Wedding Vendor Reviews- the good, the great, and the ugly!

Here are some reviews of our wedding Vendors- the good, the great, and the ugly!

Cake:  Udderly Sweets  http://www.udderlysweets.com/
The ladies at Udderly Sweets are fantastic!    This is a mother-daughter team whose bakery is in their home and if they had more time (the cakes are so delicious they stay busy) they would expand to a stand-alone facility.    The cakes are very reasonably priced and these ladies will bend over backwards to accommodate what you want.  They said multiple times: "it's your day so we will do whatever you like."

We chose a 3 tier cake with red velvet on the top and bottom layers.  The middle layer was sour cream & almond- yummy!  We had cream cheese icing with a top fondant layer- and here's the "icing on the cake"- they hand-make their white chocolate fondant- yum, yum!  The words on the cake are the lyrics to our first song "Come Live With Me" by Ray Charles.  Let me be perfectly honest, I ate a piece of my wedding cake every day for breakfast (with coffee, of course) the week we returned from our honeymoon!  Clearly, I am a fan!

Wedding Reception:  The Hickory Room  http://www.bibsdowntown.com/the-hickory-room

What a fun party!  Honestly, it was great!  The space was perfect because there is an upstairs area for additional seating (all the kiddos had a blast running up & down the stairs- entertaining themselves), neutral colors, a pretty fire place, great lighting options- etc!  The staff is super friendly as well - our wedding was around 100 guests so there were about 4-5 servers for our party.  They also walked around refilling everyones wine glasses, we later found out, and that is perfect!  That extra attention to detail is great- no one had to keep coming to the bar- the bar came to them!

Catering:  Bibs Downtown  http://www.bibsdowntown.com/

Bibs Downtown is a local restaurant in the heart of Winston Salem, NC.  The Hickory Room is attached to Bibs and owned by Bibs so they did our catering.  Bibs has a great reputation for excellent bar-b-que and their reputation is well earned.  Our guests raved about the food- and I am such a fan of bar-b-que!

DJ:    Beathouse Productions, LLC- Wesley Longsdorf www.beathousepro.com
This guy was awesome!  He offered to meet anywhere in person and go over our expectations for the day!  My emails and calls were responded to right away- which is huge for me!  He kept the party music going, and did a great job of mixing the "younger" and "older" generations' music so that everyone was happy!  Our guests commented on how good he was at taking requests and actually playing what was asked of him- we are totally pleased and I would recommend Beat House Productions to anyone for any event- he's got you covered! 

Limousine:  First Class Limousine- Aaron Welding www.firstclasslimoservice.net
Aaron was wonderful to work with!  He was quick to respond and gave us a wonderful rate based upon the hours we would need him.  He also was super flexible- I sent him the schedule for pick-ups, locations, etc and when rain threatened to change things he was ready to go with the flow!
Flowers:  Reggies Flowers  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Reggies-Flower-Shoppe/208710179288?sk=info
The flowers are beautiful- hands down.  During the consultation I was asked a ton of detailed questions so that they could get at exactly what "my" idea of fall is, colors of fall, etc so that they would order the perfect flowers to match what I was going for.  The flowers were delivered perfectly on time and in great condition.  I saved a bouquet and put into a vase before we left for our honeymoon- as a testament to their quality- upon returning home from our 8 day honeymoon- the flowers still looked brand new!  As a side note, however, they are not always good at returning emails.  They seem to stay pretty busy and if you want an answer right away you may just have to wait.  I put in a few emails and had to make a call or two sometimes before I got an answer a couple of times.  They are always very nice- just not super fast with email!

Wedding Dress:  Davids Bridal  http://www.davidsbridal.com/HomeView

Picked this out with my Mom and was the 2nd dress I tried on- I absolutely love it and it was on sale!!!

Bridesmaids Dress:  English's- Clemmons, NC  http://englishbridal.com/

Flower Girl Dress:  Consignment Shop- Greensboro, NC
Mens Suits:  Joseph A. Bank   http://www.josbank.com/
Photography:  Allure Photography- Doug Rice  http://www.allurephotous.com/

His photography is beautiful and- unfortunately, that's where the positive comments have to stop.  We were excited to be working with Doug and found his photos to be beautiful and his office/home immaculate- so we felt he had it all together.  Our first experience with him was our engagement photo session- he immediately gave Justin a bad feeling.  He commented on how "stiff" my fiance was posing in the pictures and that he needed to loosen up.  For my fiance- he is not used to being in front of cameras and "calling him out" was not a good (or professional) way to solve the issue.  The next thing- I called Doug to update him on a few things and mentioned that it may be best for him to start at 3 instead of 2 so he could photograph more of the reception--he completely freaked out and said he was sorry but he could not work within that time frame and he needed to be able to take good pictures.  Now, keep in mind I said several times that I had not made the schedule for the day yet this was just something I was tossing around.  The next issue- he wanted us to meet him in person the week of the wedding (which, by the way, is not super convenient with everything going on the week of).  This day just happened to be a busy day for my fiance who works 2 hours way from Dougs studio- so I called Doug to see if he could meet us - still in his city- just somewhere closer like at a Starbucks perhaps.  Again, he freaked out and literally said he would not meet us.  He said he stopped meeting clients years ago and what would happen if we were late- what?  He was very inflexible and everything revolved around him.  When I told him I had too many other things going on that week to re-schedule he rudely told me "I guess your photography is just not a priority for you then"- how rude!  People please be careful-- you do not want someone like this to make you worried about your pictures, or stress you out the week of your wedding- I do not recommend Allure Photography.  His photos are, indeed, beautiful- but then again- so are so many other photographers photos and many others who will be nice to paying customers.

Canceled Venue:  The Shaffner House-  http://www.shaffnerhouse.com/

We originally scheduled (and paid a $1200 deposit) for this place- it is historical and lovely!  If you have a wedding reception you are required to book the entire bed and breakfast so we thought it would be nice to have our whole wedding party & parents stay- we were excited!  We were told that for the catering- they were new to having it in house and for us to give them our per person budget and they would work with us on the menu.  Also, we were told that the previous managers (same owner the entire time) did not run a good business and that's why if we looked at their reviews it would be bad- but - they were working to repair their reputation.  As we found out, their reputation is spot on.  My wedding was in October and I am very organized person- and know that planning early is key.  In January I started my communications with Betty Falls (owner) on getting catering set (I sent her our budget)- she replied with a menu.  The menu did not have 1 item on it that would work with our budget so I sent her a list of items we wanted served and simply asked for the price.  Well, after multiple attempts to contact her- I heard back in March.  The total- was more than double the per person budget we set.  To make a long story short- there was a lot of back and forth and never once did they offer anything within our budget- and this didn't include alcohol.  Our per person price was just that- per person... not per person + +.  In addition, almost every time Betty sent a new quote to me- she would add on new fees not previously discussed.  It became apparent that there was no way we would be able to get her to work within our true budget and we were looking at being ripped off - we didn't want to start off our life together like that!  So we walked!  That's when we found The Hickory Room and fell in love and it worked out wonderfully.  As for Betty Falls and The Shaffner House- we are still trying to get our deposit back- keep in mind we canceled 6 months prior to our event.  Also, it should come as no surprise that our latest attempt to contact her in regard to our deposit was a week and a half ago and yep, you guessed it, we have not heard anything back.  Be warned friends, the Shaffner House will not honor their word and are every bit of the negative reputation they've built.

So as you can see- we had our ups and downs as far as vendors go but I can honestly say that overall the wedding planning experience was a great one and our wedding day was absolutely perfect!  The vendors that are genuinely happy to see a couple get married and want to make their day special are the ones that left that impression with us- they deserve great reviews that hopefully lead to even more business.  Those that were difficult- at the end of the day- ultimately they are being selfish and they also deserve the reviews they get!  And that's where I stand.