Hotel Accommodations:  Green Valley Ranch, Henderson, NV
We loved our stay at GVR. The valet/bellstaff were extremely helpful and friendly. They gave us a room rate of $110 / night for all of our guests and originally reduced the resort fee from $25/night to $15/night. However, when we checked online and found an available room rate cheaper than our rate, they agreed to drop the resort fee completely. We had 32 rooms booked for Thursday & Friday nights. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the resort. Oh, and the all you can eat crab legs at Tides were the bomb. I'm horrible at taking pictures so I unfortunately didn't get any pics of our killer suite.

Ceremony / Reception:  Revere Golf Club, Henderson, NV
I don’t think things could have gone any better than they did with the Revere. Margie was absolutely amazing to work with, she just made things so incredibly easy. When we got there, I realized I had forgotten the vases for the sand ceremony. We were able to get in touch with a friend who hadn’t left the hotel yet, but Margie was ready with some vases from the property just in case.
DH had asked if it would be possible to have his favorite beer during the reception, which is Negra Modelo. Unfortunately they missed the Negra part and had just gotten regular Modelo. We told Margie it wasn’t a big deal but she still had someone run to a nearby store to pick up the right beer.
When we got back from taking pictures, cocktail hour was almost over but they had a tray of the appetizers waiting for us. The food was delicious.

Officiant:  Reverend Linda Venniro
Linda is just lovely. As soon as I had spoken with her on the phone just asking for availability, I knew I wanted her for our wedding. We didn’t have a chance to meet in person so we had a 1.25 hour Skype interview with her so that she could get to know us and personalize our ceremony. I think people were actually surprised at how personal the ceremony was for being a destination wedding.

DJPure Energy Productions / Anthony Johns
Tony was freaking amazing. I really hope more brides on this board consider him. He really knew how to keep the party going all night, but was never cheesy or too over the top. We got a lot of compliments from our guests about how great Tony was. He works with the Revere a lot so you can tell that they really have a system down.  Once everyone sat down at the tables, Tony came up to DH and I to see if we needed another drink or anything. When MOH went up to make her toast, she forgot her champagne glass so Tony ran to the table to get it for her. He was an absolute pleasure to work with!


Photography:  Todd Wilson, Bently & Wilson Photography
What can I say about Todd that already hasn’t been said hundreds of times? He showed up right on time & started snapping away. He then went to the guys’ suite to get some pics & then met us at the Revere. Totally laid back & easy going – he sat and ate a quick meal with our guests and then continued taking pics throughout the night.  He took close to 2,000 pictures in the 8 hours we had him for & printed over 200 for us.  I've received a ton of compliments on our wedding photos and still love looking through all of the pictures!

Dott Photography / I See Sexy
I first worked with Olga for my boudoir shoot, which I did as a wedding gift for my now husband. Olga is an absolutely phenomenal photographer and one of the sweetest people you'll ever meet. She made me feel so comfortable, and I'm still floored at my pictures. I've never felt or looked so beautiful. My husband actually cried as he was looking through the album. After doing my B-shoot, I knew I wanted Olga for an after wedding / Trash the Dress shoot, so we hired her for a shoot at the Neon Museum. Again, our pictures are amazing. She was really able to capture the love & emotion between us, along with the fun vibe of the Neon Museum.  

Cake:  Freed's Bakery
Things started off a little rocky at first when we went to have our cake tasting one week before the wedding. I had originally sent in our inspiration pic and then received a call back from one of the sales people. She quoted me the price over the phone and we worked it out so that DH and I would come in while she was working so that we could get everything ordered. My ]mistake was that I didn’t ask for anything in writing (very stupid on my part). So we get to Freed’s and are told that she’s at lunch but should be back within a half hour, so we decide to wait. In the meantime another sales person lets us taste the different flavors. She also tried to find any info on our cake but it was nowhere to be found. At this point, DH is getting pretty frustrated. We show our inspiration picture to this lady and she takes it to the baker but quotes a higher price than what the original girl told us, so we continue to wait. Finally our contact gets back but still can’t find any paperwork from when we spoke. I had written down the date and the prices she had originally quoted me and she finally remembered why she had quoted me what she did. Everything ended up fine, but I definitely will get EVERYTHING in writing from now on…
Anyway, our cake turned out wonderfully. We chose red velvet with Bavarian cream filling (DH isn’t a fan of cream cheese frosting) and the marble with chocolate mousse filling. I only got to taste some from when we cut the cake but that was delicious & moist. We had quite a few compliments on how great the cake was too. I don’t have any close up pics yet but they did a great job with the mountain design.DJ:  Pure Energy Productions - our wedding package also includes the DJ.  Anthony contacted us within a day of me asking the Revere catering manager to book him, I'm really excited to work with him based on the rave reviews he has received from the venue.

Hair & Makeup:  Francesca Lombardo, Bobbie Pin Beauty
Absolutely fantastic! I've worked with Francesca multiple times now - a trial, boudoir pics, wedding (me, my mom, 4 bridesmaids and 2 flower girls), and a TTD shoot. I have never looked so gorgeous! I received a ton of compliments on how amazing we all looked at the wedding! I wish I had more excuses for her to "glam me up!" She truly is an artist!

Photobooth:  Shutterbooth
 Shutterbooth was fantastic! From the beginning dealing with Todd (who was probably the most responsive vendor I dealt with) to our host Dan, I couldn't be happier. Our guests are still raving about how much fun they had! I would highly recommend Shutterbooth! Even our older guests loved it!

Floral:  Springtime Floral 
Overall I was really happy with Springtime – I sort of thought my bouquet might be bigger but it was still beautiful. Spring did the BM’s flowers, bouts for the guys, my bouquet and the flowers for the arch.

Transportation AWG
This is the one vendor that we're truly unhappy with.  We hired a limo bus for the bridal party, two 35 passenger shuttle busses to get people from GVR to Revere, and then one 35 passenger shuttle that ran for two hours taking people back. The booking process was super easy. I booked with AWG because I had heard such mixed reviews about Bell Trans, I decided to spend some extra money to go with a company that was supposed to be reputable.

So the day of the wedding starts off with a phone call at 10:30AM from the driver asking about our shuttle from the Revere Golf Club to Green Valley Ranch. I had to tell him that it was scheduled for 10:30PM. Awesome way to start. So I call AWG to confirm that everything was all set for the day, she apologized for the mix-up but assured me that everything was all set. We scheduled the limo bus to leave earlier than the guys so that we could get to Revere before them and maybe get some pictures (the guys just used GVR’s limo). We got on our bus at 4:20. I realize after awhile that none of the scenery looks familiar but just assumed that the driver knew a better way to get there to avoid traffic. Wrong. After we realize the bus is now making a u-turn, SIL asks the driver if he knows where he’s going. He was actually trying to use his phone to look up the address/info while driving. So basically what should have taken us a maximum of 20 minutes took us 40 to get there. The guys actually got there before us, which means we almost ruined the whole DH not wanting to see me before the wedding.

Later we come to find out that one of the guest shuttles also got lost. First pulled into the wrong golf club altogether, then almost turned into another one as well. To make matters worse on that one, I was told that the air conditioner didn’t work. So our guests were on a black bus with non-opening windows and no air conditioning in 90 degree heat.

Once we returned home from Vegas, I called the company to tell them how unhappy I was with the service.  The first person I talked to was extremely apologetic but unfortunately had to transfer me to a manager.  The manager I spoke with was completely unhelpful, basically turning all of the problems around back to us ("did anyone call to complain about the air conditioning when it happened?" Um, no, people were on their way to a wedding.  "Do you know what bus it was that didn't have the air conditioning?"  Um, no, I hired two buses to leave at the same time, how am I supposed to know which one it was?  "Well it doesn't make any sense that the driver of your limo bus got lost, he's one of our senior drivers and drives that route all the time."  Yes, you're absolutely right, it doesn't make sense and that actually makes it worse that he got lost).  Anyway, the manager never once apologized but did give me a slight discount.  By the end of the conversation I was done dealing with her so I accepted the discount.