Cinegirl's reviews

My DH made the same "Friends"-related joke throughout the wedding planning process, so I knew I'd have to get a custom t-shirt made up with that on it. I looked at several websites and chose CustomizedGirl.com because they allow a high level of customization (a lot of other sites restricted you to their template) for a very reasonable price. Even with rush fees and overnight shipping, my shirt was under $30, printed front and back with two different colors of ink and type styles. Plus they keep sending me coupons to buy more stuff. If only I could think of something else to put on a shirt!

I knew I wanted something custom-embroidered, but I kept going back and forth between a robe and a hoodie. Once I found out that I would be having my hair and makeup done at the hotel (because my original makeup artist flaked), I got a robe on sale at Mervyn's and called Ramiro's.

They let me pick the font and the color, had it ready the next day and, best of all, charged me $10. My only regret is that I told them the wrong side to put it on -- I should have had it done on the right side, not the left. Highly recommended.

Pre-Wedding: 1 star
Final Invitations: 3 stars

I'm sorry that I cannot recommend this vendor. They do nice work, but it was a gigantic pain trying to get them to give me a delivery date for anything. I practically had to beg for my proofs, they were confused when DH called them to give them his credit card number for payment (the girl asked him, "Wait, are you calling to get our credit card number, or to give us your credit card number?"), and it took four phone calls to finally get our invitations with barely four weeks to go before our RSVP date. I probably should have been warned when they were unable to give me a firm date for delivery and kept telling me, "We're within the parameters for your date." What the heck is that supposed to mean?

The final product turned out fine and she threw in some extras for our trouble (like free envelope lining) but the whole process was just too painful. I think the lesson is: there's no such thing as bargain letterpress. Either it's insanely expensive, or it's a gigantic pain in the ass.

Jane does a good job at a fair price, but she can get so busy that she forgets about you. I went in for my first fitting only to discover that she'd completely forgotten about our appointment and hadn't even started working on my dress yet. She rescheduled me for the following week and was ready.

She did do a very good job of taking my dress in (I bought it online and it had to be taken in four inches) and doing a simple but pretty bustle at a very reasonable price, so I would still recommend her. During the busy season, I would definitely advise calling her a few days before your appointment to confirm it with her.

She did a very simple bustle that somehow got torn up by the end of the day (someone probably stepped on it and I didn't notice) but it looked nice while it lasted.

I was a little worried about getting our cake from Porto's, because other people had warned me that they weren't very stylish and didn't have creative flavors like a lot of the other cake makers do. Still, G. was very insistent that we get our cake from Porto's so we could be sure it would taste good, so I agreed.

We got the Cuban cake (yellow cake dipped in rum) filled with Bavarian cream and frosted with Italian meringue. I gave them a picture of a cake that had caught my eye and asked them to duplicate it as best they could.

Not only did the duplicate it, they improved on it! They did a very artistic version of woodgrain and then carefully "burned" it with a blowtorch to darken it.

And it was delish, too -- my husband's nephew (who normally doesn't like cake) admitted to eating two pieces at the wedding and taking seven pieces home. We were lucky to get a slice of our own cake to take back to the hotel.

Buying from PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com is a lot like buying from eBay: you buy from an individual, not a company. It's really more of a bulletin board allowing people to sell their dresses. They tend to sell higher-end and designer dresses, so if you've been dying to get a Monique Lhullier but can't quite justify the price tag, see if someone is selling theirs here.

I bought my Watters & Watters 4063B for under $400 (including shipping) new with tags from a seller in Maryland who had bought another dress she liked better. I received it in great condition exactly as she had represented it to me.

Keep in mind that there is always a risk when buying person-to-person. Try to buy using your credit card through PayPal so you have an extra layer of protection, and NEVER send cash.

I contacted Sherry less than a month before my wedding, panicked because the person I had originally booked had canceled on me (and disappeared with my money) and the person she had referred me to turned out to be already booked at my time. Luckily, Sherry was available even on such short notice.

Because she was doing hair/makeup for both myself and my MOH for an 11:00 a.m. ceremony, she had to arrive at the hotel in Pasadena at 5:30 a.m. She was on time (despite saying that she'd gotten a little lost because of a freeway closure) and very perky for that hour of the morning. She did a gorgeous updo on my MOH and a great job on me as well. Definitely recommended.

Pre-Wedding and Day-Of Grade: A
Final Grade: Pending

My final grade for Young Lee of Firefly Videography is pending because I don't have my video (and won't for several months) but we were very happy with him on the day of our wedding. He was very quiet and unobtrusive (as we wanted) but he seemed to be everywhere. He was either right in front of us shooting over the photographers' shoulders or he was filming the guests and the location. All of this on a 100-degree day in Pasadena.

Prior to the wedding, he was very good about keeping in touch and checked in with us by e-mail several times. He prefers e-mail to phone calls, but we didn't find that a problem at all. We ended up having to hire him sight unseen -- we missed one appointment with him because of a nasty car accident on the freeway, and then I had my knee surgery to deal with. But it all worked out and there were no mix-ups at all on the day of that we know of.

We told Young that he can get as cinematic and non-wedding-video-y as he likes with our video since DH and I are both film geeks/film school graduates, so we're looking forward to seeing what he comes up with!

We really only hired her for day-of coordination but, once we hired her, Heather was constantly checking in to see if we needed anything. When my makeup artist (the now-infamous Tess) flaked on me, she gave me a list of people to try, and I ended up booking with Sherry McAnelly, who was great. When our musicians panicked me a week before the wedding by suddenly saying they couldn't play my custom song, Heather dealt with it.

And she was even better on the day of: everyone knew where to go and when to be there. The guests really appreciated it and said it was the best-organized wedding they'd been to. She ran the iPod, reapplied my lip gloss, and helped me get a raspberry stain out of my dress.

I really, really, REALLY wanted a petal toss but couldn't figure out how we could manage it with an indoor ceremony. Heather finally said, "Why not just stage it outside? Have everyone gather around and just toss the petals for the camera." And that's what we did.

Along with our coordinator, Heather from Martinis & Bliss, Cat and Adi from Next Exit Photography were our favorite vendors. Cat was our "official" photographer and contact person, and she was very patient about answering all of my constant e-mails. She even forgave me for being 45 minutes late to our engagement picture session. :-o

I told Cat a few weeks before the wedding that we really needed to get our proof album within three weeks of the wedding, because we were going back to Illinois for a second reception and we wanted to be able to show it to all of our relatives. Not only did she get our beautiful proof album to us before we left, she snuck us to the front of the line and blogged us early so our relatives who couldn't make it to California could have a preview.

I would be willing to recommend them strictly on the basis of their responsiveness and professionalism, but, luckily, they're amazingly talented photographers, too!