I knew from the beginning that I wanted to plan my wedding myself with my mom -- My mom has a knack for hosting really unique parties and I wanted the two of us to be able to plan everything together. Planning a wedding to be at your own home though turned out to be a much bigger undertaking that I ever imagined. Things that you would never even think of needed be done....for example my poor brothers were put to work all last summer to get our gardens 'wedding ready', we got new lighting, had trees taken out and are having the driveway re-paved. My parents claim that these things aren't "just for the wedding" they were all on the to-do list, but were expedited due to the wedding. On top of all that maintenance that would have been taken care of for us if I had chosen a country club, hotel or reception hall, I had to find vendors to rent everything from big things like tents, tables & chairs to little things like every fork, knife, spoon, glass and dish. Choosing vendors can be a stressful part of wedding planning, but once you start doing a little research I found it pretty
easy to make decisions. I pretty much made all my decisions based on 1. professionalism of their web presence 2. Timeliness in communication 3. First Impressions and 4. Referrals.
Photographer -
I found my photographer through Whirl Magazine's semi-annual wedding edition -- and the reason why I chose
MichaelWill to be my photographer was because I e-mailed him to find out some more information about his pricingg and packages and he didn't just respond back to me with an e-mail....he called me, literally 3 minutes after I hit the "send" button. I liked this prompt communication because like I mentioned before, patience is not one of my strong suits. But not only was he prompt to get back to me he was SO enthusiastic - I could tell he really loved photographing weddings and he had a great personality that I felt would spark some good candid pictures. Each time I e-mail him or comment on something on his facebook page he always tells me how excited he is for my wedding and I actually believe him :)
Caterer
I thought that I had booked my caterer like a month after I got engaged....wrong. My parents went to a restaurant in Meadville (that I wont name) which is right outside Conneaut Lake, and starting talking to the owner about my wedding -- he mentioned that he didn't run a catering business for a full time career but that he did catering for "select" people and would love to bid on my wedding since my parents were good clients of his. He went on to say that he would also provide bar tenders and valet parking - I thought "sweet, 3 birds with 1 stone!" About a week after my parents talked to him at his restaurant he came over to our house to try to get a lay of the land and talk with me about what I wanted. I sort of knew what I wanted but I really needed a professional opinion to help me figure out a menu that would blend well together -- and he wasnt able to offer that. After talking for about an hour he said he felt like he got enough information from me to get a good proposal put together and I gave him until September 10, 2010 to give us the quote, which was about 3 month (a really long time to work on a proposal...). The week before September 10th he e-mailed my mom saying he needed an extenstion and would get us the quote by October 4th. Not really a good first impression asking for an extention on a deadline you had 3 months to work on buddy.... but I didnt give up hope - I kept faith in him until October 12th when we had still not heard from him and I had made appointments to meet with multiple other vendors on October 23rd. I e-mailed him and asked if he would be able to get me the quote by October 22ed so that we could get an idea of how much $$ we were looking at for food as a starting point and so that I could tell the rental company what supplies we would need. Well, today is December 10th and I still have not heard from him....snooze you loose buddy. Not only are you not getting my wedding business, my parents are never going back to your restaurant.
I am so excited that I didnt end up going with that guy as my caterer because I came across Jody's Pantry catering again through Whirl Magazine and I am SO excited about the food and menu that they are going to provide. Jody's Pantry answered my e-mails at lightning speed, had my parents and I out for a complimentary tasting and showed us videos and countless numbers of picture books of previous work that they have done. Now this was the professionalism I was looking for!!
And as an added bonus....Jody's Pantry is a Little Black Book vendor which means they are a vendor that has been featured on
http://www.stylemepretty.com/ .....my FAVORITE website EVER, my "wedding dream" is to have my wedding featured on the blog.... Jody's Pantry is going to help me out :)
Check out some of their catering videos - I am so excited!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39Szf5P5qLQ
Day-of-coordinator
Like I mentioned earlier, I knew that I didnt want a wedding planner because I am having way too much fun and I am way too much of a control freak to let someone else plan my wedding for me, however, when it comes to the day of the wedding I want to hand the reigns over to someone else....and that is why I decided I need a day-of-coordinator. I got 2 names from Whirl Magazine (I love Whirl's wedding guide if you can't tell....anyone getting married in Pittsburgh, I would definitely recommend buying the magazine and using their website) - 1 was based in Pittsburgh and 1 was based in Erie --they both had beautiful websites but 1 had better communication. I e-mailed Sumer Schmit at
Simply Pefect Weddings to see if she had my date available and if she could give me some more infomation about her services and she not only got back to me in like an hour but she sent me the most adorable packet of infomation that was all outlined in pink swirls. I think Sumer is a girl after my own heart and she doesnt even know it....haha, on her "Top 10 reasons why you should hire me" # 3 was "we love spreadsheets....seriously!". I am pretty sure this sold me before I even met her -I live by spreadsheets- I made an excel spreadsheet outlining my outfits for my Las Vegas trip this summer....categorized by "daytime, evening, and night". My mom and I went out to meet Sumer at a Starbucks and I got there about 15 minutes early...Sumer was already there, sitting at a table in an adorable pink caridgan holding a pink folder of information for me. I knew from a 15 minute conversation with her that she was exactly what I was looking for, and that she would take care of anything I needed. So far, she has proven to follow through on everything and anything I have asked her! I needed hair/make-up recommendations....I had a list of them waiting for me in my inbox a day after I asked for them, same thing with a florist.
Florist
Flowers are SO important to me....but I was having a hard time researching florists until Sumer referred me to
Mocha Rose Floral Designs..... I only had to meet with 1 florist before I knew that April at Mocha Rose was going to be the best choice. The flower appointment was so fun - my maid of honor came with me and my mom and we spent about an hour and a half talking about flowers and looking through pictures on April's iPad of other events that she had done. I am excited to work with April because she only does weddings and corporate events, she doesnt do your typical birthday and funeral arrangments so I know that she is putting all of her efforts into my arrangements.
