I worked with Dave Henderson for our wedding reception and he was terrific. You can go to their interactive website and really plan your event. They have thousands of songs you can choose from, along with a list of the top 200 songs. Dave was terrific, and he was very respectful of what we wanted. He got involved just enough to get everyone going. He was fantastic, very professional, and I would highly recommend him.
I had a difficult time finding many options for wedding planners located in the Athens area. Luckily I did find Natalie Bradely who was fabulous. I hired her for "day of" coordination because I had a firm idea of the design for my wedding and I had already begun to work directly with vendors. First let me say that Natalie was terrific. She provided exactly the service I was looking for and then some! She is very professional and has an excellent staff. I had a few last minute design issues, and she completely took care of them for me. The day went smoothly and the reception room looked exactly as I had envisioned. Although I only utilized Natalie for "day of" I feel very confident saying that she would also be terrific starting at day 1 of your planning. If you are not comfortable negotiating contracts, you really need to hire a coordinator/planner early. I would highly recommend Natalie Bradley for the job.
I shopped around Athens for florists and decided to work with Maggie Williams at European Floral Design. When I walked into her shop, I knew she would be perfect. She was able to bring my floral vision to life. On the day of, the flowers were fresh, beautiful and exactly what I had in mind. Maggie has wonderful style, and if you don't know exactly what you want, she can give you guidance. I also must say that my bouquet and the table arrangements stayed fresh for days after the wedding. Everything was just beautiful and my guests went on and on about the flowers.
Athens has many great salons who can assist you on your day of beauty preparations. I wanted someone who would come to me, so I contracted with Formal Faces to do my hair and make-up. I met with Shannon for a practice session about three weeks before the wedding. On the day of, she was right on time. My hair and make-up looked terrific all day! She also did my flower girl's hair (which stayed up even through all the dancing and twirling she did at the reception) and my mother's make-up. Everything was perfect!
Steve was just fantastic. We used him for both our engagement photos and for our wedding. I really love his style; he has a great website that gives you a feel for what he can do. He was very professional, arrived on time and, for a tall guy, was very unobtrusive. We couldn't be happier with our photos.