lainieb's reviews

I was very lucky when I was planning my wedding in the fact that, at the time, my sister was a corporate event planner. She introduced me to Michael who, through my muddled visions and pages pulled from magazine, brought my wedding day to life. He really went above and beyond my expectations. He does flowers, tablescapes, decorations and basically anything that has to do with the look of your wedding.

Bridgeport was the perfect place for our rehearsal dinner. They have a gourgeous event room with it’s own private bar that has a casual elegence to it that fit our style perfectly. We had an all appetizer buffet and the set up was beautiful, very simple with fresh flowers. The food was fantastic and we had guest taking home doggy bags at the end of the night.

When we started planning our wedding, finding the right DJ was a top priority. We knew that a DJ could make or break the night (nobody remembers what they ate at a wedding, but everyone will remember if the entertainment is awful). Shawn was everything we could have hoped for and more. He was recommended to us by another DJ we interviewed and we figured he must be good if even his competitors were recommending him - he did not disappoint! During the planning process, Shawn came to our house several times for consultations and made sure that we got everything we wanted out of the experience. On the big day he acted as Master of Ceremonies and his calm demeanor and organization kept everything moving along at just the right pace. Our wedding would not have been half as good without him and we've had many of our guests call and ask for his name for their own event. A big ‘thank you’ to Shawn and his team for such an amazing day!

We were lucky enough to hear about Karren through a couple we met at a tasting. Neither my husband or I really like cake, so while we got a smaller traditional cake we also wanted a dessert buffet. Karren’s cakes were delicious (even to us non cake lovers) and so beautiful. We were amazed by the dessert buffet she put together. All kinds of mini tarts, cookies and pastries. Our guests loved them!

On the day of the wedding everything went very smoothly and looked fantastic. When we went for the tasting we weren’t thouroughly impressed with the flavor of the food – too bland for us, but they were very open to our feedback and food suggestions - even specific recipes and come wedding day the food was great. They are also very flexible with decorations as long as you clear it with them ahead of time. I really dislike their buffet set up. It is a huge monstrosity that they they insist on putting in the center of the room. We asked if we could move it of to one side or another and they said no. So we had a plated dinner – guess we showed them.

Collage Music saved our butts! We were informed by our ceremony site very late in the game that if we wanted to use recorded music, e’d have to secure the liscensing for it. We went for live music and contacted Collage Music with just two weeks left before our wedding. They found us two musicians and played all the songs we wanted – even helping us with music selections when we got stuck. Professional and easy to work with.

We spent almost our entire planning process thinking we would not hire a videographer, but our DJ convinced us to give Ryan at Focal Point a call and we are so glad we did. Ryan and his assistant were so unintrusive that I almost forgot they were there half the time. They captured so many wonderful moments and the finished product was beautiful. The DVD was edited perfectly but not cluttered with too many special effects (which I’ve seen on many a wedding video). After the wedding we were so happy we decided to hire a videographer. The day is such a blur that the video is a nice reminder of how it all came together.

Kate is awesome! It’s almost hard for me to put into words how happy we were with Kate and our finished photography. Photography was number one on our list of importance when we started planning our wedding, we met with a lot of photographers and Kate was the cream of the crop. Her photographs are beautiful and she has a great, natural, photojournalistic style that makes all of her subjects look fantastic. Plus, she has a great personality and is so easy to get along with – very important since she was basically with me from start to finish on my wedding day. Kate is non-intrusive, but gets all the emotional and amazing shots you’d want from your wedding day. We have recommended Katie to all of our friends and feel very blessed to have found her. Kate will be our family photographer forever – she’ll be taking pictures of our kids when the time comes.

Neither my husband or I had an officiant in mind when we started the wedding planning process. We both new we didn’t want overly religious overtones and we wanted to find someone who meshed with our laid-back style. Bruce fit the bill. We met him and his wife at a pub and talked about ourselves and what style we were looking for in our weeding. With Bruce, you basically write your own ceremony and vows (with his guidance), which makes it feel much more personal. When it was time for the big show Bruce really did a fantastic job. We had so many compliments on our ceremony. As an added bonus - he and his wife Diane are incredibly easy to work with.

While the site was beautiful and the wedding turned out perfectly, I had a bit of trouble working with the churches coordinators. They lost my info and I ended up calling to remind them to schedule us for a consultation. Plus some of their policies weren’t clear and seemed to change based on who you were talking to. About two weeks before the ceremony we were told that either we had to get live musicians or licensing for the songs we wanted to play if we were using recorded music. Not a big deal, if you are told in advance, but this point was not made in any of the paperwork and it sent us into a bit of a mad dash to find musicians.