Julia was fabulous from the first day we met with her until the very end. She was prompt to respond to questions, and very willing to work with us in regards to timeline and what group photos we wanted. She was also very flexible - she has a photojournalism style, and so there were very few "you stand there, and you stand there" type photos. She just got whatever group together that we wanted, and had everyone sit or stand however they ended up. We haven't seen the photos yet, but she showed us one or two on her camera the day of, and they looked great. She was very pleasant to work with, as was her assistant. She also stayed past when our contract stipulated, taking pictures of the parent dance even though it wasn't part of our contracted time. She was really great!
Another bonus is that she releases all of the images to us on a disk so that we can have them reprinted at a later date without any hassle. (I tried getting some of my parents' wedding photos reprinted, and the printing place wanted me to contact the photographer from 29 years ago! I don't think he's even in business anymore.)
Arthur's was another fabulous (and local) vendor we had the opportunity to work with. They have everything in stock in their store, so there is no worrying about ordering a tux and having it come in too small or too big with no way to fix it. They sized all the groomsmen and ushers just from measurements faxed or emailed to their store, and only one of them needed some adjusting once they went in to pick the tuxes up. They also were the first tux rental place that has ever suggested my dad use a neck extender for his tux shirt instead of going up a size. That resulted in a much better fit. We didn't need anything special, but they also told me that they can order in anything you might want if they don't have it in the store. They also sell invitations and offer a percentage off if you order your tuxes and invites there.
Shear Katz did a fabulous job with all of our hair (8 updos and 1 wash and blowdry). They were friendly, and got us all out of there quickly. My only issue with them was that I had originally booked only 6 spots, but told them I might need more. They told me that would be fine. When I went to add a couple more, they were booked, but said they could fit us all in in the slots already allotted. They did that, but a couple of the stylists were mentioning in front of us how there weren't supposed to be this many people in my party - even though I had talked to someone at the salon and told them there would be more, and they had said it would be fine. In the end it worked out, but I wasn't very happy that they were making my bridesmaids and myself feel bad for being there, even though I had been told it would be ok, and we were paying them per hairstyle and not just for the set amount of time.
The Twig Bakery provided exactly what we asked for - a beautiful cake that was mostly styrofoam underneath (we had a different desert to serve to guests). But the portion of the cake that was real was EXCELLENT. Their prices were amazing, and the people there were so friendly!
Mike is a family member, but he runs a DJ business out of the Twin Cities. He did a fabulous job of keeping the dance floor packed, and making sure that we got exactly what we wanted. He even provided some spontaneous kareoke at the end of the night (after asking our permission, of course). Everyone had a great time dancing the night away, thanks to him!
Jill & Kiri at The Flower Cart did all of our boquets, boutineers, corsages and centerpieces. They took what we asked for (a green color palet) and ran with it, but in a gorgeous way. We received many many compliments on the flowers, whether it was people stopping me to ask what the flowers were in my boquet (Jade Roses, Mini Calla Lilies, Fiddlehead Fern and some others), or guests commenting on how fabulous the centerpieces looked (half were submerged green tulips and green leaves in cylinders, the other half were floating green orchids in low glass bowls). They were great to work with - very email friendly, and they took all suggestions and helped us form our vision of what the day would look like long in advance of the actual wedding.
Lutsen was the perfect place to go relax after our wedding. Only about 2 hours north of Duluth, it's not too far away, but it's definitely not home. The views are beautiful, and the hiking opportunities in the area are almost endless. We did a lot of short hikes from various stopping points right off of highway 61, and we spent some time in Grand Marais (about 20 miles North of Lutsen), looking in shops and having lunch at cute little cafes. The dining room at the resort is a little spendy, but the pub has food that is just as good, and at a much more reasonable price. We ate most of our dinners there and were always happy with what we got.
We were very happy with our invitations. The rating we have given Target is due to the printing issues we had. The printer didn't like all of the smaller but thick pieces of paper. But I think that any time you print your own invitations that is a possibility. It just meant a lot of time spent feeding paper only a few sheets at a time into the printer. Otherwise, we were very happy with the invitations for the price. I do wish that Target would sell paper that matches - we had a hard time finding paper to print our maps on. We needed sheets bigger than the small sheets they do sell, and couldn't find anything so ended up with something that didn't quite match.
This is a good choice for a couple like us who doesn't want to spend a lot of their budget on paper that will in all probability just be thrown away.