Big Long Wedding Vendor Post

TMI on Wedding Vendors.

After Hours - Men's Tuxes

Stolen from 27 Mar 2006 Post:

Alesha and I had first started seriously considering tuxes around the time she was shopping for her bridesmaids dresses at David's Bridal. After Hours was right next door, so we stopped in to check it out. The guy who helped us actually was helpful. He said that the best thing to do would be to go to the wedding fair in a couple of weeks. Not only would you get a $20 discount there, but you could also get into the cash cube and try to pluck money from the air to get discounts. We thought that was a good plan, since we were going to the fair anyway.

The wedding fair is another story in itself, but we did go, and I did get into the cash cube. I didn't snag many bills (it's much harder than it looks!), but I did get the $50, for a total of $70 more off. As to keep our options open, we stopped by Men's Wearhouse, who was advertising tuxes for $65. Since the deposits were refundable at both places, we made deposits at both.

We went back to both places. For their most modestly priced tuxes, Men's Wearhouse wanted $65. After Hours wanted $125, minus $20 for going to the fair, minus $70 divided by 6 people, coming up to $93. Both offered a "free" tux for me (more on this later). We wanted to go with After Hours, just because they had better customer service and higher quality tuxes, but a $30 is significant. That's when After Hours told us that they'd match any competitor's price.

To make a short story boring, we ended up getting a written price estimate at Men's Wearhouse and using it at After Hours. Here are the things I wish we had known earlier:

• When we got the quote from Men's Wearhouse, they included their $5 insurance thing in the quote. We should have gotten them for $65, not $70, but I didn't want to deal with it at that point.
• Techincally the tux is free at any store you end up going with. But you have to pay for the accessories, like the tie and the vest and the cufflinks. That ended up being $35. That's what your $20 deposit goes towards.

All in all, we ended up getting the $125 tuxes for $70 each. I think the least I've ever rented a tux for was about $90. Not such a bad deal, eh?

Barnes & Noble - Wedding Books

The day I popped the question to Alesha, we were both pretty overwhelmed. I mean, how may stories have you heard about trying to get a wedding planned? (You'd think I'd have seen all the stress coming, but I was to busy worrying about what Alesha's dad was going to say.)

Fortunately, Alesha and I both very much have melancholy personalities. The next day we went to Barnes and Noble to pick up a book or two on what the heck we should be doing. We found two books we thought would be useful: one was a "how-to" book with a timeline of events you should be doing, the other was a workbook seemed chocked full of information.

The first book, How to Have an Elegant Wedding for $5,000 or Less by Jan Wilson and Beth Wilson Hickman, relived more stress for me than anything else I got. At the end of chapter 1, there is a list of things that they suggest you do 6-12 months, 6 months, 3 months, 2 months, 6 weeks, 1 month, 2 weeks, 1 week, and 1 day before your wedding. We transposed the list to an Excel file and went with that. There were a couple of things we added or changed, but that list is pretty much what got us through the planning process. Over the next couple of months, we found a lot of wedding to-do lists, but this one was probably the most compact, yet complete. It also answered a lot of the questions I had, such who traditionally pays for what? What questions should you ask your caterer? and What goes on an invitation? It gave you ideas for what to do for every major aspect of your wedding. But best of all, with every pointer it gave you, it kept in mind that you were working on a limited budget.

Here are the chapters of the book.

• First Things First - Planning to Make Your Dream Wedding a Reality
• The Wedding Budget and Organization
• Ceremony and Reception Locations
• Wedding Attire
• The Reception and Catering
• Photography and Videography
• Music (including tips for both the ceremony and reception)
• Flowers
• Decorations (including tips for both the ceremony and reception)
• The Cake
• Invitations
• Transportation
• A Personalized Ceremony
• Details, Details, Details - Tying the Loose Ends Together for a Fun and Organized Wedding Day
• The Finishing Touches - Scheduling and Rehearsing the Details
• The Day You've Been Waiting For - Making Your Dream Come True

The next book was The Bride's Essential Wedding Planner by Amy Nebens. It was more a book for checklist, worksheets, and general organization. We honestly didn't use it too much, and frankly probably wouldn't buy it if we had to do it all over again.

The one thing it was useful for was the worksheets it had for interviewing vendors. In a big table on the paper, the left column listed all of the questions you should ask a particular vendor. It also left room for you to write in other questions you might have. The there were three more columns for vendors A, B, and C. When you went to interview a vendor, you could write the information in the appropriate column. That way, when you went back to compare everyone, you could directly compare everyone side-by-side. It also made sure you asked everyone the same questions.

Country Inn & Suites/Green Mill - Reception Site, Caterer, Hotel

Once we figured out our wedding date, our biggest issue was finding a reception site. We only had six months lead time to book anything. You wouldn't believe the number of places we called that said, "We're booked up on July 15th, how about July 22nd?" (Or July 14th, or July 8th, or whatever...) July 15th was obviously a popular date.

We wanted several things in a reception site. We didn't want people to have to travel a long distance from the ceremony, so it had to be close to the church. Since both Alesha and I had a number of out-of-town guests, we had to have a reception site with a hotel attached. Since most of the wedding day events were going to happen at the reception, we wanted a staff that was efficient but easy to work with. And above all, we wanted something reasonably priced.

We found (almost) everything we were looking for at Country Inn & Suites. Alesha found them after a pretty long search involving friends, phone books, and several Internet searches. It was the first place Alesha called that had an opening on July 15th and was in our price range. They were also the first site we made an appointment with.

Michelle was very helpful and friendly from the get-go. She showed us the room and answered all of the questions we had. And we liked all the answers we heard. We got a big room for the time we needed. It was in the same complex as the hotel, but it wasn't attached. This meant that we could get loud without annoying anyone. They had done a number of weddings, and seemed to have an accommodating and flexible attitude. On top of everything, the room ended up being less than I thought we would be spending.

Going into this, we weren't sure what we wanted to do about catering. According to what we had read, the cheapest option was an external caterer. (An ARINSO buddy of mine, Justin, had his catered by a Mexican place for about $5 a head!) But this wasn't an option at here; you had to go with their catering company. Fortunately, it wasn't an in-house deal by a generic hotel compay. All of the catering was done by the Green Mill, the restaurant that was attached to the hotel. Green Mill makes some pretty darn good food, so we were pretty excited about that. The food prices were, of course, high, but all-in-all pretty reasonable.

Alesha, Scher and I talked it over then and there. It was the first place we went to, but we had a good feeling. We made the reservations that day.

There is only one thing we would have liked to see that we didn't: higher ceilings. The ceilings in the room are only eight feet high. It made throwing the bouquet a bit difficult...

David's Bridal - Bridesmaids Dresses, Flower Girl's Dress

Out of all the details of our wedding that I've told people about, this is the one that gets the most positive, "That is a great idea!" reaction. Especially from the ladies. Who am I kidding; the ladies are the only ones who want to talk about topics like this...

Although her wedding dress experience wasn't all that great, David's Bridal did have one good thing going for it: Make a Match dresses. With Make a Match, you first pick out the color for your dresses. This category doesn't have as many colors as something not in this category, but it has a number of the basic colors. (And they don't come in seafoam green; I checked!) Each color has a number of skirts and blouses in different styles. You are then able to pick out the style you want to use for your bridesmaids.

Alesha picked the color, mystic purple, and she picked the A-line skirt. But since we have three differently shaped girls for bridesmaids, she allowed them each to pick out the blouse they thought was appropriate. That way all of the bridesmaids match, but each of them still can feel comfortable with whatever they are wearing.

Great idea, huh? Alesha is so smart.

Emily's Bakery - Wedding Cake

Alesha and I decided to do something slightly unconventional with our wedding cake. Seriously, at least one thing you do for your wedding should have "fad" written all over it.

When we were first talking about wedding cakes, Alesha wanted to do a bunch of small wedding cakes. Our reception hall was going to have 8-10 people on each round table. Alesha figured that if we went with a bunch of small cakes rather than one large one,

• We could use the cake as a centerpiece, thus saving money on table decorations
• Our guests wouldn't have to wait in line for cake

One day, for whatever reason, Alesha and her mom both got the idea to use cupcakes instead of cakes. In addition to the cake-per-table advantages,

• We could have a variety of cake flavors
• Cupcakes are way cheaper than standard cakes
• Any leftover cake could be easily taken from the reception site

Our plan was then to have a 7 or 8 inch cake at the main table for us to cut.

Honestly, this was one of the more enjoyable portions of planning the wedding. Everywhere we went, we got to try cake! Most of the cakes we tried, be it at the wedding fair we attended or bakeries we tried, were so-so.

We checked out Dorothy Ann Bakery. The saleslady we talked to was pretty rude. She didn't seem to want to listen to what we wanted; she wanted us to buy, but she seemed in a hurry for our interview to be over. The cake there wasn't spectacular anyway, so we were too disappointed.

We checked out Sam's and Costco for cupcakes. They had cheap cupcakes, but almost no variety in colors, flavors or decorations.

Next we went to Emily's bakery. Talk about night-and-day difference! They had a number of flavors to try, but they only gave you 2 samples at the appointment. Alesha set up an appointment and ordered several other flavors. Norine was very nice, and listened to everything we wanted. On top of that, our other samples ended up being free. When we tried the cake, and realized that their prices were 25% less than other places we had tried, we decided we had to go with them. Even the location is good; they are located two blocks from Alesha's house.

The flavors we ended up going with are banana, carrot cake, and German chocolate cake.

Genesis Psychological Services - Premarital Counciling

Q. Why did we want to do premarital counciling?

A. It got us a discount on our marriage licence.
B. It was the one and only thing dad asked me to do when I told him I was proposing to Alesha.
C. It was either this or a ropes course.
D. Woodbury Lutheran Church requires it.
E. We had nothing better to do for lunch on Fridays.

If you guessed A, B, or D, you're right! Give yourself a cookie.

The church required five premarital counciling sessions: one with the Pastor, three with a psychologist, and a final one with the Pastor a week or so before the wedding.

Woodbury Lutheran has their own in-house counciling service. Alesha knew Michelle F. (no, I'm not sure I spelled that right), but I hadn't met her. Michelle ended up being fun, down-to-earth, supercool person. I felt really comfortable talking to her with Alesha. The time passed really quickly.

I wasn't exactly sure what would happen in counseling. I figured we'd take a personality test, and then discuss the importance of communication, money, and sex (not necessarily in that order). But that's not exactly what happened.

After about 45 minutes, Michelle told us he didn't think we needed to take the personality tests next session. She asked us if we wanted to talk about what the Bible had to say about husbands, wives, loving, honoring, authority, submission, and the whole ball of wax. We said that we thought that would be cool.

I've never seen a grown woman in high-heeled boots get so excited about marriage counciling. Apparently not a lot of people want to broach the subject during counciling. At any rate, that's what we ended up discussing. I think Alesha and I both learned a good deal about what the Bible says husbands and wives should do and be for each other.

Gunflint Resort - Honeymoon

Alesha and I love to travel, but we both had different ideas about our honeymoon.

Alesha had always wanted to go to Europe on her honeymoon. She had never been to Europe, and thought it was the perfect opportunity. How romantic is that? You can see the sights and sounds of Paris for the first time, all taking it in as a new couple. You could start your marriage off with a big trip.

I talked her out of the idea. The whole idea of a honeymoon is to spend "quality time" together. After an exhausting pre-wedding week and an exhausting wedding, do you want to try to see the sites of Europe in a week? After all the stress of the previous month, you're going to try to plan a trip around Paris?

I had always wanted to go the Carribean. It's warm, it's relaxing, and you don't have a schedule. I mean, you can do stuff if you want, you can schedule things spur of the moment, but the bottom line is you don't have to do anything. You can get a nice all-inclusive trip, and then all you have to worry about is getting there. The water, the music, and the stars at night can all be enchanting.

Alesha talked me out of the Carribean vacation. We have six months to plan a wedding. On top of all that, do you want to plan a trip out of the country? You have to arrange the flight and book the reservation. You probably won't get to go where you want during the busy summer season on such short notice. Plus, it'll be hot in Minnesota. Do you want to go south of Florida when it's hot?

We weren't exactly sure what we wanted to do, but Lori came to our rescue. One day when all the Nixons were over, she told us she was going to find a place for us to go on our honeymoon. And what do you know, she did!

Gunflint is a resort off of the North Shore--the Minnesota side of Lake Superior. It's not a luxury place or anything, but it was just what we were looking for. They have an all-inclusive honeymoon package, which means we won't have to pay for any food the whole time! For five days, were able to enjoy:

Our own 2-person cabin with an outdoor jacuzzi

• Breakfast delivered to our door every morning
• Lunch, via either picnic basket or on-site restaurant
• Dinner at the restaurant (no ties allowed!)
• Unlimited activites, including fishing, canoeing, and horseback riding

It's All Digital - Printing

Just to give you an idea how affordable they are, we printed all of our invitations for under $30. Try getting that anywhere else. We also printed our programs there. In fact, the only thing we didn't print there were the envelopes, which we ended up doing on Alesha's printer. And they were all friendly to boot.

Jukebox Express - DJ

Good points: Stayed late, everyone boogied.
Bad points: Totally messed up the presentation of the wedding video I put together.

Leatherman - Groomsmens'/Ushers' Gifts

To me, most grooms gifts suck. Really. I mean, a cup or a moneyclip with your initials engraved onto it are awesome and all, but seriously, wouldn't you rather get something somewhat useful?

I will admit we stole this idea from Michael and Aimee. We got everyone Leathermans, each in a different type/color combination of the Juice variety. They've got all sorts of accessories on them. And what guy doesn't like knives?

The only person I had to worry about is Nathan; does he still have the one he got for Michael's wedding?

Laurel's Florals - Florist

Pretty good, I think. We used gerberas.

Marriott Fairfield - Wedding Night

As part of our package, Country Inn & Suites was kind enough to offer us a free honeymoon suite for our wedding night. But after a long reception where our relatives are and alcohol is served, there was no way either one of us wanted to be in a place that everyone could find us. So we devised a plan...

Yep, the top secret location for our first night of matrimonial bliss was at a Marriott by the airport. I used some of my travel points to get it. We figured that since we were both going to be exhausted, and we're going to have the whole next week to ourselves, all we need is a room and a bed. I used the least amount of points that I could.

When we got to the hotel, I realized that my best men still had my wallet. Now, the hotel was already paid for, but I had to prove who I was. You know, with my driver's licence. I thought I might just give them my Marriott number, but guess where that was? How about Alesha's ID? Nope, her last name wasn't even the same as mine.

I walked in to the front desk and told them I had a reservation. I told them I had just gotten married, and I was embarrassed to tell them I didn't have my wallet. They upgraded our room to the best one in the hotel, and let us through without my ID.

Memory Vision - Videographer

Totally spendy, totally worth it. We saw the preview Alan put together for us, and it was worth every cent we put into it. It captured moments that both of us missed, and I'm sure there are a ton of surprises we will get once we see it.

I highly, highly recommend Alan & crew. We'll lend you a copy of the video if you want. Just ask.

My Hairstylist - Hair & Makeup/Bridesmaids' Gifts

For tax purposes, I'm not going to mention her name.

I think that she was the first person I met when I came to Woodbury. Seriously. I needed a haircut, so I stopped by a local salon. I just so happened to get assigned to her.

I look for a couple of things in a hairdresser. They need to

• know how to cut hair
• remember how I want my hair cut from session to session
• always remember to keep my sideburns even
• charge a reasonable amount
• actually listen in a conversation
  

She met all of these qualifications. I stayed with her in Woodbury, and I even followed her out to St. Paul when she changed salons. When she started cutting hair in her home, I was one of the first people to go. I even got Alesha to try her. She did Alesha's perms. Now she's cut Alesha's hair to a new style for the first time since second grade.

When we asked her to do hair for the wedding, she was really excited. As a bonus, she also does makeup! Who knew? As part of the bridesmaids' gifts, we had her do all of their hair and makeup.

If you're in the Cottage Grove area, talk to me. I'll get you a great hairstylist for a reasonable price.

Paper Depot - Paper

High quality stuff, and their ideas helped us saved a ton of money on both the paper and the postage. They even advised us how to save money by not buying extras from them. How can you not recommend a place like that?

Renee's Royal Valet - Limo

Not too much to say. Although they were the most courteous of the places we talked to.

Rev. Ben Griffin - Officiant

Pastor Ben determined when our wedding would be. Seriously. One of the things that Alesha and I wanted from the get-go was to have Ben do our wedding. The day after we got engaged, we called Ben to see when he was available. July 15 was the only date in July he had open. So that settled it!

Ben and Katie are an awesome couple, and we're blessed to call them friends. We're so excited we could involve them in our wedding.

Shane Co. - Engagement/Wedding Rings

I've had such a great experience at Shane Co. that I really never want to buy jewelry from anywhere else. I've purchased five items from there now. But it all started with an engagement ring.

When I knew I wanted to propose to Alesha, I started saving up money. In the meantime, I acquiesced to letting her pull me into one of those mall jewelry stores. We only looked at earrings and pendants, but I kept asking her what she liked and why. Okay, so it was probably pretty obvious what I was doing, but I did find out what she liked. From what I could gather, she liked a ring that tapered away from the stone. I figured if I could find a diamond ring with two pear-shaped diamonds on either side, I would be set.

The other thing I found from the mall jewelry store was that they weren't very helpful, and they wanted me to buy right away. I had heard from the commercials (yes, those Shane comercials you hear all the time) that their salespeople didn't work on commission. On top of that, there was a store within walking distance of my house.

Here's what attracted me to Shane:

• The salespeople were genuinely friendly
• The selection was large
• She talked me out of getting a more expensive platinum ring by talking about the merits of gold
• 20% down will reserve your jewelry
• You can get 0% financing for 18 months through Shane
• Everything has a lifetime guarantee
• If you buy it and she says "no", Shane will buy back the ring
• They will clean your jewelry for you for free every six months
• If you want to upgrade later, all you have to do is spend $1 more than what you originally paid for the item
• They have fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies on site every day

What else can I say? Alesha and I have been back since, and we liked it so much, we got our wedding rings there.

Soft Touch Photography - Photographer

The photographer is arguably the most important vendor at your wedding. It is literally the tangable memory of your wedding. When most people want to find out about your wedding, they go to your photo album.

Dick was great. We got so many pictures, and all of them are high quality. You can look up your pictures on his web site. And to top it all off, you get all of the original digital pictures after three years.

That's right. Instead of just throwing the CD's away, he'll give them to you. You can eventually have every picture he took.

High quality pictures. Good price. And you get to keep all your pictures. We are very satisfied with our decision.

And the rest...

I'm sure there are more vendors we could talk about if given the opportunity. But I'll stop here. You're probably a little bored of my ramblings by now...