San Jose/South Bay Vendors (LONG)
Marby Z-Lee
Hi everyone! I'm about 1-1/2 months away from my wedding day, and I
wanted to post the vendors that I'm using, kind of as a service to all
the newly engaged couples who are in the midst of starting their
search. I know this helped me out a great deal when I started looking.
I'll also post after the wedding just to let you know how
everything goes!! E-mail if you have questions.
Marby (& Bryson)
25 May 1997
WEDDING & RECEPTION: HYATT SAINTE CLAIRE, DOWNTOWN SAN JOSE
We are having our wedding in the courtyard and the reception in the
Grande Ballroom next door. so far everything has gone well. The
catering rep is Angie Ballas. She seems very competant. The catering
for dinner is done by Il Fornaio, who has a restaurant attached to the
hotel. Pricing is about the middle of all the places we looked at.
The courtyard costs $500 to rent. The dinner we chose is $45.00pp.
Before you faint, it is an all-inclusive package that includes the
following: hors d'oeuvres and champagne when the reception starts,
salad, entree, 3 bottles of wine per table, bread, olive oil,
coffee/tea, chamapagne for toast or cake cutting, NO cake cutting fee,
TAX AND GRATUITY ARE INCLUDED IN THIS PRICE. The food is great!! They
also have 2 other packages that are a little more expensive. Also,
their prices have gone up since we made our reservation. The cost of
the package I got is now $50.00pp.
DRESS & OTHER ACCESSORIES:
DRESS: Signature/Private Label #111, full skirt with off the shoulder
tulip sleeves, v-neck, lace & pearl beads on the bodice, v-type waist,
kind of a loopy flower thing instead of a bow on the butt, off-white
silk. Purchased at Discount Bridal Center on Townsend in SF for $100
less than I saw anywhere else. They were great! My dress came in a
month earlier than expected (in 2 months!)
SHOES: Kenneth Cole "Stitch in Time", off white with embroidery on the
peau de soir (sp?) shoe. Purchased at the Gilroy outlet stores.
Regularly $90.00, marked down to $50.00, and then an additionaly 25%
off, came to $37.50
BRA: Goddess Bra Company. This is more for those, shall we say,
full-figured brides. I needed to find a strapless bra, and if you are
full-figured, you know what a trial this can be! This bra is the
greatess!! Unfortunately I found it at a bridal store down where my mom
lives, in San Luis Obispo. The name of the store is Everyone's Favorite
Wedding Store on Higuera Street in San Luis Obispo. You
may want to try your bridal store in your area, but I wasn't able to
find anything as good as this one.
VEIL: making my own.
PHOTOGRAPHY: GREG SARGENT PHOTOGRAPHY/SAN JOSE
Greg does great work from the photos I've seen, and he has an awesome
package. The package includes: 8 hrs wedding coverage, free engagement
sitting, all 4x5 proofs and negative from wedding and sitting, leather
album with 5-8x10's, 10-5x7's, 40-4x5's, 100 photo cards, 40% off
invitations, a 16x20 mounted display photo, and an 8x10 "watercolor"
print. This is a print that Greg enhances on Photoshop to look like a
watercolor painting of one of your pictures. The price on this package
was $1595, which we thought was an excellent deal. I don't know if he
still offers this package, but I do know that he books up fast, more
than a year ahead of time. Call early!!
CAKE: A PIECE OF CAKE/SANTA CLARA
They make an awesome cake. We had tasted their cake at a couple of
bridal shows, and the tasting we went to was great too!! A salesman
that I work with also used them, and was a fraternity brother of the
owner, and said that not only did they do a great job, but they were
really nice people too. They do great buttercream and ganache icing.
The quote they gave us for serving 150 people for a buttercream icing
cake was $426, for ganache icing was $539. They have many different
designs and many types of cake to choose from.
FLOWERS: EDELWEISS DESIGNS, MORGAN HILL
Luckily for us, this flower shop is right down the street from where
we live, so we can get there wonderful flowers all the time. There
prices may be a bit higher than others, but there flowers are big, and
very colorful and fresh. Their service is great. Let me tell you what
they did for Valentines Day: my fiance wanted to send me roses. He
called a florist near where he worked in Palo Alto. They couldn't do
the order for some reason. He call Edelweiss in Morgan Hill, saying he
wanted to send flowers to me in Salinas (about 45 miles away). One of
their employees lives in Salinas, and delivered the flowers after work
on February 13th. The next day they were still
beautiful, fragrant, and standing upright!! Edelweiss has great
personal service and aims to please!
CEREMONY MUSIC: VIOLETO TRIO, SANTA CLARA
A very good trio. They have a CD out in Blockbuster Music and The
Wherehouse. We have heard them live once, but they came highly
recommended.
DISK JOCKEY: JOE CANIZZARO/SPECIAL REQUEST
Joe is a great guy. He dj'd a wedding for some friends of ours, and I
grabbed his card, even though I was about 9 months from being engaged!!
Joe plays a great mix of music. He usually plays a soft instrumental
jazz mix during dinner, and then launches into great music afterwards.
He's also very good with special requests. The bride of the wedding we
went to is Persian, and he played lots of Persian music that she asked
for.
KETUBAH & HUPPAH: BOB & BOB, PALO ALTO
Bob & Bob is a great store for Judaica, books, music and ketubah. It is
filled with literally hundreads of books, kiddush cups, menorah, and
everything you could need for a Jewish home. Definitely check them
out!!
Well this is getting long....I'm going to sign off now. One more thing:
we are planning an interfaith wedding. If you need help with
officiants, planning, etc...please send me a private e-mail at
mar...@garlic.com.
Hope this helps!!!
Carrie Leonard
In article <335113...@garlic.com>, Marby Z-Lee <mar...@garlic.com> wrote:
>Hi everyone! I'm about 1-1/2 months away from my wedding day, and I
>wanted to post the vendors that I'm using, kind of as a service to all
>the newly engaged couples who are in the midst of starting their
>search. I know this helped me out a great deal when I started looking.
>I'll also post after the wedding just to let you know how
>everything goes!! E-mail if you have questions.
>
I really encourage all of you to submit your vendor reviews to Sonja's
reader review section of the soc.couples.wedding home page. It's a great
site that just needs more input from all of us! The URL is
http://www.wam.umd.edu/~sek/wedding.html
Carrie
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