We got all our flowers and rented vases from Rubia Flower Market, who had been recommended to me. They were great. They spent lots of time with us figuring out what we wanted and giving good suggestions. I was able to completely customize our flower arrangements. Unfortunately, several of the vases broke on their way back to the shop. You’ll have to be really careful and perhaps cart them in something other than the boxes they provide.

The Holiday Inn is a nice hotel with a great downtown location, just a step away from Duncan Hall, where we had our wedding and reception. We got a block of rooms for a good price and were able to get additional rooms after our deadline was up. Good customer service.

I had a great experience at Christina’s. They were able to take my stick-straight hair and give it a nice curl that lasted all night. I was very happy that they were able to give me the look I was after. Good service, on-time, great result, beautiful pictures.

I don’t think I’ll be taking another Carnival Cruise. For your honeymoon, splurge a little if you can and at least upgrade to Royal Caribbean. The pools were closed, the boat was smokey and smelled like sewage some of the time and it all looked a little old. The food was not spectacular. That said, we had fun doing the activities, gambling a little, seeing shows, etc. We also had a GREAT time on our excursions in Mexico.

This was a five-star hotel. The room was amazing – perfect for a honeymoon. It was a pretty good spot in the city, too, set somewhat between Beverly Hills and Hollywood.

My custom invitations, designed and printed by Heather Jeany, an etsy.com vendor, were amazing. They were an amazing bargain, too. She worked with me to design the absolute perfect invitations, from colors to fonts and finally, a beautiful bird lovebird motif. They are so special and I kept five sets for posterity. I highly recommend her.

We had excellent service at Zales, where we bought my wedding ring. When the salesperson quoted us the wrong price accidentally, she honored it when she realized her mistake, saving us upwards of one hundred dollars. Then, free of charge, they had the ring resized to so that I could set my engagement ring inside it. They also offer free cleaning every time I stop by. First-rate service.

Though we bought probably the least expensive men’s ring they had, they treated us very well. I give them a 3 because I believe we had to check in with them to see if the ring had arrived, when we would have preferred they call us.

We were able to rent good-looking tuxes at a fair price (with the group discount) from Mr. Penguin. I give them 3 stars because they were busy and apparently understaffed. Each time we went there, we ended up waiting for what seemed like hours.

I feel a little silly writing a review of Pastor Nellis. I grew up with the Nellises and they are really like family. Objectively, I can say that he did a wonderful job. We decided together which vows we wanted to say and what parts of the service we wanted to include. He was a calm presence at our rehearsal who kept all of us with jitters and nerves on track. We were so happy he was available and could marry us outside his church.