We ordered porcelain Christmas ornaments (oak leaves) as our wedding favors. This site has excellent customer service and provides a 5% discount to returning customers.
Great site. Easy to set up and use. Sent check in a timely manner.
Quick delivery. Lots of options. Loved the veil. I got one with pearls and crystals.
Joe Cea played the organ at our ceremony and the keyboard at our reception, and did a wonderful job. He also arranged for a vocalist at the ceremony, and a bass player and percussionist at our reception. He seemed slightly out of his element with the organ music at the ceremony, particularly when the selections were not “standards” (my fiancé is a musician and had selected some non-standard items, and had also made special arrangements for some of the selections). However, it is worth noting that when the vocalist who was originally scheduled for the ceremony fell sick the night before, Joe arranged for a substitute, who did a great job. Joe was responsive throughout the planning process. And finally: the music at the reception was flawless. His trio played a combination of light jazz and – since my wedding theme was based on the movie Brigadoon – Lerner and Loewes show tunes. Highest possible rating for the trio—if you want light jazz, show tunes, etc. with a classy sound, then we would recommend him without reservation.
Great tasting cake! For my wedding cake, I ordered 3 different flavors: Almond pound with apricot preserves, carrot cake with pecan praline, and chocolate raspberry with fresh raspberries and chocolate ganache filling. All 3 were magnificent. In fact, even though we ordered enough cake to have plenty of leftovers … the guests tended to eat all three flavors so we had NO leftovers! These were by far the best tasting cakes we ever tried … moist and delicious flavor combinations. Dorian studied under Jacque Torres.
Lyn Graves was our florist. He is an artist, to say the least! We had a consultation and from that he provided estimated costs with general indications of what we would be provided … no specifics, though. This is probably not a good vendor for the bride who must control all the details at every step of the way. Lyn takes your inputs as a stepping off point. We had specified wanting fall fruit incorporated into our design – such as artichokes, pomegranates, and figs and wanted tiger lilies (bride’s favorite flower) but no Gerber daisies. The contract specified that we would get fall fruit like pomegranates, and figs and flowers like tiger lilies. And of course we understood that flowers and fruit would depend on what looked good at the time of the wedding. We got green apples but no artichokes, pomegranates or figs (and the pomegranates at Harris Teeter in Raleigh looked amazingly good!); we got tiger lilies and we got Gerbers in the attendants bouquets only (since the bride did not like them but wasn’t hard core enough to ban them). That was disappointing BUT the end effect of the arrangements was magnificent. Both the ceremony site flowers (including the wreaths on the door, attendants’ flowers, brides flowers, mothers roses) were beautiful and the reception site looked like a magazine cover. Beautiful and sophisticated, even though not exactly what the bride had envisioned.
Father Flynn was THE PERFECT celebrant for us! He went out of his way to ensure we got the ceremony we most wanted … one centered on God and our Christian beliefs. I highly recommend Father Flynn. Since we are not from Raleigh, we were very concerned with finding a celebrant that we would feel comfortable with. Father Flynn fit the bill. We met for a consult and were immediately impressed. He is truly concerned with making sure couples are ready to commit to marriage (without being overbearing) and provided excellent reading material on our request. He was very timely in all our email correspondence and provided valuable information above and beyond the details of the ceremony itself (e.g., change of name). We highly recommend Father Flynn as an officiant.
Excellent quality dresses. Delivery was usually very quick (had a couple of issues with them sending the wrong item). Sizes are a bit off, though.
Amanda photographed our rehearsal dinner as well as the wedding. We couldn’t have gotten a more dedicated and tireless photographer. Amanda and her assistant Amy worked hard to provide a wide variety of photographs. Amanda has a great eye for detail, a real sense of composition and artistry, and an ability to capture both formal and impromptu moments beautifully. Best of all, she has a real gift for working with people. She provided just enough in the way of guidance and direction to keep things moving, without ever being pushy or “taking over.” It was like having your photography done by a good friend who also just happens to be an extremely competent photographer. We felt absolutely at ease throughout the whole process. Amanda was also very good at taking un-posed, informal, and/or candid shots while remaining unobtrusive. Our pictures turned out wonderful! We highly recommend Amanda.