kookachu's reviews

For my wedding day, I wanted my wedding make-up and hair done in my own house (my parent’s house). I dreaded the idea of waking up early and driving around town to get my make-up and hair done. A staff member of Blush will come to your house (for $125, which is almost twice as much as what they would charge for an in-store) but I think it was worth it. A month before the wedding I met with Michelle, the make-up artist, and we talked about make-up and what I wanted and her suggestions. She then showed up at my house on time, and everything went smoothly. The staff at Blush is great, and I think it was worth ever extra penny to not have to leave my house before I actually needed to.

We knew we were going to get married, it was just a matter of setting the date and getting a ring and small details. I guess Rob wanted to make our engagement a bit more special, so he organized a weekend-getaway to Chicago. We usually go there for the weekend, but this time Rob had set up an appointment at Gregg Helfer’s. I didn’t know this was Rob’s secret until we walk to the store and he asked me officially to be his wife. And then we walked in and I got to look at rings! I had heard a lot about this place from friends who live in Chicago, they say that it’s a great place to go to buy diamonds, precious stone, and jewelry. Rob’s goal was to custom design a ring for me. I know that I am so blessed to have a husband who loves to spoil his wife, but he reasoning was that he wanted to get me something beautiful and unique. His approach was that this would be a piece of art that would stay in our family for (hopefully) many generations to come. I always loved Opal, and I was able to see what options I would have for Opal rings and other precious stones. They were also really helpful at explaining how they would be able to custom style the ring I wanted, which was really helpful! All the rings I saw were beautiful, they have an amazing selection, and I love my ring so much!

I was originally going to have the invitations made. I went to Broadway Paper first to look at stationary, but the prices were through the roof! I understand that the paper may be of great quality, but (to me) it was just paper. I went to Wal-mart, and then I went to Michael’s Arts and Crafts and found a wedding invitation kit that I really liked. It cost less than $150 (and an extra $10 to have the ink cartridge refilled) for 3 boxes/150 invitations, with RSVP cards. The price that I was quotes at some professional printers for 150 invitations was between $1.50 and $3.00 an invitation card, not including the RSVP card or the seating card. In all, I saved at least $75 on invitations by buying a nice invitation kit (nice, but not cheap at $50 a kit!) and making the invitations myself. To put it into some sort of perspective, $75 dollars is the difference between a nice and a beautiful veil.

This was the most perfect vacation that I had ever been on! One week in the warm sun, and we had perfect beach weather every day that we were there! The Mill Resort was really nice. Even though we were by the beach, we still made use of their pools everyday. We did not opt for the romantic package, just in order to save a few dollars (we figure we could buy our own champagne). We found the great all-inclusive deal through expedia.com and we have, in the recent years, started buying more and more package deals because of the overall cost benefit. I don’t know if it’s better to wait until the last minute, we usually just wait until the price is right for us. It is not the most fancy hotel in the area, but it was our first time there and it gave us a chance to see and visit all the other hotels. We loved all the local restaurants nearby the serve really tasty food. The trip was half rest and half exploring, which is exactly what I want from a vacation!

This was where my sister-in-law got the flowers for her wedding, and my husband’s family really recommended using them for our own wedding. They were great. They are a family owned business, so you really get the feeling that flowers and their work is their passion. You can tell they love what they do. My sister-in-law had a very modern wedding, but I wanted my flowers to be more traditional. I loved that they were able to show me so many arrangement options that fit into my color palette that I wanted for the wedding. My bouquet was beautiful! It’s a really cute shop, too.

This is a cookie company in Wauwatosa that specializes in making cookies for special occasions. I’ve ordered boxes of cookies from them before as gifts for friends who have gotten engaged or pregnant. The cookies are very cute and tasty, they are unique looking, and I think they are a practical gift because you know people will eat cookies. We ordered special “thank you” cookies in small packages to give to all our guests; after talking with Patricia, and explaining what we wanted and the number of guest gift bags we would need, she suggested a small bag of violet and blue cookie flowers. It was a really cute and tasteful idea, and the cookies matched the bridesmaid’s dresses! I really liked working with Patricia, and the cookies she made meet my expectations by a hundred percent. I know I will order cookies again in the future.

Each bridesmaids’ dress cost $50 ($49.99), which was perfect! The girlfriends who I had designated as bridesmaids had come shopping with me at Eva’s, and even though there were some dresses that were very inexpensive I couldn’t ask my bridesmaids to spend so much money on me. When grocery shopping at Target I noticed that they had really nice and trendy looking dresses. When I considered that my girlfriends would only need to wear the dress one night, I suggested that they just buy matching dresses from Target. They loved the idea! I think it helped that all of them were between a size 6-12, so they were able to find sizes that fit them well. One worry that we had was whether another guest would arrive in the same dress. We guessed that no one would think of buying their party dress from Target, and we were right! I even went recently and they have the cutest floor length dresses. I think it makes so much more sense to buy a dress that won’t break the bank. In the end, their hair and make-up cost more than the dress! Incredible.

My mother hosted the big wedding shower at her home. We have started using Wal-Mart as our one-stop for family events, because you can buy platters of sandwiches, meats, cheese and fruits ready to go. They also do cakes, and my mom ordered three cakes that were really well decorated and really cute. I don’t think anyone could tell that it was ordered from Wal-mart and not a speciality baker. It actually tasted as good if not better than the cake we ordered through our catered, and cost less than a third of the price (3 cakes for $120 with taxes). The food was good, we had lots of fruit trays and lots of nice crackers and cheeses, too. My mother also picked up all the decorations there. She was very proud to tell me that my bridal shower for 50 people cost less than $400.

I really liked going here! I went with my best friend, who had also recently gotten engaged. We prepared ourselves by reading several wedding magazines, including Wisconsin Weddings which reviewed some of the local wedding supply vendors. I had a wedding budget in mind, and my mother had different idea of how much the wedding should be/would cost (more) and Rob’s mother had an even different idea of how much the wedding would be/cost (even more). My best friend was taking out a small loan to pay for everything, and I think going to the show and seeing options for weddings is a good way of figuring out how to do a nice wedding in your budget. I didn’t want our mothers paying for unnecessary things. I spoke and made appointments with lots of great wedding planners, caterers, florists, and DJs to talk more about my wedding plans. The whole show was a great place to network. I really loved going there. And the fashion show was nice.

I just found out from my maid of honor that Allegro has closed down! That’s really disappointing, especially since it was so nice! I really liked the martinis there, and that’s why my best girlfriends brought me there for my Bahelorette party. My favorite thing about the restaurant was the menu, they had really great shrimp dishes, the scallops they made were amazing, and they had an espresso dessert that was delicious. For my party, wee were able to reserve some tables, and they even made me a special signature drink for the evening! It was really pretty in there, too. It’s kind of a shame that they closed downL