Honeymoon Night Lodging: This was my first experience staying at a Ritz and I can’t wait to go back. They offer several packages to ensure that your wedding night or other special occasion is one-of-a-kind. We were truly treated like royalty and were upgraded to an amazing suite at no cost to us since it was our wedding night! We also received complimentary champagne. The room itself was top-notch and all of the amenities were amazing. It is a little pricey, but you definitely get what you pay for and more!

Sitting Pretty/Party Arts has a vast selection of linens, chair covers, and other linens (i.e., chair ties, runners), as well as other rental needs. They are a little pricier than somewhere like Weinhardt, but they offer much more unique linens and décor. Their staff is a lot of fun to work with and will help you design the décor of your dreams! My linens were unique and beautiful and they were really the inspiration for most of my other decorating.

Rehearsal Dinner: Sage’s space upstairs, which features a large dining room, a private bar/lounge area, and a huge outdoor balcony, is fantastic for private parties. The event staff are very helpful in planning a menu that suits your needs and the food is outstanding. Our guests RAVED about Sage and many of them have since been back to eat at the restaurant.

Overall, Third Degree was a great space – it’s big, unique, and offers something for your guests to look at/watch in that there is blown glass everywhere and you can pay extra for a blown glass demonstration. The only problem we had was that they hadn’t done a lot of wedding receptions when we got married, so the event coordinator was somewhat detached from the planning and there seemed to be a lot more legwork done on my part to get questions answered and tasks accomplished. They are flexible with your catering, but you are required to use their bar services, which are somewhat pricey. The night of the event, the staff was incredible and the venue looked amazing.

Image Artistic was great to work with. They are a small company, but the photographers are talented and use a creative approach to photographing your wedding. They like to capture “action shots” rather than posed photographs; however they also incorporate the necessary posed shots as well. Their pricing is about middle-of-the-road, but with our package we got a lot: a one-hour engagement session and proofs, 2 photographers for 5 hours the day of the ceremony, proofs – both printed and digital from the ceremony, and an album. The staff does a lot of pre-planning to ensure that they capture exactly what you want them to capture.

Hotel Block: Drury Inn is well-known and well-liked nationally. The hotel on Hampton Ave. was new within six months of our wedding so the amenities were outstanding. Making reservations was easy and staff was helpful. They also offer a free breakfast every morning and free cocktails/snacks every evening.

Again, I can’t say enough good things about TKO. They are another business with a long history and a strong reputation, and they lived up to it! Their wedding coordinator is incredibly helpful during the planning stages and – in my opinion – went above and beyond her call of duty to help me pick out the perfect wedding music. You can choose what “style” of DJ you’d like (i.e., reserved, middle-of-the-road, very active) and be very specific about what music/activities you do and don’t want at your reception. Our DJ matched exactly what we’d requested and was dressed professionally in a black tuxedo. Compared to other DJ’s, the price was also very reasonable.

Landolfi was really flexible and great to work with. They offer a lot of different options with different price points to fit your music/budget needs – for example, we had a string trio, which was slightly less expensive than a full quartet. They have a comprehensive website with a lot of good suggestions for wedding music, but they are also very flexible if you request something that is not on their website. There is a two-hour minimum, and they arrive and begin playing approximately 30 minutes prior to the start of your ceremony. The music was beautiful!

The chapel is beautiful and they offer a lot of flexibility in terms of bringing in your own minister, decorations, etc. The chapel is not air-conditioned and is on the second floor of a building, so it would not be ideal for a summer wedding. You have to pay separately for rental of the chapel for your ceremony ($500) and rehearsal ($250), which I thought was slightly ridiculous, but there is a discount if you are affiliated with Eden Seminary. The campus provides plenty of nice backdrops for photos, but the chapel can be difficult for guests to find since it’s housed within a building in the middle of campus.

I can’t say enough good things about Hollyberry. They specialize in “small bites” or appetizer-type foods, which was perfect for us since we did a cocktail reception with no seated dinner. Their staff is amazing – helpful, flexible, available, and accommodating – as is their food and desserts. They re-worked our menu several times due to budgetary constraints and changing needs, and the end result was exactly what we wanted within our budget. The catering staff on the night of the reception were on top of keeping the stations stocked with food, cleaning up dishes/glasses, and they even prepared a full plate of food for my husband and I to ensure we got to eat! If you don’t plan to do a seated dinner, Hollyberry is an excellent choice.