*Vendor Reviews*
~Clicking on a vendor name will link you to their website~
~Des Moines area vendors are listed at the bottom~
**MINNEAPOLIS AREA VENDORS**
REHEARSAL DINNER-BUCA diBEPPOS, DOWNTOWN MPLS: A
We chose Buca's based on a number of reasons. 1)affordability. Their lowest priced package was $23/person and brought us in under budget (Jake's parents paid for the dinner). Their food was fantastic and their waitstaff wonderful. Bonus: They have free (thought somewhat limited) parking. The only negatives about this location is that while the room we were in fit us ok, it wasn't very spacious and felt a little crammed. Also, the room was in the middle of the restaurant and the noise level was very high, making it very hard for my hearing-loss grandma to hear any of the speech my FIL gave. They also started to serve the wrong dessert, but quickly fixed it once I brought it to their attention.
RECEPTION VENUE-RADISSON-UNIVERSITY HOTEL: A+
We had our reception in the smaller reception hall called the Hubert Humphrey Ball Room. It holds up to 170 guests seated and has a nice outdoor patio/balcony. Sara-the catering manager was awesome to work with! She was completely willing to work with me on everything I needed, was easy to communicate with, and went out of her way to make sure our day was perfect. She even gave me candles she owned when I didn't have quite enough and helped to tie the sashes on our chairs. The venue was just beautiful and looked absolutely amazing. The only small issue we had was with our hotel block-a couple guests had difficulty making their reservation in the correct block and correct rooms, but that was quickly resolved. I'd highly recommend!
FLORIST-DEVEN NELSON: A+++
Deven was by far my favorite vendor to work with! She was an easy choice to make when deciding on a florist. I liked that she does it full time and not as a side job. She completely understood my vision for the day and went above and beyond what I ever could have imagined. Great communication, very professional, and definitely knew what she was doing~while still being extremely budget friendly.
PHOTOGRAPHER-IMAGEN BY ALEX DEL TORO: A
For what you get, the price really can't be beat! We had them do e-pics, our rehearsal/RD, and our wedding day. They were shooting our wedding day from 9am-10:30pm and were working hard all day long. Alex and his assistant did our wedding day and e-pics. Lizzy did our RD as well as our e-pics with Alex. Alex was just great to work with. It's obvious he has passion and skill for what he does! It took about 6 weeks to get our images back and when we did, we had over 1800 to choose from. The pictures are just stunning, making it very hard to choose which ones to print.
CHAIR COVERS/TUXES-HEARTSTRINGS BRIDAL: A
We booked with Heartstrings for their chair covers and tuxes during their fall sale so our chair covers with a sash was only $1.50/ea and any tux was $99/ea with the groom's tux free as long as we had at least 5 people rent from them. Their customer service is extremely friendly and very helpful. Everything was ready and arrived on time. We had a few guys need to exchange out part of their tux for a different size, but it was easy to do and we were able to get replacements in plenty of time before the pictures started.
BRIDESMAID'S DRESSES/MY SHOES-DAVID'S BRIDAL-B
Half of my bridesmaids live in Minneapolis and half live in Des Moines, so it worked out well to use a store that is available to all of them. We chose a dress in horizon blue-it looked great on everyone and the color was just beautiful! We did have a couple issues with quality and customer service. I went in to pick up one of the dresses for my BM and they looked for it for 30 min while I waited in store and still weren't able to find it. However, when they did find it, they shipped it for free to my friend. The major issue we had was on the day of the wedding-one the dresses zipped up and then the zipper broke through the middle to where it was unzipped, but connected at the top of the dress. They were unable to get the zipper back down and had to cut her out of the dress. When they called the store to get a replacement they (thankfully) had the right color, style, and size needed…but they were not willing to have someone deliver it to the church. After much argument and a couple hang ups by DB, they finally had a sales associate bring the replacement to us. My BM had to take all of our photos in her bad dress (somehow she did this without me seeing), but got the new one in time for the ceremony.
On the upside, I had zero issues with my shoes. I ordered them and had them dyed blue and got them back in less than a week. The only warning I have is that they use a water-based dye so if your shoes get wet, the color will bleed a little bit and your feet will end up colored.
TRANSPORTATION-URBAN EXPRESS: A
Extremely affordable! For only $175, they drove us from the ceremony to the reception with a couple stops in the middle. They held everyone we wanted on the bus (18 people), had an on bus cooler an easy to access garbage, and the seats were in a U shape, so everyone was facing the middle. The outside may not be that attractive, but it was a blast and probably my favorite part of the night.
HAIR/MAKE UP-SMART AND CHIC'S KIRA MCCARTY: A+
Kira was amazing. She is worth every penny! I was very pleased with how my hair and make up turned out and it lasted all night long! I was getting compliments on how great it looked and she was very friendly, extremely professional, and definitely knew what she was doing. I would highly recommend her!
CELLIST-ARIOSO STRINGS' TERESA: A
Arioso strings did a wonderful job at a very reasonable price. She was able to play any song I requested, helped me choose my music, and even was able to customize/rearrange a piece that I wanted. She sounded absolutely beautiful!
MUSIC-NEON EXPRESS: B
We were originally supposed to have Marc, but he had a last minute emergency and set us up with his backup, who's husband, Scott, reset us up with himself (he also works as a back up for Marc, but Marc had no idea that Scott did this until after the wedding). Scott was very nice and we had talked about the expectations and order of events a few days prior to the wedding. One of the things my husband really wanted was to have WWE theme music mixed in randomly throughout the night between songs and he was totally able to do this-Jake just had to find the music files and email them to him. Their equipment is pretty antiquated and out-dated. He used CDs for goodness sakes, and was unable to have an Ipod hook up to it. The reason for a B is that there were several songs on our must play list that did not get played (less than half), including a specific song that was to be used as a dedication to Jake's best friend who died 2 years ago. He did not have that song, which is not an obscure or hard to find song-Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. When I asked him about he said he just didn't have it. I replied (very calmly and nicely) that I would have appreciated if he had let me know ahead of time and I would have been able to get it to him. He brashly answered back, "well I just don't have it, what do you want me to say?!?" I was taken back by his rudeness and was pretty upset about it. He also played a song that was on my DO NOT play list, and our last song of the night (SHOUT!) was skipping and unplayable. Also, he started to play the wrong song during certain dances -but fixed it on his own, and he did not play the song we requested for the cake cutting. Overall he did an ok job. Our dance floor was packed and our friends had a great time (but not necessarily because of him, but because our friends just know how to have a good time no matter where we are). In the end, you get what you pay for. He is the only vendor I was disappointed with. However, I would have rather done an ipod reception vs. hire a more expensive DJ.
I did talk to Marc after the wedding and he apologized profusely for the bad performance and refunded us the $50 deposit. I think he would have given us more, but the rest of what we paid went to the DJ directly and I guess he wasn't able to give that back to us.
**DES MOINES AREA VENDORS**
WEDDING DRESS-SCHAFFER'S BRIDAL: A
After not finding much that I liked at David's Bridal, we went to a small local boutique that is very well known for their wedding dresses (all designer). I knew that they were usually high end and wasn't expecting to find anything I liked in my budget. I'm so glad I went. It just happened to be their annual blow out sale so I got a great deal on my dress! They sales consultant was very helpful and took my style into consideration and was actually the one to pull the dress I chose. I really liked that I was a consultant who was with me the WHOLE time and really listened to what I liked and didn't like about a dress to help find the perfect one.
I also did all of my alterations at Schaffers, where I received a 20% discount by getting them started in Dec 2010. Each fitting was great and all changes discussed were properly made in a short amount of time (I got to set the timeline) and done beautifully.
WEDDING BANDS/ENGAGEMENT RING-JOSEPH'S JEWELERS, WEST GLEN: A+
As mentioned in on "our story" page, I only happened into Josephs because they were sponsoring a diamond dash in 2009. When I went started talking to a sales consultant, Shelly, and told them about wanting a Tacori ring (which they are not an authorized dealer of). Well she explained that they'd be happy to replicate any ring for me if I had a picture and it would most likely cost significantly less. I emailed her some pics and went back in to see what she had pulled for me to look it. It was on that second visit that I found my setting. It was exactly what I was looking for and more. Shelly is an amazing consultant and helped us every step of the way, being very considerate of our budget and style requests. We found an amazing stone to go with the beautiful setting.
Of course after our great experience, we went back there to get our wedding bands. They also provide a discount to repeat customers, so that helped. I had my wedding band custom made to match my engagement ring. Sadly, I had to part with my e-ring for 6 weeks to have it made. Shelly was awesome to work with! She sent me sketches for my approval, discussed pros/cons of certain design changes, and was very good about keeping me updated about the status of my band.
We decided to do the diamond dash again in 2010, and got another 20% certificate, which we used for Jake's wedding band.