Venue

Canyon Springs Golf Club:
I will have to update this after the wedding, but so far we have been very pleased with their customer service and friendly attitude. The grounds are very well kept as well.

Bridal Shops

David's Bridal on 410 and San Pedro: A-
Unlike many bride's experiences, I had a great time trying on dresses at David's Bridal. The lady who helped me was very attentive and friendly. She asked me what I was looking for and tried to find styles that matched that idea. She also brought out other dresses that she thought might look good on me, even if it wasn't exactly what I was looking for (I consider this a plus since it made me keep an open mind to other styles). The reason I gave them the minus was that even though there were at least 2 employees in the store that we could see just sitting there, they made us wait outside in the cold for like 15 min until "official" opening time. I don't think it would have hurt them to let us in a little early.

Debi's Bridal near San Pedro: A
I was helped by Rachel. I didn't have an actual appointment because when I called the day before they said to just come in. Rachel was very nice and really tried to learn what I looking for and find both similar and opposite styles (similar to the lady at David's Bridal). They had a lot of nice dresses there, and the prices seemed pretty reasonable.

The Bridal Connection in Rolling Oaks Mall: A
I didn't have an appointment with them (don't know if you need one for a store in a mall) but they were ready to help us as soon as we walked in. We had actually called them earlier to see if they had a particular dress, and they didn't, but they had told us to come in and they'd find as many similar ones as possible. They really did try to match the dress I was looking for. I never found one there that I wanted, so I tried on all of the dresses with features of the one I wanted and then ended up ordering the dress I wanted through them. Their prices were slightly higher than Debi's Bridal, but they offer a deal where if you order and dress and don't want it, you can get store credit. I thought this was a better option since I was ordering a dress I hadn't even seen in person before.

Alterations

Joan's Alteration's:
I ended up going with this shop on De Zavala after getting recommendations from fellow knotties. I dropped it off on 9/11 and was told to come back on 10/11.  I have to have about 1' hemmed from the front and I am getting a 3-point under bustle done in the back. The total came to about $105, which I think is very reasonable compared to some other quotes I've heard, and especially considering my dress had like 3-4 layers that needed to be dealt with as well.

Shoes

Endless.com: A++
I'm so in love with this website now. They allow you to order shoes and it's free overnight shipping to you, and free return shipping if you don't want them. I've already ordered and sent back like 10 pairs of shoes (some for the honeymoon too) and have had no problem getting my refund. They have excellent prices on most of their shoes as well, so it's all around an amazing deal.

Jewlery

Bridal Jewelry

Etsy Seller: Handwired: A+
I really like the etsy.com website too. I was recommended this seller by another knottie, and was very pleased with the quality of the jewelry and her customer service. She always responded quickly to my questions and she customized my necklace and earring set too. I received the jewelry pretty quickly. I also thought the price was excellent considering the quality, definitely a lot cheaper than you would find in a store.

Engagement and Wedding Jewelry

Zales: B+
The end result was great, but the getting there was a little rough. Tyler found my ring on the Zales website and loved the design, but unfortunately didn't know much about diamonds. I'm not trying to sound snobby here, but the quality of the diamonds at Zales is not very good based on how much they charge you. The ring he originally bought had a huge carbon spot in the middle, which was very unsightly. Since he was leaving a few days later he didn't have time to go to the other Zales shops to see the other versions of my ring. After he left my sister and I went to the other locations and did end up finding the same ring with a stone that had a huge feather instead of the carbon spot. You could still see it, but it wasn't quite as obvious, so I traded rings. Well, as hard of a time as I had doing it, Tyler and I ended up deciding to kind of "re-do" the ring. We spoke with a lady at the Northstar Zales and after much explaining finally got it across that we wanted to just order the semi-mount to the ring. Fortunately that price wasn't so outrageous (although the higher quality diamonds we had them look for to have set in the mount were wayyyyyy overpriced). What we ended up doing was ordering a loose diamond from Blue Nile (see below) and having it mounted in the setting. The end result was a gorgeous center stone in the setting that I wanted for at least half the price than it would have been had the entire ring been bought from Zales. So, even though the end result was great, I'm giving them a B+ because of the hassle of getting there. We also bought our wedding bands at Zales (we had a coupon that saved about $75), and that purchase was fine.

Blue Nile: A+
Excellent, excellent, excellent. For anyone nervous about ordering a diamond online, definitely don't be nervous with this company. I realize the entire diamond market is way inflated, but compared to any diamond you would buy at a retail shop, Blue Nile offers amazing deals. You can get double the grade of diamond for half the price. It's amazing. Their customer service is excellent too. Unlike some companies that you email a question to and you can obviously tell some computer picked out keywords and sent an automated response, a real person read and responded to every one of my questions about how to choose the right diamond. They even went a step further and picked out certain diamonds that they felt best met my criteria, and still did it within my specified price range (so they weren't just trying to make a sale and push me toward something more expensive). When I had finally narrowed it down to two diamonds, someone even went and personally looked at the diamond to verify that it was "eye-clean." They have free overnight shipping too, so not long waiting until you get your precious little rock. I would HIGHLY recommend Blue Nile to anyone I know looking to buy a diamond, or any jewelry that they sell.

The Tux

Men's Wearhouse/Tux Rental:
So far Tyler and I have just stopped by to look at their tuxes, but the girl there was very nice and helpful when we went. I'm pretty sure he knows which tux and vest he will get, so now all we need to do is just go put down the deposit. Not sure yet if we are going to have the groomsmen rent vests or just have them wear blue ties.

Hair and Make-up

Mary E Coop

I found Mary on craigslist. She is a Mary Kay consultant and obviously has experience doing hair. I've only done a trial run with her, and besides the fact that I'm totally changing my hair style, I loved how it came out. She is extremely affordable as well ($25-35) and comes to your place at no extra charge, which makes her a dream find.

Officiant

Micah Coop

Micah is actually Mary's husband. While Mary was over at my parent's house doing my hair and make-up trial we got to sharing our life stories and she talked about how her and her husband are involved in their church, and at one point she mentioned that both of them are ordained ministers. Of course that made me squeal since we had just realized we needed a new officiant. Tyler liked the idea of having a male officiant, so we talked to Mary to see if Micah would be willing to perform our ceremony. It will definitely be a busy day as they need to be at their church around 5:30/6 to get ready for the Christmas service that night, but he agreed to do it anyway. Tyler and I met with the two of them (and their adorable little baby Judah) at Panera Bread while Tyler was back for fall break. We spent the next hour just getting to know each other and making sure our personalities were compatible. We loved how laid back and fun Micah is, so I think he will be great as our officiant. Hopefully it all goes well!

Photographer

Josh Fowler Photography:
We booked Josh Fowler and his fiance (now wife!) Emily on Feb 18.  We took our engagement photos with them on March 8, and were absolutely thrilled with our decision to go with them. They were soo much fun to work with during the engagement session, and their pictures turned out splendidly. They had a really nice mix of traditional poses and some more artistic ones, and they were all pretty well shot (not a lot of weird angles or bad focusing, etc).  They also got the pictures back to us  online in 3 days, which was awesome, and gave us the CD  the next day so we could use them for STDs and newspaper announcements. I'm so excited to use them for my wedding!

Florist

Eden's Echo Floral Design:
I just sent in the deposit on March 16.  I've heard wonderful things about Erin, and my own experience with her has been great. She seems very reasonably priced and like she's a lot of fun to work with. She's helped me with quite a few decisions so far, and has even decided to throw in some extra flowers to my MOH's bouquet at no additional cost. She's amazing! I'll update again when I speak with her closer to the wedding.

Paper

VistaPrint: A+

I ordered my STD's using one of their 100 Free Postcard deals. I uploaded my own images for both the front and back. They get you on the upload fee and shipping, but it still came out to only $14. I can deal with that. :o)  I got the postcards in about 5 days, and I'm very pleased with the quality of printing and service.

I also ordered my photo sharing cards using one of their free 250 business card deals. Only ended up costing the $6 for shipping (got a free upload) and I had them within about 5 days again. So awesome!

Envelopemall.com: A+

I ordered a pack of 100 Stardream Lapis Lazuli 6x9" booklets. I ordered them on Monday night and had them by Friday afternoon. The prices were by far the best I could find ($40 with shipping for the big size we needed). I know it's not their product, but Stardream paper is amazing as well.

Photobook

MyPublisher: A-
I ordered a 20-page basic photobook from them to use as our guestbook. Overall, I was very happy with this purchase. Their software was very easy to use, and I was able to easily upload my photoshop pages into the book. The printing is pretty good, the pages are a nice weight, and they add in two pages of vellum in the front and back, which I think is a very nice touch. Their processing and printing time was also very fast (like a week). The only reason I gave them a minus was because I know they are not top quality and I felt like the front viewing window in the cover could be a little nicer. For the price though ($32 including shipping), I'm very pleased with my purchase.

Cakes

Ultimate Cheesecake Bakery:

We met with the husband who owns the shop near the Quarry. He was very nice and seemed to know a lot about his cakes. He gave us a pretty good presentation of their services. The samples they offered were well displayed and tasted really good. He did admit that they were older samples (frozen for about a month) and that our cake would be only a few days old (he said they do freeze them to aid in the decorating process). The price was pretty good too. For a 3 tier main cake that serves 78, a satellite cake to match the main cake (or could be different, like how we would do it) that serves 50, and groom's cake that serves 50, the total would come out to  $550. This includes any flavor (and you can mix and match tiers), and most decorations.

We booked them to make the Groom's cake, which will be a half-sheet (about 48 servings) of carrot cake with some decoration on top (probably the Duke school logo or something). It's going to cost around $100 for that, and we're picking it up ourselves. I'll update with the quality of the cake after our wedding.

Cakes by Cathy Young:

We met with Cathy second. She obviously has tons of experience (displayed well by the many books we looked through) and her cakes are very well done. Cathy is a very fun, spunky, and friendly lady, and I think we would love working with her. We have heard amazing things about her cakes, although the tasting didn't really live up to it. They just brought out two cupcakes, one white and one chocolate, with some frosting on top. While it was good, it wasn't anything outrageous like we were expecting. I felt like the other place did a much better job with the actual tasting part. Her cakes also come out to be about $200 more than the other place. I also feel like her traditional style might not be as good for what Tyler is looking for for his groom's cake. While I would have loved to try it out and see how amazing it is the day of, we decided not to go with her because of the extra price.

Sweet Traditions:

After meeting Lynda and trying her cakes I knew I was in love! Her white and lemon cake are so delicious. She was super nice and fun, and obviously enjoys what she does. She was very professional and well organized as well, which is something that I definitely appreciate. The cakes in her picture books were beautiful. Her prices were right in between the other two cake places, which means she's still really reasonable but not the cheapest. And she does throw in the cake stand for free. We felt like her carrot cake was designed to be more mainstream and not as "hearty" though, and Tyler wants the full out carrot cake flavor, so we have decided to get the main cake from her and the carrot cake from the first place. We have to meet again to go over specifics of the design, but the general idea is this: a very pale blue frosting over the entire cake, covered with many white snowflakes. She is going to add edible glitter and pearls/beads. We're debating whether to put ribbon around the base of each layer. It's a 4 layer cake, but the bottom tier is going to be fake. It's going to be white cake with a raspberry filling, and will serve 120 people. The cost ended up being $509 with taxes and delivery included.

I'll update after the wedding with what we thought of the finished product. I'm sure it will be amazing!

DJ

Music Connection:

Just sent in the deposit, but I was impressed with reviews I had read, their price, and their customer service so far. I think I will be very happy with them!