| Wedding Gown
An Affair to Remember, Redlands CA
Tara by MaggieSottero
This was the first bridal shop that I walked into and tried on dresses. I totally fell in love with the dress that I found and I figured that I didn't need to look anywhere else. It's a little family owned shop in the heart of downtown Redlands and sadly they have recently gone out of business. The girls that worked there were so nice too.
Bridesmaid Dresses
By AfterSix
I had my girls order their dresses online and find their own taylors to alter the dress. As part of their gifts I got them each Pashmina Scarves to go with the dress so they wouldn't freeze at night. Photography
http://www.ceanone.com/
I wanted to get Cean, the owner of the studio, but you have to "know someone" that knows him to book him directly. We got one of his employees, her name is Desiree. She was really patient especially with the asian side of our family who are notoriously late for everything. My only complaint was that I didn't get enough shots of people on the dance floor and hubby felt gipped out of his picture time with the fellas.
Venue
http://www.etiwandagardens.com/
The pictures on their site really don't do the place justice. Our event coordinator was a little flighty but come time for the ceremony and reception, the lady we had was awesome! She made sure everything went smoothly, that I had enough to eat, and just really took care of me. The food was ehhh, but the appetizers were really good.
Cake
Michelle's Bakery, Redlands CA
We received so many compliments from the cake we had at our wedding. It was white cake with raspberry mousse filling and it had chunks of raspberries in it. It was so good.
Florist
Carol's Secret Garden, Upland CA
They were okay. I guess I didn't really research them enough and just went by word of mouth. I really liked my bouquet and the shepherd's hooks that they did along the aisle.
DJ's
http://www.myspace.com/thefunkpirates
The DJ's I've known since high school, we all go waaaay back. They were nice enough to do this for us as our wedding gift. They were awesome too, they played a big variety of music to get all the old and the young folks to boogie down on the dance floor. It was so much fun.
Entertainers
5678 Dance Studio dancers
Redlands, CA
The owner of this dance studio, Buddy, is Benji's (winner from So You Think You Can Dance) dad. I've actually met Benji a few times, he's a really nice, down to earth guy. Hubby's parents and brother take dance lessons from them so the dancers that danced at our reception did it for us as a favor.
Honeymoon
Excellence Riviera Cancun
Our honeymoon was truly magical. When we got to the compound, I say compound because it's in the middle of nowhere. You drive through fields of I think corn or something and then you get to this huge gate that opens up and you see like a whole civilization in there. Before we got to the check in desk, someone came up to us with champagne and strawberries. Even though it was an all inclusive place, we didn't have to wear those goofy wrist bands. There were I think 6 fancy restaurants on the resort. There was French, Japanese, Italian, American, Mexican, a seafood bar and grill place, plus they serve you right at the beach. Did I mention it was all inclusive, even the drinks were strong. For a while I had to start asking for virgin mixed drinks cause I didn't want to wake up to a hangover on our honeymoon.
Everyone was so friendly and accommodating. You aren't required to tip, but when you do, they totally go out of their way to get you what you want.
Turndown service was nice, every night they put rose petals on the bed with a chocolate and a different character that they folded they towels into.
They even had nightly entertainment and plenty of activities during the day. Staying there one week was definitely not enough. I forgot to add: Wedding Favors & Invitations
The boxes for the wedding favors and the invitations we purchased at whiteaisle.com. I couldn't be happier with them. They have the cutest designs and the girl that I worked with was so friendly.
We gave out cookies in the shape of a heart with different pictures of us in the boxes. People didn't want to eat them because they didn't want to eat our pictures! Which was a waste cuz the cookies were really good!
We ordered them from veronicastreats.com. The gal I worked with there was also very nice and got us everything on time and there was not one broken cookie. |
