kimburli's reviews

This place is pretty pricey, but I took my Maid of Honor here for a facial a week before the wedding and it was divine. We both got the spa facial which comes with a hand paraffin dip. It was just the thing we needed before all the hoopla. They have some of the best amenities you can use while you wait (steam room, sauna, scented cool washcloths, etc) so get there early!

We ended up choosing the Courtyard Marriott in Livermore for our wedding and it was extremely easy to book a block of rooms here. The service was great, and everyone seemed very friendly. We were even able to get a 2-night king suite free with our room block! Add in the free shuttle to our venue, and complimentary surprises and snacks in our room and you have one happy bride.

After searching and researching so many different photographers, finding Dawn and Pierre to take our wedding photos felt like pure luck. From the moment I emailed Dawn, she was prompt, so sweet, and was able to personalize an amazing package just for us.

Dawn and Pierre were fantastic at our wedding. They are some of the most creative and friendliest people ever!! We immediately fell in love with their style and were completely blown away with the result. Our slideshow was absolutely gorgeous and the details they ended up getting were priceless! So many of our guests commented on how amazing they both were. Their timing was spot-on and they must have taken over 1,000 photos. We were so pleased.

We would definitely recommend Dawn's company to anyone who does not want to take chances at one of their most important events. She went above and beyond, and as you can tell, we are still very excited. :)

The top cake and cupcakes for our wedding turned out gorgeous. It was beautiful and the colors were perfect. Annette even air-sprayed our cupcake wrappers a light green to match our wedding colors.

But the reason I am giving 4 stars instead of 5 were due to a few things. The communication/response time wasn't really good with them. Afterwards I learned they were unfortunately having business issues with the company that owned their lease - which is the reason why they were behind on getting back to me. (We also had a hard time getting a hold of them to return our cake stand.) Also the design of the top cake ended up different of what we previously talked about, and the green pom-flowers (free since she wanted to apologize for being late on getting back to me) on top of each individual cupcake were missing.

All in all, the cake/cupcakes turned out lovely. The price for the cake and delivery was extremely reasonable - best around! It tasted good (not exactly as WOW as the day we tasted it) but good none the less. And even with the other design, I was very, VERY happy/excited with the look it turned out to be. I still would recommend them once they get back on their feet because apparently this other company really put them back. I also recommend the Guava flavor! Yum.

This review is for the Oak Tree and Pavilion area.

We just had our wedding here on May 23, and everything went beautifully!

When we first booked, the person dealing with us was not clear with some things and there turned out to be a lot of confusion with our contract. Then after we learned she would no longer be working there, we were switched to Jacqueline. She was a godsend! She and Garre worked with us with every step and also personalized everything to us. They were very adamant about making us happy which was perfect for an already stressful planning bride. I can not say enough good about Jackie. We were so, so happy to end up with Jackie and highly recommend her. She emailed us consistently, she fixed any problem that started to come up, and she took down pages of notes for herself to make sure the set up was perfect. She even went out and bought us sparking cider for our guests who don't drink - free of charge!

The service during the wedding was amazing. Before the ceremony we were served food in the adorable cottage/dressing room. After the ceremony, my bridal party and I were immediately found and served delicious hor devours while we were waiting to take photos. And during the reception, it seemed like the moment I thought of something, a server would immediately appear and ask if I would like anything - without me having to ask. They were really on it and my husband and I truly appreciated it. We heard really great things from our guests as well about them.

The setting was gorgeous (which our guests loved). The food was delicious. The service was superb. They turned on the heat when it got chilly. They worked with our time-line to the 't' and even gave us leeway when things were running behind. Everything felt custom to us. They really came through and we are so happy with the end result.

This company was the best!!

We booked partybooths as a fun favor idea and are so glad we did. It was worth everything and our guests *still* come up to tell us how much fun they had with it.

Tyler and Erin were amazing. They were so nice, extremely accommodating, right on time, very professional, and kept telling us how much they enjoyed our wedding - which made us feel great!

We ended up buying silly props that made it all the more crazy. I definitely recommend this company. It was perfect to set the tone for the laid-back, and fun reception we were wanting. Everyone just let loose. And the CD we were mailed a few weeks later? Priceless. :) We will cherish these photos (and our guest-scrapbook) forever.

I wrote this review specifically after our wedding in case we heard anything else, but have not. And I hate to give out one-stars - and am wondering what 1st Class DJs may write about me after this review like the others - but after several attempts to get our deposit back, I feel that other brides in the position I was in should know. I was the usual bride who just wanted a beautiful and fun wedding at an affordable rate.

We hired Kerri to DJ and Coordinate our wedding about a year before our wedding date (May 23). We decided to go with her since she was the least expensive option and in person, she seemed terrific. We really got a long! She was a riot! After going over the contract, she stated in front of my mother, my sister, and I, that if something happened to her we would be able to get 100% of our $499 deposit back if we were not satisfied with anyone she had found to replaced her - but also not to worry since she would be there unless she "was hit by a truck". I thanked her since I was very careful about choosing vendors, but unfortunately trusted her enough and did not get it in writing - even though I had witnesses. (ug!) She was the first vendor I had hired, so after I became much more experienced in this.

Fast forward about 5 months to Christmas time around the 28th, we received an email from her saying that she wanted to *wait* to tell us after the holidays (which was in void of her contract anyway), but that she could no longer DJ/Coordinate our wedding since she became pregnant and was due on our date. She also wanted us to meet with someone she found to replace her.

Although stressful for us, we said congratulations and decided to meet with this new person to see if we 'meshed' (as the DJ/MC is one of your most important vendors). It turns out that (although very nice) he was not the same caliber of DJ - he even admitted to us that as of then, he had never DJ'd a wedding by himself. He also did not know how to do some of the usual DJ things that Wedding DJs usually know (like different intro songs, or mixing one dance song into another so there is no void) and could not provide us with reviews. After hearing this, we obviously did not feel comfortable about having him at our only wedding. After telling Kerri that her replacement was not up to par since he had not even done a wedding alone and could not give us referrals - she proceeded to tell us that we were basically out of luck, we should have just taken her word on him and that only half our deposit would be refunded. This did not make any sense since *she* was the one who cancelled on us. (And how were we supposed to take her word on anything now?) Kerri came back with how it took time and money to find another replacement - but as her "replacement" told us, he worked next to her at a Credit Union so we felt we were being duped. After viewing another bride's review (that used to be up on yelp and is on project wedding), we found that we were not the only one's she had done this too. This other bride had stated the same thing where 1stClass Djs waited to tell them about the cancellation, and then refused to give all of their deposit back. For a business who is all about "referrals" I could not believe that they would let $250 stand in the way of this and good business.

Per our contract, we would have gotten all our deposit back if our date was booked, but as our date was almost month ago, I have yet to hear back about this. (As of today, their website even states: "Please Note: We are completely booked through June 2009") Before, her assistant (who we have never spoken with before) even went so far as to email me that *we* cancelled on them, when I have proof of every email we sent out, saying they cancelled. I told her assistant that we would like to hear from Kerri since she is the owner and the one we were dealing with - and have not heard back from any of them since.

Bottom line: if you do anything with this company - make sure EVERYTHING is in writing and signed. A handshake and promise is not good enough anymore.

I don't mean to attack or be negative - I just wanted to state the complete truth. It is very unfortunate since we already had a small budget and something like this definitely affected us. It just really puts a bad taste in your mouth and I really wished that this company would have been professional enough to take a $250 loss in order to make their clients happy - and have potential referrals in the future.

What an amazing lady!

The first time I emailed her, I was worried she might not travel to Livermore where our wedding was being held. Her response: I love Livermore! It turns out she does business all over the bay area. Lisa took my ideas and made them even better with her own advice on the things I became stuck on. We didn't have a very big budget and she worked with us from start to finish, while some other florists demanded a 2k minimum before even speaking with us. And on the day of our wedding I thought our flowers were 5k worthy!! I don't know how she does it. Everything turned out so beautiful and was completely customized to us. She even let us buy our own vases to save money, and found us a great deal on other ones. The flowers were all absolutely gorgeous. I was so happy.

I am a person who has to research *everything* to find the best deal, the best people, etc etc and was so glad to have found her (by recommendation from another bride.) She was a dream to work with and we can't recommend her enough. I'll try and post a few pictures soon so you all can see what I mean.

After the DJ we originally booked for our wedding cancelled on us (and refused to give all our deposit back) we were pretty nervous about booking another DJ.

Then I came across the reviews on Big Fun. Everyone was raving about them, so I decided to send an email. I got a prompt response from Henry Kim, who actually payed our way to interview them at a local Bridal Fair! This way, he said, we could also enjoy the free cake samples. :) The fair was a lot of fun, and we met PAUL BURCHFIELD from Big Fun, and interviewed him a bit to see if he had what it took. We hit it off right from the start! After prior iffy meetings with other DJ companies and even one at the fair, we were hooked in the first 5 minutes! Paul completely understood everything we were looking for. We booked him right away for both our ceremony and reception.

He was willing to visit us near our home for every meeting, kept in touch with multiple emails and even took a last minute detour from his day to stop by and grab the DVD slide-show we made.

The day of our wedding was amazing. Paul was fantastic! Everyone kept coming up to us saying how great he was and mentioning the perfect voice he had when he made announcements. The dance floor was always filled, he let us completely customise the music to us, he payed close attention to any play/do not play list we provided - and bought the songs he didn't already have!

Really, I cannot say enough good about Paul. If you are a bride (or groom) who is completely nervous about trusting a vendor this important for your wedding, you have found the right company. There's no need to interview elsewhere! I am so grateful to everything they did for us.

Plus you pay after! How can you beat that? Ok, enough with the mush. 10 stars. We definitely recommend them. :)

The only reason I am giving 4 stars and not 1 is because of the manager Laura. She was amazing.

Before dealing with her, the other employees managed to take down my phone number wrong, take down my actual bridesmaid dress choice wrong and mess up the measurements of one of my girls, who now has a dress 2 sizes too big that she needs to get altered. This is even after I made them read back to me all of the information I gave them - so I have no idea how they could make so many huge mistakes! It was a horrible hassle.

Then Laura took over and made everything all better and saved the day. She kept me updated with everything along the way and even sent me sample colors for free in the mail when I was out of town. The dresses also came in early!

She was so nice about everything and I strongly, strongly, recommend not giving any orders to anyone over the phone other or unless you physically go into the store and watch them take down your order. Even so, I would only deal with Laura.

The dresses did turn out gorgeous though!