together, and I think a second shooter is invaluable for capturing the whole day. I love them so much. A lot of the time it feels like you’re hanging out with your friends instead of someone you hired. They were very helpful in setting up our timeline for the day and keeping everything on track. They turn around your whole set in about 2 weeks, which is a lot quicker than some of my friends have had. Plus she is shorter than me, so I got to feel big for once.

Cakes: Once in a Blue Moon – B
We ordered 12 cakes as centerpieces for all the tables. They all tasted great (or so I think; I only ate red velvet). We ordered round cakes from their specialty cake menu and had them frosted differently for our needs. They did that just fine. I thought they were going to use a silver or decorative cardboard … uh, thingy, to put the cakes on, since they would be showing. They were all on white, though, and some of the cakes were pretty off-centered on them.


Florist: MEWS Designs – A
I know Marsha personally, so I didn’t really shop around. She was very good with helping me figure out what I wanted when I basically walked in like “I need some flowers or something.”
When I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do on the altar, she came up with 4 different options. I had her make different bouquets for my bridesmaids. They were a little more different than I expected, but I loved them all.
She has a $1,000 minimum. I am not sure if that is normal, high or what.

10/30/2013 8:25:34 AM

You looked sensational!

10/30/2013 8:36:50 AM

Found a pic of the bouquets!

and mine

she did different bouts/corsages too

10/30/2013 9:38:04 AM

prettys!!!

Let's have a picture of that dress!

10/30/2013 9:46:12 AM

Congrats!

11/1/2013 3:13:54 PM

I actually can't find a picture of the dress So you'll have to wait till our pro photos get back. But more vendors ...

Dress: Wedding Angels boutique in Marietta, GA
Alterations: Ruthy’s Creations in Pensacola, FL
I won’t review those because I doubt anyone will go there.

DJ: Anything Music, James Whitt – A
He was great to work with. Very nice guy, took all of our preferences into account perfectly. Whipped out a karaoke version of “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” for the Marines who wanted to drunkenly serenade me on a whim.
The guy who books the Triangle operations, John, wasn’t the best with getting back to me when I had questions at first, but I got everything answered eventually.

Tuxes: Men’s Wearhouse – A?
This isn’t my area so I don’t have much to say. But it's not like they do that much anyway. They did overnight a new tux for my dad when his didn’t fit. Aaron didn’t need one, but one thing we were pleased to learn is that the groom gets a free suit (up to $500) with the rental of 5 or more tuxes for the bridal party. I am not sure if that was a temporary promotion or what they do all the time.

Programs: https://www.etsy.com/shop/RiverStDesign – A
I ordered a PDF to be printed at home because the $20 was worth not having to do it (read: make NCSUHippie do another thing for me). I ordered it on Sunday and had the PDF first thing Monday morning. She made a name change in a couple hours when we had to change one of our groomsmen last minute.

Cake topper: https://www.etsy.com/shop/RedLightStudio – F
The cake toppers themselves were adorable, but doing business with this woman was incredibly stressful. I saw them on Pinterest I’m sure, cute little customizable bird toppers with the groom hand painted in a military uniform. I ordered them the first week in August, and she said there’d be no problem at all in getting them to me in time. I wasn’t aware that “in time” meant they would be delivered <24 hours before the wedding, in a package that required a signature, meaning we almost weren't able to get it. If Aaron’s step-father hadn’t been able to go by the post office, or if the mail carrier hadn’t already gotten back for the day when he showed up on Friday afternoon, we wouldn’t have had them in time.
She SUCKS at communication. I would email her a question and get no response for weeks at a time. At first that was mildly annoying, but it was pretty unacceptable when I emailed her 2 weeks from the wedding to say “hey are you still going to get these made in time?” and had no response until the Wednesday afternoon before the wedding on Saturday. At that point she told me she was starting work on them. The steps necessary after that were 1) her to send photos for approval by us 2) her to put the final coat of sealer on them 3) we pay for them 4) she mail them and they actually get here. Now keep in mind she lives in Washington state.
One of my bridesmaids went out Wednesday morning and bought supplies to make me a different cake topper, because her lack of response made it seem like she'd bounced. Plus I think it's shitty for her to expect the bride and groom to basically be sitting around waiting on her to finish them so they can approve the design and pay for them within days of the wedding. Oh, and she so politely pointed out that she was being kind enough to not charge me extra for the express overnight shipping when she finally mailed them. Thanks, that’s very kind.


[Edited on November 1, 2013 at 3:31 PM. Reason : they are cute though]

11/1/2013 3:29:46 PM

Wedding was a success

11/4/2013 9:36:59 AM

Hopefully y'all recently married folks will have more luck with your photographers than we've had. It's now been nearly six months since my wedding and we've received a grand total of 27 photos.

Our photographer was great to work with before and during the wedding, unobtrusive during the ceremony and reception, good with family, everything. We had great expectations. About three weeks after the ceremony she gave us a preview set of the 27 photos mentioned, and those looked great. We were supposed to get the rest of them 8 to 12 weeks after the ceremony. 8 weeks...no pictures. 12 weeks...no pictures. At this point she responds to an email to say that she's behind in processing (obviously) and is looking to hire an assistant, but we should have another "preview" set to make up for it before mid-September. No preview set, and at this point she goes completely incognito for almost a month. Stops responding to emails, doesn't respond to phone calls at first. Finally emails us in mid-October and tells us she's hred an assistant for processing and will give us a timeline by the end of the week. No timeline and she's again not responding to messages.

Meanwhile Dawn's been looking around on review sites, and while she had no bad reviews when we hired her, there's one that is now up there from a bride who had to wait an entire year before she finally got her photos back. What the fuck? A year? Is that how long ours are going to take too? At this point we're pretty close to filing a complaint with the BBB and contemplating just asking her to give us back the unretouched photos and getting someone else to do the finishing work (though I doubt she'd agree to that).

The whole process has been very frustrating at this point, to say the least.

11/4/2013 12:37:44 PM

Who was your photographer?

That sucks. Something similar happened to my cousin last year. Apparently her photographer went off his rocker right after her wedding. She got some of her photos, but a few couples he did right after her never got any at all. And he's nowhere to be found.

11/4/2013 12:49:49 PM

My sister waited 5 years for her album. Her photographer had a breakdown of sorts and went off the grid. She got all her money back though.

11/4/2013 1:05:43 PM

Don't want to publicly name names right now, plus she's not local (PM me if you're getting married in OBX so I can warn you off). I don't think she's completely out of the scene--she hasn't updated her business facebok page in a while but my wife's been stalking her personal page and it seems like she's still shooting weddings. Apparently she just does more than she has time to properly process, and then ignores you until she finally gets to your photos, according to the girl who had to wait a year.

It just sucks to pay quite a bit of money and, so far, have very little to show for it. She offered us some sort of deluxe canvas photo thingy as compensation for having to wait so long (in her last message before she went silent again) but, if it goes much longer than this, I think we should get a partial refund. Again, probably won't happen, but we're now at 24 weeks when it was supposed to be max 12, and the end is nowhere in sight.

11/4/2013 1:48:48 PM

Did y'all have something in writing? I'm pretty sure that our contract with Carolyn and Geoff specified when we could expect photos after retouching and such.

11/4/2013 2:12:08 PM

Married: April 28
Pictures: May 18

if anyone needs a good (and timely!) photographer in Charleston:

http://www.studio1250.com/

11/4/2013 3:28:35 PM

Our photographers' contract says they will get us our digital photos by November 29 and the albums 6 weeks after that. Wedding was Oct 19.

11/5/2013 9:35:10 AM

Ahhhhh ours are already done.
http://www.carolynscottphotography.com/2013/11/05/taraaaron-raleigh-wedding/

11/5/2013 10:58:39 AM

One of my favorite part of their posts is Carolyn's write-ups. You look beautiful, and having an RC-copter ring-bearer is awesome.

11/5/2013 11:08:29 AM

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww that was the cutest thing ever

11/5/2013 11:14:04 AM

^^^Really like that church.

Just got back in from the honeymoon last night and I'm still catching up on shit.

As the groom, I'll have to say that I wasn't really big on the whole wedding stuff. I would have preferred in the following order: (1) to elope, (2) a big party with all of our friends and closest family members, (3) just a more casual wedding with an oyster roast or pig picking...something along those lines.

But her parents have a little bit of money...and their friends had big weddings for their kids and her older sister had a pretty big wedding...so it was their intent to have a pricey, formal wedding. As much as I wasn't "excited" about it since the beginning...it ended up being one of the best events I've ever been a part of. With the exception of everyone getting hammered on Friday night of the rehearsal dinner and struggling right up until the ceremony (including myself and the bride)...everything was amazing. Rehearsal dinner went perfect, ceremony was perfect (a few degrees too cool after the sun went down for the cocktail hour outside...but that's being nitpicky), reception was awesome, photographers and videographers were fun and non intrusive, and the band was ridiculous. I'll post the video when it becomes available.

Besides the band...my favorite part was dancing from the ceremony venue to the reception venue. It was about half a block down a cobblestone street, and our cocktail hour band (fiddle, guitar, and singer) played "When the Saints go Marching In" as the whole party marched/danced to the building where the reception would be. Since I had about .0001% input on the wedding planning, I had no idea that this was going to happen. twas fun

[Edited on November 5, 2013 at 2:15 PM. Reason : .]

11/5/2013 2:12:04 PM

Quote :

" (1) to elope, (2) a big party with all of our friends and closest family members, (3) just a more casual wedding with an oyster roast or pig picking...something along those lines."

I like this idea. I am not a big fan of weddings. I'm trying to convince my mom since she has already gone through 2 with my sisters!

11/5/2013 11:52:12 PM

i think i need to get snuggled up with my laptop and read this whole thread sometime soon. so overwhelmed! i'm not even sure what my very first step should be.

[Edited on November 6, 2013 at 8:43 AM. Reason : ]

11/6/2013 8:42:44 AM

You should totally look in to having Carolyn and Geoff shoot your wedding. They're wonderful.

11/6/2013 9:01:52 AM

^ Couldn't agree more!

Taking the first step is overwhelming and hard. Before you make many plans you need to figure out your budget. But at least for us, we had absolutely no idea how to do that. Our families said they wanted to help out some, but they pretty much all said "we don't know how much we'll be able to help, so just ask us as you go along if you need help and we will see what we can do." We were very grateful that they were able to help us some, but it's very hard to start planning when everything is a variable and you have no idea how big your budget is. But it worked out for us, so I promise you'll be fine!

11/6/2013 9:14:13 AM

Our parents were the same way -- especially mine since they've both remarried. We started putting all extra money into a joint account for the wedding. We cut corners with a few things: arranging bouquets from silk flowers bought at hobby shops, having my pastry chef cousin make our cake, hosting our rehearsal dinner at our house.

I'd say budget and deciding on a date are both really important. Once you know how much money you want to spend and when you want to have it, you can start scouting venues.

11/6/2013 10:23:49 AM

that's probably what we're going to be figuring out over the next week. i have a feeling my mom won't just give us a lump sum, but would rather just help pay for things as they come up.

11/6/2013 12:15:53 PM

If they won't hand over a check at the beginning, you also have the risk that they promise to give you money later and then change their mind. Then you have to lose your deposits or go into debt to cover their sorry asses. Something else to keep in mind when negotiating with parents over finances.

11/7/2013 2:09:21 PM

i'm seeing that many event venues don't include pricing on their websites. so i have to take the time to call them to find out they're way out of my budget. BLAH

11/7/2013 2:34:40 PM

Most don't. I think a hasher who just got married has a spreadsheet of a whole bunch of venues that she contacted if you want me to ask her to send it to you.

11/7/2013 2:36:08 PM

YES PLEASE

that would be awesome

11/7/2013 2:47:11 PM

If anyone else would like the link to her spreadsheet, let me know.

A few more post-wedding thoughts ...

People always comment about how the details make the day. We heard a lot about our cakes, the cat toss and the helicopters, but some of the details we included were more for us. We did some mad-libs (that I got as a free printout online) for people to fill out during the cocktail hour. I just found them tonight, and they are hilarious. They had me busting out laughing, and smiling and wanting to hug all my friends. And they cost us like $3 in paper and pens.

For our childhood photos, I got two poster boards from the dollar store and hot glued some fabric to one side. Then we put a bunch of photos on them with thumb tacks. So that was another $5 thing that people got a big kick out of.

A friend officiated for us. We were on the fence because he has done weddings before, but I think the ones he'd done were a bit more casual. But I am very glad we did. It was so much more personal to have our wedding officiated by someone we knew. We got to collaborate with him very closely on what was and was not going to be in the ceremony. I was worried our families wouldn’t like us having a nonreligious ceremony, but the only comments were heard were that it was lovely and had a lot of our personalities in it.

I know I had posted about being on the fence about videography because it can feel like one more thing to pay for. I am SO glad we got it. Aaron’s cousin did it for us. She’s a photographer/videographer in Winston-Salem, and she doesn’t like doing weddings, but she did ours anyway. She just sent us the highlight video, and after seeing that I can’t imagine what the longer version will be like. In 11 minutes she was able to capture so much emotion and show us so many of the things we didn’t get to see. So I would highly recommend getting a videographer, if it’s in your budget. http://vimeo.com/78785544

We had an unplugged ceremony, where we asked people not to use phones or cameras. It was partly selfish in that we didn’t want them to get in the way of our pro photographers, or mess up their shots with their flash/red focus lights. But more so it was because we wanted people to really pay attention and be able to feel their emotions instead of focusing on trying to take a picture. It was another really good decision. Nobody was upset by it (that we know, anyway) and our photographer said it was the most emotionally connected ceremony she’s been to in terms of the guests getting into it.

11/7/2013 9:47:34 PM

I just watched that whole thing. And cried.

11/7/2013 10:22:28 PM

best place to make a wedding website??

11/12/2013 6:25:57 PM

I used the knot. Free and easy.

11/12/2013 6:58:09 PM

Holy fuck flowers are expensive. I saw an idea (maybe from t-dub) that someone posted online about re-creating the bouquet from the wedding for an anniversary. Since my wife was obsessed with her bouquet, I emailed our wedding planner this morning to see if they could get their flower lady to maybe re-create that for our one-year anniversary next year. She said that they would definitely do it and sent me an invoice of her bouquet just so I could have a rough idea of how much it would cost: $270...for one fucking bouquet. Jesus H. Christ. This wasn't going to even be part of her anniversary present...more like a "good morning, do these beautiful flowers remind you of anything" breakfast greeting. Fuck me.

11/19/2013 2:19:23 PM

I did that for my wife for our first anniversary. It "only" ran about $100, though.

11/19/2013 5:23:02 PM

i'm trying to spend as little as possible on flowers. i don't even notice them at weddings. at the last wedding i was in the bridesmaids mostly left the bouquets laying around during the reception and probably lost them by the end of the night.

11/19/2013 6:11:49 PM

We got our florist to send vases and used all the bouquets as centerpieces. That definitely cut costs.

11/19/2013 7:24:32 PM

Take a picture of the bouquet to whole foods. I bet they can get really close for a lot less money.

11/20/2013 12:00:39 PM

I'll be honest about skwink's cakes, I didn't care what the cake looked like or what it was on or if it wasn't centered


those cakes tasted so fucking good. sooooo fucking good.

I give them an A+

11/20/2013 1:31:09 PM

i'm thinking about hitting up harris teeter or whole foods for flowers. from what i've heard, they're much more reasonable than some of the florists around here.

no idea what to do for a cake topper though. ideas??

11/20/2013 1:42:28 PM

I've heard that the people who sell flowers at the Farmer's Market can do custom arrangements


and they are very reasonable and do beautiful work

I believe wolfpackgrrr used them for her wedding

11/20/2013 1:44:30 PM

haha, yeah, I didn't care at all, but if someone's going to go Bridezilla on little details, that kind of thing could probably cause a breakdown.

jbrick, it sounds like you guys had some out-of-season or rare flowers. You could ask if she could sub some less expensive ones without changing the look of it, or check with another florist. That is a very pricey bouquet.

I finally got my catering issue sorted out, so:

Caterer: Visions – B+
Some of the cocktail hour food doesn’t seem like it was that great, but everyone seemed to really like the dinner. I highly recommend the garlic mashed potato bar. They were very reasonably priced compared with most of the Raleigh based caterers we looked at. They include china by default, rather than fancy disposables. That cost $2-3 more per person at most of the places we looked at. They also provide linens for all your tables for free, and can supply rental tables for cheap if you need them, so that kept us from having to use an additional rental company.
The food service seemed good to me for the most part. They didn’t do exactly what we asked with our cakes, which was to cut and pass them, but that wasn’t a big deal at all. However I think they cleared plates and silverware and left people having to track down something to eat the cake with.

Bar: Visions – D-, but they swear it was a circumstantial hiccup, and I believe them, so I can still recommend them to others as long as you take precautions
When we booked, they were going to supply all beer, wine and liquor, along with a bartender and mixers and whatnot. They changed the policy at some point thereafter to you buy your own liquor. That was good for us because it’s what we originally wanted, but they didn’t tell us until I called to ask about something else and it came up.
They were still supposed to provide mixers, and they said “we’ll provide the mixers for just about anything people would want.” I probably should have asked for a list, but I thought “they do this all the time, so I’ll trust them” because I also sent them a list of my liquors that they said looked good. We had gin, and they brought no tonic. We had tequila, but they brought no margarita mix. No limes, Sprite, sour mix either. They had juice and cola and that was about it. I talked to the head chef, and he says they definitely should have had all those things, and that their bar manager had left the week before our wedding, so some balls apparently got dropped that were inexcusable.
And the bartender … wasn’t. She was comically bad. Aaron asked for a gin and tonic and she said “how do I make that?” before the whole “we don’t have tonic” thing came up. I also went to the bar with one of my bridesmaids who was going to take the leftover liquor at the end of the night to let her know it wasn’t a random person trying to steal it. She had no idea we’d provided our own, then asked me why she was keeping a tab if we had provided it. So I had to explain to her how their pricing worked.
On the plus side, our bar ended up way under budget, so that’s good. And after nagging them to give me some answers on what the fuck happened to make our bar so epically fail, they are giving me back a good chunk of the bar tab. Everyone I talked to sounded shocked at the way our bar service went down and the fact they didn’t have the supplies they should have, so I do believe it was caused by some lines getting crossed.
I would still advocate using them, but ask for a list of exactly what mixers they will be providing, and ask to know specifically who will be bartending and what their credentials are as far as that goes.

11/20/2013 1:44:55 PM

Glassssssss made me two little birdies for the top of our fall tree cake. Etsy has lots of cute ideas. What is your theme? Our was just fall decor.

11/20/2013 1:45:54 PM

Bouquet included white ranunculus, open cabbage roses, peach dahlias, dusty miller, tuberose (if available), and queens lace (if available).

I've never heard of any of those flowers. But they sure looked purdy!

Invoice says that the flowers cost $195 and labor was $58.50...but I think that was their labor to set up for a wedding. So maybe I won't have to pay all of that?

11/20/2013 2:05:10 PM

^^i don't know about a theme. winter, i guess. and being awesome.

11/20/2013 2:13:01 PM

Our photographer finally put up another 400 photos to our gallery last week, and promised that "soon" we will have the last of them (unspecified number more) and she will post the originals to dropbox (our contract included full rights to the photos). So it's still a little frustrating that there isn't a time frame for the final product.

On the plus side, the big batch of photos she posted look fantastic.

11/20/2013 2:27:04 PM

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/magazine/the-wedding-fix-is-in.html

12/4/2013 12:08:39 PM

Quote :

"I knew, of course, that weddings are notoriously expensive, but what I did not expect was the sheer difficulty of finding any price information at all. Not only will vendors not post prices online, but many will not even quote them over the phone, requiring a face-to-face meeting first. In fact, before they would even show me any of their dresses, let alone price tags, some bridal shops have required me to fill out a form divulging my occupation, employer, address, dress budget, overall wedding budget, reception venue and other intrusive information. "

From my experience, it was true that a lot of vendors didn't give any price info online, but all you had to do was ask and they would send you some ballpark figures. They just want to be able to add you to their marketing database. They don't want to waste their time either with having a meeting with you if you can't afford them.

12/4/2013 12:17:21 PM

Quote :

"Wedding vendors seemed to be trying to size me up to figure out how much I’m willing to pay; consumer advocates say this is a common practice, as is charging more for a given service for a wedding than for a “family function” or “corporate event.”"

I know this is definitely true. I've a got couple friends who own catering businesses that always charge more for weddings (and say everyone else does it, so they don't feel bad). We also use to book a band at a bar that I worked at that cost us maybe $600. My buddy booked them for his wedding for $2,500 (and they were on the lower end of the bands he was looking at).

I find it all pretty interesting. As and for not listing your prices online...I think one of the main reasons is that they really want to get you in for a face-to-face so they can show you what they actually can do. If they put a price up on their website, there are tons of people that would shoot them down without even coming in. I'm sure there is a good percentage of business they get from people coming in for a personal meeting that would have already scratched them off the list for pricing. Tons of brides (and brides' moms) will see pretty shit and be like, "omg!!! I don't care how much it costs, it's for the wedding!"

12/4/2013 12:24:32 PM