If you're planning a Vegas wedding from out of town, this place is a godsend. They take care of every detail (with your input, of course) and give you your dream wedding on a budget.
What's Great about Sunset Gardens:
1) Value – SG gives ...you a traditional-style wedding for a reasonable price. We spent $13k for 150 guests including our ceremony, reception, food, cake, DJ, photographer (which we subbed for a videographer), open bar, and flowers plus an additional hour that we added onto our reception package. They also have cheaper packages for smaller weddings.
2) Convenience – You make the decisions, but they make it easy. The florist and cake-maker call you to discuss your options, SG provides your menu options and suggests the best food combinations, and you don't have to choose a DJ, photographer, wedding officiant, etc.
3) Experience – SG clearly has done this for a long time, and they do it well. Our wedding day ran so smoothly. Their staff made sure my groom and I received our dinner and peaceful time to eat it before our guests bombarded us, and they managed to bring our entire ceremony inside just minutes before our guests arrived when our gazebo wedding was rained out at the last minute.
4) Quality – For the price, the food, cake, and open bar were remarkably good. Our guests still compliment us on the food and cake.
5) Flexibility – SG isn't rigid. They let us hire an outside photographer and photo booth. When we decided to hire shuttle buses to/from the strip so everyone could enjoy the open bar worry-free, SG recommended companies for us to use and offered suggestions on how to make the buses run as smoothly as possible.
What's Not Great about Sunset Gardens:
1) It's a value-wedding provider – They do an amazing job, but it's not a country club or a fancy hotel. If that is what you are looking for, you need to find another venue (and a bigger budget!).
2) Their photographer – I've seen reviews from people who loved him, but I thought his website photos looked like bad prom pictures from the 80's. For me, the photos were the most important part of the big day, so I splurged and hired an outside photographer.
3) The airport – If you choose to have your ceremony in the gazebo, keep in mind that planes fly over. It's not that bad, and it's such a beautiful setting that I thought it was worth the risk, but if that's something that will bother you, beware.
4) Flowers - If you're on a budget, know that SG's $250 floral credit doesn't go far. We spent $1,200 over the $250 credit, and that was after I cut back on some of the ceremony and table decor I wanted.
5) DJ Dale – We had to make a desperate call to him the night before to make sure he would play our song selections since he never contacted us before the wedding. He also wasn't a huge crowd pleaser. To be fair, we gave him a list of songs we wanted and he played some of them, which maybe interrupted his flow, but overall he was the only part of our night that I wasn't 100% satisfied with.
6) Follow-up – SG has hundreds of weddings to plan before yours, so they won't finalize everything with you until very close to your big day. If you're a bride who wants every detail of your wedding planned and resolved months in advance, their laid-back, last minute system may stress you out a bit.
Overall, SG did an amazing job, and I have no regrets about choosing them as the venue for our big day.