Wedding Reception Recap 1- Vendors & Details

Hi Friends, I hope your weekend is going well!  I told you I’d be back for a reception recap (6 months later, better late than never right?).  If you missed the last ones I wrote about  how Paul injured himself trying to make our engagement a surprise, the emergency bridal kit that saved my life,  the rehearsal, or the getting ready events (plus the honey moon recaps) be sure to check them out, some will definitely make you laugh!

Now I can discuss the glorious choice we made to buy an all inclusive package through Tre Bella in Mesa, AZ.  I visited the site earlier and noted that their prices have changed a bit since we booked/had our reception there.  However, our package was close to the same as the Stanza package in the Piazza room.  I think the reason it is different is because when we booked in the Piazza room before it was built.  Yeah that was a bit … nerve racking.  We booked the room about 6 months before it was built.  The first reception in the room was suppose to be October 1st and our date was November 15th, so we had a 6 week buffer if anything went wrong.  We didn’t need the 6 week buffer though because Kim, the owner, was on top of everything and there were no problems (that I know of) with the renovation.

Since I was away at graduate school for most of our engagement and then studying for the RD exam up till October, I really didn’t have time to search for vendors and plan an entire wedding.  That’s where Tre Bella came in, everything that was needed for the reception was included- venue, flowers, cake, DJ, photographer, and FOOD.  Pretty much the only thing I had to come up with was the wedding thank you gifts and escort cards (seating cards.)  Not only was it premium quality but it was also a reasonable price with no gimmicks or underlying “upgrades” needed.  Kim liquidated an entertainment company so in her warehouse she had just about every linen and chair you could have every wanted.

For the flowers, Tre Bella uses Kirsten at Blume Events, and I think she might be a flower genius.  She totally and completely blew my expectations with her flower arrangements, corsages and boutonnieres.  I definitely had to stop from bursting into tears when I saw them, they were breath taking.

 

For our center pieces we chose gold strike roses in clear vases with floating candles, which were upgrades to our package for booking the room early.

The table cloths were lace over a sheer gold which matched our fall color scheme well, we also had gold chevron chairs.

Napkins were auburn with gold holders, gold rimmed plates, and gold chargers.  (Ask me if I knew all that was needed to eat dinner before I got married, yeah right.)

We made the escort cards (seating cards) our selves, the theme also included the tag phrase “Love Is Sweet” so we carried through a honey bee theme.  (Note: originally my colors were black and yellow, but we ended up going with the fall scheme.  Many of my friends told me they were happy I switched, but I still think it would have been just as pretty.)

The escort cards doubled as thank yous along with a mini jar of honey which had a thank you tag attached to it.  

(Pictures from the party we had making them.)  We covered the blue and white lids with a brown burlap type material, tied a burlap type ribbon around it and attached the pre-made thank you tags from Michaels.  I think with 5 of us working on making 150 of them it took 3-4 hours.  We still have a bunch leftover we use in recipes, but I remember well the one time during the stressful pre wedding days Mr. Hungry chugged one to make us all laugh.  I heard he wasn’t the only one to do so… but I’ll leave names out!

We did also have to come up with our own cake topper.  I wanted bells and Mr. Hungry wanted little people, if we were going to have little people they needed to look like us.  My aunt found the perfect thing to make us both totally happy, little people in an arch with bells on top.  I have no idea where she got it but I love it.

For the cake, all we had to do was meet with the baker included in the Tre Bella Package (Phoenix Cake Company) and tell her what we wanted.  I wanted something simple and elegant, I could have upgraded for more but the cake was not where I wanted to spend my money… I really was more concerned about taste.  We did two sets of tastings, which was awesome because they gave you like full size pieces of cake.

My pick was Apple Spice and Mr. Hungry’s was Strawberries and Cream, they were both absolutely unforgettably delicious.  The cake was super moist and frosting was real decadent frosting, just like it should be.  I’m pretty sure I’ll be using them again in the future!

As far as food goes, I don’t  have any pictures of that but I also remember being very happy with it.  Considering I had been to nervous to eat from the rehearsal to the wedding, I pretty much inhaled my food and went back for seconds as graciously as I could.  🙂  Picking the food was also very easy.  Every month or so Tre Bella held open houses where you could win door prizes and upgrades, as well as sample the food.  After attending two open houses we were ready to decide on the food.  We served:

• Chicken Parmesean
• Veggie Lasagna
• Salad
• Garlic Bread

We also got $500 off since we didn’t use the ceremony area, we put that towards appetizers for our guest to enjoy while we finished taking pictures for the first 30-40 minutes.

In addition to the upgraded center piece and photo booth, we also got free late night snacks for booking so early.  The donuts and milk were a big hit with our friends!

Next up, reception fun, stay tuned!

All photographs (except the one of the thank you gift) in this post were taken by our amazing photographer, Carson Day.