DIANA & KEITH "Our Destination Wedding"

My new wife and I had a great wedding day due mostly to the ability of our vendors. Being both from out-of-state, my wife from Florida and I from California, a lot of planning had to take place in order for our special day to happen. Since both of us were originally from the Cleveland area, we thought it easiest to bring the wedding to the family instead of the family to the wedding. It’s pretty funny how people travel to both California and Florida to have their dream “Destination” wedding and we traveled from those places to have ours in Cleveland. We must really love our family and friends.

Planning from out-of-state was quit the challenge. Coordinating our schedule and meeting with all the vendors to pick the best of the best, seemed to be impossible. A lot of our final picks were based on our experience and recommendations. When we finally completed this we knew we had the best team to help us on our wedding day.

Here is our final list of vendors with a little information on each: 

Church:

Assumption

My Uncle is a Deacon there and of course it made working with the church a lot easier. If you’re looking for a very traditionally full mass Catholic Wedding, this is the place. No messing around.

Reception Hall: 

Carrie Cerino’s

The food was phenomenal to say the least. We chose Prime Rib, Chicken Marsala, and Pasta. Carmen Cerino was great to work with, and I didn’t even know he was the owner. Plenty of room to dance, eat, and of course drink at the two bars on each side of the room.

Flowers:

Blossom Shoppe

The owner was great to work with. Looking from the outside, you would never think the place could turn out the product they did. Reasonable prices and awesome quality.

DJ:

Spin Productions

The owner did my sister’s wedding 6 years prior. He set us up with a great DJ who did a fabulous job getting the crowd going. Everybody danced all night.

Photographer:

Michaelangelo’s Photography

Cheryl and Ed are simply awesome. Of all the vendors they were the most fun to work with. We had a limited time set aside for pictures, but they made it happen. They took photos at the Palace Theater, Voinovich Park, Assumption, and the Reception. One unique thing Cheryl did was meet up with my wife in the morning and take pictures of her getting ready with her parents. Really cool. They landed up taking over 1,000 pictures and every one was great. I don’t know how they did it. 

ANN & JEFF

We had a traditional Catholic ceremony. It was held at Ascension of Our Lord Church in the Westpark neighborhood of Cleveland, OH. We are both parishioners there, and that is the main reason why we chose it for our ceremony. The unique layout of the church as well as the warm, earthy dÄcor was an added incentive to have our wedding ceremony there. The reception was held at St. Clarence Catholic Church in the Pavilion. The venue itself was beautiful; the sliding glass doors open to reveal a huge patio with trees and other greenery surrounding the back of the building. This venue uses Ahern Catering exclusively. I was a bit nervous about not having a choice in the matter, but the food was delicious. 

Despite my calling and changing things several times, the flowers were perfect. I have to admit, I had no idea what I really wanted for the flowers, but Judy talked to me about what I like and what I don’t like, and somehow managed to design beautiful bouquets, centerpieces, corsages, boutineers, a flower girl basket and headpiece, a piece for the alter, and loose flowers for my hair. We used Floral Images, based in Kamm’s Corners. 

Total Eclips Salon and Spa in Parma did hair and make-up for myself, all of the bridesmaids, and the mother of the groom. They offer several bridal packages, and I chose the on your Wedding Day package. It includes hair and make-up as well as fruit, bagels, coffee, tea, and mimosas. It was the perfect beginning to the day. 

The cake was done by Cakes by Jo Anne. We wanted the cake to be pretty, but to also look like a cake, not a sculpture. We also wanted the cake to be much more than just a forgettable plain white cake. We had cassata cake, peanut butter cup cake, spice cake with apple filling, chocolate cake with chocolate filling, and white cake with raspberry filling. Jo Anne told us that she would make sure that there would be more cake than we actually needed, just to be sure that there would be enough. Jo Anne and I agreed that when it comes to food, it is better to have too much than not enough, but at the end of the night, there were maybe five pieces left. Our guests were getting seconds and even thirds! ╩Thinking back on all of the weddings I have attended over the years, I cannot remember a single wedding cake, but four months later, I am still getting compliments on mine.

To be honest, using anyone besides Michaelangelo’s never entered my mind. Cheryl and Ed had worked with my father on various commercial advertising projects through the company he worked for, and when my father was remarried in March of 2001, he and my soon to be step-mother chose Michaelangelo’s again to photograph their wedding. My step-mother also chose Michaelangelo’s to take a series of family portraits of her large family (about 70 people). My much smaller family (5 people at the time) also enlisted Cheryl to take our family portrait. Two of my four step-sisters chose Michaelangelo’s as their wedding photographers, and I had no doubts that I would do the same. My confidence in their ability was reinforced throughout the entire wedding day. Cheryl was not only incredibly professional, but also, as it turned out, was a skilled wrangler of the slightly unruly (and possibly tipsy) groomsmen. 

LAUREN & GEOF

I am often accused of being a little obsessive and weirdly organized. I figured planning our wedding was going to force me to become more of both. I decided to go the other way. Yes, I was still organized but if I was going to keep my sanity and my stress level low, I couldn’t obsess over anything. I focused on a few major points and the rest just fell into place. I didn’t worry about the little things. Not everything was going to be perfect, so I tried to stay calm when something went wrong.

When I started planning there were only two things I was sure of. I wanted to get married in a garden and have an amazing photographer. Shortly after becoming engaged to my wonderful husband Geof, I started my research…wedding web sites. Most of them were too cliché for me so, I simply found a checklist and a timeline and was on my way. Word of mouth guided us to our location, The Holden Arboretum. The Butterfly Garden is beautiful, engaging, and a lovely location to get married. Once we had our date I could really start planning. My next order of business was a photographer. I had stumbled across Michaelangelo’s Photography on one of the Cleveland wedding websites and fell in love. Geof and I went for our appointment to meet with Cheryl and Ed. While waiting for Cheryl we found ourselves looking at Geof’s brother’s wedding pictures in some of their books. Somehow we ended up at the same photographer. I saw their wedding pictures a few years earlier and loved them. In fact, his pictures were what inspired me to find a great photographer.

Apparently my search was over just as it began. Once I finished the two things that topped my list, the rest was easy. I found a good bakery- Gartman Model Bakery, florist-Gilson Gardens and caterer- Rideout’s IGA. I tried to keep my choices local, supporting family owned and run businesses. I found with doing that the people we worked with were more relatable. I suppose when you are with your family at work and at home you become flexible and easier to work with.

It was 73 degrees in August and on the morning of our wedding my step-son fell off his bike onto his face, poor kid. He ended up with a large bandage on his forehead and a nice shiner

Now, I said I was obsessive and organized but no one would ever accuse me of being graceful, so when I dropped my bouquet of roses into the pond there was no surprise.Our wedding day was perfect as judged by my husband and me. In hindsight I’m glad I didn’t worry about the little things because I wouldn’t have had as much fun. We surrounded ourselves with fun people from our bridal party; Heather, the wedding planner at The Holden and Cheryl and Ed from Michealangelo’s (Geof thinks Ed is hilarious, I favor Cheryl). Regardless of how you plan on your big day turning out, let your hair down and enjoy yourself!