I found limelight productions at the bridal extravaganza. They caught my attention right away because instead of a regular booth, they set up a mini-studio and took pictures of each person, and printed them on-sight with their business information in the corner. I met with them the following week and looked at their photography. They had pretty good prices, especially with the show special, but I felt very pressured to get a bigger package and book immediately. They really don’t want to give you time to think about it and try to make you put down a deposit immediately. Although they had great pictures, their pushy-ness turned me off from them and I went with another photographer. I do plan on hiring them to come to my reception and set a "photo session" corner so they can take pictures of my guests and print two copies, one to take home and one for the guest book. Its only going to cost about $250 and they're postcard sized prints! Most photo booths cost over $1000 and you only get tiny pictures.

For my wedding favors, I am ordering fortune cookies from the Oriental Trading Company. You can order them with love quotes or custom wedding messaged inside. They are very inexpensive and I am getting together a group of my bridesmaids so we can dip them in melted white chocolate and then into a bowl of white sprinkles. This will give them an extra elegance and make a great wedding favor. Each one will be placed in a little chinese-food styled takeout box (perfect because we are having a chinese buffet for dinner) and will be perfect for each guest to take with them. This can also be purchased from Oriental Trading Company. I will finish each favor by adding a color-coordinating ribbon and a monogram of wedding quote! This is a great DIY project and a very inexpensive favor idea.

So far I have been really happy with Caitlin's work. She presented herself to be very well-organized and her work samples are great. In addition to her photography, she is also very talented at digital scrapbooks and graphic design. Her turn-around time for pictures is great (2days-1week). With every package you get a cd with all your images and the copyright to get them printed whenever you want. Her prices are very reasonable and she offers a great a la carte section too so you can put together your own package. She also makes her own custom save-the-dates and picture invitations. I really like her work and highly recommend her!

This venue is absolutely stunning. I found them at the bridal extravaganza and scheduled a time to go see it. I fell in love with the venue. It is family-owned and the woman in charge is very kind and accomodating. She even does her own flowers, cakes, etc. to make things more affordable for the bride and groom. The property has a huge European-style mansion where the family that runs it actually lives. Inside is the bridal-suite where the bride can get ready. The house also has a gorgeous balcony that’s perfect for tossing the bouquet. The venue will be completely finished in May and has a huge Italian gazebo, European gardens with roses and shrubbery, and an old-english chapel used as a reception site. It’s a little pricey but totally worth it. www.gardensofcranesburyview.com

This is my current DIY project. I found all of the paper and supplies that I needed at Hobby Lobby. I am taking the paper to kinkos and having the actual invitation page printed so the words are raised on the paper. I am putting them all together and tying it with a pretty ribbon, also found at hobby lobby. Hobby Lobby has an excellent selection of paper, ribbons, and other items that are great for invitations, centerpieces, and other exciting projects. They also have tons of sales in different departments throughout the month so if you watch the sales, you can get great discounts on top of their already awesome prices!

I know this isnt specifically a wedding invitation store, however they offer great prices and its an excellent way to save LOTS of money. When I went on the website, they were offering a promotion for 100 free postcards! I designed save-the-date postcards and customized them with our colors, names, wedding date, etc. I paid $5.00 to upload our engagement picture to the postcard and it looked great. We paid an additional amount for postage and ended up paying $12 total! Most of the time save-the-dates cost $3 per card/magnet! We got a great deal and definitely saved money. VistaPrint has lots of promotions like that on Post Cards, Business Cards (great for place settings/favor cards), car magnets, etc.

I went to the Bridal Extravaganza in January after getting engaged in December. They had TONS of booths to choose from and had a great variety of vendors. It took both me and one of my bridesmaids to split-up (like 2 booths next to each other) just to get all of the information! This is where I found my main wedding venue. I went home with three big bags full of information from different vendors as well as had a VERY full tummy from all of the cake and food that they had at the show. It saved me a ton of time. It would have taken me a year full of appointments to be able to see all those venues, taste all the different catering choices and gather so many different options. They also offered some great prizes and incentives for being there. At one of the booths I ended up getting 2 free tuxes, free shoes, and $50 tux rentals! Some brides also won anything from free venues to free honeymoons, photography packages, wedding coordinators, etc. I was very pleased and felt that it was money very well spent.

I went to Alfred Angelo both to try on dresses and to look for bridesmaids dresses. I went to the I-10/Wurzbach location and the girls there were really nice. I also spoke with the assistant manager, Sarah, and she was really helpful. I liked that they had a HUGE selection of dresses. They took an endless amount of time helping me try on multiple dresses and made sure that when I left I had all of my favorite dresses written down. They also have a good variety of prices and have nice dresses on a limited budget, as well as dresses that are a little more expensive. I also like that they offer lots of accessories and have lots of different tiaras, veils, bras and petticoats to use when you try on your dress to get the full package. They also make it a one-stop-shop by selling the matching flower girl dresses, baskets, ring pillows, shoes, etc. I didn’t care for the bridesmaid dress styles but they had a pretty decent variety to look through. I chose my headpiece from alfred angelo and am considering a couple of their wedding dresses!

My experience here wasn’t horrible but I definitely wouldn't recommend it to other brides. I was warned ahead of time that the woman who owns this place is extremely snobby and that you need to go in acting like you have a lot of money to get quality help. I went in and gave them an outrageous amount for the budget and they were nice but the woman who helped me was not very knowledgable of the dresses that they had and wasn’t even sure what brands they carried. She kept leaving me alone to wait sometimes even for 10 minutes while she went to go get water. I wanted to try on a specific dress that they have and the woman rudely announced that it would look bad on my body-type without even letting me try it on for myself. I also have a friend who went there with her mom without making an appointment and they were extremely rude to her (no one else was even in the store!) so she never went back and she had a lot of money to spend on her dress so she really missed out. Their selection was very small as well.