Kniblet's Wedding!
Wedding Planner and Chair Covers:
Lasting Impressions
A+++++
Sarah is fantastic! When we first interviewed her, we knew we found someone to help us make our wedding vision come to life. She just "got us" instantly. By the time we met her, we had already planned a lot of what we wanted. But she helped SO much when it came to dealing with vendors and pulling everything all together. She was always great at answering emails, no matter how many we sent to her.
Photographer:
Happily Ever After
C?
We brought in Ruth with only one month left until the wedding. We originally had a different photographer but we had a few problems. When the last problem literally freaked us out, we searched for someone else. And I am SO glad that we did. Ruth re-shot our E-pics and we were in LOVE with them. All of my friends and his friends went on and on about how great they turned out. And more than 5 people commented how much BETTER they were than the first pics by the other photographer. Ruth gave us peace of mind that we didn't have with the first photographer. And on wedding day, she made us feel comfortable and we had fun. I am SO ready to see a few teasers.
So, I gave her a Photo shot list and it was detailed. Did I get even half of those shots? No. The pics that we DID get were fine but my mother noticed, sadly, that there was not a really good shot of the back of the dress. At all. And after the wedding? HORRIBLE communication. She can take over a week to shoot back an email answer.
The albums for us, the moms, and BM's were on the order sheet. We got one for us and one for A MOM. Not both moms?? What the hell. Not to mention, our album is the wrong one. We mentioned SEVERAL times which cover of album that we wanted and she ordered the wrong one. And it's taken us almost a MONTH to get her to nail down a date to bring it back and get the other one ordered. It's Feb in MN. She cannot be THAT busy.
And the BM's? What albums? She never even ordered those.
Videographer:
Princess Bride
A+ so far
We have dealt mainly with Sarah at PB. She is super nice and listened to us when we talked about what we wanted for the Video Montage at the Welcome Dinner and the wedding video. The Montage was GREAT. All of the guests loved it. And on wedding day, Sarah was like a ninja. You never knew she was there until she had been standing there filming you for a few minutes. Like the photographer, she made us feel really comfortable in front of the camera and we cannot wait to see the end result.
UPDATE: We LOVE our wedding video. The first time I watched it, I cried. The first time the kids and both moms watched it? They cried. Karl did an AMAZING job with the editing and music.
STD's & Invitations:
www.magnetstreet.com
A+
We wanted to use invites that allowed us to use a personal picture and Magnet Street was perfect! They have so many types of Save the Dates and invites to choose from and they let you search by color, size, and more. Our order came in earlier than expected and they looked fantastic! We got a lot of compliments on them.
Envelope Printing/Escort Cards:
Watermark Stationary- Wayzata, MN
B+
We didn't want to use labels on the envelopes so we went to Watermark and had them print the return address, the inner envelope, and the outer envelope. We dropped the envelopes and the flash drive with the info off on a Friday afternoon. We were told they would be ready in a few days and that would call us to come pick them up. By Thursday, we had not heard anything so FI called them. The girl that answered said they would be printing them that night and they would be ready on Friday morning. On Friday, we were a little preoccupied and it slipped our minds that they never called. FI called them on Saturday and they said there was a problem. When they started printing them (on Saturday morning, not Thursday night) the printer wheel broke halfway through the job. It would be Monday before they could get it fixed. That was fine. We were in no rush.
On Monday, they called FI while he was out. They had finished printing all of the envelopes, but there was a problem. They had somehow input my first name WRONG and it was spelled wrong on every single outer envelope and RSVP envelope. And we only had 25 extras of each. They had to look around for more and then ended up having to order them and get them shipped overnight. Because of all of this, the printing was free.
I gave them a B+ because I figured if you get ONE name right, it should be the bride and/groom.
But the when they fixed the problem, the envelopes looked GREAT! We really liked that they could match the font from the invites.
Bridal Gown/Flower Girl Dresses:
The Bridal Center- Plymouth, MN
B
I have mixed emotions about the Bridal Center. They were the ONLY shop in town that had the dress that I wanted, so I was able to actually try it on. They were great that first day when I went to try on the sample. The day that I went back to actually put in the order, that's when I started feeling annoyed. They did fine with MY dress but they started pushing me to buy the BM dresses there as well. And when I say pushing, I mean pushing. They went so far as to tell me that if I let my BM's order there dresses in their hometowns, they would never match each other due to different dye lots. And they told me that my FG dresses HAD to be ordered when I ordered MY gown or they wouldn't come in on time.
I emailed Alfred Angelo that night and asked them. They said that maybe 6 years ago, dye lots were a problem. But not anymore. My BM's would be fine ordering them in TN and AZ. And they also said that the FG dresses would take no more than 3 months, if that.
I let my maids order close to their homes so that they could attend their fittings. It made NO sense to me to order them in MN, ship to them, have them altered and then ship them back. That's a lot of extra costs and the dresses traveling too much.
I don't like being pushed into ANYTHING. I don't do well with people trying to manipulate me into giving their store more money when I am already giving you PLENTY.
Alterations:
Louise Kegley
A++
Louise IS as wonderful as the MSP brides all claim. And she DOES make you somehow feel like you are the ONLY bride in the city when you are with her. She had to take my dress in more than we thought, due to losing a little weight and my torso being shorter. But she always said we would do whatever we had to do. I loved her! And she made my dress look great!
Veil:
www.bridiesbaubles.com
A+
I LOVE my veil. I had it custom made for my dress. The owner of the company was WONDERFUL. I emailed several times asking for answers to questions that I had about material and rhinestones. She even adjusted a Drop Down box on their site when I noticed a problem. It came a week sooner than expected and it's gorgeous.
Hair Twists:
www.daisy-days.com
A+
I bought the twists for ME on their site. But when I received them, they were NOT what I ordered. Turns out, the manufacturer made a mistake in the initial packaging. Daisy days told me to pick something else and they would send those. BUT they also let me KEEP the wrong ones, still pretty ones, for no charge. So I got twists for the BM's for FREE! EXCELLENT Customer Service.
Flower girl shoes:
www.mygirldress.com
F
I ordered Ivory shoes for my little flower girls from this site. When i received them on a Friday, the shoes were BEIGE. it even said Beige on the box, but said IVORY on the invoice. I went to their site and looked up the Return/Exchange policy. It instructed me to email them within 24 hours of receiving the package to get a Return Authorization Code. So I did that. I explained that these shoes were Beige, not Ivory, and that I needed a code to send them back. I also suggested that they change the info on the item to make it say Beige.
The next Monday, I got a response. It said,
"Dear Customer... The shoes under beige is our ivory. Please feel free to
contact me if you have any more questions."
Really... it said that. I already knew the shoes were Beige. And there was NO mention of a code of ANY kind. So, I emailed them again later that night. As of the following Friday, I had heard not one word back from them. And of course, the policy also states that the items must be returned within 7 days. I get the feeling that I was ignored through that 7 days on purpose. I emailed them numerous times before finally contacting the Better Business Bureau. Sadly, i should have check that first. They have 14 other complaints about the EXACT SAME THING. HORRIBLE customer service. Stay away from this company.
Welcome Dinner:
20.21 at the Walker
A
The Skyline Room at the Walker was the location for the Welcome Dinner. The room was beautiful and the view of the city was even better. Overall, the food was great. But the tiny burgers during cocktail hour were RAW. I kid you not, raw. The kids bit into them and almost threw up. 20.21 is really big on rawish food and apparently they didn't know that most people prefer their burgers COOKED. Luckily, they fixed the problem. And once they cooked them, they were great. And they somehow misplaced our photo montage CD. Hopefully, they can locate it.
Hair and Make-up:
Smart and Chic
A++++++++++
We had 4 stylists since we had over 6 people getting a service.
Julie did my hair and make-up and she also did the service for my mom. We both LOVED her. She let us just relax and made us look great! And with a little extra charge, she came back after the ceremony, before the start of the reception, to make some touch-ups to my hair and make-up.
Our other stylists were Tess, Annie, and Kira. My maids and MIL said that they were all fantastic. They listened to what each person wanted and made it happen. They got great reviews from my family and friends.
Ceremony:
Windows on Minnesota, Universe Room
A+
The room worked out so well for first look photos and the ceremony. Sadly, it was rainy and foggy all weekend so it was at times a total whiteout up in the sky. But we didn't pay much attention to the weather.
Reception:
Windows on Minnesota, Galaxy Room
B
The room looked fantastic, but that was due to our vendors and our planner. Windows staff KILLED our top layer on our cake. Why in the hell they served it, we have no idea. It seems they do this A LOT. They gave us back almost the ENTIRE bottom layer of our cake. But they told 2 tables that we RAN OUT OF CAKE. WTF? We had enough cake for 180 people!! And we had about 70 guests! They were supposed to cut it up and let the guests CHOOSE which flavor that they wanted. They served each guest 2 large pieces of random flavors. And that really irritated us.
And we paid a lot of money to have a late night snack. But they NEVER made any sort of announcement that it was being served. A lot of food went to waste and it was insane.
Room Block and Host Hotel:
The Marquette
B+
I think we were down there on a bad weekend. 2 of the 4 elevators were NOT in service, yet the hotel was FULL of guests. (The Twins were at home all weekend and the fans were staying there.) It made getting up and down almost impossible. Not to mention, they had ONE bellman on duty the whole time and we could NEVER find him. My MOH and I had to get all of the tuxes and my dress up to the 17th floor ALONE. And we had to stop on almost every floor on the way up and down since they were missing two elevators.
They had mini bars but we all know that stuff is expensive. There were snack and drink machines on the C level but for some reason, they never worked at night. It may seem small to some people, but we tried so hard to make sure our guests were happy.
Linens:
Linen Effects
A+
I LOVE Russ at Linen Effects. He listened to us and gave us exactly what we wanted. The linens and the chargers/dishes that we rented from them were PERFECT!! We had SO many compliments.
Cake:
Gateaux, Inc.
A+++++
Seriously, Robin is AWESOME! Our wedding cake was BEAUTIFUL and unique. And what she did with the Groom's Cake was AMAZING. No one believed that is was CAKE. My own step father kept poking it to make sure that it was actually cake. Gateaux also ordered all of the candy for the candy bar and it looked fantastic. Visually appealing and super YUMMY!!
Flowers:
Wisteria Designs
A++++
Our flowers were amazing. The bouquets were so pretty and the head table was the WOW factor. We knew what sort of flowers that they were using but nothing else. All Russell said was "it will be fabulous". And fabulous it was. WOW! All of our guests raved about the flowers.
Photobooth:
Party Booths
A+
The Photobooth was a big hit. People LOVED going in and having the pics taken. And since their booths are so large, quite a few people could get in together and be goofy. We love the album and being able to see the guests having SO much fun.
DJ:
Instant Request
A+
Dave Pryor was our DJ and we really liked him. He kept the music going and stuck to our playlist, which is what we asked for from the beginning. And he made sure that ALL of our Must Plays did play. And when a few people asked for certain songs, he came to ASK us if we wanted that to happen. He didn't talk too much and he didn't talk too little. Perfect.
Lighting:
Instant Request
A++
The red up lights looked AMAZING at night. It made the entire room change. And the GOBO made a lasting impression on EVERYONE. When I asked Shawn at IR if we could use our monogram and Skyline, he never even hesitated. They made it happen. And it ROCKED.
Welcome Dinner Transportation:
MN Coaches
A+
We rented two 30 passenger buses to get us to the Walker and back to the Marquette. We had no problems at all. They were punctual and the buses were clean. Couldn't ask for more.
Lasting Impressions
A+++++
Sarah is fantastic! When we first interviewed her, we knew we found someone to help us make our wedding vision come to life. She just "got us" instantly. By the time we met her, we had already planned a lot of what we wanted. But she helped SO much when it came to dealing with vendors and pulling everything all together. She was always great at answering emails, no matter how many we sent to her.
Photographer:
Happily Ever After
C?
We brought in Ruth with only one month left until the wedding. We originally had a different photographer but we had a few problems. When the last problem literally freaked us out, we searched for someone else. And I am SO glad that we did. Ruth re-shot our E-pics and we were in LOVE with them. All of my friends and his friends went on and on about how great they turned out. And more than 5 people commented how much BETTER they were than the first pics by the other photographer. Ruth gave us peace of mind that we didn't have with the first photographer. And on wedding day, she made us feel comfortable and we had fun. I am SO ready to see a few teasers.
So, I gave her a Photo shot list and it was detailed. Did I get even half of those shots? No. The pics that we DID get were fine but my mother noticed, sadly, that there was not a really good shot of the back of the dress. At all. And after the wedding? HORRIBLE communication. She can take over a week to shoot back an email answer.
The albums for us, the moms, and BM's were on the order sheet. We got one for us and one for A MOM. Not both moms?? What the hell. Not to mention, our album is the wrong one. We mentioned SEVERAL times which cover of album that we wanted and she ordered the wrong one. And it's taken us almost a MONTH to get her to nail down a date to bring it back and get the other one ordered. It's Feb in MN. She cannot be THAT busy.
And the BM's? What albums? She never even ordered those.
Videographer:
Princess Bride
A+ so far
We have dealt mainly with Sarah at PB. She is super nice and listened to us when we talked about what we wanted for the Video Montage at the Welcome Dinner and the wedding video. The Montage was GREAT. All of the guests loved it. And on wedding day, Sarah was like a ninja. You never knew she was there until she had been standing there filming you for a few minutes. Like the photographer, she made us feel really comfortable in front of the camera and we cannot wait to see the end result.
UPDATE: We LOVE our wedding video. The first time I watched it, I cried. The first time the kids and both moms watched it? They cried. Karl did an AMAZING job with the editing and music.
STD's & Invitations:
www.magnetstreet.com
A+
We wanted to use invites that allowed us to use a personal picture and Magnet Street was perfect! They have so many types of Save the Dates and invites to choose from and they let you search by color, size, and more. Our order came in earlier than expected and they looked fantastic! We got a lot of compliments on them.
Envelope Printing/Escort Cards:
Watermark Stationary- Wayzata, MN
B+
We didn't want to use labels on the envelopes so we went to Watermark and had them print the return address, the inner envelope, and the outer envelope. We dropped the envelopes and the flash drive with the info off on a Friday afternoon. We were told they would be ready in a few days and that would call us to come pick them up. By Thursday, we had not heard anything so FI called them. The girl that answered said they would be printing them that night and they would be ready on Friday morning. On Friday, we were a little preoccupied and it slipped our minds that they never called. FI called them on Saturday and they said there was a problem. When they started printing them (on Saturday morning, not Thursday night) the printer wheel broke halfway through the job. It would be Monday before they could get it fixed. That was fine. We were in no rush.
On Monday, they called FI while he was out. They had finished printing all of the envelopes, but there was a problem. They had somehow input my first name WRONG and it was spelled wrong on every single outer envelope and RSVP envelope. And we only had 25 extras of each. They had to look around for more and then ended up having to order them and get them shipped overnight. Because of all of this, the printing was free.
I gave them a B+ because I figured if you get ONE name right, it should be the bride and/groom.
But the when they fixed the problem, the envelopes looked GREAT! We really liked that they could match the font from the invites.
Bridal Gown/Flower Girl Dresses:
The Bridal Center- Plymouth, MN
B
I have mixed emotions about the Bridal Center. They were the ONLY shop in town that had the dress that I wanted, so I was able to actually try it on. They were great that first day when I went to try on the sample. The day that I went back to actually put in the order, that's when I started feeling annoyed. They did fine with MY dress but they started pushing me to buy the BM dresses there as well. And when I say pushing, I mean pushing. They went so far as to tell me that if I let my BM's order there dresses in their hometowns, they would never match each other due to different dye lots. And they told me that my FG dresses HAD to be ordered when I ordered MY gown or they wouldn't come in on time.
I emailed Alfred Angelo that night and asked them. They said that maybe 6 years ago, dye lots were a problem. But not anymore. My BM's would be fine ordering them in TN and AZ. And they also said that the FG dresses would take no more than 3 months, if that.
I let my maids order close to their homes so that they could attend their fittings. It made NO sense to me to order them in MN, ship to them, have them altered and then ship them back. That's a lot of extra costs and the dresses traveling too much.
I don't like being pushed into ANYTHING. I don't do well with people trying to manipulate me into giving their store more money when I am already giving you PLENTY.
Alterations:
Louise Kegley
A++
Louise IS as wonderful as the MSP brides all claim. And she DOES make you somehow feel like you are the ONLY bride in the city when you are with her. She had to take my dress in more than we thought, due to losing a little weight and my torso being shorter. But she always said we would do whatever we had to do. I loved her! And she made my dress look great!
Veil:
www.bridiesbaubles.com
A+
I LOVE my veil. I had it custom made for my dress. The owner of the company was WONDERFUL. I emailed several times asking for answers to questions that I had about material and rhinestones. She even adjusted a Drop Down box on their site when I noticed a problem. It came a week sooner than expected and it's gorgeous.
Hair Twists:
www.daisy-days.com
A+
I bought the twists for ME on their site. But when I received them, they were NOT what I ordered. Turns out, the manufacturer made a mistake in the initial packaging. Daisy days told me to pick something else and they would send those. BUT they also let me KEEP the wrong ones, still pretty ones, for no charge. So I got twists for the BM's for FREE! EXCELLENT Customer Service.
Flower girl shoes:
www.mygirldress.com
F
I ordered Ivory shoes for my little flower girls from this site. When i received them on a Friday, the shoes were BEIGE. it even said Beige on the box, but said IVORY on the invoice. I went to their site and looked up the Return/Exchange policy. It instructed me to email them within 24 hours of receiving the package to get a Return Authorization Code. So I did that. I explained that these shoes were Beige, not Ivory, and that I needed a code to send them back. I also suggested that they change the info on the item to make it say Beige.
The next Monday, I got a response. It said,
"Dear Customer... The shoes under beige is our ivory. Please feel free to
contact me if you have any more questions."
Really... it said that. I already knew the shoes were Beige. And there was NO mention of a code of ANY kind. So, I emailed them again later that night. As of the following Friday, I had heard not one word back from them. And of course, the policy also states that the items must be returned within 7 days. I get the feeling that I was ignored through that 7 days on purpose. I emailed them numerous times before finally contacting the Better Business Bureau. Sadly, i should have check that first. They have 14 other complaints about the EXACT SAME THING. HORRIBLE customer service. Stay away from this company.
Welcome Dinner:
20.21 at the Walker
A
The Skyline Room at the Walker was the location for the Welcome Dinner. The room was beautiful and the view of the city was even better. Overall, the food was great. But the tiny burgers during cocktail hour were RAW. I kid you not, raw. The kids bit into them and almost threw up. 20.21 is really big on rawish food and apparently they didn't know that most people prefer their burgers COOKED. Luckily, they fixed the problem. And once they cooked them, they were great. And they somehow misplaced our photo montage CD. Hopefully, they can locate it.
Hair and Make-up:
Smart and Chic
A++++++++++
We had 4 stylists since we had over 6 people getting a service.
Julie did my hair and make-up and she also did the service for my mom. We both LOVED her. She let us just relax and made us look great! And with a little extra charge, she came back after the ceremony, before the start of the reception, to make some touch-ups to my hair and make-up.
Our other stylists were Tess, Annie, and Kira. My maids and MIL said that they were all fantastic. They listened to what each person wanted and made it happen. They got great reviews from my family and friends.
Ceremony:
Windows on Minnesota, Universe Room
A+
The room worked out so well for first look photos and the ceremony. Sadly, it was rainy and foggy all weekend so it was at times a total whiteout up in the sky. But we didn't pay much attention to the weather.
Reception:
Windows on Minnesota, Galaxy Room
B
The room looked fantastic, but that was due to our vendors and our planner. Windows staff KILLED our top layer on our cake. Why in the hell they served it, we have no idea. It seems they do this A LOT. They gave us back almost the ENTIRE bottom layer of our cake. But they told 2 tables that we RAN OUT OF CAKE. WTF? We had enough cake for 180 people!! And we had about 70 guests! They were supposed to cut it up and let the guests CHOOSE which flavor that they wanted. They served each guest 2 large pieces of random flavors. And that really irritated us.
And we paid a lot of money to have a late night snack. But they NEVER made any sort of announcement that it was being served. A lot of food went to waste and it was insane.
Room Block and Host Hotel:
The Marquette
B+
I think we were down there on a bad weekend. 2 of the 4 elevators were NOT in service, yet the hotel was FULL of guests. (The Twins were at home all weekend and the fans were staying there.) It made getting up and down almost impossible. Not to mention, they had ONE bellman on duty the whole time and we could NEVER find him. My MOH and I had to get all of the tuxes and my dress up to the 17th floor ALONE. And we had to stop on almost every floor on the way up and down since they were missing two elevators.
They had mini bars but we all know that stuff is expensive. There were snack and drink machines on the C level but for some reason, they never worked at night. It may seem small to some people, but we tried so hard to make sure our guests were happy.
Linens:
Linen Effects
A+
I LOVE Russ at Linen Effects. He listened to us and gave us exactly what we wanted. The linens and the chargers/dishes that we rented from them were PERFECT!! We had SO many compliments.
Cake:
Gateaux, Inc.
A+++++
Seriously, Robin is AWESOME! Our wedding cake was BEAUTIFUL and unique. And what she did with the Groom's Cake was AMAZING. No one believed that is was CAKE. My own step father kept poking it to make sure that it was actually cake. Gateaux also ordered all of the candy for the candy bar and it looked fantastic. Visually appealing and super YUMMY!!
Flowers:
Wisteria Designs
A++++
Our flowers were amazing. The bouquets were so pretty and the head table was the WOW factor. We knew what sort of flowers that they were using but nothing else. All Russell said was "it will be fabulous". And fabulous it was. WOW! All of our guests raved about the flowers.
Photobooth:
Party Booths
A+
The Photobooth was a big hit. People LOVED going in and having the pics taken. And since their booths are so large, quite a few people could get in together and be goofy. We love the album and being able to see the guests having SO much fun.
DJ:
Instant Request
A+
Dave Pryor was our DJ and we really liked him. He kept the music going and stuck to our playlist, which is what we asked for from the beginning. And he made sure that ALL of our Must Plays did play. And when a few people asked for certain songs, he came to ASK us if we wanted that to happen. He didn't talk too much and he didn't talk too little. Perfect.
Lighting:
Instant Request
A++
The red up lights looked AMAZING at night. It made the entire room change. And the GOBO made a lasting impression on EVERYONE. When I asked Shawn at IR if we could use our monogram and Skyline, he never even hesitated. They made it happen. And it ROCKED.
Welcome Dinner Transportation:
MN Coaches
A+
We rented two 30 passenger buses to get us to the Walker and back to the Marquette. We had no problems at all. They were punctual and the buses were clean. Couldn't ask for more.
