(10 stars)! As we were having the party at my parent-in-law’s house, we needed chairs and tables and silverware, etc. Biggs was rather good about providing all these things along with the tent and lights. We were in contact with them for about a year, and my favorite thing was how they were always making sure that the other aspects of our wedding were on time (i.e.: did Rob have his suit hemmed, was my dress altered, did the caterers confirm whether they would be bringing the servers). I felt like they were family, and that they really cared how this day would be.

This was a site that Rob and I would visit often, usually a month or so before our vacation time. It had great deals from Minneapolis, and because they focus on Minneapolis, we find that they usually have the best deals. We visited the site on and off, and found an all-inclusive package for Hawaii-Oahu that was just incredible. It was perfect timing, the price was right, and we had a wonderful week!

We had two limos for the day, one for Rob and the other for my lovely entourage and me. We chose Renee because one of our friends had used their services before, for their own wedding. We felt comfortable with that. We didn’t check around for prices, but I can say that they were very professional, very considerate, and helpful, too! While I may have done away with other extravagances, I loved walking on the red carpet to the reception. I felt like a princess, and that this truly marked the start of the party!

Rob, my husband, works with computers, and wanted to create a website for our wedding. What we did, instead, was create a free webpage for our friends and family. The program was easy to use, and the page looked wonderful. There were hundreds of templates to choose from, and we chose the first one that we liked. I think weddings will become more dependent on the internet with time. What I liked about having a webpage, was that as soon as we knew what date we would have the reception on, we were able to create the page and tell all our friends that lived far away when the party would be. It’s really helpful to be able to give everyone a heads up.

My husband, his best friend, and my nephew all needed suits for the event. It started with just the nephew getting a suit (he’s five), but then we found out that Matt’s best friend didn’t have a suit, and my husband’s old tuxedo was a little *snug*. What’s good about Macy’s was that they have been having all these sales, and we saved about 45% on the three suits together. The salespeople were very knowledgable about suits, they were hemmed correctly (no monkey suits), and they have great brands to chose from.

We walked in and knew that we would work with Bayberry because their store felt so inviting and green! We set up an appointment, rather than just walk in, which I found made a big difference in our planning. We were able to speak with someone who had made arrangements for weddings as simple yet elegant as we hoped our wedding to be. When I said simple, she was full of suggestions of what that could mean. She understood right away that as an older bride, I didn’t want a huge bouquet of pink roses! Very helpful, very smart, and I absolutely loved my bouquet. The deliveries were made on time, our quotes were accurate, and it was perfect.

A friend of the family offered to make the cake, which was quite generous of them, but since my husband and I both have a sweet tooth, we thought it would be appropriate to have a sweet table. My work had ordered Christmas tortes from Buttercream before, so I knew how scrumptious their food could be. We set up an appointment, which was good because it was busy, and about five months before the wedding they came up with a sweet table menu that included truffles and shooters. The table was popular and we received many, many compliments! I think the best part was that there were no unsightly plates of half eaten wedding cake lying around. People ate every last bit up.

We had always talked about taking dance lessons together, and so a year before the wedding we started taking lessons at Cinema Ballroom. We had a private instructor, with ten lessons, and tried to learn the basic steps and find our inner rhythm. Our dance instructor was wonderful and incredibly accommodating! With two months before the wedding date, we enrolled in their silver package for weddings, and the instructor helped us come up with a fun routine for our first dance. I’m proud to say that we remembered all the moved on the big day!

The music (i.e.: the DJ) was all being taken care of by Rob’s best friend, but Rob had requested that there be a bagpiper at the ceremony. I though he was joking at first until the CD arrived in the mail. He’s very proud of his Scottish heritage, and I because his father couldn’t be there, this was a way for Rob to honor his presence. I respected that very much. We contacted Dave, and spoke to him on the phone about what we had planned. He suggested being at the house, at the start of the ceremony. It was a great way to announce that we had arrived. It’s a very haunting sound, too, and I think it added some meaning to the moment.

They were giving away tickets at my sister’s work, so we trekked down and checked it out! There were about 50 or so booths, many of them offering services that I hadn’t even considered (like make-up and videos). We were able to find the DJ that we would use for our reception, and we also found out about many businesses in the area that we didn’t even know existed! I would say that this was very informative of all the things that you would need for your wedding, all in the same spot.