After Mr. Horseshoe and I had decided on our venue (a top priority for us), we figured that we should buckle down and start looking for some of our other vendors. We took the next logical step: Google wedding vendors in Calgary.
Then this happened:
?Calgary wedding photographer? brings up about 501,000 results.

?Calgary wedding officiant? brings up about 40,700 results.

?Calgary wedding florist? brings up about 60,400 results.

Pretty much my face for a few seconds / Image via Gurl / Source: Warner Bros. Pictures/Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

I knew, logically, that we don?t have 501,000 wedding photographers or 40,700 officiants in our city—these were just search engine hits. Calgary, however, is a fairly large city with hundreds of vendors to select from. We were faced with a bit of a dilemma. Should we look at the top Google search hits and potentially forgo a ?diamond in the rough?" Or take on what seemed like a gargantuan task: go through page after page of vendors to narrow down our choices" I then had an ?aha!? moment. What do we do when we travel and are looking for a hotel" When we?re interested in a new restaurant but we want to know the food will be decent" We look at reviews or ask friends for advice. I mean, that?s kind of how we booked our venue.
Online reviews are useful and have their place, but I knew our friends would be candid about their experiences with us. Also, an opportunity to talk to our recently marr...