Our Dream Team: Ratings, Raves, Rants, and Realizations
I'm making our suppliers ratings public so that we can share it with our wedding suppliers. Everything written in here are based on our personal experience. We don't mean to bad-mouth anyone, our rants are here in the hope that you welcome them as constructive criticism. Cheers to everyone! c",)
Here it goes, as posted in w@w...
Rating’s Legend:
1 – Don’t Even Think of Getting This Supplier
2 – Get with Caution
3 – Neutral (No Significant Gain or Loss)
4 – Recommended
5 – Highly Recommended
Church: INC Central Temple
Rating: 5
Raves:
1. The most grandeur INC church J
2. The ceremony was very solemn (thanks to Bro. Cornelio Cortez, Jr.)
Rants:
1. More strict compared to other locales
2. The main hall is available if and only if the left wing is not enough to accommodate your guests
3. During the early days of our wedding preps, we were informed that they have accredited photographers, videographers, and florists which in a way hampered us from getting the suppliers that we were eyeing. Good thing we were able to find work-around solutions for the photo/video!
Realizations:
1. Given our rant #3 above, we should have done the same with the florist!
Hotel for Wedding Preps: Edsa Shangri-la Hotel
Rating: 5
Raves:
1. Nice and spacious rooms
2. Delicious food
3. Excellent customer service
4. Close proximity to Shangri-La Plaza and SM Megamall for last minute shopping
Rants:
1. A bit pricey compared to other hotels in the vicinity
Realizations:
1. My charm and all-out-effort to convince my groom (now my hubby) to book this hotel has paid off *wink*
Venue: Phoenix Ave, Gazebo Royale
Rating: 4
Raves:
1. Close proximity to our Church
2. Big parking space
3. It has a garden feel and yet protected from possible rain since the venue is roofed
4. Accommodating staff
5. Security Deposit was refunded sooner than we expected J
Rants:
1. Every move has corresponding fee
a. party poppers are limited, you’ll get extra charge in excess of 2 poppers
b. cordless microphone is priced at 1k
c. guest pass allotted for the Phoenix hall is 200 pieces only (though this venue, according to them, can accommodate up to 300 guests), you’ll have to pay 10 pesos per extra pass
2. The mist was quite harsh, our coordinator had to have it turned off ‘coz our guests were getting wet!
Realizations:
1. If we had extra money, I would have insisted on getting the bigger hall (Champagne) so our guests can move around freely, table layout could have been better, and the dance floor could have been more spacious.
Caterer: K. by Cunanan
Rating: 5
Raves:
1. Superb food
2. Beautiful set-up
3. Polite waiters
4. Kaye’s personal supervision during the wedding
5. Kaye happily shares her great and wonderful ideas J
Rants:
1. Kaye is hard to contact at times but we perfectly understand how busy she can be since she’s one of the most sought-after caterers in the wedding industry.
Realizations:
1. The best times to contact her are: early in the morning and late at night
2. We had our food tasting with Kaye way back in 2007. With her rates, we decided to get another caterer (same rate but with lots of freebies!) but as our wedding day drew near, I had this weird feeling that we should have K. by Cunanan to cater for our wedding. So to cut the story short, we went back to Kaye, booked her, and cancelled our reservation with the other caterer with non-refundable DP of PhP7500 L Lesson learned: book a supplier because of quality and not quantity!
3. You’ll never go wrong with Kaye J
Photo: Redefine Weddings
Rating: 5
Raves:
1. Asteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeg!!!
2. We simply love their style – candid and spontaneous!
3. Very down to earth; Jayson, Jo Anne and their team were so easy to get along with; we never felt the supplier-client thingy with them… para lang kaming magkakabarkada, with us (Isai and me) being camwhores and them as photo enthusiasts who are willing to have us as their subjects, hehe =D
4. We had one whole day at Subic for our pre-nuptial pictorial session and we never sensed any hint of tiredness, hurriedness or boredom from them, considering that they’ve been to another out-of-town engagement the day before and would be having a morning wedding the following day.
Rants: Absolutely nothing J
Realizations:
1. We should have gotten their on-site photo *sigh*
Wedding Pictures: http://www.redefineweddings.com/blog/?p=287
Prenup Pictures: http://www.redefineweddings.com/blog/?p=265
Video: RealityTV
Rating: 5
Raves:
1. He did keep up with our special requests for our on-site video and our post-wedding pangungulit, haha!
2. Wedding videos available in 2 weeks, even less!
3. With Buddy’s track record in the video industry and his vast experience with the 2 giant networks (ABS-CBN and GMA) he remains to be so humble. He’s so cool too!
Rants: Absolutely nothing J
Realizations:
1. Their style is uniquely different (reality wedding video), we had the Q&A portion, and being the shallow tear that I am, first question palang emotional na ako… kaya ayun… my voice was trembling!!! Gosh! I should have prepared my speech, composed myself and controlled my emotions, haha!
2. We’ve found 2 new great friends with Buddy and his wife Kay J
On-site Video: http://realityweddingvideo.tv/?p=329
Well-Wishers: http://realityweddingvideo.tv/?p=331
Couple’s Couturier: Veluz
Rating: 5
Raves:
1. What can I say?! I had my dream couturier!!!
2. Simple but very elegant gown, as attested by most of our guests.
3. Ms. V will honestly tell you if something would look good on you or not.
4. No dull moment with Ms. V and Niko J I will surely miss going to her shop!
5. She made it to my wedding preps!!! Since I’m their third dec-23-bride and with the holiday rush, I’ve given up long ago that she’d be able to personally dress me up on our wedding day but she was there, I was surprised to see her, touched and very thankful!!!
Rants:
1. Zilch!!!
Realizations:
1. Good thing I followed my instinct to book her and no one else J
2. If we could have afforded it, I would have had my whole entourage wear Ms. V’s creations.
Female Entourage: Bridal Factory (a.k.a. Ysabelle)
Rating: 4
Raves:
1. Affordable – you get good value for your money without shelling out too much.
2. Accessible
3. Nice fit
4. Flexible on fitting schedules, 3 of our entourage members even had their fitting in their Makati branch.
Rants:
1. Dapat tutukan sila coz they have the tendency to veer away from what has been agreed upon.
2. They knew from the start that our color motifs were deep red and matt gold but lo and behold yung sequins na ginamit sa gown ng bridesmaids were silver and red. I just insisted that they change the silver sequins to gold.
3. I initially got the fabric for our ninangs from them… star satin and chiffon in a specific shade of gold, pagdating ng tela iba yung shade!!! Binalik ko sa kanila and decided to just buy the fabric somewhere else. Binawas na lang yung refund sa balance namin.
Realizations:
1. Put all agreements in writing.
2. Ok naman yung gawa nila, yun nga lang kailangan ng konting tutok at lambing =D
Invitations: Printsonalities
Rating: 5
Raves:
1. Classic and elegant invites
2. Ms. Noky is super dooper nice, she replies to emails and text so promptly.
Rants:
1. No sticker products L
Realizations:
1. None
Cake & Wedding Favors: Joy San Gabriel
Rating: 5
Raves:
1. Yummy, yummy, and yummy cakes!
2. We got our cutting cake (did I call it right?!) and cake topper for free
3. Ms. Joy is such a sweetie!
Rants:
1. Definitely none! J
Realizations:
1. I should have requested to put some rose petals on the cake table to make the set-up more appealing.
Strings:
Rating: 5
Raves:
1. They serenaded us during the reception with great music
2. One of the veterans and the best in their craft
3. Sir Rodel Colmenar, the head conductor of MPO, was part of the quartet (astig!)
Rants:
1. Since Ms. Marijo is no longer involved with MPO’s wedding gigs, it became a bit harder to communicate with them.
Realizations:
1. None
Flowers (Entourage): April & Karen Yu
Rating: 5
Raves:
1. They’re one of the best in their line of work
2. Very reliable with an excellent taste – I’m not good at flowers so I left it all up to them with just 3 simple instructions:
a. I want my bridal bouquet to be tulips
b. I want beautiful and elegant bouquets for our entourage w/ matching boutonnieres for their male counterparts
c. I want pomander for our flowers girls instead of the traditional flower baskets.
Rants:
1. A bit pricey but I guess it’s all worth it
Realizations:
1. Had I known that the church was not that strict with their accredited florists, I should have taken the risk of having April & Karen Yu as our church florist as well.
Flowers (Church): Marie Rose Noble
Rating: 2
Raves:
1. Sorry, I really can’t think of any to rave about L
Rants:
1. She insisted on what she wanted!
2. We agreed that she’ll use organza for the ribbons, but I think she used the one I told her NOT to use plus something else, grrr!
Realizations:
1. I should have exerted more effort in looking for more options and better alternatives!
HMU: Chichi Sotomil
Rating: 5
Raves:
1. Very punctual
2. She’s such a darling! I got along with her so easily J
3. Hindi ako mahilig mag make-up and feeling ko hindi bagay sa akin ang make-up, but with her, I felt comfortable and confident being made up J
Rants:
1. Absolutely nothing J
Realizations:
1. I should have followed her beauty tips for a fresher and more radiant look!
Emcee: Mallory Cosio
Rating: 5
Raves:
1. Everyone’s raving about how good she is at hosting
2. She kept 90% of the crown glued at their seats and finished the program (hmmm, on second thought, probably our guests simply love us that’s why they stayed until the end of the program, hihihi!)
Rants:
1. Nakaka-nose bleed sya mag-english, haha!
Realizations:
1. We initially wanted to get her sister, Missy. I guess it was a blessing in disguise that we weren’t able to get hold of her ‘coz we realized that what we eventually got is better – we wouldn’t trade Mallory for any other hosts!
Bridal Car: AdeB (Lincoln Towncar)
Rating: 5
Raves:
1. Great and elegant luxury car
2. Mabait si manong driver (ooops I forgot his name!), he even gave me scratch paper and pen when I suddenly realized that we don’t have a list/sequence for the church pictorial, hehe
Rants:
1. A bit pricey compared to ordinary bridal car
2. We exceeded the allotted hours so may extra charge kami na PhP2500
Realizations:
1. We should have taken more pictures with the car para nasulit yung fee, haha!
Wedding Rings: Goldenhills Jewelry
Rating: 5
Raves:
1. We love our wedding rings!!!
2. Best customer service – free lifetime resizing and cleaning
3. Good payment scheme
Rants:
1. None
Realizations:
1. None
OTD Coordinator: Van Cuenco
Rating: 5
Raves:
1. I love her dearly!
2. She’s so nice and kind (one of my favorite suppliers!)
3. Very organized
4. We got more than what we paid for – we got them for an on-the-day coordination but with what they’ve given us, it’s more like partial wedding coordination
Rants:
1. Definitely none!
Realizations:
1. Van is another new found friend
Miscellaneous:
1. Suit for male entourage – EMGA (Landmark Department Stores)
2. Suit for groom’s dad & best man – Exclusively His Tailoring (Q. Ave. Branch)
3. Vest for the bearers – Onesimus (SM Malls)
4. Neckties for the principal sponsors – Van Heusen (Trinoma and SM North Branches)
5. Neckties for the male entourage – Wharton (SM Department Stores)
6. Fabrics for the female entourage – Carolina’s and The Fabric Warehouse
7. Stickers for cake boxes – Printed Matter (Glorietta Branch)
8. Wine during the best man’s toast – Welch Red Sparkling Juice (Landmark Supermarket)
9. Chocolates for the escort cards – Hershey’s Kisses & Miniature Chocolates (Landmark Supermarket)
10. Papers, pens, wrappers, ribbon, etc – National Bookstore, SM Stationery Department, and Office Warehouse
