Wedding Reviews

[Rachy]

Thought i would do some reviews to help other brides who plan to get married in Florida. Made some notes out there so here goes:

Our Venue, Celebration Hotel: We got married on the Friday and went to Celebration on the Tuesday to meet our wedding co ordinator. She explained to us that the hotel was getting re furbed and this was due to start on the Friday . She said it wouldn't affect our wedding but instead of me walking through the main doors onto the terrace and down the aisle, i would have to walk down a little corridor out of a door with a toilet sign :angry: She also said the guests wouldn't be able to come through the main door as this would be closed off due to the floor getting re done. To say i was mad was an under statement. Why didn't she mention this before? If i had know this we could have found somewhere else.
Anyway i emailed her that night and told her i wasn't happy with the arrangement. She said they had another terrace we could use and to come back and have a look. Anyway we did, the following day and luckily we liked it. Still made me cross though.
On a positive note, the food was fab and we were well looked after by the staff. We got rose petals scattered on our bed in the evening. A bottle of champagne and chocolate covered strawberries.


Randy Chapman- Amazing, amazing, amazing. He is the nicest guy ever and very professional. He arrived early and stayed beyond his time. We highly recommend him.

Beaute Special (sp?) Loved my make up and loved my hair. Rosie who did my hair was lovely, very bubbly and chatty. My mum and bridesmaid also loved their make up and hair.

Stan at STVS- Not received our wedding dvd yet so can't comment. He was nice enough.

Cake- We loved our cake, it was exactly what we wanted and tasted yummy! See below:



Floral- Perfect. I had roses with bling in each one. See below:



Officiant Rev Ron Rosenzeig- Not too great to be honest for a few reasons. He sent me a standard ceremony back in January, and we didn't really like it. I decided to write the whole ceremony and vows myself, and sent this back to him (also in January) I asked him if he was ok to read this and he said he would read what we liked. We paid him a deposit of $100 for his $150 fee.
Fast forward to the ceremony, he came to my room whilst i was getting ready, and the first thing he said was, "can i have my fee" i found this really rude! He also showed me the ceremony i had written to double check everything and all ok.
During the ceremony he pretty much messed up every sentence, even though he was reading off a piece of paper he couldn't get any of it right. He obviously hadn't read it prior to the ceremony.

Dove Release- Good. Would we do it again? Probably not. A few weeks after the wedding we found out we could have had parrots there. If we could rewind we would have had these instead of the doves.

Harpist- Amazing. Christine was lovely, very talented. Sent her a list of songs before the wedding and she played all of them, even though i didn't think she would have heard of some. We upgraded to a harpist from a violinist and so pleased we did. She also sent us a cd of our music when we got home.

Carolyn Allen's- Fab! Kev rented his suit from here and we loved it. I also got my dress and bridesmaid dress steamed and hired a hoop from them. Very professional and generally nice people.

Court House- Very easy process. We got there at about 9am and no queue. We were in there about 10 minutes maximum.

Overall it was a fantastic day. Couldn't have asked for better weather.

Hope all this helps.

If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask.

Rachel
x

[Sarah84]

Welcome home 'Mrs'

Sorry to hear about the venue refurb, that is really bad of them to let you know at such short notice. Glad you liked the other location there, sounds like everything else there was great which is good.
The cake looks fantastic, i've been thinking of having mine like that did you buy the topper or letters or did they supply them?

The officiant situation is really rubbish, what awful service and not very friendly just coming in and asking for his money straight away

Glad you had a great trip & wedding though, just seen your pics on FB and they are fab.

[Rachy]

Originally Posted by Sarah84

Welcome home 'Mrs'

Sorry to hear about the venue refurb, that is really bad of them to let you know at such short notice. Glad you liked the other location there, sounds like everything else there was great which is good.
The cake looks fantastic, i've been thinking of having mine like that did you buy the topper or letters or did they supply them?

The officiant situation is really rubbish, what awful service and not very friendly just coming in and asking for his money straight away

Glad you had a great trip & wedding though, just seen your pics on FB and they are fab.

See more...

I pinched the cake idea off someone from the dis. Your more than welcome to pinch the idea off me.

The cake company ordered the letters for me as they got 50% discount. The crystal bands, i ordered but got them sent to the cake shop. More than happy to pass on details. x

[Guest]

Hi Rachel and congratulations to you both!
Fab write-up! I'm pretty new on here so it's really helpful. We're marrying at Cypress Grove next Nov but are thinking to have our meal at Celebration. You must've been gutted about the refurb but I'm glad you stood your ground and didn't end up walking past the toilet sign!
Have heard some really positive comments about Randy Chapman, definitely thinking to book him if he's available.
Cake and flowers look gorgeous

[Rachy]

Welcome to the dibb! You will find so much info on here to help you out. Good luck planning x

[Sarah84]

Originally Posted by Rachy

I pinched the cake idea off someone from the dis. Your more than welcome to pinch the idea off me.

The cake company ordered the letters for me as they got 50% discount. The crystal bands, i ordered but got them sent to the cake shop. More than happy to pass on details. x

See more...

I bet you pinched it from the same person I did on there
I'd love the details of where you got the crystal bands please? the letters look great I've had a look for some on the likes of Ebay but none look as good as those ones

[Rachy]

Crystal bands are from weddedglitz.com.

The cake toppers are from wmidesign.com. x

[pennycrayon]

Thank you for your honest reviews, I can't believe the hotel did not tell you about the refubishments!

I have seen your photos on Facebook, it looks like you had a beautiul day

[Chilly80]

Originally Posted by gemmybear83

Thank you for your honest reviews, I can't believe the hotel did not tell you about the refubishments!

I have seen your photos on Facebook, it looks like you had a beautiul day

See more...

[Guest]

From a planners point of view I enjoyed reading your review. There are some good things to learn from that's for sure.

We were thinking about you over at the double ceremony and even spoke about you wondering how it was going.

Love love love the cake!

Congrats again and thanks for posting this.