I found them at an Outerbanks wedding show and decided on them because if you used Outer Banks Limousine you got a free ride to and from the salon. The Salon was easy to find and my trial was included. The make-up woman was not available for my trial so I was a bit worried for the day of. My hair trial was exactly what I was imagining and she assured me it would hold up better for the wedding. For the day of we were the only ones in the salon. We had four people getting hair and make-up done and it took no time at all. Everyone had a unique look. I even had 3 people working on me at one time. I loved how everything turned out and my hair was still curly and perfect the next day that we drove home to Raleigh.

We had been looking for awhile and found the perfect ring online on zales.com. We went to our local one at the Crabtree Valley mall. They did not have the ring in the store but ordered it for us. They still allowed us to use the special promotion price even though we were ordering it. They gave us an estimated pick up date and told us they would call us when it came in. It came in very early and when we picked it up it fit my husband perfectly. I wanted something different for my wedding band and they worked with me to find the perfect chevron fit to my ring. We saved tons of money by using Zales and I feel their customer service is better than Kay's which is where my engagement ring is from.

I have heard bad things about Mw Tux in the past but we needed a national vendor because all of our groomsmen lived in different states. Each groomsmen and father found a mw tux and had their measurements taken. We arranged to have them picked up in Virginia which was the nearest location to the Outer Banks. They helped us pick the best tux for an outdoor summer wedding and explained the details of how pick up and drop off would go very well. We were able to deliver them all to the Raleigh location on Louisburg and we never had any problems. One of the dads could not be there to pick up his tux and we never had any issues with them or with the tux fitting.

Having a wedding on a small budget did not allow for extravagant invites with thermographic print. While searching online through the many catalogs I found someone who had customized a print your own invitation. I thought it was a great idea. I searched many stores and finally found a set at Michael's that allowed you to include a picture as your invitation. The Michael's website was very helpful with options for wording for invitations and how to set your printer to print your own. I was very happy with the results and even used ribbon from Michael's to customize the invite with our wedding colors.

We used vista print over magnetstreet or other vendors to save money. They run many promotions that allow you to get free products and only pay for shipping. We got a 100 custom save the date magnets that included our engagement pics for only like $20 with shipping. The website is very user friendly and I was able to upload our engagement pictures and customize the font. Everyone raved about how great the magnets turned out and what a great idea it was. We also ordered 100 free postcards that we added more info about the wedding that did not fit on the magnet. They give you plenty of options even getting them for free and if you are willing to pay a little bit more the options are infinite to what you can create.

I heard about this show on www.outerbanksweddingassoc.org. I have been to many wedding shows where macy's, crate and barrel, and other national vendors try and get you to sign up for a registry and there is not many local vendors. This show was filled with a great variety of local vendors. There were many free samples and great giveaways. I even won a prize. The fashion show was very entertaining. The presentation of hair and makeup and the dj gave us a great idea of what certain vendors could do. It was very organized and each category of vendors were set up together which made it easy to narrow down potential people I had found online.

I wish I could give Olga more than 5 stars. She is a board favorite on the local NC knot board. I had no idea what needed to be done or what my bustle should look like and Olga did an amazing job showing me what she could do. She had to take the dress in, shorten the tie in the back, take in my corset, and add a bustle. She also took in my corset. She is very affordable and her custom wedding and formal dresses are amazing. My bridesmaids were from out of town and she altered both of them in a few hours while we shopped.

The website was easy to use. It was recommended to me by someone on theknot.com. I found a selection of dresses and had the bridesmaids pick their favorite. We had them try on the Alfred Angelo at a local shop and order it online to get the better deal. The girls waited too long to order their dress so they had to pay extra for rush shipping. Customer service was not very nice and hard to contact. The dresses ended up arriving 2-3 weeks after the delivery date they paid for. The dresses finally arrived and were exactly as expected and every girl looked great.

I went with an idea of what I wanted . The ladies chose the dresses that I had wanted to try on and then she helped pick out dresses she thought I would like and look good in. I wasn't sure about some of them but she ended up finding two perfect dresses. I was having a hard time deciding on "the one" and they had no problem when I stayed in a potential dress for an hour walking around and sitting and trying to see if it really was the one. The dress was cleaned quickly and I was able to take it home in about 2 weeks.