Ceremony Site: The Marcus Center for the Performing Arts: A
This is located in the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts on the second floor. It has a wall of ceiling to floor windows that I fell in love with. The main contact person for this site is Jerold Fox. It was hard to reach him through phone calls. I found that emailing got a better response. There were no problems on this site. There was a bathroom/dressing room for the girls to get ready in. I’m not sure about the guys. DH said ours was better than theirs. The guy in charge that day made everything go smooth. He even turned on the water fountains for us! DH really liked him. We used the piano that they had available for our ceremony music. The acoustics in the room was great.

Reception Site: The Pfister Hotel: A
I love the Pfister Hotel! I worked with Jennifer Mell. Cocktails were on the second floor of the hotel. The staff was helpful and willing to do whatever it took to make our guests comfortable. MIL asked them if they could bring some extra chairs out, and it was done. We had our reception in the Café Rouge. It was absolutely gorgeous! The combination of the existing decor along with Chris Nelson’s work really made the room shine. I didn’t want to leave it! I left detailed instructions for the staff on how I wanted things set up, and they did it without a hitch. The ambience of the room was just perfect.
The food was to die for! I expected nothing but perfection from the Pfister. We had a five course meal. Everyone talked about the food, especially the heart shaped ravioli we had as appetizers. Those were a big hit. I was stuffed by the time the main course came out! I wasn’t there when the head table was served, but the server didn’t just plunk my plate down. He waited until I was back at the table to get it for me. DH wanted asti (it was damn good too!) for our champagne toast and got it no problem. The servers were attentive and great.
We only had a minor glitch with the Pfister. Jennifer was supposed to change my MIL’s reservation from 7/22 to 7/21 and have it upgraded to a suite, but she never did. When MIL went to check in on 7/21 she was told she did not have a reservation for that night, and the room she had for 7/22 was only a regular room. She was able to get a room for that night. I printed off all the emails I sent to Jennifer and her replies and gave those to the manager on duty on Saturday, and it was taken care of immediately. We got a free suite for the night there. I can’t complain about the room or the view that we had. Like I said before, I love the Pfister!


Officiant: David Pruhs (court commissioner): A.
Based off a recommendation I got from Chickenbiskit. David was great to work with! He gave me a ceremony outline to work with, and I added all the stuff I wanted. He went through it no problem. David attended our rehearsal with no problems. His delivery was right on. People still comment about how he made everything run smoothly. Office number (414) 278-4413 (leave a message), Fee paid: $100.

Pianist: Neal Bardele: A
(414) 774-7741. $125 to play at ceremony. Neal played twenty minutes of prelude, 2 processional songs, 1 song during rose presentation, and the recessional song/music. He was great. I really love piano music and figured that was all we needed to have at the ceremony. I didn’t hear most of the prelude music but he did a great job with the rest of the music. We requested two pieces that Neal wasn't familiar with, and he did a perfect job with them at the ceremony. He was easy to get a hold of and communicate with.

Photography: Andrea from Expressive Photography: A. Patrick and Tracy: D
Andrea was great to work with. She got to the hotel around 11 am and stayed until 10 pm. There was another associate with her who was in training. Andrea got her shots done without being obtrusive. We went down by the lakefront and up to the hill overlooking Commerce St. for pictures. I had no problems with Andrea. The pictures we got back from her were gorgeous. I love looking at them! I gave Patrick and Tracy a D because their customer service sucks. I had the hardest time getting in contact with them two months after the wedding. I started to see people who had their weddings after us get their pictures first, and it started to bug me. Four months later, we finally got our pictures and found out why. Patrick and Tracy process the pictures they took first. Then they do the associates photos. So someone who had gotten married in September with P and T as their photographers got their pictures first. It was all about money.

DJ: Craig Krueger: A
There was a situation with the original DJ we had contracted. We decided to go ahead and drop the DJ, and I called Craig and explained our situation. He was available on our date. The best part? Craig honored the price we had with our original DJ ($600) instead of the price he would usually charge for the six hours of music we got. Craig was always good with communicaton and answered any questions that I had. On the day of, Craig came with his fiancée/now wife, Amber, and they were great! Craig wanted to make sure he got my family members’ names pronounced right, and we went over the schedule of events together one last time before the reception started. He played the songs on our Must Play list and stayed away from the ones on our Do Not Play. He took people’s requests and was more than happy to do an announcement for DH’s grandmother. Her birthday was the same day as our wedding day. At the end of the reception, Craig gave us a CD with all our songs on it-first dance, cake cutting etc. and our dinner music. That was a nice surprise!

Florist: Chris Nelson of Designs etc.: A
Chris Nelson was recommended to me by MIL’s friend. She was one of the best vendors I worked with. Chris has a great personality and she was willing to listen to ideas that I had. We had so much fun at our meetings! The bouquets were gorgeous, our ceremony flowers (reused again at the reception) were awesome, and I loved our centerpieces. Chris took an idea my DH had for our candle centerpieces and ran away with it. The primary colors we had in our centerpieces were white and lime green. She stayed at our ceremony site and helped cue my flower girls down for their walk. She even fluffed my train before I walked down the aisle! I loved the price that we paid for the flowers that we got. Chris even got us a wedding present and called me a week later to see how I was doing.

Wedding Cake: Brookfield Wedding Cakes: A-
I loved my cake! We had white cake with strawberry filling-DH’s favorite. I wanted a simple design for my cake (no frou frou stuff for me) and showed Susan some pictures. It was perfect. We tried other bakers and bakeries, but none seemed to compare to Susan’s. Her cake was moist and dense, the way I like cake to be! I am usually not a big fan of frosting but I did eat the frosting on this cake. The only reason why I gave Susan an A- is because I thought she was a little hard to talk to. She was great at returning phone calls and answering questions, but the lulls in between the conversations about cake were a little awkard. Can’t wait to eat our top layer on our first anniversary!

Wedding Day Make-up: Julie Carrington from Onlocation Make-up Artistry: A+
Julie was great to work with! She made me look and feel beautiful. I was glad to see her take notes during the makeup trial. She did make-up for me, 2 BMs, 2 moms, my other sister, and my sister-in-law. Julie came to our room at 9:30 am on the morning off, and didn’t leave until she had touched us all up after the ceremony, around 4pm. Not to mention the various times she had to fix our make-up after our crying sessions. There were a lot of those! What a sweetheart! She also emailed me a week later to see how I was doing.

Wedding Day Hair: Vera from The Janice Salon located in The Pfister Hotel: A
Vera did a great job with my hair. I would have never thought my stick straight, fine hair could get up in an updo, but she made it work! I showed her a picture of Felicity Huffman's hairstyle from the Oscars, and she got it just right. My sister and DH's sister also hair their hair done at the salon. DH's sister absolutely loved her hair.

Wedding Dress: Stone Manor Bridal in Cedarburg, WI: A
I loved my dress so much! It’s too bad that I only got to wear it once. The girls at Stone Manor were great in offering advice and picking out dresses for me to try on. I went there three different times. I found my dress on the last visit. It came in three months. They stored the dress for me while I waited for the months to pass by. The alterations lady I had did a great job. I went in for three dress fittings, the last just to see if it would fit fine on the wedding day. I picked up my dress the Friday before the wedding, all pressed and ready to go. Stone Manor also lets you take pictures of dresses which I really appreciated.

MOH/BM dresses: Amelishan Bridal: D
Their customer service sucked! I wish I had just ordered the dresses from Netbride and saved myself the headache. We ordered dresses at the end of December. I was told they would come in three months since there were only two dresses. Well three months went by and no phone call. I called them in April to check on the status of the dresses. I got a plethora of excuses from some lady. She told me that the earliest the dresses would be in would be the middle of June! WTF?! They came in around June 12th. When we went in to pick up the dresses, the girls at the counter didn’t say hello or asked what we were there for. So we presented our papers, got the dresses and walked out. The girls decided to get them altered somewhere else. Plus they ripped the tags out of the dresses and won’t allow pictures.

Limo: Royal Limousine: A
Getting a decked out limo was not a priority for us. We just wanted someone with great rates for three hours. We had no problems with this limo company. We paid $284 for three hours. Communication with them was great. We had no problems with the driver. He knew his way around downtown Milwaukee. He was an older man and was a real gentleman. He opened the doors for us, and we got the red carpet rolled out for us. The only complaint one might find with this company is that they only have limos for up to 8 people. Not a problem for us though. They got us where we wanted to go!

Save the Date magnets: Vistaprint

Envelopments for Invitations: My Gatsby

Invitation Panel and inserts: The American Wedding Album

Paper for all projects: Cut Cardstock and Paper and More