Maggiano's provided a great atmosphere for a reception site. By the time we made reservations, the banquet rooms were booked, so we settled for making a large reservation in the main dining room. They allowed us to reserve space for more people than they usually allow, which meant that all of our close family could come. The food was delicious and the servers professional. We even spent much less money for the same menu choices because we were not in the banquet hall.

Swoozies, a cute little stationary store, was the perfect place to look for the perfect invitations. They had stacks of books full of invitations of every style and price range. After a couple hours of looking at the choices, beautiful ivory invitations with a brilliant sheen jumped off the page and we had found them! They cost more money than we had originally planned to spend, but they were well worth it. The staff at Swoozies was helpful in their suggestions regarding the invitation wording and we received the invitations without a glitch.

We chose to have bamboo fans as our wedding favors. They doubled as programs after I made my own on the computer and used glue dots to attach them to the front of the fans. The light brown fans looked great laying on the white chairs outside. When we chose the fans as favors, we had no idea how much they would fit our wedding. The reception was inside following the ceremony, but the air conditioner broke. May in northern Florida is quite warm, so the fans helped guests stay comfortable during the reception. Once I placed the order with blissweddingsmarket.com, it arrived shortly and each handmade fan was of high quality. Well worth the couple dollars per person, especially if you use them as favors and programs!

My future husband and I had to take dance lessons to prepare for our first dance to "Lost in this Moment" by Big-n-Rich. I found Jeff Carr, a local dance instructor through an online search. When I called him to set up an appointment, he was extremely friendly and the lessons turned out to be a lot of fun, even for my fiance! We had no experience when we went in, but by the time we left, we felt much more comfortable and confident to dance in front of our guests.

The clubhouse at Oakleaf Plantation is a beautiful, white plantation-style building with a wraparound balcony on the second floor. The double spiral staircases in front provide a wonderful spot for photographs. We rented the entire second floor which was plenty of room for our 100 guests. There is a fully functional kitchen on the second floor, accessible via an elevator for caterers. They have chairs and tables available to rent, but we rented white chairs from an outside vendor to avoid paying for chair covers. Had nothing gone wrong, this vendor would have received five stars. Unfortunately, the air conditioner stopped working shortly before we arrived. Outside May weddings in Florida are quite warm, so it was frustrating that our reception was stuffy and guests ended up leaving earlier than they would have had they been comfortable. Also, the rental coordinator was not friendly during the entire planning stage and never apologized for the air conditioner breaking. She is no longer employed there, and the rest of the staff is helpful, so this problem will probably not occur any more.

The Grand Lawn at the Oakleaf Plantation Clubhouse is a beautifully manicured yard behind the clubhouse. A lovely fountain provides a wonderful starting place for walking down the aisle while guests enjoy a fabulous view of a dock and pond in the distance and trees, bushes, and flowers nearby. There is plenty of parking and even with a nearby children's park and swimming pool, the location is distant enough to retain privacy. It was a beautiful ceremony and luckily the weather was perfect and the sky was blue.

Bistro Aix was one of our favorite vendors that we worked with in planning and carrying out our reception. The food was amazing and guests are still talking about it nearly a year later. The catering coordinator was extremely helpful in putting together not only the meal, place settings, and reception arrangements, but also the ceremony details, such as chair rentals and arranging the flowers. The food was set up similar to a buffet with the pasta being cooked right on the line. Guests were able to walk by and see and smell the dish being prepared. There were two carving stations and multiple side dishes. Every server was professional and the guests enjoyed the service and food immensely.

After searching through hundreds of photographs of wedding cakes online and in various bakeries, I was fed-up when I could not find a perfect design. I decided to design my own based on the qualities that I wanted in a cake. My future husband and I took my sketch to the Publix Supermarkets Bakery down the road. This particular store had an Event Planning staff with whom we made an appointment to discuss our ideas. They were able to help us decide what size our cake would need to be to feed 100 people and still have the top layer left over for our first anniversary. The cake turned out exactly how we had imagined and was delicious.

David's Bridal offers a wide variety of wedding dresses, which is extremely helpful for brides who are not sure what style of dress they are looking for. For brides who know exactly what they want, they are able to go online and look at the salon's inventory of dresses before they visit the store. The saleswomen were helpful in suggesting styles that would work well with my body type. The A-line dresses looked the best, so my consultant found a variety of A-line gowns, from plain satin to lacey and long-sleeved to sleeveless. I eventually found the perfect dress by Oleg Cassini and the bridaly consultant brought out a variety of veils and gloves to try on to make my look unique. She even suggested that I modify the dress by removing the antique-silver broach and replacing it with one that matched the colors in the beading better and I loved the idea. The only problem I had with David' Bridal was that everything had to be ordered and there were no locations near my house.

I found photobyjamie.com when I met Jamie Weingarten at a bridal show in Jacksonville, Florida. I was immediately drawn to the bridal portrait samples and couldn't wait to get home to visit the website. Photobyjamie.com was extremely helpful and their style of photography was exactly what I was looking for. They offer packages for every budget, but I ended up spending more than I had initially planned due to the amazing photography. There were so many fabulous pictures, it was hard to pick my favorites! During the wedding, Jamie and her assistant captured every moment from the perfect angle, but we usually did not even notice that they were in the same room. Both photographers had an amazingly professional attitude. Jamie was helpful when it came to designing the album, and I could not be happier with the results. Photobyjamie.com was one of my favorite vendors that I dealt with during the wedding and I highly recommend them to capture your most important memories!