I paid only $575 for this, however his prices have since gone up since he was very new when I found him. This price was for 5 hours of pictures. If you are looking for AMAZING wedding pictures and pictures of every moment of your day go somewhere else. For me he was good enough and the price was right. His pictures are good and he doesn't make you buy and album afterwards, he just gives you a dvd of ALL the pictures he took throughout the night and gives YOU the rights to print them, which is great. You can go to walmart and print them or wherever for much cheaper than a photographer would charge you. My husband and I were satisfied with the pictures, but my Mom didn't love them. Check him out if you don't have thousands of dollars to drop on other photographers.

Here is the website: http://www.jameswphoto.com/

If you are interested in seeing examples from my wedding photos that he took feel free to email me at meghanjournot@gmail.com.

I don't remember what I paid total at this place, but I do know it is a little more expensive than some places, but the service and product you get are incredible and worth it. I did invitations, flower girl stuff, ring bearer stuff, favors, and gifts for the wedding party (bridesmaids only here) all at this store. They have it all. I got beautiful compacts for all the girls that are very fancy and I had them engraved with their initials. The invitations were top notch and everyone loved them! The shop is small and located in Wheaton, IL. It is run by a married couple and they are fantastic. If you are looking for great service and a superior product, stop in and check the place out, you will not be disappointed.

Website: http://www.thiaandco.com/

I am unsure of the cost since my in-laws paid for this, but it is reasonably priced for a nice sit down pizza restaurant. This is the South Naperville location (59th st next to blockbuster). We had about 20 people at this dinner and they accommodated us very well. Great service, great food, and a great family place (if kids are involved this is good). Most people don't think about a pizza place for a rehearsal dinner, but it works very well.

I can't recall how much it cost to have the chapel for the hour of the wedding. I don't seem to have that written down for some reason. I liked the fact that I could have my wedding in the same place as my reception. Most reception halls only have room in the actual reception room for you to get married, but DiNolfo's (Homer Glenn location) has a beautiful upstairs chapel inside that has these perfect white chairs and pretty decorations. They also have a mirror right up front. It is perfect because all the guests can see the bride and groom the whole time, not just the back of them like normal. You can have whoever you want marry you there, doesn't have to be a specific religion. Although, I believe Catholic priests cannot marry you outside of a Catholic Church.

This place is perfect, I highly recommend checking it out. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it.

I loved this place. I feel they are very talented because of my specific situation. I was planning my wedding to be in the suburbs of Chicago because that is where my family lives, but I was out of town mostly. I was unable to actually go to this bakery and meet the people that work there or tell them in person what I wanted. I had to go through my reception hall that works with them. I didn't even have a picture, I felt awful. All I could tell them was that I wanted a plain, white, circular layers (4 of them), simple smooth white frosting nothing fancy, with randomly placed red roses (frosting) on the cake spread out. I was supplying the cake topper. They somehow made the perfect cake of my dreams just from that information! If they can do that, they can do anything you ask in my opinion.

Oh and remember that they put layers of cardboard on top of each layer of cake so that the cake remains stable. I just warn you because my husband and I didn't know that and we looked like morons while trying to slice our cake ;) We had to have it pointed out to us because we were like...what is it frozen. So no it isn't frozen you just have to start cutting slightly below where you think you should. Hopefully that helps someone.

I really liked the job that my stylist did on my hair. It looked fantastic. In that regard I would give the salon a 5/5. However, the make-up was awful. I was told that my make up would look natural, which was very important to me because I don't wear heavy make up normally. Well it was ridiculous looking and overly made up! I was upset, and I ended up having to have a bridesmaid fix it for me when we got back to my place to get ready further.

My mom and sister got their hair done as well and it was also fantastic looking. I do believe this place might have closed since my wedding though. It was located by 59th and 95th st right in front of the new Showplace 16 theater right across from Jewel.

I loved David's Bridal for bridesmaids dresses. They were the perfect choice for quality on a budget. If you go to normal bridal dress stores you pay an arm and a leg, and I knew my bridesmaids all could not afford super expensive dresses. I picked out a simple knee length red dress with a white sash for each of them. They got to pick the neck line cut of their dresses individually and it only cost them each $100. I didn't make them buy specific shoes, they were just had to be black strappy heels of any kind.

The staff are very helpful and the alteration team are amazing! I highly recommend this place.

I got all of my flowers at Jewel Osco's flower shop. Again, being on a budget, I wanted to find a place to get good quality flowers for less than the flower shop price. I ordered my bouquet and my husbands boutonniere to be custom made through them and picked up the day of the wedding. You have to pay half of the cost up front the day you order and then the other half on pick-up. On the day of the wedding my sister in law picked up 2 dozen white roses from Jewel as well and we all put together the bridesmaids bouquets on our own that way to save some money. I just tied three white roses together for each of them with black ribbon. I did not do boutonnieres for the groomsmen at all. I recommend doing flowers this way before spending a ton of money on flowers at a floral shop. I didn't need flowers for decorating the chapel or reception hall because I found a place with pretty decorations already.

If you are getting married in a church and are concerned about having to by flowers to decorate the church consider getting married in April. My parents got married at the end of April (around Easter) and so the church already had tons of pretty flowers from the Easter season decorating it. Just something to think about! Also if red is part of your theme, a wedding around Christmas might be a good time because of the red poinsettias.

This is a small DJ company that is run very well. The owner of the company actually did our wedding himself and he was fantastic! His name is Jay Congdon. They allowed me to create a whole list of songs that I wanted to play, as well as marking certain songs as DO NOT play. He also took requests of guests at the wedding. This company was a fantastic find for me, as I was trying to plan my wedding on a budget. Most great DJs are much more expensive, however because they run this business out of the President's house and not in some fancy building they pay rent for, they can afford to give great service at a great price. I highly recommend them.

Website: http://www.discjockey.org/