I had some issues with vendors and others were amazing. Below are the vendors I used or when using my own talents where I got my supplies from:
Venue
*****
The fabulous House of Blues Cambridge Room in Cleveland, Ohio. I cannot say enough good things about them. They kept in contact with me throughout the entire planning process. Quick responses to questions, very helpful and set up the venue exactly how we imagined. If you are looking for a non-traditional venue in Cleveland Ohio I highly Recommend them!
Bakery
*****
We went with Wild Flour Bakery in Rocky, River Ohio. You can see my post above with more details. They were absolutely wonderful and had delicious cake!
Flowers, Centerpieces, Paper Supplies, Decor
*****
Pat Catan's Craft Store (mostly northern Ohio craft store)
Flowers, ribbon, floral tape, paper mache boxes for card box, scrapbook paper for box and centerpieces, centerpiece vases, water marbles, Scrapbook paper for numbers used for place cards, Frames for vintage Ohio and California hankies, Buckeye candy, plastic bag for favors.
Michael's Craft Stores.
The small frames for the table numbers were purchased at Michael's in the dollar section. They seem to change them each season with different colors. (you could easily spray paint them to match your theme)
DJ
***
We went with DJ AMP through Jerry Bruno and I was happy with her services until the reception. We did give her a do not play list that basically consisted of no Lady GaGa (which I gave into later for a friend) and no line dance type songs. Other than that we were pretty open. The entire night I had guests coming up to me and complaining that the DJ will not play their request. (keep in mind she had papers on the tables asking guests to request songs). I remember going over to her and she asking what I want next and saying we didn't want to go back a decade in music. I was kind of shocked by that as what does what decade music came out have to do with how good it is? We requested one song for the opening (BEP - Tonight's Going To Be A Good Night) but she seemed to play loud and heavier music which in turn caused many of the older guests to decide to leave the wedding. This really bummed me out. She had asked earlier if a friend of hers could "shadow" her and being the nice person I am I said sure... but later I wonder if she was not sitting with her friend would her performance and music selection been better? We felt a bit let down as her site claims she has worked in NYC and LA and under Prince in a dance group (or something). It wasn't terrible service, but I felt it could have been much better for what we expected.
Photographer
*
We hired Carol Malick to shoot our wedding and I honestly regret it.
I could write paragraphs about what was wrong. I'll spare you, but if you are really interested feel free to contact me. I'll just say that there is absolutely no way this woman is a professional. Reasons I conclude this: She shoots angles a lot. Once in a while this can look creative, but when it's done so much it starts to look like an excuse for poor compositional skills. Blurry out of focus shots, white balance issues (my cake was white, not yellow... and no, none of the reception lighting was yellow at all... and even so it took me seconds in photoshop to do a quick correction), poor judgement on background for portraits, and my photos were all at 72dpi. 72 dpi is considered a low resolution...
This is a screenshot of the actual size of the original photos she was going to give me. Notice the actual size is only 4x6 inches? I was told I'd get high resolution images... I'd expect high res images from a Canon 5D would be a lot bigger than 4x6 inches. (540 ppi? really...)
So, like I wrote above I did send my photographer a message asking where a lot of moments were that she missed so she offered to send me all 1700 something photos she took. Here is a screen shot of those file sizes.
I guess she thought because the file size is 78 by 52 inches at 72 ppi/dpi they were high resolution.
72ppi/dpi is considered a low resolution. 300 is more like a print quality. 72 pixels per inch vs. 300 pixels per inch... which would you rather have your files saved as?
Just so much crap, I get sick thinking I paid money for this.











