I have been taking all of my alterations to Debbie since high school, and she is now doing all of the alterations for my wedding. She is also making all of my bridesmaids' dresses! When Debbie found out that I wanted to let all of my bridesmaids choose their own dresses, she offered to make them so they would all be made out of the same material/dye cut. Debbie's work is absolutely wonderful - the dresses she makes look like they came off the rack of a store, but they are tailored to fit!

Pastor Daniel has been my pastor at Mountain Springs Church for a number of years, and is going to be officiating our wedding. I have attended two weddings he officiated, and I have to say that the ceremonies were a perfect mixture of sentimental and fun. One of the weddings I went to was very formal, so the officiating was a bit more on the sentimental side, and the other was more casual, so it was a bit more fun. I have also attended three weddings he did not officiate, and found them for the most part pretty boring. He is a strong, godly pastor and teacher, and not at all boring, so I would highly recommend him :). Note: all couples who wish to have a Mountain Springs pastor officiate their wedding are required to go through premarital counseling. The counseling we received from an older couple at MSC was AMAZING - we are so much more prepared for married life now! I say this to recommend that this is not a deterrent, but rather a bonus for having Pastor Daniel (or any of the pastors at MSC) officiate the ceremony!

I went to have a pre-wedding appointment with Sara to see how the hair style I wanted would look. As she was working, she made a few suggestions here and there which turned out wonderful - she is incredibly helpful and sweet, and a wonderful hairdresser!

Zach is a friend of ours who is just starting to break into the wedding photography arena. He did our engagement photos for us, which I thought turned out pretty good (except for our red cheeks and noses from the cold :)). He is very eager to please, so if you don't like the original shots for whatever reason (my only complaint was that there was a mixture of mud and snow in the background and our faces betrayed the cold weather, which was NOT his fault), he is willing to go out again on a different day to take more for no extra charge. He is very competitively priced to begin with, and he has some fantastic ideas for editing the photos and adding a few cool effects :). He is (hopefully) going to be doing our wedding too, so the price I included is a package including both the engagement photo and the wedding.

I chose Hillside Gardens because I loved the rose garden where the wedding would take place, and because I wanted to have an outside wedding. The wedding grounds are beautiful, but the rest of the garden has some rather strange art that is only partially hidden when the trees are in bloom (including a rather large metal spider to welcome guests at the front gate). Like I said, though, the wedding site itself is beautiful, and made me forgive the other quirks :). The pricing is a bit high - especially considering that set-up and tear-down of tables and chairs is not included, and that I have to provide EVERYTHING else - linens, place settings, caterer, tables and chairs for guests above the 150 mark (Hillside says it accomodates up to 250, but only has tables and chairs for 150), and all decorations. I did opt to reserve two time slots (afternoon for $800 and evening for $1930), because the evening slot would have made the reception a bit short, which added a good chunk more to the cost. In the end, I think I am going to have a beautiful wedding, but I wish I could have paid less for the site - I almost could have done it at the Briarhurst for this price.

I have just chosen to go with Heart 2 Heart catering. The prices are the best I've found, and the quality does not seems to have suffered because of it. I truly believe that the head chef and owner, Aron, desires to help me make my wedding a beautiful day. So many of the caterers I have talked to have left me feeling like all they are trying to do is profit off of my wedding, because they have not seemed to be listening to me when I have told them I am working in a limited budget. Aron did not give me that impression, and whenever he suggested a more expensive option, he would explain why he recommended it for my wedding (e.g.: he recommended a fondant cake icing for my outdoor wedding so that if the wind blows, things like leaves and dirt won't stick in the frosting). Also, after he gave me a quote for how much it would cost to rent linens and place settings from him, I compared his prices to the prices from the rental company and found that it came out to about the same/ a little cheaper when I added in the extra cost it would be for the items to be delivered, set up, taken down, and washed. This gave me confidence that he was not trying to make as much money off of my wedding as he could, but rather was trying to help me as much as he could.

I have been going to Debbie for all of my alterations since I was in high school. She is a fabulous seamstress, and specializes in formal wear. She is making my veil and all my bridesmaids' dresses, as well as doing all of my alterations. Debbie's work is affordable and quality. She is also very sweet and has wonderful customer service skills! She makes you feel so comfortable!

David's Bridal had great customer service, a good selection, and the best prices of all the bridal shops I visited. When I went to buy my dress, I had heard that a sale was going on, but I found out when I got there that the sale had ended a few days before. I decided to wait and come back when there was another sale. As I was driving away, the young woman who had been helping me called to say that she had just talked to her manager and found out that a sale was starting the next day, and that her manager would honor it that day. I went in immediately to buy the dress! I was amazed and so glad that she called me!