ngarey's reviews

While we love the look of a "traditional" wedding cake (although with a more modern design), our priority was on taste. Just one bite from a CakeLove cupcake at a friend's birthday party and we were totally sold. While CakeLove cakes are expensive by normal cake terms, they're much cheaper than a traditional wedding cake, and we were able to get three 9" cakes (which each feed approximately 20 people) for less than the cost of a single traditional wedding cake - and still had leftovers! We honestly didn't even think of using anyone else for our wedding cake, and both in terms of cost and taste it was totally the right decision.

The food was great! We chose BasiKneads for the quality of the food - the food at the tasting was definitely restaurant quality. While I wasn't able to eat anything at the wedding (too many nerves!), my husband said the food was great and we received a lot of positive remarks from our guests. BasiKneads also took care of all of the rentals - tables, linens, chairs, etc. - and when they weren't able to find a company that could rent us the market umbrellas that we wanted to use and we had to buy our own, they helped us with storage and transport to the wedding venue. They also took care of most of the reception-related set-up, including placecards and favors, which helped free up our DOC to focus on other things. They were also very professional and flexible in working with us to make sure that we came in within our budget, including allowing us to bring our own alcohol and some supplies to the event to help keep costs down. We would highly recommend BasiKneads to any DC area brides and grooms!

Photography was our top priority, and we both knew that we wanted a photographer from the photojournalism school of wedding photography. In terms of the quality of Punam's photos, we couldn't have asked for more - she captured our day, both the sentiment and the actual details of our wedding, perfectly. She brought our wedding to life on film - or at least on our computer monitors.

Unfortunately, it took more than 6 months for Punam to mail us our DVD of all of our wedding photos - not even edited photos, but just the straight-out-of-the-camera proofs. It probably would have taken longer if I hadn't demanded the DVD after trying to ask nicely more than a couple of times. More than a year after our wedding, and despite the fact that our contract specifies that we are supposed to receive post-processed images, I've never received hi-res (printable) versions of the edited photos, and when I tried asking for them I was told that only the unedited proofs were available after one year (even though our contract made no mention of this). For digital photography, edited versions of photos are essential - so a DVD of unedited proofs leaves me feeling as though I still don't have my wedding photos.

So here's the deal - Punam is amazingly talented. I just wish she thought more of the fact that this is the bride and groom's wedding - not just her photography portfolio - and treated us a little better in that respect. If you're thinking about hiring Punam based on her photographic talent, that's fine, just don't make the same mistakes I did. Make sure it says in your contract that she will deliver your DVD of photos within a specified period of time and make sure it specifies the type of post-processing that she will do to the photos so that you have photos you can actually print and keep.

I used FiftyFlowers to order rose petals for our flower girl basket and to line the aisle for the ceremony. I ordered lavender petals to match our wedding decor. However, not only did my petals arrive a day early (so that they started to decay early), but they arrived in the TOTALLY wrong color - alternating bags of hot pink petals and cream petals. Since it was so close to our wedding and such a small part of the decorations, we chose just to toss the hot pink petals and use the cream petals for the aisle. When I later contacted FiftyFlowers to seek a partial refund (as I was not able to use half the product that I purchased), they refused to do so and gave me no explanation as to why the mistake had occurred in the first place. They seemed to have no concern for the satisfaction of their customers at all, and instead chose to strictly adhere to a policy that all complaints must be lodged within 24 hours of delivery - which from the perspective of a bride with a gazillion things to do before the wedding is totally unacceptable and inadequate. I decided to go with FiftyFlowers because they were the least expensive, but I should have remembered the lesson that you get what you pay for - in this case the wrong product with zero customer service. I would NOT recommend FiftyFlowers to any brides looking for a convenient source of rose petals or flowers for your wedding.

I ultimately settled on Amaryllis because they were the only florist still available on our date that was both willing to work with us given our wedding location and willing to provide a line item estimate and work with me to make sure that our floral elements stayed within our budget.

Unfortunately, this willingness to essentially negotiate the price of our wedding floral arrangements did not translate into effective communication or any creativity on their part. E-mails would go unanswered for several days at a time, and when they did respond it was only to send me a new proposal - not to respond directly to any of the questions or concerns that I raised in my previous e-mail. I was told on several occasions that something that I wanted "couldn't be done" (despite having seen something similar in other weddings around the same timeframe). At no point during the consultation process did they offer any alternative suggestions, but instead expected me to come up with a new idea alone and get back to them. When I specifically told them that I did not want traditional wedding flowers, i.e. roses and orchids, I received a proposal back that included both roses and orchids.

Despite a very detailed contract that specified the type of flower and greenery to use in each arrangement, I was extremely disappointed by the floral arrangements for our wedding. I provided pictures of both the bridal bouquet and bridesmaids bouquets and asked that our bouquets look like those in the provided pictures. However, Amaryllis appears to have disregarded the photos and essentially threw together some flowers into a bouquet. The bridal bouquet contained greenery that had not been discussed during consultations or included in the contract. The bridesmaids bouquets of white lilacs and tulips looked like clumps of individual flowers, not a carefully arranged bouquet. The ribbon wrapping on all bouquets was sloppy - and Amaryllis did not use a second ribbon that was provided (and personally handed to our floral designer the week before the wedding) as an accent for the bridal bouquet. Amaryllis's sloppiness also translated to the boutonnieres, as Amaryllis mislabeled the boutonniere for the groom's father and caused him not to have a boutonniere for the wedding ceremony.

For the centerpieces, while technically using the flowers specified in the contract, the arrangements were incredibly sparse and unimaginative. Rather than trying to fill out the arrangements with lower-priced flowers (anemonies, sweet peas, and ranunculus) around more expensive flowers (such as peonies), the arrangements only had only a few flowers (perhaps 5-6 max). For other centerpieces, when cream garden roses had been specifically requested and detailed in the contract, Amaryllis provided white/ivory traditional roses. Despite the fact that I had told them during our consultations that I wanted arrangements with a "springtime" feel, at no point in time did Amaryllis warn me that our arrangements would be so small and detract from the decor at our wedding.

Whether it was my modest budget or a general apathy towards wedding floral arrangements on the part of Amaryllis, my entire experience with Amaryllis was disappointing. I would NOT recommend Amaryllis to any other DC-area brides. Amaryllis also seems to have no concern or regard for customer satisfaction, as they have not made any attempt to contact me since our wedding to find out if we were happy with our arrangements. (They dropped off the flowers at our venue before we arrived, so I was not able to raise any of these concerns with them on site.)

I contacted Laura about the placecards for our wedding - and I couldn't have been more happy with the result! Her "Ella" font was perfect for our vintage-inspired (but still whimsical) spring garden wedding. I received many comments from our guests telling me how beautiful they thought the placecards were and how well they fit into our wedding. I only wish I'd known about Laura when we were sending out our invitations or I would have asked her to do the calligraphy for our envelopes as well (we just printed them on an ink jet printer, no where near as nice as they would have looked had Laura done them). Laura also provided the card stock for the placecards, which made the process that much easier and more convenient. Laura couldn't have been nicer or easier to work with, and the finished placecards arrived just a couple of days after I sent her the wording! I would highly recommend her to all other brides out there.