We decided to get our DJ from Columbus. We felt that the music was the most important part of the reception, and Jeff made the evening perfect. He is a genius at what he does, and kept the party going all night. He did charge to travel to Wheeling, but it was totally worth it.
Our day would not have gone so smoothly without Bryan and Carol. We did not have a wedding planner but because of their extensive knowledge and experience with weddings the day went off without a hitch. The pictures were beautiful. They are also from Columbus and do charge a travel fee, but their prices are actually more reasonable than the photographers in the Valley. They also give you the option of buying the rights to your pictures so that you can print off whatever you want.
I feel that Oglebay is a wedding factory. It is a beautiful place, but I would recommend going there for picture and having your reception somewhere else. The service was really lacking. My wedding coordinator left Oglebay 4 months before my wedding, and I wasn't informed that I had been given to a new coordinator until about 2 months until the big day. It wasn't fun trying to re-explain everything to a new person who had only done two weddings before mine. In the end though, the new coordinator came through. I just expected way better service for the money I was paying. The food was also just so-so and of course it is expensive!
I was very impressed with flowers provided by Laupp, and the prices were very reasonable. The only thing that I noticed was the roses on my boquet turned slightly brown fairly quickly, but it did not show up in my pictures.
The service offered by Fredericks was absolutely wonderful. The wedding coordinator was more helpful than I could have asked for. She even offered to set up a place for me when I wanted to bring in breakfast for my girls. Unfortunately my hair turned out bad. I went in for a trial, and my curls fell out within 2 hours. On the day of my wedding I told the hair dresser what happened, but she didn't do anything differently and in all my pictures my hair looked like a fallen mess. My bridesmaids didn't turn out any better. One looked like Medusa, and the other had a look out of the 70's. I would suggest being very specific with what you want, and probably go for an up-do that wont fall.