Laura catered a family reunion and 70th birthday event for close to 30 adults with calm and…read morecompetence. Her locally sourced food was excellently prepared and served family style, which allowed for guests to have different tastes of each beautifully made dish and to keep things casual and flexible. She also left our kitchen cleaner than how she found it! Her grocery (Good Neighbor in Groton) is also worth a visit. Very highly recommended!

Laura is amazing. Everything she made for our NYE grazing board + New Year's Day breakfast was…read moredelicious. She's really great to work with and comes up with really fun ideas to make sure your event is special. I enjoyed working with her and will definitely be in contact with her for future events. I highly recommend hiring her for any private events you have. She is truly the best in the area.

Lauren Michele Poucel is owner and photographer of Tide + Pines Photography and boy what an awesome…read morephotographer she is! She's timely, ENERGETIC and just a fantastic person to coordinate with! We left feeling like she was a part of our dynamic family. It's a rarity when I get my husband and three young, adult children together on any given day so when it does happen - what do I do? BOOK A PHOTOGRAPHER QUICK!! Actually, it took quite a bit of planning to get my family to get a day off together - booking Lauren/Tides + Pines was a BREEZE!! I found out about Lauren / Tides + Pines through a mutual friend and I was happy with the style of pictures taken of her at her event so I nabbed her up quickly before her calendar filled. Her natural style/approach and minimal editing to photography is what appealed to me. We decided to meet at not-so-secret-beach at Ko'Olina at which time Lauren and her bubbly self show up. Unlike most photographers that I've come across, she doesn't really stage you for shots (if that's the style you're looking for). I wanted raw..."semi-staged" photos that captures our family personality and dynamics. Something easy...not stiff or staged because that's just not us. We have the Chandler Bing smiler, the ham, critical mommy, the "i don't wanna smile, my eyes are not even because of these dimples," to the anthro poser. We're just not good photo subjects for any photographer. Lauren makes the photo session seemingly painless!! Really!! Just be yourself and she will discreetly move and shoot while you are in motion. She may suggest places for you to sit or stand but all in all, the shots are up to you - she just shoots them. And shoot is what she does!! She nimbly moves and maneuvers herself in places that allows her the best shots (i saw her in the bush, on top of slippery rocks, tide pools and on the ground in the sand). She's just the easiest photographer to work with that I've ever met and made the awkward photo session gut busting fun and oh so painless. Our proofs were sent to us immediately (within a week). I'm sure that as soon as word is out that she is that good - her turn around time for proofs will increase in time. But for now, we are quite lucky to have discovered such a gem in a field already littered with talented photographers. She was quick to add that if we wanted anything edited she would be able to do it but really, we were just so pleased with ALL our pictures!! It wouldn't have been fair to have her edit 50 pounds off my pictures so I guess "raw" is what we are going with this year. We all looked great and I was happy to see that she did capture the essence of our family.

Lauren was a pleasure to work with through our entire wedding planning experience. We did our…read moreengagement shoot in a park in CNY and we were blown away by the beauty that Lauren captured in each photo...it was hard to pick our favorite! On our wedding day, she felt more like family as she jumped in when my dress needed straightening or hair was out of place prior to getting that perfect photo. You can tell that Lauren genuinely enjoys what she does and I would highly recommend her. Thank you for a fun experience, Lauren!!

We rented a bounce house/water slide combo for my son's birthday party over the holiday weekend…read more Fast and courteous communication from Marty during the planning stages from day 1! Working with the team was such an enjoyable experience, and my son had the best birthday party! We are already planning to use Marty's company again for my daughter's party in the Fall!

I absolutely love the portraits of my husband and me taken by Danielle of d-VIBE Photography…read more She was fantastic to work with and gave us an appointment right away. Danielle happily granted our request to have the photos taken at a sunflower patch and they turned out gorgeous. This year for Christmas, I am giving gift certificates from d-VIBE Photography so others can enjoy the beautiful keepsakes as I am.

Working with Danielle from d-VIBE was a great experience! I am very camera shy, but she helped me…read morefeel comfortable the whole time while getting great professional shots for a new business venture. They turned out amazing and I would highly recommend d-VIBE!

Becki is very professional & personable. We have had our family pictures done with her for the…read morepast 4 years and they are ALWAYS wonderful pictures with some unique shots for Christmas cards. She has also done events like my son's 7th & 8th spring fling, my brother's appendix cancer walk, along with I have seen her at many community functions/events. She is very talented, very giving and patient. She most recently helped a mom during a challenging time when the mom had unexpectedly lost her son. Becki collected all the photos and printed them at her cost and put them on boards she purchased. They turned out as 3 beautiful memory boards for this family. Becki has also helped me with a few projects that I recently did and she can make a hot mess collage look like a million bucks collage. :-) Her prices are worth every penny...you WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED!

Out of all the vendors we worked with for our wedding, Peter was by far the most professional. We…read moreloved working with him and having him as our wedding DJ! We found a number of our vendors simply by asking family and friends. This was also the case with Peter; Rachel's uncle used to work with him many years ago and recommended Peter's DJ services to us. We were so glad to make that connection! Prior to the wedding, we met Peter in person once - the day we signed the contract - and otherwise communicated over email and Skype. It was perfect for us since we held the wedding in Central NY but planned it from San Francisco. Peter was always quick to respond to emails any time we had questions and always incredibly helpful. It took us a long time to settle on songs to use throughout the ceremony and reception but Peter was helpful, flexible and adaptable when working with us on a late schedule. He comes prepared with a list of song suggestions from previous clients that he can give to help with your choices for first dances, cake cutting, ceremony, etc. As we got to the week before the wedding we changed our mind on what we wanted for music playing during dinner. We told Peter to play songs from the 1950s to today over the course of dinner - essentially walking us through the decades. That was all the direction he needed to run with it and make it a hit. We trusted Peter to pick songs when we couldn't; we decided a day or two before the wedding that we wanted to do the "shoe game" during the reception and delegated the song selection to him without a second thought. He nailed it - with game show music! We had a surprise firework showing in the evening. Peter didn't know about this until we told him 10 minutes prior. We asked him to "make an announcement" for people to stay just a bit longer - without giving away the surprise - because many were starting to leave. He did a great job with the announcement and gave the attendees a hint of what was coming by playing Katy Perry's "Firework" song. Our event was outside and the dinner and reception were held primarily inside a large tent. We used Peter's wireless uplights to help illuminate the tent. This was HUGE for us. One of our biggest worries going into this event was powering everything on generators. Knowing that Peter had *wireless* lights he could bring for us - that ran on batteries and wouldn't need the generator was a huge win for us. He let us customize the colors we used for the uplights to match the wedding colors. Peter is extremely detailed in his planning and preparation prior to the event which we saw reflected as a seamlessly run event - with him leading the way. We'd hire him again in a heartbeat and highly recommend him to anyone who may want DJ services in the future.

Peter was great! I chose him as our wedding dj largely for his organizational skills (based off of…read moreother reviews). He put together a day-of schedule that he distributed to us as well as all of our other vendors (photographer, officiant, etc) so everyone knew what was happening and when. He also was a great help for music selections and played exactly what we wanted-- we requested a couple of Hindi songs which was no problem for him to incorporate into our reception setlist. He also provided music during and before our ceremony. We had music playing as guests arrived and two microphones for the ceremony for an officiant and a vocalist. If you're in the central NY area, you can't go wrong with Peter!

Thrilled with my catering order from Kuukua at Asempe Kitchen! The food was incredible, the…read moredelivery was on time, Kuukua was so helpful in advising on the menu, and she was patient and accommodating when my head count got bigger less than 48 hours before the event. I ordered for 18 people, for a weekend event at The Ohio State University. Everyone loved the food, from the foodies to the non-adventurous eaters who'd never had Ghanaian food to vegan and gluten-free guests. I ordered a chicken curry, red-red (a hearty dish with black-eyed peas), saffron rice, egusi (a yummy spinach dish that was vegan but tasted like a better version of American creamed spinach), a blend of carrots / cabbage / other root vegetables, fried plantains, and a vegan rice pudding. The vegans and gluten-free eaters did an actual happy dance when they saw that a) Kuukua had listed all ingredients for each dish on the catering lids and b) other than the chicken curry, most of the food was vegan and gluten free. You could tell that everything was made from scratch, with love and attention. My guests loved all the dishes, but the chicken curry, egusi, and saffron rice were the biggest crowd pleasers. Everybody, including the meat eaters, cleaned their plates and went back for seconds. It was also affordable, very comparable in price to catering from local Indian and Chinese restaurants. In case you couldn't tell, I couldn't be happier. I've already recommended Asempe to my day-job company for a future event, and I look forward to visiting Kuukua at her pop-up at The Hills Market Downtown.

Went here a couple weeks ago with a friend who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ghana. The food (we…read moregot Egusi and Nkatsi Froyi), service and atmosphere were terrific! We had a wonderful time and will definitely be back soon.

Brandon and crew are awesome! Easy to work with and very professional! The kids jumped for HOURS!…read moreIf you're thinking about renting an inflatable for your party - do it! All around great experience.