Venue - Prairie Lodge in Huntley IL:
This venue is beautiful. We chose it for that reason, and luckily I think it paid off the day off the wedding since all of our pictures and our ceremony was outdoors. There are so many photo opportunies there w/ fountains, bridges, ponds, etc. The downside to the venue is the banquet coordinator. She is not reliable, and very forgetful. We had a few run-ins with her and that was when we finally decided to hire a DOC, which you'll see the review for below. So, the day of the wedding, the DOC and banquet coordinator worked together and everything was great! The ceremony was outside on the lawn, overlooking a pond, and the reception was inside in the ballroom. The dancefloor is huge! Food was very good, and the price per person is very reasonable!
Day of Coordinator - Sweet Pea Wedding Studio (Kristin):
Kristin is a rockstar. She was so great to work with! She is very reliable, very responsive, and a complete sweetheart. Every time I e-mailed her with a question, I got a response back right away. She is so very thorough. She took the ideas that we had and executed them 100% on the wedding day. I can't say enough good things about her. She brought an assistant with her the day of the wedding which happened to be her sister, and she was very good as well. While Kristin finished up setting up the room, etc, her assistant went with while we took pictures and made sure that the photographer was getting the shots that we wanted. And, when I had a little issue with my hair (it was windy and every time the photographer went to take a pic, my bangs would fall in my face) she grabbed a can of hairspray and voila...all better! Later on in the night I started feeling like I was coming down with a cold, and she ran out and got me Emergen-C! At the end of the night, they packed up everything we brought, and made sure it got to the right place, we didn't have to worry about a thing! Those are just a couple examples of how they are there for you 100%, totally worth looking into if you need a DOC for your wedding!!!
Photographer - George Street Photography (Thomas): For now, I will just say that Thomas was great to work with. Review is pending final product from them. Haven't seen any pro pics yet!
DJ - Ameritune DJs and Video (Al Mitchell): Al is the owner of Ameritune. We really liked him from the first time we met him, in fact, he was the only DJ we met with and decided to book him right away. He did our ceremony and reception music and I thought he did a great job. We got a lot of compliments on him as well. He plays live music during dinner (trumpet and keyboard) and that gave it a really nice touch. I couldn't see him playing from the head table, and I almost forgot that he was playing live, that's how good it was :) He was also reasonable in price.
Florist - Grapevine Floral (Keely): Keely was great! I never thought I could be excited about flowers but she got me excited about flowers. She did pretty well with working with my budget, although I did end up spending more than I originally budgeted for. We decided to do each bridesmaid bouquet different. Each BM had a bouquet of one certain flower, all in a lavendar shade. There was a bouquet of button mums, cushion mums, fugis, carnations, and hydrangea. I LOVED them! My bouquet was not what I pictured it to be. In fact, I brought in a picture of what I wanted and I don't think my bouquet looked much like it. It was beautiful, and I did get a lot of compliments on it, but it just wasn't what I expected. Two days before the wedding, I brought my mom's rosary in to Keely to have her put it in my bouquet (my something old) and I told her I didn't want to see much of it, just really wanted to know it was there. She did a great job concealing it, just the cross was hanging out in the front of it, and I absolutely loved it!
Linens - The Chair Couture (Czarina): Nothing but good things to say about The Chair Couture and Czarina! From the start, any questions I had, she got back to me right away (usually within minutes). The linens looked great, I never knew they were there setting up or taking down, and they were very reasonable in price!
Videographer - Ameritune DJs and Video (RJ): I didn't interact much with RJ, so I can't really say much at this point. I'll know more when we get the video!
Alterations - Mary Catomy: What can I say? Mary was Awesome! She is hilarious and sweet, and she knows what she's doing! I'm so glad I went to her for my alterations!
Transportation - M&M Limousine: I went off of all the recommendations here on TK, and I did find that they were the least expensive of all the places I got quotes from. BUT, I was pretty disappointed in their service. They called me 3 times in the days leading up to the wedding with stupid questions like "is this for a wedding or a cotillion?" (they mixed up their records), and "are you going to need the driver for more than the 3 hrs you booked?", it was just kind of annoying and seemed like they didn't know what they were doing. Then, since we booked a wedding package, they were supposed to have the limo fully stocked with beer, water, and a bottle of champagne - and it wasn't. The limo driver picked up the boys first, dropped them off at our venue, then came to pick the girls up... I saw that my hubby left the bottle of champagne for us girls, so I was excited to pop it open and make a toast ....but there were no glasses for us to use! the driver suggested drinking straight from the bottle. WTH? So, I wasn't really impressed with their services at all. They got us from point A to B, that's about it.
This venue is beautiful. We chose it for that reason, and luckily I think it paid off the day off the wedding since all of our pictures and our ceremony was outdoors. There are so many photo opportunies there w/ fountains, bridges, ponds, etc. The downside to the venue is the banquet coordinator. She is not reliable, and very forgetful. We had a few run-ins with her and that was when we finally decided to hire a DOC, which you'll see the review for below. So, the day of the wedding, the DOC and banquet coordinator worked together and everything was great! The ceremony was outside on the lawn, overlooking a pond, and the reception was inside in the ballroom. The dancefloor is huge! Food was very good, and the price per person is very reasonable!
Day of Coordinator - Sweet Pea Wedding Studio (Kristin):
Kristin is a rockstar. She was so great to work with! She is very reliable, very responsive, and a complete sweetheart. Every time I e-mailed her with a question, I got a response back right away. She is so very thorough. She took the ideas that we had and executed them 100% on the wedding day. I can't say enough good things about her. She brought an assistant with her the day of the wedding which happened to be her sister, and she was very good as well. While Kristin finished up setting up the room, etc, her assistant went with while we took pictures and made sure that the photographer was getting the shots that we wanted. And, when I had a little issue with my hair (it was windy and every time the photographer went to take a pic, my bangs would fall in my face) she grabbed a can of hairspray and voila...all better! Later on in the night I started feeling like I was coming down with a cold, and she ran out and got me Emergen-C! At the end of the night, they packed up everything we brought, and made sure it got to the right place, we didn't have to worry about a thing! Those are just a couple examples of how they are there for you 100%, totally worth looking into if you need a DOC for your wedding!!!
Photographer - George Street Photography (Thomas): For now, I will just say that Thomas was great to work with. Review is pending final product from them. Haven't seen any pro pics yet!
DJ - Ameritune DJs and Video (Al Mitchell): Al is the owner of Ameritune. We really liked him from the first time we met him, in fact, he was the only DJ we met with and decided to book him right away. He did our ceremony and reception music and I thought he did a great job. We got a lot of compliments on him as well. He plays live music during dinner (trumpet and keyboard) and that gave it a really nice touch. I couldn't see him playing from the head table, and I almost forgot that he was playing live, that's how good it was :) He was also reasonable in price.
Florist - Grapevine Floral (Keely): Keely was great! I never thought I could be excited about flowers but she got me excited about flowers. She did pretty well with working with my budget, although I did end up spending more than I originally budgeted for. We decided to do each bridesmaid bouquet different. Each BM had a bouquet of one certain flower, all in a lavendar shade. There was a bouquet of button mums, cushion mums, fugis, carnations, and hydrangea. I LOVED them! My bouquet was not what I pictured it to be. In fact, I brought in a picture of what I wanted and I don't think my bouquet looked much like it. It was beautiful, and I did get a lot of compliments on it, but it just wasn't what I expected. Two days before the wedding, I brought my mom's rosary in to Keely to have her put it in my bouquet (my something old) and I told her I didn't want to see much of it, just really wanted to know it was there. She did a great job concealing it, just the cross was hanging out in the front of it, and I absolutely loved it!
Linens - The Chair Couture (Czarina): Nothing but good things to say about The Chair Couture and Czarina! From the start, any questions I had, she got back to me right away (usually within minutes). The linens looked great, I never knew they were there setting up or taking down, and they were very reasonable in price!
Videographer - Ameritune DJs and Video (RJ): I didn't interact much with RJ, so I can't really say much at this point. I'll know more when we get the video!
Alterations - Mary Catomy: What can I say? Mary was Awesome! She is hilarious and sweet, and she knows what she's doing! I'm so glad I went to her for my alterations!
Transportation - M&M Limousine: I went off of all the recommendations here on TK, and I did find that they were the least expensive of all the places I got quotes from. BUT, I was pretty disappointed in their service. They called me 3 times in the days leading up to the wedding with stupid questions like "is this for a wedding or a cotillion?" (they mixed up their records), and "are you going to need the driver for more than the 3 hrs you booked?", it was just kind of annoying and seemed like they didn't know what they were doing. Then, since we booked a wedding package, they were supposed to have the limo fully stocked with beer, water, and a bottle of champagne - and it wasn't. The limo driver picked up the boys first, dropped them off at our venue, then came to pick the girls up... I saw that my hubby left the bottle of champagne for us girls, so I was excited to pop it open and make a toast ....but there were no glasses for us to use! the driver suggested drinking straight from the bottle. WTH? So, I wasn't really impressed with their services at all. They got us from point A to B, that's about it.
