Our wedding vendors

This post has been sitting in my drafts for way too long, and it's about time I get this info out there! I'm kind of embarrassed to be posting it almost 8 months after our wedding, but hopefully this is helpful to someone.

Ceremony Venue: Lighthouse Point Lawn Area

This area is booked through the City of Santa Cruz, and is so beautiful! Downsides: Limited parking (although our guests didn't seem to have a problem), a maximum of 50 chairs are allowed, and the fact that it's a public space. When we decided to get married here we knew that there would be dozens of strangers watching, but it was worth it.

Reception Venue & Catering: Michael's on Main

Michael's on Main is a restaurant in Soquel, about 15 minutes from our ceremony location. Our reception was on the back patio, and it was beautiful. The staff were very nice and I received many compliments on the food.

We were supposed to have a coordinator there that night but she wasn't, which was weird. It was included in our price. We had our day of coordinator so maybe she didn't think she had to come? I also told you about how they forgot to put our favors out, and the coordinator was pretty unapologetic and defensive about it.

Guitarist: David Field

We got David to play at our wedding for a reduced rate by posting a gig ad on Craigslist, which I blogged about here. What I could hear was beautiful... most of the time I was thinking about other things but I clearly remember his rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" for our first dance.

Officiant: Mark Toback
We hired Mark because he writes his ceremonies specifically for each couple, and we loved that concept. He didn't disappoint, as he wrote and performed a beautiful ceremony that we loved! He took a lot longer getting it to us than he said he would, but it was still well before the wedding so whatev.

Chair/Bench Rentals: M&M Party Rentals

They got the job done and were on time, so we were happy with them.

Day of Coordinator: Allumer Weddings & Events

Cristina was fantastic from the moment we hired her. She is so affordable yet as helpful and professional as anyone could be! She was setting up the lights at our reception venue at 8 a.m. the morning of the wedding, and stayed until at least 11 p.m. after everyone left. She also ordered our flowers for us, and I'm so glad we had her!

Cake: Hoffman's Bakery

Hoffman's delivered the delicious princess torte plain, and our day of coordinator decorated it with fresh flowers. It was yummy! The two times we met with them they seemed disorganized, but the cake made it to the reception as ordered, so I'm not complaining.

Photographer: Weddings by Tammynize
I love our photos! Tammy was so nice on the wedding day and captured everything just how I had hoped. She was helpful and creative, plus she's affordable!

Bridal Gown Alterations: Lana's Studio

These ladies did a great job and were very sweet. The price was reasonable, the bustle was beautiful (although it broke at the reception, I think that was my fault) and the dress fit great.

Hair: Kepare Salon

My stylist did an okay job. I didn't love it but I may not have given her enough direction. They don't accept credit cards and didn't tell me when I made the appointment. I got lucky that I had enough cash on me!

Those are the main vendors we used. Any questions - feel free to contact me! :)

P.S. To see all my posts about our wedding day, see the tab at the top of the page

Our wedding day: Details

My last wedding post - some shots of the details I worked so hard on for over a year!

Programs: I blogged about these here. I have a bunch of pictures of people reading them, so hopefully they were helpful. They were at least pretty!

Invitation: I blogged about our invitations here. They were completely DIY and I love them!

Arch: My dad made this beautiful bamboo arch for us, which I blogged about here. I emailed him a few inspiration photos last spring, and this is what he came up with.

It's decorated with these sheer curtains from Ikea. I had them for a few years and they weren't in use at our current house, so I dug them up for our wedding.

The strand of flowers is about 25 feet long, made by me. I bought a bunch of fake flowers at Michael's in our colors. I took them apart and strung them on string, with 1-inch segments of clear straws in between ("borrowed" from Jack in the Box). I tried to make the colors be in random order... I think it looked pretty cool and beachy.

Reserved Signs: I blogged about these here.

The only other ceremony decor was white rose petals in the grass aisle. Perfect!

Rings: All three of our rings are from Shane Co.

Bouquets: I made these for myself and my Maid of Honor the day before the wedding - you can see the process here. This is one of the details I'm super proud of because they turned out so beautifully! We didn't do corsages or boutonnieres and they were not missed.

I ordered green and white roses, white dahlias, blue hydrangeas and green poms through our day of coordinator, who happens to have a wholesale floral license.

Card Jar: I blogged about making this here.

Guestbook: We had Oh, The Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss read during our ceremony, and that book served as the guestbook as well.

It was on a table as you walked into the reception, but James' mom ended up passing it around during the cocktail hour - which I'm so glad that she did because people were able to take the time to write some really sweet messages!

Cake: Hoffman's Bakery provided the cake, which was a delicious princess torte. They delivered it plain, and  our coordinator decorated it with flowers.

The cake stand was brought by my parents. I saw pictures of a neat tree stump cake stand and asked if they could find/make something similar. It turns out that they had a friend with this stump segment who let us borrow it. So cool.

Favors: I'm so sad about these favors. Not because of how they look - I mean, they're pretty darn cute. And they were filled with delicious candy... but our guests never even saw them. The people setting up forgot about them, and we didn't notice at our reception. So all the time I put into making 70 of these bags (and buying the candy and supplies) was wasted.

Moss Letters: I don't like how they hung these. I asked them to put them on the corners of the gazebo entrance, C on one side and J on the other. I don't think it makes sense how it says "CJ." Maybe if it said "C+J" it would work, but... whatevs. You can see my post about making these here.

Centerpieces: I don't love how they set these up, and the candles look weird this way. When I went to get my food I saw that a bunch of vases were just sitting on the ground. WTF? So I asked them to put them on tables, as un-bridezilla as possible :)

All the flowers were DIY the day before the wedding. Read about that process here.

Chalkboard Signs: We had these three DIY chalkboard signs up, which I blogged about making here.

My dad made the bamboo easels they're sitting on.

Overall our wedding day turned out pretty much perfectly. I'm so happy we were able to pull it off on a budget, while capturing our styles and personalities so well.

Our wedding day: The reception (Part 4)

Our photographers left at 9 p.m., so the rest of the reception photos were taken by family and friends.

We didn't even notice that anyone snuck out, but my family left to decorate our car!

Drivers were so nice to us that night!