| rev:text
| - Finally tied that knot at Lakeside Weddings on Sunday, October 23rd, 2011. I had a great time, and it was all it was cracked up to be and more. Through the whole year of planning, let me just say that all of the reviews here negative and positive have valid points. For soon-to-be brides planning their weddings, here's what my take on the venue.
Advantages:
1. Gorgeous location - It's cute because it is by a man-made lake in Desert Shores, one of the older master planned communities in Vegas, but still in great shape!
2. There are three gardens to choose to have your ceremony in
3. McCall - who is responsible for quoting and booking your date is awesome and very responsive to work with.
4-5. Vendors are bundled with your package
6. Package comes with an officiant
7. Food was a-ok. Not impressive but not bad at all. Pasta was not overcooked. Our prime rib was juicy for the most part. I didn't touch the chicken, but my husband said it was dry.
8. Limo ride comes with the package. No hiccups there and they were even able to get the limo to come a little earlier to pick us up and drop off at our hotel for the night.
DISadvantages (most numbers above correspond with numbers below):
1. For out of towners, this is 25 minutes from the strip. Not convenient if you are not local, but our out of town guests did not seem to have a hard time finding or getting there.
2. The Grand Garden can be squishy if you have 130 guests like me
3. Our event planner Felecia is a sweetheart, but she is so busy planning events every week she is difficult to get a hold for the million questions that you have. For Type-A personalities like me, it just kills me to not be able to get answers via phone calls and e-mails. So... you MUST get in a happy place and grow A LOT of patience.
4. I personally did not care for the cake, flower or photographer vendors. The cake was acceptable but NOT amazing. The flowers were just okay. My calla lily blooms were NOT large blooms as described. The photographer's portfolio did not impress me, so I hired out, which leads me to my next point.
5. I find it annoying that I get charged an extra fee for hiring an outside photographer when the "package" includes photography, but I guess that what the wedding business has to do to make money.
6. No disadvantages to having an officiant on hand. Reverend Ely is very easy going and easy to work with.
7. From what I read in the contract, it is not an option to hire an outside caterer if you don't want Garfield's Restaurant catering your food.
8. Staff was very helpful during the reception. DJ was cool; he played exactly what we had requested. I heard the bartenders were also awesome. Food servers were efficient.
Preliminary site tours and booking correspondence: 5
Planning after booking your date: 2.5 stars
Food: 3.5 stars
Service at the reception: 5
Venue/Atmosphere: 5 stars
Overall: In my opinion, the scene and the location easily outweighed all the negatives. It totally feels non-vegas and cozy. We had a relatively low key wedding with no fluff, so it worked out just fine in terms of the details of favors, centerpieces, etc. If you choose this venue, you have to really go with the flow. Feel free to message me if you need more insight.
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