elleem78's reviews

We had a smaller, lunch wedding in May, and wanted some fun music that could keep guests still upbeat, considering we didn't have dancing. We found Hot Fab at the farmer's market in Santa Monica and at Cafe Laurent in Culver City, where they play occasionally. Fabrice and Tracy were accommodating for our wedding, and were nothing but professional and in great spirits the whole time. Many of our guests asked where they could buy their CD. If you like a less traditional "jazz" group, I highly recommend Hot Fab. We already know one couple who are using them on our referral.

Belle Bridal is now closed for business so this review is somewhat unhelpful, but after being sold to a new owner, the service and professionalism was never the same. Such a shame.

I thought that everyone in L.A. had been to a wedding with cupcakes at this point. Wow, was I wrong. Amy and her team at Vanilla did an amazing job with our cupcakes, and guests are still raving about how fun they were. Vanilla is easy to work with, reasonably priced compared to a wedding cake, and were able to see our vision for our "cupcake cake".

I came to Bobbe Vagell on the referral of a girlfriend of mine who had used her for her wedding. Flowers were the one item that we didn't want to spend a ton of money on, and we wanted as much class as possible for a tight budget. Bobbe does some amazingly huge parties, and in a way I felt bad with my budget of about 1/10 of what he could get. He was so incredibly visionary and amazing, and welcomed my business with open arms. Each of my centerpieces was different, within a theme, but each with its own personality. We actually had a little contest to see which lucky guests could take them home. My bouquet was incredible. He was able to turn my layperson flower explanations into masterpieces. Not to mention he's hilarious!

My husband and I booked the Fairmont about a year before our wedding, which was on 5/31/08.

Let me begin with the actual wedding. The wedding day was flawless (or at least we didn't know of any flaws). The banquet staff was professional, had the timing down impeccably and really impressed our guests. Our room was a beautiful ocean view suite which we really enjoyed for our two nights, and was decorated beautifully the night of our wedding.

Getting to this point was a battle.

We dealt with 4 catering managers in time we had booked and paid our deposit for the hotel to the wedding day. Every time one manager left, we didn't know about it until we received an "out of office" e-mail saying the manager no longer worked there. No follow up from the staff, no one saying that so-and-so would be handling our wedding. Every time we dealt with someone new, we found out about new details that either had not been handled, or written in our file (actually, our file was lost at one period). For a few months, we tore our hair out trying to figure out how a supposedly luxury hotel was running more poorly than a Motel 6. The last straw is when we called to confirm our tasting, another manager had left and the tasting wasn't even booked with the banquet team. GRRR. Finally, a new catering director sat down with us, went over every detail and was the final one who pulled off a great wedding.

There was a lot of talk about there being turnover since the Fairmont took over. I completely understand that, but there were multiple times that my husband (then fiance) and I felt like we should be paid a salary by the Fairmont for doing their job.

Hopefully they have it together now and can execute flawless customer service and attention BEFORE the event in addition to the day of. I only give the Fairmont 4 stars because our day of staff was amazing, and in the end it was a incredibly memorable day.

Moral of the story: luxury hotel doesn't mean your work is done when you hand over a deposit.

My fiance and I wanted letterpress invitations for our wedding. Though there are many stationary locations on the Westside, we found the personalized service and attention at La Partie unparalleled. Page, the owner, sat with us on many different days to cess out our needs. She was patient, funny and really a godsend when other stationers barely would pay any attention when you're spending a small fortune in their store. I highly recommend going to La Partie. They have an amazing selection of all invitations, and are not trying to gouge you into ordering more than you need.