Elle Music & Events

We hired Elle to handle our lighting after meeting the owner, Brandon Cruz. He was just so friendly and enthusiastic. Plus his quote for the strings of globe lighting I was aching to have was several hundred dollars less than the local company quoted. We ended up ordering the globe lighting for our dinner area, plus lighting for the dance floor and our lounge area. Unfortunately the lounge lighting was never connected, but Brandon happily refunded that charge and apologized profusely. Everyone loved the globe lighting and it provided the perfect ambiance for our garden party.

We used Elle for lighting for our wedding and it was great. Their prices are a lot better than any others I have seen for the same services. Brandon is also easy to work with and very responsive to email.

Our band Keith Johnson and the All Stars hired through Elle Music and Events was fantastic. Everyone had a great time and danced, danced, danced. I would have given them and 4 stars except they played the wrong version of our first dance song even though we gave them the CD of the song we wanted. They didn’t check to ensure that the version they had was the same as ours. We were bummed about the wrong song being played but no one noticed except us. We had cooreographed a dance to the song so when the wrong one came on we thought "Oh crap!". Keith sent me an email apologizing for it so that made me feel better.

Lighting - Elle Music and events

In addition to the band we used Elle for lighting. We had a floor wash and cake spot. Working with them was so so. I didnt feel like they were responsive at all to emails and phone calls. Leading up to the wedding I had attempted to contact Brandon several times about the lighting. Sometimes he would respond and sometimes he wouldnt. I felt like right before the wedding they should have made more effort to get back to me on important things. One other thing was that my friend Sara and I were both using them on the same day. They were getting her and I confused because we both have the same first name. I would get an email saying something was sorted out then I would respond saying...we never talked about that! Just because we have the same first name should not have caused all the confusion. I mean...we have different last names and our husbands (then fiances) have different names and we are at different locations. How confusing could it be? Brandon did apologize for it but overall I felt like it caused more stress because they were not as organized on the back end.

Also, the day before the wedding I get a call from accts payable dept telling me that I hadnt paid the final balance even though I had sent the check 2 weeks prior. It would have been nice if they had called me sooner to say they hadnt gotten it rather than waiting until the day before. It totally stressed me out because I had to pay them via CC over the phone then run to the bank and put a stop payment on the check (which cost me $30). The girl who called me said they would continue to look for the check and if it did come they wouldnt cash it. She seemed flighty so I didnt trust that they would shred it and I didnt want to have to deal with them depositing it by accident then fighting to get my money back which is why I stopped payment on it.

The lighting itself was OK. The cake spot looked nice but I didnt feel the floor wash was as good as it could have been. But, im going to reserve judgement on it until I get the pics back. It might have been better than I remember.

I gave them overall 3 stars because of the issue with first song and also the issues dealing with lighting and my payment. Those are simple things and should not have happened.

I would definitely recommend Elle & Co to my friends, and here's why:

They are inexpensive and Brandon Cruz is really, really nice.

I found Elle & Co because they represent the band we wanted to play at our wedding. Said band, Martini Straight Up, played at my cousin's bar mitzvah, and they rocked it. Despite the fact that the band was expensive, the other things Elle provides (such as lighting) were pretty inexpensive. We also got a discount for ordering multiple services through them.

I'm not sure that they are as creative as Got Light?, but they are MUCH less expensive. I already knew what I wanted for lighting, so I gave Elle a picture and they were able to duplicate it. I think Got Light? is very artistic and you definitely get what you pay for, but our room looked fantastic and I'm not all that picky about lighting...so in our case, I didn't think Got Light? was priority enough to take up that much of our budget.

Brandon always new my name and my fiancé's name when I called to talk to him. He is very friendly and I really liked him. I talked to him about hiring a string quartet for ceremony, and he was totally honest with me: he told me that he didn't think we needed a quartet for our ceremony venue, and that a trio would save us money. I told him I was considering hiring students (which I eventually did), and he told me the things to ask them to make sure our ceremony went smoothly. I really appreciated his honesty.

So why only 4 stars instead of 5? I sometimes felt like I didn't get a call back from them when I needed it. There was a bit of feedback on the sound system during toasts. I'm not sure why this happened, but I felt like it shouldn't have. Also, we ordered a cake spotlight (in addition to uplights and a floor wash), and we didn't get it. I called Brandon about this a few weeks after the wedding, though, and he promptly refunded it. :)

We enjoyed working with Elle for our lighting. The effect of the canned lighting wasn't quite what I had pictured but the chinese lanterns were amazing!