brookieb's reviews

I went to Helen Bohn at the suggestion of a friend of mine that got married a few months before me. I found my dress the first time I tried on gowns there. They have a huge selection in virtually every single price range. I worked with Jen and told her the kind of dress I was looking for and my budget. She brought out dresses that fell within my price range and if she thought there was something that fit what I was looking for but was $100 over my price-range, she would ask my permission before even taking it out of the bag. I appreciated the fact that they didn't try to sell me something outside of my price-range.

I adored my gown and the seamstress took a lot of time in getting the alterations perfect. They are no Kleinfeld's (their shop is in an old Victorian-type house), don't fall all over you to get the sale and their honesty in what looks good and what doesn't may be a bit hard for some to take but I genuinely appreciated their help and thought they were great. My mom and bridesmaids also got their dresses and alterations done there.

I went with Christine based purely on Knot recommendations. Everyone's raves are totally justified. She is very talented and during the trial, she really took her time and tried out different things to get the perfect shading. I felt as though my makeup was natural and very "me". I didn't look over-done which is exactly the look I was going for. She did my mom's, maid-of-honor's and friend's makeup as well. They all looked beautiful. Christine was very responsive, easy to communicate with and really a lot of fun to have around the day of the wedding while we were all getting ready.

Patriot Hills was the first venue we visited. Our coordinator, Gina, was fabulous and she was a large part of the reason as to why we booked there to begin with. She was extremely knowledgeable, organized, friendly (not in a phony way) and very responsive to any questions we had every step of the way. Wedding planning was completely stress-free to us and we credit much of that to Gina as we never worried about anything related to the venue.

We had our ceremony outdoors and the venue was set up beautifully. Our guests raved not only about the food but the service as well. We had a huge assortment of food at the cocktail hour (our only add-on was the fajita station) and many of our guests didn't realize that they were getting a sit-down dinner meal too - the selection was that good.

Our maitre'd, Mary I believe was her name, was equally wonderful. Everything was set up and handled perfectly but the very minor requests that we had throughout the night (turn up the A/C, get an extra plate of pigs in a blanket for my husband) were handled within minutes. She wasn't in our faces but did check in with us from time to time to make sure we didn't need or want anything (we didn't).

Overall, everything about Patriot Hills was perfect and we are very grateful that we decided to book with them.