To create a new account with a different email,click here
Welcome to the WeddingWire Community!
Congratulations!
Your WeddingWire account was created successfully and you have been signed in.
A confirmation email has been sent to you. You will need to confirm your account in order to sign back in to your WeddingWire account.
Check your spam folder if you do not see the confirmation email in your inbox. If you have not received an email within 1 hour please email us at support@weddingwire.com.
I was thrilled with Sunset Hills as my ceremony/reception venue. The property is beautiful and immaculately maintained, and they have been and continue to make improvements to it. The barn is stunning and absolutely gorgeous both inside and out; it was even prettier at night during the reception with the lights on to really show off the wood. All of my guests were really impressed with the place - most everyone commented on it. One of my bridesmaids put it best: "This is a place you would want to come and hang out anyway; it's not a place that you would only go to in order to attend an event." I scouted 20 locations in person in and around the DC metro area in Northern Virginia including seven other vineyards before settling on Sunset Hills. I chose it over all the others, because (a) it's so beautiful, and while some of the other vineyards and historic houses might have a slightly better view, Sunset Hills still comes very close and outweighed the other venues in other categories, (b) many of the other venues require you to rent a tent and hold everything outdoors, and I didn't want to have to worry about rain/mud/thunderstorms/heat, which was a wise choice, as it did rain on my wedding day and the ground was soaked from a downpour the day before as well, (c) their wine is very good, which is important, because most all of the vineyards permit you to drink their wine only (and possibly mixed drinks), and there are a few vineyards that I ruled out on that basis, (d) I decided I wanted a slightly more informal and fun, yet still classy feel for my wedding; the barn is perfect for that, and is a place where men are more likely to feel comfortable versus some of the more foofoo, girly places, (e) their prices were about in line (and slightly lower than) other similar facilities, although I suspect they might start going up as they get more experience doing weddings(, having only been in the business for about a year), (f) it's only about 1/2 hour from Dulles airport, and I had a lot of out-of-town guests; I ended up putting everyone up at a hotel near the airport with a free airport shuttle, and I hired a 55-passenger bus fairly inexpensively to get people to and from the wedding so people wouldn't have to rent cars, and (g) great people work at Sunset Hills from the vineyard owners, Diane and Mike, to the events coordinator, Jaclyn, to the wine pourers; everyone who works there is very calm and accommodating and no one was anything but pleasant both to me and to my guests - I have heard horror stories of some places that are nice to you just long enough to take your money, but there was none of that at Sunset Hills.
I had no problems with Sunset Hills leading up to the wedding day or the day of. I met with Diane and Jaclyn several times at the vineyard and we also had joint sessions with my caterer, and I was able to resolve most of my questions and issues via e-mail, generally in a very timely fashion. I ended up buying an extra hour of reception time for $250, which worked out well since I had both my ceremony and reception at the vineyard, and I didn't want to cut too much into the dance time. So I had the place from 5:30 - 11:30 pm with the ceremony at 6 pm. I also ordered 15, different 8-oz blocks of Amish cheese from them, which they served during cocktail hour to anyone who came up to the bar to get a wine tasting. The garlic and smoked cheeses are particularly amazing, and many guests commented on the cheeses - try them if you get a chance! In terms of wine, I had about 95 guests, and they only drank about $1000 of wine at around $20 a bottle; I had thought it would be more, but just to give you an idea. I also used their Nettare di Tramonto dessert wine instead of champagne for the toasts, and people went wild over it - much better and more interesting than champagne. In terms of number of guests, 95 was a very good number for the venue; it would have seemed crowded if there had been any more guests, as we used the loft upstairs for the DJ and for a photo booth for guests to get pictures of themselves taken. In any case, I wouldn't go with more than 120 guests maximum. In terms of the rehearsal dinner, Sunset Hills has a beautiful chandelier room downstairs that might fit around 20 people; however, I took the easy route and just went to Magnolia's at the Mill Restaurant about 3 miles away, which I was happy with. The rehearsal itself was the day before the wedding, and the vineyard had a guitarist playing in the barn during the our rehearsal out on the lawn, but they had informed me of that before, and it wasn't a problem. Another nice plus about Sunset Hills - they have a large flatscreen on the wall which they let me use to play a wedding slideshow of baby and family photographs throughout the reception; some DJ's offer the service, but for a fee.
My experience with Sunset Hills was a pleasure, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them; in fact, get them while the getting's good! I think this is going to turn into a wedding hotspot once the word gets out. Rather than a wedding factory like some of the other venues seemed to be, this venue gave more of a family feel; the vineyard owner was in attendance at my wedding and helped with the event to make sure everything went well, and I felt like all the staff cared about the day being a great one for me and for the guests.
Paula catered my wedding at Sunset Hills Vineyard in August. She was on the recommended caterers list for the vineyard (she doesn't advertise - word of mouth only), even though mine was the first event she catered there. The vineyard staff described her as having done a lot of events for the horseriding set in Middleburg, VA, and that clients would "give her a field, and she would turn it into the Taj Mahal." I can't say my budget was quite on that level - I paid around $12,000 total for around 95 guests for a buffet dinner (two entrees, several appetizers, salad, bread), greeting bar with punch/tea/lemonade, additional tables/chairs needed (both for reception and outdoor ceremony), kitchen and wait staff, tablecloths, and all dinnerware and serving pieces (no plastic) - but she did an absolutely fantastic job! I didn't realize what exactly went into catering an event, but Paula did a lot of work, and was a key player in making my wedding run smoothly and look beautiful; she earned her money.
Paula began by inviting me to her house and asking me how I envisioned my wedding, what kind of style I wanted, and she sent me a 12-page list of menu items she has done in the past for me to choose from, or I could suggest any other items I wanted on the menu, and she could accommodate my requests. Her menu items went above and beyond standard wedding fare I have seen in the past (not just Swedish meatballs and stuffed mushrooms), and I circled items that sounded good and crossed through items or ingredients that didn't appeal to me. From that she prepared a sample menu for the wedding, which we tweaked as needed. My fiance and I did a tasting at her house of several items off the sample menu, and we ended up changing one of the entrees, but kept everything else as is. Paula and I also met at the vineyard several times, and she prepared a layout of the space and figured out how best to use the space for the event, which is more complicated than you would think. (There was a wall which would block the guests from seeing each other, so she put the buffet behind the wall, she moved the DJ to the loft upstairs to prevent crowding on one side of the room and allow room for kitchen staff to maneuver around easily, she figured out where to put the greeting bar/guest book/wedding favors/gifts, she figured out where the outdoor ceremony should face, etc., etc.) She had excellent suggestions for things even down to the cocktail napkins (with sunflowers to go with my theme) and the tablecloths (which we changed when Paula realized the original color we had selected looked washed out in the venue, and I agreed); her attention to detail could not be improved upon. She is definitely a bit of an OCD caterer, and I was an OCD bride, so we worked well together, but if you're not OCD or a bit more absentminded, then Paula can really help you out in that department. She made the right inquiries, gave excellent guidance, and kept us both on the same page as for how the wedding would run and all the details that would be necessary to make it work.
The day of the wedding, Paula was there several hours ahead of time (which she worked out with the venue without them charging me extra) to make sure things were set up. We had a bit of a snag, as it rained, so we couldn't have the ceremony outside as originally planned; we had a preliminary rain plan, but Paula suggested a better one and seamlessly set things up for it inside. The reception venue looked absolutely beautiful, her serving pieces were elegant, and I was really pleased with all the choices we'd made. The food was ready on time and delicious, there was plenty of it, she invited people up to the buffet table by table to keep it from getting crowded, the servers kept everyone's glasses full and cleared plates away inobtrusively, the cakes were displayed beautifully, the special wine for the toasts was poured on time, etc., etc.. Paula really took care of a lot of things, and it would be difficult to mention them all. I got a multitude of compliments on the decor and the food, and the vineyard staff said it was their favorite wedding they had hosted, and they put pictures on their website from my wedding, and I have Paula to thank.
In terms of caveats, be careful how many people you estimate you will have, as the estimated catering costs will only go up from there. I wasn't too far off in my estimates, but still, be careful with that. It's probably better to underestimate a little than to overestimate, and you must provide the final count the week before the wedding anyway. Also, Paula doesn't do cakes, soft drinks (you have to bring them yourself), and you have to pay the kitchen and wait staff with separate checks to each of them. However, she told me this ahead of time, but just so you're aware.
All in all, I had a great experience with Paula. She was consistently pleasant and easy to deal with, she was honest, and I feel that I got what I paid for and more. I'm so glad I didn't go with one of the catering "factories" that have constant events, pre-selected menus, and no personalized attention. Paula only takes a certain number of events a year; the week before my wedding was dedicated solely to me. Paula made things very easy for me, things were beautiful, and I can only give her the highest recommendation.
I looked at around 30 wedding photography websites and met with 4 photographers before selecting Steven, and I could not be happier with the results. He shot our engagement session a week before the wedding in downtown Alexandria, and we liked the photos so much, I put all of them into the slideshow I played at the wedding. I also had the best one mounted and had guests sign the mat at the wedding to frame later. We found the engagement session very useful when it came time for the wedding day, as it not only helped us to get comfortable with Steven, but we also got a hang of certain tricks which help the poses photograph well, ie the smile kiss for example. Steven was also good about downplaying any body flaws; he shot from flattering angles with the light and shadows in the right place to make us look our best. I have to say that both me and my fiance felt a bit awkward at the engagement shoot, and I wasn't so sure that it had gone well and had doubts that either of us was terribly photogenic. However, my mind was completely changed when I saw the pictures, and it established a level of trust on the wedding day that whatever Steven asked us to do would look well in the pictures, which made the experience much more comfortable and enjoyable. I told my bridesmaids about the engagement shoot, and they felt much more comfortable since I told them not to worry, and that Steven would make everyone look hot! And he did.
The wedding day itself went very smoothly. Steven and his assistant were at our hotel on time to do the getting ready photographs, and they helped to establish a fun, pleasant atmosphere prior to the wedding. It rained the day of the wedding, and we had to move the ceremony inside, but Steven adjusted easily, and the photographs came out really well. We didn't even notice that he was there half the time; he and his two assistants were not at all intrusive. I paid Steven $400 extra on top of the Park package to set up a photo booth at the reception, ie a simple backdrop with a tripod set up in front of it with a remote control guests can use to take their own picture. It was a huge hit! About 75% of the guests used the photo booth, those were the most fun pictures of all of them, and it gave everyone something to do to keep entertainment levels high. I highly recommend the photo booth option.
As to the quality of the photographs themselves, Steven was very good at capturing the emotion of what was going on, the photographs were very "harmonious" in terms of Steven picking up little things like a guest's dress that matched the flowers or the tablecloths, etc., and overall the pictures looked like something out of a Gap or Land's End catalogue. My wedding venue was so impressed with the photographs from my wedding, that they are now hiring Steven to do their marketing materials.
This is a rambling review, but in terms of the only tips I would give to improve my experience, make sure you wear simple, dark colors for the engagement session; I had some photos taken in a white dress with small, black polka dots, and some taken in a plain, royal blue dress, and the ones in the blue dress photographed much better. Also, make sure you point out people who you particularly want pictures of. Steven did a fine job overall capturing everyone, but I wish I had gotten more photographs of some of my older relatives who left earlier.
Elisa at Country Way did a beautiful job with the flowers for my wedding! I really don't know much about flowers, and I met with her with nothing in mind but a color scheme and the sunflower as the primary flower, and she filled in the rest. She talked me through some flowers in the colors I wanted, showed me samples of their previous work, and helped guide me towards combinations that would go well together and with my dress. She also suggested a color for the bridesmaids dresses which I went with (chocolate brown), and the colors really popped in the photographs. She e-mailed me pictures of all the flowers she intended to use along with the quote, which was half of what I had been quoted by Mayflowers in Reston. She also told me that Country Way could work with any budget if I needed to go lower, and that they would just use more greenery to fill in if that was the case.
The day of the wedding, she dropped off the bridal bouquets and boutonnieres in vases at our hotel for a small, $30 delivery fee so they could be photographed for the getting ready pictures, and the nosegays, table centerpieces, and altar centerpieces were in place and absolutely gorgeous when I arrived prior to the ceremony. I got loads of compliments from guests on the flowers, and when I offered them to guests to take home with them, there weren't any centerpieces left over. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Country Way to anyone who needs gorgeous flowers.
I ordered eight 9" round cakes in different flavors from Whole Foods for a cake buffet for my wedding. I had around 95 guests, and there was one cake left over plus some scraps, so seven cakes probably would have done it. I chose Whole Foods after looking at other bakers and realizing that normal wedding cakes are incredibly overpriced, I did several tastings at wedding bakers that I wasn't really all that impressed with, and Whole Foods cakes are both beautiful and delicious. I paid $172 for the 8 cakes after obtaining a 20% discount from Rahou, the bakery manager. A normal wedding cake for that many people would have been somewhere in the neighborhood of $800 for a decent quality, attractive cake based on the bakers I investigated, so I saved a bundle. In the end, I have never gone to a wedding and said, wow, what a magnificent cake! I think most people give the cake a quick glance or two, and really all they care about is how it tastes, so it was low on my list of priorities of where to spend my money for the wedding, and with the cake buffet, everyone could just pick whatever flavor they liked most - everybody's happy!
Ordering the cakes was a bit of a hassle. For some reason, Rahou wasn't willing to write me out an official bakery order with the cakes I had ordered and the total amount, even though I asked him via e-mail twice and twice in person at the store also. He just kept insisting that the cakes would be there, I didn't have to worry, and if anyone gave me any trouble to just send them to him. However, uncertainty over what I ordered or haggling over cake prices is about the last thing anyone wants on their wedding day, especially since I had to have a friend pick up the cakes to deliver to the wedding venue. In the end, I solved it by prepaying for the cakes with a credit card, and I gave the paid receipt and a list of the cakes to my friend to take with her when she went to pick them up. Still, you wouldn't think it would be so hard to get an order receipt! I'm still not sure what was up with that. Despite the slight hassle, Rahou came through; the cakes were ready on time, they looked beautiful, they tasted great, and my friend picked them up with no problem. She picked them up around 2 pm the day of the wedding and drove them an hour to the wedding venue where the caterer put them in the fridge until the reception around 6:30 pm, and the cakes had no problem lasting throughout the reception sitting out in the reception hall. I think my guests enjoyed the variety of cakes, and several people commented that the cake was good. What more can you ask for for dessert at a wedding? I was happy.
Black Tie DJs Bristow, Alexandria, Virginia, Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia 20136
Black Tie's Russ Reiff DJ'd my wedding, and I was very pleased with his service. I think I was probably a fairly demanding bride, as I selected pretty much every single song I wanted played at the wedding. I set up playlists on my Rhapsody music streaming account for pre-ceremony, ceremony, post-ceremony, cocktail/dinner, and dance music, and I probably had 10 total hours of music. Russ had no problem assimilating my playlists onto his equipment and was pleasant and accommodating when I had changes, although I tried to keep it to a minimum. He showed up at the wedding on time and dressed in a tux with high-quality, functioning equipment with backups in case of malfunction, and he gave me pretty much exactly what I asked for. All the songs played were from my playlists, he played them in a pleasing order, he provided wireless microphones/boom mikes/lavalier mikes for the toasts/readers/officiant, and he did announcements for all the events I had given him for the evening with a good speaking voice in a professional, low-key manner. I had several compliments on the music and don't really have much cause for complaint with Russ. The only possible improvements that could have been made are: (a) I gave all my vendors a timeline for the evening to keep us on schedule, and we did get behind schedule a little bit; Russ notified me that we were late, but I had really wanted him to help keep us on time as master of ceremonies without me having to be involved watching the clock since I was so busy. However, it wasn't a real problem; in the end, everything got done that needed to be done and in decent time. However, if I could do it again, I would have told Russ that I wanted him to make sure the schedule was kept without me having to worry about it myself. (b) Sometimes it took several days for Russ to answer e-mails, but in the week leading up to my wedding, he was very responsive.
So all in all, I had a very good experience with Black Tie, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Russ; he did a bang-up job and gave me exactly what I asked for at a decent price ($1200).
I hired a 55-passenger bus from Virginia Coach to transport my wedding guests from a hotel near Dulles Airport to my wedding venue in Purcellville, VA, which is about a 30-minute trip one-way. They did an initial run out to the vineyard from the hotel at 5 pm, then returned for a trip back to the hotel at 9:30 pm halfway through the reception for those who wanted to leave early, and the final run back to the hotel at the end of the reception at 11:15 pm. Debbie quoted me $800 (plus a recommended tip of 10-15% for the driver at my discretion), which was significantly lower than quotes I got from 8 other companies; in fact, some of them were laughably overpriced compared to Virginia Coach, ie Point to Point and Reston Limousine wanted to charge around 50% more! It must go towards paying the cost of their advertising; I don't think Virginia Coach does much advertising - I found their website through a Google search. I also liked that Debbie gave me a straight quote in dollars; most of the other companies charge a fixed amount for a minimum number of hours, then an hourly rate after that, plus "garage fees" and "fuel surcharges", etc.. Virginia Coach didn't make me get out a calculator and estimate everything, although I had to do that for the other companies in order to compare everyone.
On the day of the wedding the driver, Mike Doyle, showed up at the hotel an hour early, and interfaced with a friend of mine who I had given the passenger list to and the driver tip for the end of the night. The bus was attractive and clean, and Mike and my friend got everyone loaded on the bus to get them to the wedding venue a half-hour before the ceremony. It was raining, and Mike had umbrella(s) and helped escort people in to keep them from getting wet between the bus and the door, which was really nice of him. He showed up again on time for the two trips back to the hotel, and he even got out of the bus to come and greet me when I happened to be in the parking lot and to congratulate me on my wedding. Nice guy! I gave him a good tip.
My experience with Virginia Coach was 100% positive; I would highly recommend them for any transportation services you need.
Review Date: 09/25/2009 Services Used: Beauty & Health
5.0 out of 5.0
Quality of Service:
(5.0/5.0)
Responsiveness:
(5.0/5.0)
Professionalism:
(5.0/5.0)
Value For Cost:
(5.0/5.0)
Flexibility:
(5.0/5.0)
I looked at about 8 makeup artists before selecting Bridal Artistry. I called the owner, Barbara, to inquire about her availability and she got back to me the same day. She was very pleasant on the phone and said she would be available to do my makeup herself, and I quickly scheduled a hair and makeup trial at her home. She asked me to come for my appointment with an idea of the style of makeup I wanted and some pictures of bridal hairstyles I liked. She spent about an hour or so doing my makeup in front of her picture window that gets good, natural light, and she wrote down all the products she used on a sheet of paper with a face on it, so she would have a reminder the day of the wedding. I have pretty good skin on the whole, but it is a little thin, I have some sun damage on my forehead, I have blue veins that show around my eyes, and the skin around my eyes is also a little concave. However, Barbara did a great job of making my complexion look great and hiding all the flaws.
When Barbara was finished, the hairstylist, Sonia Kasbarian, went to work on my hair. I was worried about how my hair would look for my wedding, as it is rather thin and very flat, and I wasn't sure how much anyone would be able to do with it to make it look good, but I was very pleasantly surprised. Apparently, the right techniques, equipment, loads of bobbypins, and products can make a huge difference! Sonia probably spent an hour and a half doing my hair, and we got it fairly close to the pictures of hairstyles I had brought in. It was a half-up, half-down style with a crown of curls on top with a good amount of body and looser curls down my back. The curls looked a bit tight at first, but hair and makeup is usually done several hours before the wedding, and it did indeed loosen up after a few hours, while the makeup stayed on and looking good until I washed it off around 10 hours after the application. My hair retained curls through the next day. Barbara took some pictures of the final result, and I took some pictures with my own camera, which I then e-mailed back to both of them later as the template for my wedding day.
I was so pleased with the results I got that I went back to Sonia a week later to do both hair and makeup for my engagement photo shoot(; Barbara was not available). I wanted a more natural, everyday look for the engagement shoot, and Sonia did a really fabulous job with both hair and makeup. (My fiance commented that I should go back and get a lesson from Sonia on how she did it, so I could do it myself, and I will probably do that, although I haven't had time yet.) I went back to Sonia once more before the wedding to get her to do my hair for the wedding rehearsal and dinner as well.
The wedding day went very smoothly in terms of hair and makeup. Sonia showed up at my hotel at around 1 pm to do hair for the 6 pm ceremony for me. It took her about an hour, and since it was raining the day of my wedding, we switched my hair style at the last minute, and decided to put it up, and I actually think I liked it better up than the original style; it was very elegant. Next Barbara showed up to do my makeup, while Sonia did two of the bridesmaids' hair. Barbara worked on me for about an hour, then went on her way, leaving me with a powder compact (that stuff is great! I've been using it every day.), some lip color and a disposable lipbrush, and a gold lip gloss for some drama later in the evening. Sonia finished up with the two bridesmaids, who took about 30-45 minutes each, and she placed my veil and secured it so it wouldn't move. Everything turned out great, and we all looked beautiful!
I paid $450 total for the hair and makeup trial plus the wedding day services. The trial was $190 on its own, and some people opt not to do a trial, but I personally am really glad that I did one, so I knew what to expect and didn't have to worry about a hair/makeup disaster on my wedding day, when there is no time for a do-over if you don't like the look you end up with. The bridesmaids paid $85 each for their hair. Sonia gave me a discount when I went back to her for the engagement shoot/rehearsal dinner hair and makeup; I think she only charged me $130, so that was a bit cheaper. And of course, we all gave them nice tips. Highly recommended! Everyone said I looked beautiful, and the photographs came out wonderfully!
One note: hair/makeup artists will often take multiple appointments on a day, so be sure to ask if there are other people booked the day of your wedding. It isn't necessarily a problem, and Barbara/Sonia had appointments in the morning with another bride the day of my wedding, but I preferred having the later appointment rather than the earlier one. I didn't want my stylists to be in a hurry to get me done, because they had to go to the next appointment.
This Item is Inappropriate
