dutaski's reviews

We worked with Rick and really like him. We would hightly recommend him to anyone in the city. He took his time to find out what DH was really interested in, not to try and sell him at the top range of his price. He did everything to work within DH’s budget. DH did not get the feeling of working with a used cars salesman, such as places as New York Jewelers (DH was very adamant about me including that statement).

The owners are very flexible, very easy to work with, and can adjust to different personalities and dance styles. This place had the best priced package around, and I called several studios in the city. We received 5 group lessons and 5 private lessons for under $300, I think. I remember Ron mentioning their prices were going up a little this year, though. The studio is very spacious and we could rent a private room for $10 / hour to practice. Talk to Ron or Mary and you can’t go wrong! They are great to work with and love their work.

For part of the girls gifts, I scheduled a hand back party at 1154 Lill to custom design their own bags. This was so much fun, and I highly recommend doing this for your bridesmaids! I picked out the particular bag in advance, it is reversible, so we designed one side to co-ordinate with their BM dress, and one side was whatever they felt like doing! We had so much fun designing the bags. We had the whole place to ourselves after hours, brought in snacks and wine, and went crazy with all the options available. Afterward we went down the street for dinner, it was such a fun night. The orders came in right when they told us they would be there.

If I had to do it all over again, I would do the hotel block at this wonderful hotel that my photographer suggested. It would have been worth and extra $20 - $40 / night for the guests to pay. I’m pretty sure no one would have complained. I booked the Mediterranean Suite for Thur – Wed of the next week since we weren’t leaving for Hawaii right away. The room has really fun décor which is in lots of my getting ready pictures. The rates are great compared to many of the hotel suites in the city, pretty much less than ½ of what many other places are asking. I specially requested a corner suite on the northwest end of the building so that the views were overlooking the city. The service, in my experience, was excellent. Notes were left on my reservation each time I called, so they accommodated all of my requests (location of room, early check in, late check out, extra stools for hair stylists/makeup artists). I went in a month early to check out the room, make sure it would be big enough. The day before my wedding, when I walked back into the hotel, they remembered me and why I was there! Plus, there was free Starbucks coffee in the morning, and free wine for an hour every night. They let me and my girls bring up bottles of wine to the room since we were usually getting ready for the evenings at that time. :) The doormen and concierge were great, there was nothing they wouldn’t give or help us with that weekend! I guess the only reason they didn’t get an A+ is because we had a weird experience with the kitchen when ordering room service. They kept yelling and hanging up at us, I think they thought we were prank-ing. Really, I think there was something wrong with the connection.

Where do we start? This was the biggest hassle of the entire wedding. We initially chose the hotel for location, rate, and cleanliness (it wasn’t even open at the time we signed our contract). The story goes downhill from there. They could not get their story straight even though every single detail was in the contract. We were guaranteed a rate of $120 per night, with NO minimum night stay. Every guest who called was told that they would only receive the rate of $120 if they were there for 2+ nights. We were also guaranteed this rate for Thursday night, however, they told our guests the rate was not for Thursday. Fri/Sat only. Each time we called to complain, we were told that it would be fixed and going forward, they would honor the rate. Time after time, our guests were told the same thing as above. It only gets better from here. We were told they would initially hold 20 rooms, and when those were full, they would save 20 more. Once the initial 20 were booked, they started telling our guests the block was full and they had to pay full price. !?!?!?! Luckily, our guests let us know all of this was going on. Tom spent lots and lots of time on the phone with the hotel trying to straighten things out. He had to pretend to be a guest, was told incorrect information, and then was sent to the manager. This happened at least twice. We provided them OOT bags, and not all of our guests received them. We also had a brunch there the next morning, at which they ran out of food. They tried to make up for these things by telling us they would upgrade our guests to junior suites. Most of the guests I spoke to were NOT upgraded. My dad and many other guests were down in the lobby that weekend haggling over these sorts of things….YUCK! I’m so glad I stayed at another hotel, I would have been extremely annoyed being there.

I called her after I saw Richsbitch’s trial - I loved her makeup. When I went to her, I asked her to do the same thing, but it didn’t feel right on me. That was ok, she told me I could do as many trials as I wanted. So next time I went back with some pictures and she knew exactly what I wanted from those few pictures, I was SOLD!!! She was able to give me cheekbones for my wedding day, I love her! Also, I was having terrible, terrible stress breakouts leading up to the wedding and she was able to recommend products and give me some samples that would help calm the breakouts. It worked for the most part, but I did have a huge zit on my forehead the day of the wedding, ugh! Oh well, you couldn’t tell, except for my EXTREME close up pictures, but that can’t be helped! Oh, and she came to me the day of the wedding even though she was working, she managed to do it over her lunch break. I never felt once that she was rushed or that she would have left early if I wasn’t happy. It def helped that we had done a few trials so she knew exactly what I wanted the day of the wedding.

What can I say, I love Dahlia. She has done my hair now for 4 years. I use her, my husband uses her, two of my BM’s use her, SIL is starting to use her, and now some knotties are using her as well! She has the best rates and can work with all hair types. It seemed natural to use her for my wedding day since she does my hair in up do’s for most weddings. Anyway, my hair is super thin so she went out ahead of time to buy extra hair, died it to match my hair, and used it in the trial. She was willing to go through as many different hairstyles during the trial as I wanted. By the end, I just wanted to go home, and she was still going. She came to me the day of the wedding, she was on time, it was great. The only drawback is that teh other girl from the shop who was supposed to come with called last minute and could not make it…..In the end, it was fine, Dahlia was still able to do all of our hair on time.

Mary was a doll to work with. She used to make my husbands Halloween costumes and did his moms wedding alterations, so I knew I would use her! I was really worried about the size of my dress, it was a little big when I bought it, and by the time the wedding came around, I had lost an additional 15 pounds. That was no problem, she handled it all and made my worries go away. I actually changed a lot of construction of the dress, as well. It should have been poof-ier, but she was able to make it much more fitted without giving me a hard time, like many others probably might have! I love the bustle she did for my gown, and it was so easy for the girls to do. It never fell out during the night. She also did my veil, wraps for the girls, found the brooches I gave the girls, some of the girls alterations, altered my fur wrap, and made my sisters dress when she freaked out about her other one only 3 weeks before the wedding. She really eased a lot of stress that I had building up prior to the wedding! I will absolutely go back to her for my alterations this year.

We used them for guest transporation from the hotel to Cafe Brauer and back. We at first contacted Linda who provided us a quote a few months before the wedding of $330 but she suggested we call around and compare prices. She told us that the quote was in her notes and that we would receive that price, no need to book right away. When DH called back to book a month or two later, she indicated that the price had gone up (about $175) and would not honor the original quote. He spoke to the manager, Chris, who looked through all of the notes and explained that since gas prices had increased so drastically, the rental prices where now higher. However, since the quote was in her notes, he agreed to work with us on another price. In the end, we ended up paying $400. DH can’t seem to remember exactly, he thinks it might have been cheaper. Like the trolley, the bus was exactly where they needed to be, when we needed them. They did not charge us by the hour, we were charged per trip, which worked to our advantage since they dropped our hotel guests off to the wedding, and then picked us up at the end of the night. 4 trips total.

This is from DH himself, he was in charge of all transportation. Our contact was Koffi, who is extremely helpful. He was on top of everything and made sure we submit directions in advance and he provided us with all the phone numbers and contacts we would need the day of the wedding should something go wrong. The driver was very courteous and fought downtown traffic very well. He was at every location when we needed him to be there. The only downside is that the trolley was not as heated as we expected, but it was also 20 degrees the day of our wedding. They were mid-priced, they were not the cheapest, but we did not feel we could trust the cheap companies. By no means were they the most expensive.