Everyone is raving about our band! In the planning process I didn't realize how vital the band would be, but on the day of our wedding Party of Nine had everyone up and dancing the whole night. They really set the tone for our whole reception. Bernadette (the lead singer) was wonderful to work with before our wedding, and spent a lot of time working on the timing of all of our introductions, first dances, etc so our party would be great. We gave them a list of songs to play, and they did a wonderful job creating the feel we wanted. I highly recommend using them for your party. They were also the same prices other bands (and cheaper than some) even though they were nine pieces.
I can not recommend Wendy Mitchell more highly. When we were first looking at reception venues and photographers were were surprised at the lack of customer service from many vendors. We met with Wendy and she sat with us for two hours and answered all of our wedding planning questions. She was the first person to get us really excited about what our wedding day would feel like. After our meeting we canceled our appointments with other photographers and booked her. She was extremely flexible to work with, and allowed us to swap the engagement session included in our package for rehearsal dinner photography. It was wonderful having her at our rehearsal. Everyone got to know her, and it is nice to have pictures of everyone in a more relaxed setting. On our wedding day Wendy came to take pictures of the bridal party getting ready, and it was so nice having her be a part of our day. All of the other girls were running around doing last minute primping, and Wendy was the person calming me down and telling me I looked beautiful before we left for the church. We took pictures on the Buffalo waterfront, and they are absolutely amazing. I didn’t feel like we were rearranging into different poses for hours, yet Wendy got a great range of formal shots. She also really captured what it felt like to be at the reception, but with good lighting and from flattering angles. She quickly figured out who the really important people were, and she got lots of pictures of our close friends and family at the cocktail hour and dancing. She also managed to get pictures of everyone who was at our wedding, the food, the flowers, and other wedding details. Immediately after the wedding one of my bridesmaids booked Wendy to shoot her son's baptism, and another friend tried to get out of their contract with another photographer to use Wendy for their wedding.
If you are just starting to plan you are probably not thinking of these kinds of things (I wasn’t) but these are things that became really important on our wedding day and after:
Wendy is a really nice person to be around. She put people at ease and sensed what pictures were really important to us and when we were exhausted and sick of taking formal shots. Your photographer will be at your side for your whole wedding day. Make sure it is someone you want to share your day with.
Wendy posts a sneak peek of your wedding day really quickly (like within 12 hours) on her blog. This was so much fun! It was amazing to wake up the day after our wedding and get to immediately see the highlights. I could have never anticipated how important that would have been to me, but seeing the pictures right away was a wedding highlight. We were sitting in the airport on our way to our honeymoon and seeing pictures go up on Wendy's blog and Facebook page.
A few weeks after our wedding we got an unexpected beautifully wrapped package at our door, and it was an album Wendy put together for us. Our wedding was nautical themed, and she even made a custom "sail away" box for the CDs of pictures. After all of the wedding excitement is over, and gifts have stopped arriving at your door this will mean a lot to you.
Check out our pictures on Wendy's blog -- RJ and Elizabeth, June 11th 2011.