We had our ceremony at the Courtyard at the Sainte Claire. It was the perfect place for the amount of people we had and also the fact that it was at the same location. The courtyard is very romantic and has small canlighs coming down from the ceiling. The cocktail reception was in the hotel's lounge which is a large area with lots of plush sofas and chairs, but the group circled around the bar. The dinner was in the ballroom which was newly renovated. Everything was wonderful!!! The food was
exceptional, everything from the wine, hors d'oeuvres, primi, entrees, and the zabaion desert. The staff at Il Fornaio was great. Everyone was friendly and a guest mentioned that the bartender was making the drinks extra strong :) Another thing to mention about Il Fornaio is the flexibility we had with everything. They did not have many restrictions at all compared to other locations.

The dresses arrived on time; there were no issues. I recommend this place!

I bought stationery from Jerdon to make our menu cards, place cards, and table numbers. The stationery the store offers is nice, but the service if very poor. I bought the last stock of paper I was using for the menu cards and wanted to get more. The lady said she'll order some and get back to me. I never heard from her for about a month and she never answers the phone. So I had to go to the store in person to see if the order arrived. It was not there and she said she'll call me. Again, no phone call from her. One week before the wedding I went to the store again. The order (if she ever placed it) had not arrived and she said the company (Crane's) was not responding to her. Anyway, I gave up at that point and used other stationery for the menu cards. I would not recommend this place to anyone.

The chocolate fountain was great; people loved it! Working with Naomi was great. She is very reasonably priced and a pleasure to work with. She told me how many dipping items to get and I got most of the stuff from Costco, except the strawberries, which I got at a market.

I worked with Terry from Exquisite Party Rentals. We rented table linens and gold chiavary chairs. We rented different sizes and colors of linens (for guest tables, chocolate fountain table, cake table, and sweetheart table. Despite my worries that they'll get the sizes and/or colors wrong, everything was perfect and in great condition. Linens were very important to me so I did a lot of research and visited most of bay area rental places trying different table setups and making sure all the colors coordinate. I was set on gold linens and Exquisite Party Rentals had exactly what I was looking for and also at reasonable price. The chiavary chairs were $7.50 including the cushion, while other places were renting them for $8. The only reason I gave the A- is because Terry was not very good with returning my calls. I had to keep calling until I got her on the phone. Maybe I was very early in booking (months before the wedding) and had too many questions/concerns (out of paranoia) or maybe she was too busy. At the end, the rentals were great and I feel like I worried for nothing.

Teresa is another great vendor. I was not sure if I liked how the trial came out and I had some doubts. She said that on the wedding day she spends much more time and perfects every detail. I also changed my mind about the updo I wanted so I only had a picture to show her on the wedding day. Despite all this, she did an amazing job!!! The updo was perfect and stayed up all night. She also did the hair of my two flower girls and they looked great too.

Karen was great! We met with a lot of ministers and picked her because she was so happy, warm, and caring. Other ministers we met with had restrictions and also wanted us to follow their ceremony text. Karen said she'll do anything we wanted. She did a wonderful job with the ceremony and made a lot of people cry :)

All I can say is, the BEST cake I've ever had. Margaret was another one of my top 3 vendors. She was a pleasure to work with. We tasted soooo many cakes from A Piece of Cake Bakery to Jen's Cakes. We wanted tiramisu cake and all the cakes we tasted either did not taste like tiramisu or they did not use real mascapone cheese and coffee. Margaret's cakes were moist and fluffy and she uses real ingredients instead of cake mix. I know a lot of people say how they barely tasted the cake and wish they ate more on their wedding day. Well, I had two pieces on the wedding day and we finished the leftover cake the next day. It was simply the best cake I've had!!!
When I talked to Margaret on the phone before the wedding, I told her I could not wait to taste the cake. She said she cannot wait to see it. It was a gorgeous cake; it turned out better than we expected.

Si is absolutely great and super-sweet! She altered my dress exactly how I wanted it and the bustle was perfect. She is very reasonably priced as well. One of my bridesmaids also went to her for alterations and was happy.

I worked with Wafaa at Elegant Lace. She was great! Everyone in this store is super-friendly and very helpful, totally different than the snobbish attitude I got at Trudy's (where they would not even let me browse through the dresses and had a 3 dresses max you can try on and you need an appointment). At Elegant Lace, you can just show up and they let your browse for hours. I ended up trying on 4 dresses and one of them was the one I bought. It arrived in 3 or 4 months, I don't remember exactly. They offer free pressing of the dress you buy, so I brought back my dress a week before the wedding and they pressed it. There was also a stain on the dress probably from the many times I tried it on and they removed it for me.