Our Wedding Vendor Review

1. Coral Gables Congregational Church - B 3010 De Soto Blvd. Coral Gables, FL 305-488-7421. The wedding coordinator's names is Chely Llorens and the Rev. that married was Guillermo Marquez. When I first saw this church, I knew in my heart that I one day would get married there. So sure enough even before Jose Luis proposed, I took him over to this church and showed it to him. He too fell in love with it. This was the first vendor we booked and the whole process was great. Chely was very nice and very helpful in everything! Rev. Guillermo Marquez was a sweetheart and very funny. We clicked with him right off the bat. The only reason why I grade the church a B, was simply because the Rev. forgot to do the Arras in our ceremony. To some people it might have not been a big deal but to us it was. In our meeting with him a month before the wedding, we had specifically told him we wanted to do the Arras and in our rehearsal we reminded him and we even practiced doing it. I was kinda dissappointed in the fact that we did't get to do it BUT we moved on and we still LOVE the church. We were just sad that we didnt get to add it to our ceremony since we had prepared and planned for it.


2. FIU Ballrooms - A 11200 SW 8 Street. When we first started planning our wedding, I never not once planned to do it at FIU. You see my step father works there and we always do our parties there BUT I don't know I just didn't see as it my reception location for our wedding. Well one day, my step father calls me to see the ballrooms as it was decorated for a fifteens with some very pretty draping that had never been done before. As soon as I walked in, I knew I wanted it there (as long as I had the draping...added expense). Well my step father was in charge of speaking to the guy in charge of the draping, they became aquinted and we were set. Since my step father is the supervisor there, we had a lot of perks and advantages! I loved how our ballrooms looked and I love our service because of course it was my very special 2nd daddy...the one and ONLY thing that I do not like about FIU ballrooms, it that since its in the University, there is no pretty grand entrance. BUT our driver made a great effort of making our entrance GRAND and upfront. :)


3. A Matter of Taste - A+ 3816 SW 8 Street. Our great friends Pupi and Grisel have been working with my step father for years so they have established a great frienship and bond, meaning they treat us good each and every time they do a party of ours. I have tasted their food time and time again, and it is always DELICIOUS! Everytime we go in to talk to them for an appt, we end up being there for about 4 hours. Seriously! Our only request we told them was that we did not want chicken in our wedding and Grisel tells us, "you want churrasco?" and we were like, "Oh yes, our favorite" so sure enough we served our favorite food at our wedding. Everyone loved it! it wasn't your typical wedding food or small portions, it was just perfect! It was served it garlic potatos and veggies, cesaer salad, bunch of appetizers, their famous spinning palm tree, our cake, OPEN BAR, our beautiful linenes and excellent service. As a gift from them both to us, they rented us our R.R...that was so thoughtful and we will forever be greatful for it. Needless to say, we will ONLY be using A Matter of Taste in our future.
4. Divine Delicacies - A+ 1659 SW 107 Avenue 305-554-4446. Even though our cake was included with our catering, our cake vendor deserves recognition for how awesome our cake tasted. we were extremely happy with how it came out and how it tasted. We still have family calling us to rave about how good our cake was. We had 3 different types of flavors...tier 1 (bottom) vanilla rum with dolce leche filling, tier 2 (middle) marble with chocolate filling and tier 3 and 4, chocolate with chocolate filling.


5. Bella Festa Design, Inc. - A+ Gabriella cel phone:305-316-7336. I met my florist through my mom's friend at work. We met with her once and clicked. We loved her designs and ALL her ideas. She was definitely one of my favorite vendors, I left it all in her hands and she did a fabulous job! I was IN LOVE with my bouquet, my girls loved theirs, my centerpieces were just how I wanted them, and our sweetheart table was a dream.
in our sweetheart table, they included some of these which we loved!!!! those are our 2 alter arrangements which later went behind our sweetheart table.

6. Premier Events Productions - A+ 283 SW 33 Street Yvan’s cel phone: 954-234-3325. Another one of my favorite vendors. He was SUPER nice and full of ideas. He and his son did our draping along with some lighting around the ballrooms. He treated us VERY well and they made our vision a reality. I loved the final product, the ballrooms are normally so plan and he made it look like a fairytale.
7. Frank Panaro Photography & Video - A+ on engagement pictures. B on wedding pictures because he missed 7 important pictures that he did not take, still pending a grade for video. 1059 NE 204 Terrace Frank cel phone: 305-951-2757. He is VERY nice and had worked with us on all of our wants. I was just a bit disappointed that he did not take some very important pictures. I just hope that our video makes up for those missing pictures.

8. DJ Alex Rodriguez - A 305-370-2833. He was recommended to us from our catering company and he did a good job at having our dance floor moving. Everyone was dancing the entire time, there was hardly anyone sitting down.


9. Alcira - A+ 305-205-3579. She did my hair and the hair of all my girls. She was great! She stayed with me all the way until I had to leave the hotel to make sure that my hair was perfect! She was on time and she was delicate with my hair. I will for sure be calling her for other parties to up do my hair!

10. Ana - A+ from Chanel 786-201-1992. She did my make up and some of my girls. She uses Chanel products and is just fabulous! I will definitely be going to her for any future parties!!!


11. Ania Bridal - A 305-551-0120. Ania was recommended to us from a friend in our family. I was in love with my dress and she was the one that made me try it on bc I wasn't really feeling it. She gave me the attention I was looking for. I also got my girls dresses from her. They were a decent price. The only thing was that the alterations were not included so that made the dresses a bi more costly but she had them altered there for about $25. She was very sweet and very helpful!





12. Alaun by Design - A+ this is where we got our wedding invitations. They were beautiful! I loved them!!!



I am sure that I probably used more vendors than this BUT I can't remember at this moment. If you may have any questions, just ask away and I will try my best to help you.

XOXO

P.S. coming soon to a post near you....honeymoon review

ONE....

very happily married month!!!!

Today my hubby is going to go get sworn in, he will officially be an American Citizen and we can now officially TRAVEL THE WORLD!!!! How exciting...already looking for our next vacation!

Happy Birthday Honey!!!!

Today is a VERY special date...its my husbands birthday. This past wkend we had a small family gathering at our home and we cut him a yummy carvel cake, his favorite.

Today I woke up a little earlier, did him some cinnamon rolls and sang him happy birthday with a candle lit on a cinnamon roll, even Johnny (our doggy) helped me sing. He loved our little surprise.

Tonight there will be more surprises, not only are we celebrating his birthday but to me this day is even more special bc this day 26 yrs ago he was born just for me!!!! :)

We're Married!!!!!

I know...I know...I have been SUPER lost! I never updated our blog after the wedding BUT we have been crazy busy.

Here we go for an EXTRA long post.........

Our rehearsal was on Friday, August 15th and everything turned out great. Everyone went and everyone was on time. The food was good and the everyone loved their gifts from us. That night I went with my sisters to the hotel where we we stayed the night before the wedding. We shared a king size bed for the last time, us 3 girls. We had fun, so much fun that we couldn't fall asleep. Poor Stephanie didn't stop playing with my hair until I fell asleep which was probably around 4:30am. Jose Luis didnt stop calling me saying that he was nervous and that he couldn't believe that we were getting married later that day.

FINALLY!!!! the next day, Saturday August 16th at 7:30am we woke up by the door knocking. Jose Luis had breakfast delivered to me at our hotel room. Along with that was a beautiful card and a gift from him. It was my earrings for the wedding, which by the way they were beautiful!!! So Steph and I sat there eating breakfast waiting for the rest of the bridal party girls to arrive and for Kassie to wake up. At about 11am the hair lady arrived and started doing the girls hair and then at 1pm the make up artist arrived and starting doing the makeup. The whole entire morning and afternoon I was VERY relaxed. It was really nice to have all my girls there with me on my most special day. The photgrapher arrived at 4pm and started to take pictures of us getting pretty and thats when my nervous started to go crazy. lol.

At exactly 7:15pm my father and I arrived at the church, I was an emotional mess but I was trying so hard not to cry & I didn't. Right when I got out of the R.R. it was time for my father to walk me down the aisle. I barely had anytime to breathe in and out and relax...lol. It all happened so fast! I couldn't believe it when I was standing right next to Jose Luis and our parents were giving us away. We were holding each others hands very tight and we were both were emotional. The ceremony was beautiful, the music was amazing and eveything was perfect. The church was packed and everyone was on time (just like we wanted)! The pastor pronounced us husband and wife, we kissed and as we are walking down the aisle...I tell Jose Luis, "We didn't do the arras". Ah man, I got so sad bc I really wanted the arras in our ceremony but we couldn't do anything about it so whatever...

At about 9ish we arrive to FIU and everyone was already there enjoying the cocktail hour. Our driver who was awesome by the way went inside and got us some appetizers and a few drinks. The honey glazed meatballs were AWESOME!!! Jose Luis said that the sushi was really good too. Most of our guests had problems with finding their tables bc they wanted closer tables so that created a mess but my mommy went inside and fixed that problem for me. My mommy to the rescue! :)

The bridal party was introduced with "Lets Get Ready to Rumbo" and they had fun walking in all crazy. We were introduced and walked in with a Disney theme princess entrance from "The Father of the Bride". It was so magical! I really felt like a princess and I was with my prince! It was amazing! That was the first time I got to see everything put together...all my hard work for the past 11 months and it was EVERYTHING I thought it would be. My centerpieces were just so elegant & chic, our cake was so delicious and so amazingly beautiful, the food was DELICIOUS, the dj played fabulous music which had our dance floor packed (just how we wanted). Everything was just has we had dreamed it would be and we are truly greatful that everyone went and that everything went as planned. Like the saying goes, nothing is perfect but to me our wedding was perfect!

After the wedding we went back to the hotel, opened our gifts and read ALL of our cards. We stayed up for a little while and then we past out.

The next day, Sunday August 17th we got ready and my mommy along w Steph came with breakfast for us and picked us up to go to the airport.

I think thats it for this post....I will post some pics from the wedding in parts and I will give reviews to all my vendors for any of your future parties as wel as information and raves from our honeymoon.

XOXO,

The Mr. & The Mrs.