All You Need is Love: Vendor Reviews

Catch up on all the recaps by clicking "Our Wedding" at the top.

So now between the wedding and honeymoon recaps, I figured now would be a good time to do vendor reviews and final thoughts of the wedding. This post has the vendor reviews, and then tomorrow I'll post the final thoughts of the whole wedding experience!

First-- I wanted to say thank you to all of you who have been reading these recaps and all your sweet comments! It has been great for Matt & I to relive the day, too. I just wanted you to know that it meant a lot to me to read your comments!

Vendor Reviews
I absolutely loved all of our vendors, from the photographer, to the reception venue, to the florist, to the baker. I would recommend them all to anyone getting married in the Houston area. You can get their contact information from their websites I have linked to.

Photography- Kasey Lynn Photography: Kasey did an amazing job, as did her second shooter. Throughout the whole wedding-planning process, Kasey was very prompt with responding to my emails and silly questions and was very easy to work with. We are so happy with her pictures and seriously could not have asked for anything more.

Reception venue- Amerigo's Grille: This restaurant is gorgeous, the food is amazing, and the service is outstanding. However, I wish we could have had a longer reception. I felt rushed during the whole thing and I just hope my guests didn't feel the same way. But since they are a restaurant, I completely understand why we had to clear out at the time we did. I didn't want to push the ceremony any earlier because we had several out of town guests, etc. In the end it all worked out and we got to talk to everyone, but if I could change one thing, that would be it.

Floral- LZ Floral: Lara is very easy to work with and as you may know from reading my past posts, I had a lot of floral changes just because I was indecisive. She was very flexible but also made sure we stuck to our budget.

Bakery- Kiss the Cook Cakes: The cake was amazing, both the decorating and taste, and we couldn't have asked for a better value! What more can you ask for?

All You Need is Love: We Cut the Cake & Pie

Catch up by clicking "Our Wedding" at the top! All pictures by Kasey Lynn Photography.

After the dancing was over, it was time to cut the cake! I know I'm not the first to complain about this, but either:
-Someone should offer lessons/tips for how to cut the bottom layer of a wedding cake -or-
-You should be able to cut the top layer
It is surprisingly difficult when you have to navigate all the frosting, the sheer size of the cake, etc. Basically- future brides, beware! Maybe have more than a one-inch gap between the bottom and second-to-bottom tier :P

That's some concentration, let me tell you

We did it!

Thankfully, the cake was absolutely delicious so well worth our effort! And no, no icing was smeared in anyone's faces.
We then moved on to the apple pie!

And it was much easier to cut!

You may have noticed the absence of us feeding each other cake. That would be due to my pickiness over what pictures I post of myself on the internet. Let's leave it at that, k? After the amateurs attempting to cut the cake, it was time for the experts!!

Up next-- we take pictures in a wine cellar!

All You Need is Love: Arriving & Reception Details

Catch up by scrolling up to the top and clicking "Our Wedding!"
All pictures by Kasey Lynn Photography.

After all the portraits were taken, the bridesmaids help me bustle my gown (in record time, I might add!), then we were off in the limo to the reception!

Things one should think about when thinking of transportation:
-How big is your dress?
-Does it require its own seat?

It was fine in the limo, really, I just think my poor husband was squashed by the dress ever-so-slightly. It was a fun ride though, with the wedding party and gearing up for the reception!


After the limo pulled up to Amerigo's, Matt helped me out of the limo and in we went!

Checking out the wedding cake and the Groom's pies

I realize now that I failed to blog about the wedding cake design. Well, no better chance than now, yes? Anyway, as you can read about here, we used Kiss the Cook Cakes for our wedding cake. Here is our mock-up design:

The Bible verse we gave them was 1 John 4:19- "We love because He first loved us." At the very beginning of our wedding planning, I knew I could quickly become so wrapped up in all the details of the wedding I might lose sight of what was really important- our God-focused marriage. So for me, this was just a very tangible way of reminding myself of that through the planning and on the wedding day.

Now, instead of doing the traditional Groom's cake, Matt opted instead for apple pie. And these apple pies aren't just any pies. His grandmother baked all of those pies and then had them shipped to Houston 10 hours away. Words cannot express how grateful we were/are she was able to do that for us, especially since that set of grandparents couldn't come due to health reasons. It was really special, especially for Matt, as those homemade apple pies are his favorite food.

The spread (that I'm told was delicious)

Guest book table

Floral centerpieces

Up next... more details and the reception gets started!

Registry + 2 days, 5 vendors- Part 2

Before I continue with this, in somewhat exciting news, Matt and I got to register at Bed, Bath, and Beyond yesterday. Some of the pickins' were pretty slim, especially being the one located in a large college town, so we'll be finishing it up tomorrow in Houston. But, we did get a lot of items and random cool, things. Here are some pictures to prove that we, too, can work a scan-gun thing.

Don't worry, we did NOT register for pink towels. That would be cruel.

And moving on...

Where were we? Oh yes, we had just finished our first tasting at Kiss the Cook Cakes and admired there amazing pastry skills. OK, so then we went to lunch, numero uno mistake. So not hungry. I think I ate a third of my salad at McAlisters, though my family and Matt somehow ate most of their lunch. Not sure why or how, because shortly thereafter, we had tasting two at Bakery B, mistake numero dos, which I'll explain later.


So we arrive at this bakery, are seated at a table, and then taste a chocolate, almond, vanilla, and amaretto flavors. They were definitely good, though not as good as the first one in all of our opinions. Also, her estimate was a decent bit cheaper than our Bakery A, and the quality of her gallery showed it. In addition, when I wanted suggestions as to the design of the cake, she said that we didn't need to decide on that today, though I had LOVED that Bakery A had taken the time to do that. However, I really liked her, though, as a person. She was very sweet and I was not looking forward to sending her the rejection email, but I guess that's part of the deal.

Following being stuffed with excessive sugar [we couldn't even finish all the samples!], we left and went to meet with Florist B, LZ Floral. Florist B was unfamiliar with the church we're getting married at, so we met her at the church. AND I was able to take sanctuary pictures for y'all:

Ahh, the beautiful windows that look out into the trees. So pretty...

I really liked Florist B. We actually sat down and talked about the flowers we wanted, and she had a lot of examples of her previous work. Florist A had already 'decided' on flowers, though I'm sure we could have changed it. I just did not know what Florist A's flowers would look like all put together, so it was a lot harder for me to imagine than with Florist B. Also, Florist B really got along well with my family, especially when my brother and Matt started brainstorming crazy ideas for the wedding, such as kilts and zip-off skirts. What's better is that Florist B was able to get us a quote a couple of hours after we left, so yay for quick service! In addition, her quote was competitive with Florist A, which is something we were worried about.

And so that finishes the meeting with 5 vendors. I think you could guess, but the choices we went with were Florist B, LZ Floral, and then Bakery A, Kiss the Cook. I'm so excited to see what they do with the flowers and cake, respectively. It makes it so much more real, being able to envision all of those components of the wedding, in addition to really liking the photographer.

But here are some suggestions from me to any prospective bride that's reading this:
1) Do NOT schedule cake tasting back to back. I would suggest giving yourself SEVERAL hours between each, if you have to do them on the same day. Otherwise you're still full from the last one, and you cannot really enjoy the cake fully.

2) I really liked only having 2 bakeries to choose from. I could not imagine having more than that to pick from, because I would think the tastings would run together. "Wait, chocolate A, B, C, or D?" It just would get mixed up...

3) Come with ideas for both. I brought some swatches of my bridesmaids' dresses, along with pictures of bouquets, centerpieces, and cakes that I/we had liked. But also be open to going a different direction, in case your flower of choice is not available in the month of the wedding, for instance.

2 days, 5 vendors- Part 1

So this past Monday, Matt and I drove from College Station down to Houston to, along with my parents, meet with the photographer, Kasey.

Back story: way back in June, right after we got engaged, and I was in my rush to book everything possible because I'm type-A and wanted to get things done, as well as not be left with poor choices, I booked another photographer. However, as time went on, and I stalked more wedding photogs' sites as well as other brides' blogs, I was really uncomfortable with the photographer we had booked. I just didn't feel excited about the pictures in their gallery. And besides the marriage, what's left after the wedding? Pictures! So for me, it was a very important aspect.

Being on a budget of course made it difficult to find one I really liked but could afford, until a friend of mine that is getting married in the same area suggested Kasey. I checked her website out, and really got excited about it. I contacted her, canceled the booked photog, booked her, and the rest is history.

Ok, so we met with her Monday. Then all day Tuesday, we had 4 appointments- 2 florists, 2 bakeries. First we went to Florist A, who my parents had already contacted and received a quote from. After a consultation, we were able to get our price down (yay!) and were pretty happy with her. Moving on...

After a brief stop at Starbucks and Men's Wearhouse (my brother needed to pick up a suit)...

Side note- I failed to mention that along with us on this wedding planning extravaganza, we had: Matt and me, my brother, and both my parents. Quite a packed Rav-4, and I hope we didn't overwhelm the vendors, but we had fun.

So, as I was saying, after the brief stops where we might have annoyed the employees and Men's Wearhouse, we headed off to Bakery A, Kiss the Cook Cakes.

We checked out the beautiful cakes on display...

All credit goes to Kiss the Cook cakes

And then the fun part, the tasting!!!!!

Wow, was that cake good! We tasted chocolate with chocolate ganache, butter cream, lemon, and butter cream with raspberry filling. And of course, while we're eating this delicious cake, I'm being asked about the cake, what I wanted, etc. What I really liked about this baker is she took the time to listen to you and really offered a lot of input to the design. While some brides may not like that, since I had quite an amorphous view in my head, I was wanting some guidance, and we created a gorgeous cake that I think will look so beautiful!!!!

And now I gotsta go, but I will hopefully post the subsequent parts later today or tomorrow!

And more progress!

I think the last few days I'll split into several posts because several things happened:
-Met with the photographer and signed a contract
-Met with two florists
-Met with two bakeries and did two tastings (so... much... cake... too... much...sugar!)

So, as to not overwhelm you guys with one looooong post, they'll be in installments, plus pictures!

But, to leave you in some suspense, I will leave you with these topics: kilts, zip-off wedding gowns, and a commandeered ambulance