Here are more vendor reviews. I will post the rest tomorrow.
Ann Taylor made bridesmaid dress shopping completely effortless. I bought the dresses when they were having a sale. By opening a credit card, I was able to get 25% off the dresses. Sandra on Michigan Ave. offered to press the dresses for us. Additionally, the girls were offered the ability to come back to the store to learn the 5 different ways to tie their bow. Oh, and the week before the wedding when one of my maids admitted that her dress didn’t fit– they were able to get a replacement gown within a day. I would highly recommend.
I saw these shoes in In Style Weddings magazine. We ordered them before we picked a dress. They were comfortable but after 7 hours, my Maids were dying! Luckily, I had super cute flip flops for them to wear for dancing. I would recommend.
Marilyn did a wonderful job on the calligrapher on my outer envelopes. She gets the + for putting up with our multiple trips to her home (last minute addition, change of last name, change of address, can you add my nephew’s name to this inner envelope, etc.) I would higly recommend.
Since none of my guests saw the problems, I am inclined to give them a higher grade.
Wedding– The night of the wedding, everything was perfect. More than that, the week of the wedding, we had absolutely no problems. Let’s start with the good. The hotel was amazing when it came to food. For the entrée duet, we changed the salmon to a crab cake. We also added a pasta course and supplied our own recipes. We also came up with some more unique hors d’oeuvres and they were totally willing to do it. I really appreciated it. The service was outstanding.
Things that I didn’t like– I wish that Kerry could have gotten back to us more quickly during the planning process. I don’t know if she is under-staffed/over-worked but 10 days for a reply is far too long. I loathe the draping in the Music Room and the Walnut Room. If I had the money, I would have brought new drapes in for my event. They are absolutely hideous. I would recommend the venue. Overall, we really enjoyed the Allegro.
Dance Lessons – Monica
Monica met us several times over the past three months to give us dance lessons. She was extremely profesional. I would highly recommend. For more information, read my
blog entry.
After trying on close to 200 dresses, I can safely say that I absolutely love my dress. I wouldn’t change a thing.
After months of looking for the perfect dress, I came to Dame Couture. While I didn’t find a wedding gown, I found the perfect dress for the after party. The dress was designed for a runway show and was one of a kind. I purchased it without a problem. I did post a review on Yelp! about their dressing rooms needing to be freshened up. Apparently, the owner wasn’t too pleased and asked me to remove my review. Since Yelp! let’s you post your uncensored opinion, I left the review as is.
My favors are the perfect compromise. My Mother in law really wanted to have us make a donation to a charity. I wanted to give our guests something. We are doing both with Girl Scout cookies. I was a Girl Scout as well as a leader for my niece, Sarah. To save a little dough, we bought them in Indy where they are $3.50/ box VS $4 in Chicago. We will be wrapping them in different color wrapping paper to designate the types of boxes that we have. As far as the Knot Rule that guests don’t really care for favors, well then, you should hand out girl scout cookies. We had 5 boxes left over. Yup, 5 boxes. I’m actually a little bummed out about that.
Through out the entire block process, Sarah was quick to respond and wonderful. I was very happy with the entire process. Then, there was the day before the wedding.
My in-law’s were the first to check in on Thursday night. When I went to visit them on Friday, I realized that their room was on a floor with construction. I was livid. I specifically had a line added to my contract stating that I did not want any rooms to be booked on floors with construction. To top it off, my mother-in-law said that it was loud. Sarah was on vacation. Kerry was away that day in training. After speaking with the front desk, my in-laws were finally moved.
When my Maid of Honor and I went to check into our room at noon, I was unable even though Sarah had assured me that I would be able to check in early. We tried to check in again around 5PM. The room was still not ready. Luckily, I had rented out the Stardust Suite so we were able to get ready in that room while guests were drinking and socializing. Not ideal, but it worked. When we did go to check into the room at 10:30PM, the front desk associate told us that he had bad news for us. The only room that was available was the room that my in-laws had vacated. Great. I am having my wedding at the hotel and I get the crappy suite. I even asked if we could get a regular room but there was none available.
I was even unhappier when I found that there was a second hotel block under the name of Jacobs that had received our suites. While the chances of two hotel blocks with the same name are slim, I was still very frustrated with the entire situation. We were having our wedding there. Therefore, we deserved first priority.
Additionally, I was frustrated that my husband and I were unable to check into our bridal suite until 5PM because the room was not ready. Surely, one would assume that the bride and groom would prefer to check in to the bridal suite long before the reception commences. It is extremely disappointing customer service. The silver lining of the situation is that my guests did not have to experience any of these problems.
Our invitations arrived about 5.5 weeks after ordering. A few days later– as I was assembling them to mail out– I noticed that some of the response cards had a printing flaw. It wasn’t very noticeable but it was nonetheless a flaw. After emailing Rebecca, she responded within minutes. She asked that we send her some pictures of the problem. My camera is crap so the flaw wasn’t clear. Since she was using mine invitations as samples, she already had plenty of extra to mail to me. The next day I sent her my flawed response cards and she mailed me the new ones. I received mine in the mail.
A few days later, I emailed her to see if she saw the problem. Apparently, the cards were destroyed in the mail. Maybe I am overly sensitive, but she never accepted the blame or apologized. While I see her point of view (she didn’t get proof of the mistake), I wish that she would have been a little more regretful about the entire situation.
We had a late night snack of Minnie’s for our after party. It was a huge hit! The food was delicious. I ate three mini-burgers at the after party. I loved everything. My only suggestion was that I wish that they would have packed up little mini containers for the french fries. To keep the frittes crisp and hot, they came in a huge tin serving container. We had little plates to put them on but I wish that we could have had the little french fry containers. I would highly recommend. EVERYONE raved about these suckers at midnight.
Honey Bee Weddings 
