Dear god their website is fucking obnoxious lol.

If you're planning on October you'll definitely want to book your venue soon. That's one of the busiest months in this area for weddings. I have a friend that got married this October and they had the hardest time finding a venue for the ceremony because many of the places were already booked by last August

12/13/2012 10:13:07 AM

Yeah Im hoping since we arent looking for anything super fancy or highly coveted that we will be alright. Didnt get engaged till mid october and she didnt really know it was coming so between that and the holidays we just havent had much time to start the planning although I feel like she has actually been looking without me really knowing haha

12/13/2012 10:54:36 AM

Cobblestone was pretty good.

Likes:
The best parts are by far the location and just the look/feel of the space. It is also big enough for a larger party (up to ~200 total for reception only).

Dislikes:
I felt it was a little expensive but it is also downtown so probably not bad compared to others in the area.

They didn't tell us until we were already booked that you can't purchase the alcohol yourself, even if you buy it, take it to the caterer before, and let them bring/serve it. We were hoping to save a little money here and it fell through.

It is convenient that you get the linens, chairs, place settings, etc. through them. However, you don't have a ton of options (other than the linens).

About the chairs.... We used their standard white plastic folding chairs. A week before the wedding they call us and say they've had a problem with the chairs breaking during events and asked if we'd like to use their other chairs instead (really ugly in my opinion). I felt since they told us this so close to the date they should offer their nicer looking but more expensive chairs at no extra cost. They refused and we ended up going with the ones that she said might crack (luckily none did, though).

In general I loved the location but my experience was the person I worked with (Kaitlin) was not easy to work with, not proactive with meetings, etc., and not flexible at all (especially when it came to anything cost related).

12/13/2012 10:58:32 AM

Quote :

" I felt since they told us this so close to the date they should offer their nicer looking but more expensive chairs at no extra cost. "

wtf yeah they should have offered that gratis.

12/13/2012 11:19:36 AM

Delightful Inspirations is literally right next to my house

i believe a friend of mine had her reception there like 10 years ago.

12/13/2012 1:28:13 PM

Quote :

"They didn't tell us until we were already booked that you can't purchase the alcohol yourself, even if you buy it, take it to the caterer before, and let them bring/serve it. We were hoping to save a little money here and it fell through."

..woah, uh, really? You sure that wasn't the caterer stating that? Or did you not go through the permit process (NC requires you have the permission of the location owner with a limited special occasion permit to serve alcohol)?

We brought our alcohol to Cobblestone the day of. Our caterer served it. No problems whatsoever.

And we got told about the chairs months in advance, and I followed up on it to see what the new chairs looked like. We went with the newer ones, for I've got bigger uncles and decrepit grandparents that I didn't want any embarassing moments. Chairs were fine to me, pretty comfty. If you had a light and airy wedding feel, I could see they wouldn't fit well.

Strange how we got very different impressions of Kaitlin. Oh well.

12/13/2012 2:52:57 PM

We asked about the alcohol and she said absolutely not and it was against their company's policy. She even sent an email around to all of their approved caterers and specifically told them that they are not allowed to serve alcohol that they did not purchase. Irregardless said they didn't have a problem and if we were having the reception anywhere else they'd be happy to use alcohol that we purchased so it certainly wasn't the caterer's issue. I made a really big deal out of this at the time and they completely dug their heels into the ground about. It got to the point where we were actually going to change venues but the place we were going to go got booked just before we could get it.

The chair issue came up only after we had made the final payment so it was less than 2 weeks before our event.

12/13/2012 3:04:01 PM

It's definitely a venue thing. The Museum of History is the same way and caterers can get into a shitload of trouble if they skirt the rule. It may be that Cobblestone changed the rules between your two weddings for whatever reason.

12/13/2012 3:08:50 PM

That could be the case. Mine was this past October so it could be a more recent rule. I really didn't mind the rule per say (I know several other places to the same thing). I just didn't like that they weren't very up-front about it. We also looked at Marbles and the History museum and it is on all of their info packets online.

12/13/2012 3:56:28 PM

Ours was this past September. Wow.

12/13/2012 6:23:50 PM

I have no other reason to bump this except to show off my awesome flowers

12/29/2012 11:38:18 PM

Any advice for those just starting planning? Resources, etc.?

We're looking at having in it in Raleigh on 7/28/13 with a guest list at 100 now.

1/1/2013 1:54:36 PM

I hope you can find a good venue.

I would recommend finding a budget worksheet and looking that over, along with one of those lists of things to do X, Y, Z months before. I had looked at the list, but finally sat down with a budget spreadsheet my friend gave me last week and thought of a few questions I needed to answer.

1/1/2013 3:51:55 PM

OK, thanks. I found an extensive checklist earlier that we've been discussing. One of our big concerns at the moment is just how much money we need/how much money we can obtain.

1/1/2013 4:11:44 PM

Anyone have advice on where to start looking for a salon with wedding packages? My friend was married in Fuquay and found a salon that had a package with hair and makeup day of, a trial run of both, plus I think mani and pedi for a really good price. Hoping to find something similar but our wedding is in downtown Raleigh so I'd like to find something closer. I might be bad at using the knot/weddingwire but they weren't very helpful. They have salons but don't help with finding packages.

1/5/2013 12:04:56 PM

yo I"m looking to have a wedding in the outerbanks; is there a place that is "one stop shop" and will handle everything for you?

1/8/2013 5:40:13 PM

You can get a coordinator/planner that will do everything for you, but you'll end up with the same wedding as the bride/groom 2 weeks ago, maybe with different color flowers and ribbons, and pay more for it. If you want that the best place to start is picking out a venue and they usually have someone on staff who can coordinate with caterers, DJ, rental company, etc to have everything there on time.

The Outer Banks Wedding Weekend is in 2 weeks and we'll have tons of businesses open on Saturday to stop in and look, listen, and taste, and on Saturday and Sunday the Wedding Expo is going on with about 160 businesses set up with booths and giveaways.

1/8/2013 6:03:46 PM

I am stuck on picking colors. So far our decisions have followed one of two models.

1) Hey, we need a ___. Oh, this one looks good. Done.
2) Hey, we need a ___. [hours and hours of research] ... Now I am less certain of what I want than when I started.

I was warned when dress shopping that brides tend to get overwhelmed when they see lots of options, and now I see what they mean. Originally we were thinking a light green (I don't know what to call the exact shade) and emerald. But then I started looking at dresses, flowers, etc. in those colors and didn't really like them. Other considerations have been plum, green and navy; blush pink and navy; yellow and blue; maybe some others that I am forgetting. It has to coordinate with navy since he's wearing his blues, but I don't want that to be the main color. I don't really know how to get out of this rut. My friend suggested picking up some paint chips and playing around with combos.

[Edited on January 14, 2013 at 2:16 PM. Reason : maybe gray and green?]

1/14/2013 2:14:42 PM

1/14/2013 2:42:39 PM

i let my girls decide on the color by letting them pick out the dress they wanted to wear (i had 2 bridesmaids). they picked a really pretty dark purple and then when i went to the florist, he said he was going to incorporate lime green and yellow into their bouquets with some purple to play off the accent. it all came out very nicely. if you're interested, i can friend request you and can flip through my wedding photos on facebook

1/14/2013 2:42:58 PM

i love navy and coral

1/14/2013 2:44:17 PM

I pretty much only have two decisions to make for our wedding...who my groomsmen are going to be and what we are going to wear.

The lady will be having four bridesmaids and I know for sure that I will have three groomsmen...but deciding on whether or not to make my best law school friend my fourth. I know if she was only going to have three bridesmaids...then I wouldn't add him on as a fourth. But he's a close enough friend that it wouldn't bother me adding him just to "even it out"...although I think that's a bad reason to have a groomsmen.

And the fiance is pretty insistent on me wearing a traditional black tux....while I want to do something a little different (not crazy...just a little more fashionable). She's says that since it's a black tie[optional] wedding in late October...that my options are limited. Personally...I don't like a plain black tux and it's still an outdoor Charleston wedding. This will also probably be the only thing in the wedding that will have my personal touch...so I'm being pretty stubborn about it.

Oh well...

1/14/2013 3:00:27 PM

^What are your colors?

1/14/2013 3:26:10 PM

I have no idea

I'll ask that at dinner tonight. Also...I like these types of wedding suits:



She thinks these are more for summer weddings (at least the colors..she says). She also says they are less formal and will stick out if everyone else is wearing a black tux. I had to remind her that my side of the family is poor and that the majority of them don't own and have never worn a tux.

1/14/2013 3:33:11 PM

^i love that! we had a september wedding and did grey tuxes.. it still seemed dressy enough. the men wore vests and ties and the groom wore a bowtie

(i liked the grey because it allowed the bridal party to stand out over all the other guests wearing black anyway)

[Edited on January 14, 2013 at 3:41 PM. Reason : .]

1/14/2013 3:41:24 PM

gray = day

black = night

if you care about tradition, anyway

we did Charleston outdoors at around 5 pm (still light out in April), and Kodiak did a gray suit, which was awesome

[Edited on January 14, 2013 at 6:14 PM. Reason : I mean, how about a darker charcoal color as a compromise?]

1/14/2013 6:13:15 PM

Our wedding was in early november. I took the bridesmaids to the store and let them pick out their dresses and decide on a color together, and that was so easy. Then I went with all the boys to the mall and it was a clusterfuck, price, style, formality, everyone had different opinions, so I told them all to buy a tan/taupe suit I didn't care which one, and we got them all coordinating ties or bowties.

1/14/2013 7:35:04 PM

any of you guys have any insights on which hotels in Raleigh have the best rates for hosting a wedding reception? I know the average is $25k-ish but I'd really like to come in under that if I can as far as hotel receptions go.

1/19/2013 1:32:34 AM

Hey everyone,

Quote :

"Wedding Paper Divas One day sale! Enjoy 50% off all Thank You cards. Huge one-day savings with code DEAL0124. http://bit.ly/WPDdotd"

Today only! I've been waiting for this

1/24/2013 1:32:32 PM

Do you have to get your name changed on your passport to be able to use it? Mine is a year and a half old and those mofos want $110 to "renew" it to change my name. I'm going to wait until I need it, or do I even need it if I take a copy of the marriage certificate along with me?

2/1/2013 10:26:29 AM

You don't need to change your name on your passport if you don't want to. I'm going to wait til my mine expries (in 2017) before I change it.

If you're planning on traveling internationally, make sure that your airline tickets are in your maiden name (or whatever is on your passport). That's what I did when I went to the Bahamas last year and it worked fine. Just show your passport when you check in at the airport. Passports are an accepted form of I.D. anywhere.

[Edited on February 1, 2013 at 10:30 AM. Reason : f]

2/1/2013 10:29:52 AM

Thanks! Happy to avoid that fee and paperwork for now.

2/1/2013 11:01:20 AM

For those of you (in the triangle) that didn't go with Olga, because she is booked through sept , who did you go with?

2/1/2013 12:31:03 PM

For you married folks, have you found that online calculators for drink estimates are reasonably accurate? Granted, some of them ask for estimates of how many light/moderate/heavy drinkers are, and I am not really sure what the breakdown of beer/wine/liquor drinkers will be so I'm guessing a bit. But it's looking like they tend to agree on us needing around 800 drinks for ~125 people.

Breakdowns seem to be 3-400 beer, 225-300 liquor (seems low to me, knowing our friends ), 200 wine/champagne. I tend to always over-supply everything so I want to see if these numbers seem close to those who have been through it.

We're looking at one caterer who does service of BYOB and another that supplies. Thoughts on pros/cons either way?

[Edited on February 4, 2013 at 12:08 PM. Reason : 5 hour rececption]

2/4/2013 12:08:11 PM

on supplying your own, we did that for my sister's wedding. my uncle went to the PX and bought all the alcohol on the cheap and then the caterer served it. a lot cheaper, just had to be coordinated (buying it picking it up etc)

on the number of drinks - we went on the high side cause my family likes to drink and then we just kept the leftovers

(i think we went through about 6 large handles of jack daniels, 4 large bottles of absolute just to start with plus all the beer/wine and other liquor)

2/4/2013 12:51:46 PM

That's why we originally wanted to go the BYOB route, but where we are now it's actually not much cheaper at the PX than a regular liquor store. I wasn't even thinking about keeping the leftovers

2/4/2013 12:58:38 PM

I always heard about weddings being expensive, now that I am trying to plan one I realize if you can get out for less than 10k you have done really well.

2/4/2013 1:03:29 PM

^^ yea the leftovers are the best part - granted if you actually like all the liquor that you're buying

that seems crazy that the PX isn't much cheaper than the regular liquor store - but my sister got married in DC so i guess it makes sense that it'd be a bigger different up here.

2/4/2013 1:14:49 PM

I feel like it was a lot cheaper in Texas, and even the one we went to in NC. Idk why it is not so cheap here :-/

I am slightly leaning toward the caterer now who supplies booze though, because they have a better menu. They also have a BYOB option but not sure I like the way they structure it so would likely let them supply.

2/4/2013 1:19:58 PM

Anyone know of any good limo companies in Raleigh? Google didn't really highlight a ton of options, and the one company I did shoot an e-mail to, never responded with the question or two I had. Didn't know if anyone had any first-hand services they recommended.

2/4/2013 7:02:18 PM

Let's see.. for our wedding, we had 108-110 people (I can't remember EXACT count now).

We bought all the liquor ourselves. We bought 1.75 L of all the liquor.

Went through all of our 3 bottles of Crown (there was maybe half of one left). 3/4 bottles of rum all gone. 1/4 bottles of vodka gone. We bought 3 bottles each of gin and scotch, and the first bottle was opened of each, but not all gone.

Beer, I unfortunately don't have a good count on what was brought. We had originally planned on four 12 packs for each type of beer (amber lager, wheat ale, pale ale, and a namebrand light: for 192 bottles of beer total). My parents snuck in some extra cases. There was one bottle of amber left, and we definitely had the other types leftover - so much pale ale, gah.

Wine, we made returns on several bottles, again, I can't remember the exact count of what was returned, but we had purchased 16 bottles of red, and 16 bottle of white.

Needless to say, we had more than enough alcohol. No one went without drinks. This was full bar for 5 hours.

Our caterer let us keep all the mixers too. Yay!

2/4/2013 11:14:38 PM

We had 90 guests and with our caterer we spent 300 bucks on beer and wine. Only one bottle of wine was opened and he charged us a dollar a bottle for beer. I have no idea how much liquor my stepdad bought, but that was his present to us. It was almost all gone. I want to say mom bought about 8 handles of mid range, and then a handful of fifths of the good stuff for him.

2/4/2013 11:28:36 PM

Thanks you guys. That is helpful!

Is it weird that I tear up at pretty much anything wedding-related? I am currently reading a damn DJ contract. Misty eyes ...

2/5/2013 5:30:05 PM

The fact that there is an article for this made me chuckle http://www.projectwedding.com/wedding-ideas/peeing-while-wearing-the-dress

We booked our DJ (Anything Music) and Caterer (Visions, which I learned about from this thread) last week Just sent an email to the florist I was hoping to use. She posted on Facebook recently about how brides are booking very early and she's filling up for this year already, so hope I am not too late.

2/12/2013 8:50:03 AM

There's probably a good reason I was kept out of wedding discussions (fiance, future MIL, and wedding planner are handling everything)....

Our initial discussions talked about 130-150 guests. My mom put forth her list, I saw my fiance's parent's list, looked at my fiance's list and said jokingly..."Well I guess that means I can invite 10 people...awesome!"

For some reason...that statement was taken as truth...and I was slotted 10 guests. lulz. So our first (and only) big wedding fight was when I put forth my list of about 30 guests. No worries...my mom cut her list a bit (other side didn't know...I just put some of my list on hers), and I thought all was gravy. I was under the impression that we were shooting for 150 guests and that we would invite possibly 200...maybe a few more.

I find out this weekend that over 260+ invites have been sent out....260!!!!

First...that's a shit ton of people. Future MIL/FIL are paying for everything...and now I'm starting to feel bad. That being said, my side is MAYBE taking up 100 of those invites...if that. They are now hoping for 170/180. Her family and a lot of friends are all up North...mainly Connecticut. So they are thinking a good deal won't show up...especially since a lot of them came down to Charleston for her sister's wedding about 3/4 years ago. My family is also country poor and this is a black tie wedding. I think a decent amount don't want to buy/rent a tux and shell out some decent cash to stay in a hotel in Charleston for a weekend. That being said...people love Charleston and we're already hearing a bunch of people are going to use it as an extended vacation. So we'll see...

Second...I only get 25-30 guest from an invite list of 260+?? I feel like that's kinda fucked up. But every time I feel that way, I remember that I'm not the one shelling out $75k for a wedding. Either way...I can't wait for this thing to get here and be over with. Wish it were sooner...October is so far away.

2/12/2013 9:02:22 AM

Quote :

"my side is MAYBE taking up 100 of those invites"

Quote :

".I only get 25-30 guest from an invite list of 260+?"

big difference between the two numbers. that said, it would be kinda jacked if you could only invite 25-30 regardless of who's paying.

2/12/2013 9:11:44 AM

Please tell me you mean Save the Dates and haven't already sent out your invitations.

It is pretty WTF that you only got 10 percent of the guest list, but it also seems like you didn't really assert yourself if you wanted more than that. It does seem odd if all the invites were sent out without you knowing who they were even going to, though. But I guess if you didn't ask, she didn't think you really cared. Especially if you don't have to foot the bill for the extra people.

I think our invite list is at 155 or so right now. A lot are out-of-town people I am quite sure won't go. Which is good considering our space capacity is 144 and I don't really want more than 120ish.

2/12/2013 9:12:42 AM

Nah...save the dates were sent out a week ago. Invitations haven't been sent out yet, but will be soon.

I would never want a wedding this big anyways, and honestly, 25-30 for me is enough. Are there some extra people I'd like to invite...sure...but its not killing me not having those people there. I'm just thinking about a wedding with 200 people and I don't even know half of them. Kinda weird.

^^ My side meaning me + my mom.

2/12/2013 9:40:33 AM

I'm getting married in October. Wedding planning is the worst. Half the time it feels like you're in a business relationship and not a romantic one.

Oh well. It'll be over soon enough and then we'll have some $$ again.

2/12/2013 9:50:24 AM

We invited close to 200 people. 31 of those were children.

We ended up having just over 100 guests, for an attendance rate of 56%.

So don't panic yet that your wedding will be that huge.

2/12/2013 10:52:21 AM