Our Wedding Website

http://chapelintheclouds.com/

We got engaged in Las Vegas in May 2007 and decided to go to the Top of the Stratosphere to see the view of Las Vegas...it was AMAZING-it is just breathtaking up there (especially at night!) I said to Jake, "I wonder if people can get married up here!" There it started-the planning process! We decided we wanted to get married at the Top of the Stratosphere in Las Vegas!

So we did...23 family and friends ended up joining us on May 26th, 2009 and we wouldn't have changed it for anything it was just as we had pictured it =D The view was incredible-we LOVED IT! and our guests definately had not only a wedding they would never forget, but also a trip they would remember as well. 

Our Minister, Richard was the NICEST guy EVER!!!! We couldn't have picked a better Minister if we tried-the minute we met him, I just loved him! He was great and calmed any nervous feelings we had and performed a beautiful ceremony. Our Stratosphere Photographer had a chip on her shoulder from go, not sure what her deal was, but she didn't bring us down one bit...Richard (the minister) the gorgeous chapel, and THE VIEW of Las Vegas...completely made up for her attitude =D I will say that the pictures through the Stratosphere Chapel are INSANELY expensive $10 for (1) 4x6...needless to say we were VERY glad we did our professional pictures with Toner Photography prior to the Ceremony!!! =D

I can honestly say if we were to do it all over again, we definitely would in a heartbeat! =D

http://tonerphotography.com/

If you can only afford one extra vendor in addition to your chapel, BOOK TONER PHOTOGRAPHY AS YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER!!! Hands down the best decision we made out of our Las Vegas Wedding vendors! =D HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!!!

We did the 2-Hour Las Vegas Strip Photo Tour, because we wanted wedding pictures done before our wedding on the Las Vegas Strip and Michelle with Toner Photography made it happen! She picked us up at our hotel, we went to the different locations that we had picked out prior to the tour, and then dropped us off at our Ceremony location. I was very nervous about getting all of our locations in, because traffic was insane on our wedding day, more so than usual, due to the PRESIDENT being in town for one day only...which just happened to be May 26th, 2009... So traffic was worse than it normally was, but Michelle knew the ins and outs of the City and got us where we needed to be!

On the tour, we went to the Famous Las Vegas Sign, New York-New York Bridge, The Paris, and the Bellagio..we were also lucky enough to get some shots of the Bellagio fountains going off in the background..Michelle timed it just right she is AMAZING!

Our pictures came back and I was stunned-we seriously looked like we could have stepped out of a Bridal Magazine! Michelle takes the best pictures I've ever seen of us. She is also a lifelong friend thanks to Facebook and hopefully we get back to Vegas in the next couple years to visit her! =D

P.S. Jake and I are on Toner Photography's website =D Here is the direct link http://tonerphotography.com/galleries/weddings/index.php?sfpg=KioxNSoqKmJhOTk0MThiNjUwZjcxNGRiMTgwMjJjZmQwMmE3ZTA5

and we are on Michelle's blog here is the direct link to that as well http://tonerphotography.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html

http://www.lasvegaswedding-makeup.com/

Megan did an AMAZING job on my makeup! They came to my hotel room and had everything with them! At first I thought that the services were a little pricey, but once they handed me the mirror and I looked at myself-WOW WORTH EVERY CENT!!! I have never tried airbrush makeup or fake eyelashes (I have really deep set eyes) Megan put those eyelashes on me and for the first time in my life my eyes actually popped! I was also impressed by how well the airbrushed makeup looked-it was amazing-I was somewhat broke out, because like most brides, I was stressed prior to my wedding day and our Las Vegas vacation, but you could NOT TELL AT ALL once Megan worked her magic on me...I actually asked her if she would be willing to come to Michigan with me to redo my makeup for our Reception haha =D The makeup held up the entire day and night too as promised-we had a Las Vegas Strip Photo Tour, which involved several stops and LOTS of walking in a heavy wedding gown in 95 degree heat..the makeup didn't budge, I cried during the ceremony-the makeup looked FLAWLESS, and it literally did not come off until I TOOK IT OFF with makeup remover....PERFECT! HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!!!

I asked Whitney (who did my hair) to please do the "Carrie Underwood" half up-half down look with curls/side swept bangs..she did a great job-looked JUST LIKE THE PICTURE! It stayed pretty well too...I wish I had a curling iron about 3 hours later cause half of my hair started to go straight, but I think overall it still looked amazing and I still got a TON of compliments and nobody but me noticed of course =D These girls know what they are doing!!!

I am on Makeup in the 702's website Gallery (halfway down the page) Here is the direct link http://www.lasvegaswedding-makeup.com/lasvegasmakeupgallery.htm

Debi Croff dlcroff@yahoo.com

I decided that it wasn't necessary to have a bridal bouquet in Las Vegas, my mom wouldn't hear of it and asked what style and color bouquet I wanted. I gave her a few pictures out of magazines that I liked and she created the exact bouquet that was in the magazines, including the satin wrap on the handle. Not only did she make my gorgeous bouquet, but she carried it through the airports on the way to and from Las Vegas and had numerous people ask her if they could smell it HAHA!!! My mom really does go above and beyond for me and I can't thank her enough for all her hard work! She did an amazing job on my bouquet-it turned out perfect and you can't even tell that it was fake flowers ;P haha I loved it and can't believe I was willing to go without a bouquet....I suppose mother's do know best!

www.flamingolasvegas.com

We booked a Flamingo GO Room...and LOVED it...we had a view of the Bellagio Fountains from our room! Our room had a King size pillowtop bed, electronic window treatments, pink lighting in the bathroom along with a tv in the bathroom mirror, 42" flat panel television set and Cd player with Ipod hookup, a couch, fridge, and a desk...you know all the comforts of home ;D

We really weren't in our room all that much-cause I mean it's VEGAS BABY! The day of the wedding I did get quite a bit of use out of the room though, because I didn't have my hair or makeup done until Makeup in the 702 showed up and I sure as hell wasn't leaving the room without any makeup on and my hair looking crazy...so yea...I used the room that day a lot =D

Also the tv in the bathroom mirror was so cool as far as getting ready to go and doing your hair on the other days we were there...loved that! The pink lights in the bathroom...also VERY COOL! Anyways if you're in Vegas and are considering the upgrade...I say go for it..I think it was an extra $160 for 5 days which works out to something like $32 more a day...it was worth it!!!!!!! (Check out the pictures on the Las Vegas Vacation Pics Page)

www.vistaprint.com

We weren't going to make Ceremony Invitations since we were only having 23 people join us in Las Vegas for our wedding ceremony and they already knew the details, but Vistaprint had a deal for 10 FREE invitations so we figured what the heck we'll give it a try! They turned out great!!! (We just had to pay the shipping) I think it was about $5.00 for shipping

We ended up also ordering all of our RSVP's for our Reception through vistaprint.com (they were free-just paid the shipping) There was some kind of deal where you could get 150 postcards free so we did that twice =D (we just didn't use the extra RSVP's no big deal...the shipping was like $15-$20? which is REALLY cheap when you think we got 300 RSVP's!)

Then we also ordered a free pen (for our guestbook) it was a picture of Las Vegas and then in writing it said "Jake and Dawn Married in Las Vegas!" on it...just paid shipping which was like $4.50 or something..was worth it I use it at work now =D

http://www.cheboyganknights.com/

We had so much fun at our reception at the Knights of Columbus hall in Cheboygan...it was a HUGE hall and the price was perfect =D

The Hall Director was very easy to get ahold of and even gave me his personal cell, which was nice of him (even though I'm sure he lived to regret it the last couple weeks leading up to the Reception haha)

The only two complaints I have-if you can call it that-you only get 4 hours to decorate the night prior when most halls give you the entire day, this also includes the Caterer only having 4 hours to get in for prep time...I wish we would have had more time, but we made it work. The other complaint was the lack of cell service in the building, but I suppose there really isn't anything they could do about that-just had a few problems trying to get ahold of people (a friend even got a flat tire on the way there and couldn't get through) and we were supposed to call when we arrived to let the DJ know to play our Grand Entrance music, but since the cell phones didn't work, that wasn't possible-luckily our DJ was on top of it and was waiting outside for us ;)

The hall itself is great-lots of room, two sets of bathrooms for the women and the men, a stage, a large bar area, tv's for slideshows if you choose to use them. Very nice!!

http://www.invitationconsultants.com

We ordered our Invitations for our Reception from Invitation Consultants after SEVERAL hours of me searching online for a Vegas themed invitation that wasn't outrageously priced (I wanted it to stay with the Vegas theme-since we got married in Vegas at the Top of the Stratosphere) we found some great ones and I worded them exactly how I wanted them with our wedding website at the bottom! We ordered 230 invitations for $207, which was a REALLY good price!

I wish there was a way to view what they looked like as soon as I ordered them, but they do email you a proof by the next day so that's nice that way if you want to make any changes you can before they mail them out to you. We received them in the mail and were pleasantly surprised to see they enclosed 10 extra invitations for free, which was nice since my parents kept inviting people after the guest list was finalized =) haha

Contact me im_dawn@hotmail.com for information

Aunt Gene has catered almost every family and friend's wedding I've ever been to (even though she is technically retired from the catering business) obviously it was without question we would do whatever necessary to bribe her out of retirement for one last wedding reception ;)

I'm so glad she agreed to do our very "unique" wedding menu (what can I say...we're not big on veggies and salads) Aunt Gene made all of our favorite dishes and they were absolutely DELICIOUS! We also had a midnight sandwich and chips bar set out and it was devoured in record time-I highly recommend the late night snack at any Wedding Reception!! I can't give her, Mark, Linda, Maureen and Don enough praise for all their hard work-they took care of everything and we were so impressed =D You still got "it" Aunt Gene!

Contact me im_dawn@hotmail.com for information

If you only knew just how important cake is to Jake and I then you would know just how much we loved our wedding cake =D

My Aunt Robin makes wedding cakes professionally (we are VERY lucky I know!) I gave her a picture of the cake we wanted after taking probably a month to decide on the perfect cake (I told you we loved cake a little too much haha) and she created the EXACT cake...it was a work of art really! White Cake and Red Velvet every other layer with buttercream frosting...we didn't want to cut it-it was that beautiful ;)

Now My Aunt was sure that this particular cake was going to be far too big for the amount of guests we were having, (keeping in mind that we ordered a groom's cake as well) and she was pretty sure we were going to have a TON of cake leftover (not a problem I told her...see above) she was wrong...there was maybe 15 pieces leftover at the end of the night of our Wedding Cake, I guess that speaks volumes on how great the cake tasted, but in case there was any doubts-IT WAS AMAZING!!!! Nothing beats wedding cake, especially my Aunt Robin's =D HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

Contact me im_dawn@hotmail.com for information

 "I wholeheartedly recommend Tonya to any bride looking to get their hair done on their wedding day! In fact, I booked her a year prior to our Reception when she did such a great job styling my hair in my sister's wedding!!!

I knew with Tonya doing my hair she would be able to create the EXACT look that I wanted and of course she did!! I gave her a photo of a specific look that I liked the "Carrie Underwood" and she was able to flawlessly replicate it.

Tonya also styled my Maid of Honor's hair and my Flower Girl's hair and did an amazing job on both of them as well...she is extremely nice and incredibly talented! I recommend her many times over!!!

http://www.weddingmakeupmichigan.com/

Once I had my makeup done in Las Vegas for the wedding, I made it my mission to find someone in Northern Michigan who could do my makeup for our Reception...in two weeks time (not an easy task!!)

I found Lisa Miller's website and she had great reviews, unfortunately she was booked for June 13th. As luck would have it she lived two roads down from our house and said that she would squeeze me in! WOW what luck is that?!?!

Lisa is such a talented make-up artist and she made me feel so wonderful on my special day. She clearly has a gift for doing make-up, which is why I recommend her to anyone who wants to look and feel beautiful on their special occasion. There is no way I could have applied my makeup as well as she did! She also put on some fake lashes for me and made my eyes pop! I wish I had someone to do my makeup like this everyday!!! Lisa made my makeup look just as flawless as it did on our Wedding Day and I am forever thankful that she was able to fit me into her very hectic schedule! =D

Contact me im_dawn@hotmail.com for information

Denny and Sue were a pleasure to work with! Keeping in mind that Jake & I were already married at this point, we had in mind that we wanted a few posed "family shots" and the rest was basically getting shots of our dances, our cake, and our guests having a good time. I can honestly say Denny and Sue blew any expectations we had out of the water, they went ABOVE AND BEYOND what we expected-when we got our cd (the NEXT DAY by the way) it had every guest that had attended our reception..every shot you could think of and THEN SOME!!! Shots I wouldn't have even thought to have asked them to take, but was SO GLAD they thought to take them! (Like this one of my dad right after our father/daugher dance-one of my favorites) We were so blessed that they took our Reception pictures, so many memories that might have never been caught on film if not for the quick thinking of Denny and Sue. Not only are they two of the nicest and funniest people I have ever met-they sure know what they are doing behind a camera! THANK YOU!

http://www.aplusdigitaldjs.com/

Let me start with saying I dealt mostly with Stacy and I absolutely loved her. She returned all my phone calls and emails usually the same day or the next day-which is REALLY nice =D

When I met with Stacy and Tom (husband, Tom)-there are two Tom's with the business) to pay the balance about 3 weeks or so before our Reception and gave them a list about a mile long...I am not exaggerating by much either-I'm not usually too picky about much, but music was VERY important and I had certain songs that I just had to have played....they looked at the list and laughed first of all...cause the list was just ridiculous (I admit it..haha) but they said "No problem, we have these songs and the ones we don't have we'll get and we'll play them". Wow what a relief =D

The Reception Hall doesn't have cell signal at all and I was wondering how we were going to let someone inside know that we were there so they could tell Stacy to start our Entrance Song..but when we pulled up there was Stacy and Tom (not husband, but SUPER nice guy) THANK GOD!...Stacy was on it!

Once we sat down-Stacy and Tom were asking the entire Bridal Party what we wanted to drink (wow full service!) so they got our drinks for us and we started our toasts (best to get those nerves out of the way!) Then it was time for dinner-Tom insisted on carrying my plate for me! WOW!!!!!! I've never seen this done before, it was not necessary, but of course I appreciated it and I didn't spill anything on my dress =D What a guy! The rest of the night they asked if we needed anything too...it was really sweet and just above and beyond any of my expectations of a DJ service! (P.S. They played the dinner music I had listed and then some..it was PERFECT!!!!!)

So onto the First Dance and the other "Dances" they were all played perfectly (the correct versions that I had listed on the paper) and then it went into open dance and mingling for the Bride and Groom. Time REALLY gets away from you when it's your wedding (I wish I could have DANCED more, because they were playing ALL my favorite songs (the list)-and then some!) but of course I had to say hello to all of our guests first. Stacy also was great at keeping me up with when it was time to cut the cake, time for the dollar dance, time for the Bouquet Toss and Garter Toss and when it was getting down to the last half hour...Thank God...cause trust me time gets away from you when you are busy with your guests =D Jake and I were both so happy with A+ Digital DJs and highly recommend them! =D

Contact me im_dawn@hotmail.com for information

Jake and I decided that we wanted to take dance lessons for our first dance and Roy & Carol were recommended to us. They were phenomenal teachers!! We picked Tony Bennett's "The Way You Look Tonight" for our First Dance song and Roy suggested that we do a SLOW Foxtrot-they mapped out the steps for us before our first lesson and went through each section of the dance with us until we got it down flawlessly.

Every class it seemed we went over our time by about a half hour, but Roy and Carol never seemed to mind...they were the sweetest couple we have ever met..and I was sad to have our lessons end. Hopefully we have another special event that we need to take dance lessons for in the future, because they were so much fun to get together with! They were a lot of fun and VERY professional as well....you really have to see these two dance together-they are AMAZING =D

Debi Croff- dlcroff@yahoo.com although, I don't think she wants to make a habit out of making Wedding Reception Table Linens ;P

Once again my mom outdid herself..she made all of our linens for our Reception! Yes, she actually measured, cut, sewed, and ironed all (80) black tableclothes and (40) red table squares!!! She deserves some kind of award I know! =D

We decided when we priced how much it was to rent linens that it would actually be cheaper to buy the fabric ourselves and for her to make them...she spent many nights on them and they turned out BETTER than rentals if I do say so myself!

The details-(80) black linen tableclothes for rectangular tables and (40) 24 x 24 table squares in a red glitter casa fabric, beautiful accent on the tables. The casa fabric is beautiful-with the candles above-they really sparkled!

***We are looking to sell all table linens if anyone is interested, please contact me im_dawn@hotmail.com or my mom dlcroff@yahoo.com they are ALL WASHED and have only been used once for our Reception. If the price is right-they are yours!***

http://www.celebrationsinchocolate.com

We ordered Chocolate Personalized Poker Chips for our Wedding Reception...I ordered them from this company after seeing they had a GREAT Ebay rating and then going through their customer comments...they were all positive and said that the chocolate actually tasted good...(which was also a huge concern of mine)

We ordered 500 Personalized Chocolate Poker Chips (we got married in Las Vegas) for our Wedding Reception in Michigan, and they sent us a proof of what they would look like in my email..they came in the mail REALLY fast! Of course we tried them and they tasted REALLY good...I had to take them out of our house and store them at my parents so my husband (fiance at the time) wouldn't eat them before the actual reception =D haha

I highly recommend these if you are looking for a chocolate wedding favor, they sell different chocolate favors as well =D

http://www.rexcraft.com/

We ordered our personalized cocktail and cake napkins from Rexcraft. We ordered 400 of them (200 red and 200 black) I always google coupon codes before I order from websites like that too and I found a coupon code (I think I ended up getting 15% off!) anyways I ended up paying $74.15 for 400 napkins and they sent me a free Marriage Certificate! Cute =D

They are still cute 5 months later cause we have a TON left...note to those thinking of ordering personalized cocktail napkins: you don't need as many as you think ;P

http://www.fleetwoodinn.com/

We took our posed pictures out by the docks in back of hotel-it's BEAUTIFUL back there! The whirlpool suite we stayed in for our Reception Night was AMAZING..I wish we would have booked the room for more than one night!!! =D Everyone that stayed there had a great time and really loved the hotel and it's employees =) I would defintely stay there again and recommend it to out of towners every chance I get!!

http://www.zales.com/

I love, love, LOVE my rings!!!

My engagement ring is 1.07 carats, 18 carat white gold with COLORLESS certified diamonds it has the 3 main diamonds in the middle with 3 accent diamonds on each side, but there are also 3 diamonds on each side of the main diamond (if you tilt your hand down they are there on each side of the ring, best way to describe what I mean) 15 diamonds total! I LOVE my ring!

It was soooo hard to find a Wedding Band for my ring-we went back to Zales and looked at ALL the Wedding Bands, but none were fitting right without a huge gap or looked weird with my ring. The lady finally brought out an Anniversary Ring that was a carat (a lot more than I was wanting Jake to spend too!) but it just FIT! The color was G and the 11 diamonds were the same size as my accent diamonds-Jake and I both agreed that it looked great with my ring....so it was a done deal! It had to be resized cause I have weird short stubby hands (size 5) but the rings look perfect together and I just love them...I constantly catch myself looking at them =D

Jake couldn't be any easier to buy a ring for if he tried-EBAY BABY!! He works outside and wanted something that won't scratch he picked out his ring- $45 for a Black Ceramic ring. The ring WILL NOT SCRATCH, and it is as light as Titanium. The band has two polished beveled (angled) edges and has a Satin finish on top.

http://www.bridalgallerymi.com/

The selection at Bridal Gallery is GREAT...so much so that I was willing to drive myself and my mom and sister 3 1/2 hours one way downstate to check it out =D

Their customer service sucks...seriously, they might want to work on that! If they had comment cards I would have filled one out...they put the dresses I wanted to try on into the dressing room for me, but that was IT! The employees were all huddled around a size 2 customer "oooohhhing and ahhhhing" over how beautiful she looked to help me into one single dress..so thankfully my mom was there to help me lace up my dresses! I'm not saying I needed them doting over me at all...but seriously A LITTLE HELP would have been nice....instead ALL of the employees were just standing around this one girl doing nothing....no joke...I wasn't the only customer who wasn't being helped by the employees that day either!

However, the Bridal Gallery did carry Mori Lee (none of the Bridal Stores carry Mori Lee where I live) so I was able to try on and order my DREAM DRESS!!!!! YAY the dress took 4 months to come in...I had to call THEM to see if it was in. They did not call me...which I thought should have been the other way around...and when I did call them, they acted as though it was a big CHORE to just LOOK if my dress was in....which it was in so I guess I was glad I called since they obviously didn't do their job and CALL ME when it came in!

My mom, sister, niece, and I drove the 3 1/2 hour drive back down to get it in a blizzard (February in MICHIGAN...it was bad..but still it was the only weekend we all had to go downstate) We get there which was more like 4 1/2 hours cause of the weather and I walk in and I tell the woman behind the counter "Hi I'm here to pick up my dress" and she says "Ok" She goes and gets my dress..and hands it to me...and I was like "Um can I try it on?" Wouldn't that be assumed with a wedding dress? I don't know maybe not...she said "Yea go ahead" so I go back to the room...and we're just kind of standing there..my mom finally said "Am I supposed to help you get into it?" I was like "I guess so" all the employees were just standing around the front counter gossiping. So my mom laced me up and I went out and did my little twirl and my mom took pictures and whatnot. None of the employess offered to help me with viels or shoes or accessories...(like I had seen them do with the size 2 girl the time we went down to try on dresses) so MY MOM then helped me out of my dress, MY MOM put my dress back into my bag. My sister tried on some bridesmaid dresses and my niece tried on some flower girl dresses and the employees did absolutely NOTHING to assist us.

We did end up ordering a Bridesmaid Dress and a Flower girl dress..but NOT from the Bridal Gallery.....if it weren't for them having my dress (which by the way was PERFECT in every way...and if ANYONE else around here sold Mori Lee we would have bought it from them!) we wouldn't have even bought that there-VERY RUDE EMPLOYEES!..but they did sell my dress so I guess that was the only plus to the whole situation =D

My awesome dress that I love-even though the Bridal Store sucked =P