balves's reviews

Our venue has a contract with them, so I didn't actually have to choose this vendor. We were very pleased with their service, and my cake designer had some great ideas to build on from what I brought her.

My husband and I aren't really dessert people, but we even liked it, so I think that's a fairly good compliment to them. I think the best layer was the raspberry cheese mousse layer.

I should preface this review by saying that I worked for Mario a while back and still consider him a friend. That said, whether he was a past employer or not, there is no one else I would have trusted my wedding photography to. I can't comment on some of the stuff, because I designed my own wedding album, for example.

Mario has a background in news and sports photography and also has a very impressive commercial portfolio-- all things that I think really add to his wedding style. I love so many of our photos! What's more, my parents and family also loved the photos. My mom shows her album to everyone she can, even three years later. I still get comments from friends about an engagement portrait hanging in our home, and they've seen it plenty of times.

I was extremely disappointed with Mon Amie-- enough so that I ended up not buying anything from them.

I went with my mom, and they were slightly rude to us from the beginning. It wasn't horrible, but wasn't enjoyable. Two weeks later my sister was in town and she went with me, as I was still trying to decide between two dresses. When I called to make the appointment for the second visit, they let me know that it was free, but a third visit they would charge me for. Fine, not a problem.

I arrived at the appointment and they tried to charge me, even though it was only the second appt. After sorting that out, they informed me my original consultant was no longer working there and they would try and "fit me in" with someone else. They didn't bother to tell me this over the phone, of course. We waited quite some time, finally got into a dressing room. The new consultant brought the two dresses I had it narrowed down to and also two others, and tried to insist I try on these other (more expensive) dresses, too.

In any case, I decided not to purchase from them and had my dress made. They left a very sour taste.

Overall, I was very pleased with the Amada Plaza. It's a lovely venue inside, but takes a special person to really appreciate it. I didn't care that it was in an industrial area, but some would. The Japanese-style garden setting really sold the place to me, and we had both the ceremony and reception there in the garden rather than having the reception in the typical and poorly decorated reception room.

A few nice things:
-they allowed us to bring our own wine in for a reasonable corkage fee. This was very important to my parents (aka wine snobs)
-I chose a buffet so my guests could choose what they prefer rather than getting stuck with food they didn't like. I appreciated they let the buffet have more than one meat choice, and several (I think three) salad choices.
-The drinks weren't too expensive for the guests after we exceeded our open bar

A few warnings:
-The sky/roof thing that opened up as I walked down the aisle was beautiful and dramatic. I loved it. However, it was extremely stuff before it opened and many of my guests were uncomfortable at the level of heat
-Their coordinators never called back in a timely manner, or at all. I often had to call two or three times.