CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Anyone getting married in Greater Cleveland this spring or summer has a plethora of options when they consider what ride to take to and from the ceremony.
With wedding season in full swing, we took a look at some of the coolest and most interesting ways you and your partner can arrive in style on the biggest day of your lives.
Party buses are getting more popular as wedding parties get bigger and young brides and grooms are no longer interested in traditional stretch limos.
But in Cleveland, a horse drawn carriage is also an option. And if vintage cars are your thing, you and your soon-to-be-spouse can ride in the back of a car from the 1920s or 1930s.
Joe Mazzone, owner of Buckeye Classic Limousine in Painesville, has always had an interest in classic cars and several years ago he decided to turn that interest into a business.
Mazzone, who also owns Buckeye Auto Electric in Painesville, acquired a 1930 Ford Model A, a 1929 Chevrolet and a 1966 Chevrolet Impala convertible. Three years ago, he began renting them to brides and grooms in Northeast Ohio who were looking for a ride that would make their grandparents smile.
"Everything on the (Impala) was completely redone, that car was down to nothing" he said of the restoration process. "The motor, the transmission, the rear end, the radiator the water pump, the starter, the alternator, the carburetor, on and on and on."
Mazzone said he bought the Impala years before decided to rent it to wedding parties.
"The (1929) Chevy was pretty much done when I got it," he said. "It's still a work in progress, because you always have to keep tweaking them."
The car has a convertible top, which make it extremely rare, Mazzone said.
The Model A was also mostly road ready when Mazzone bought it, but he said he updated the paint job and has continued to tweak it.
"The Model A is a lot more popular (than the other two)," Mazzone said, likely because it was a popular car when it was first introduced.
The Model A and the 1929 Chevy are both registered as historical vehicles in Ohio, and Mazzone said he hopes to buy more vintage cars as his business expands.
Pete Leneghan, owner of Shamrock Carriages in Cleveland, recently picked up a bride and groom who got married at the Nautica complex in the Flats and took them to their hotel.
"It's all about the pictures," Leneghan said of riding in a horse-drawn carriage to and from a wedding ceremony.
And when the weather is warm, there's an appeal to being outdoors with the wind blowing through your hair, he added.
"It's definitely something different," Leneghan said.
The majority of his renters are people who want to tour the city in a unique way, he said, but sometimes couples getting married within the Cleveland city limits call him when they want an elegant ride.
Leneghan said he owned a carriage in New York City for 18 years and would give people rides around the historic and highly photogenic Central Park, but returned to the Cleveland area -- his childhood home -- four years ago and continued his business here.
Rosewood Carriage -- which also offers horse drawn carriages to brides and grooms on their big day -- has been in business since 1990, starting with a single horse.
They now have two, and offer rides to prom goers and people who want to take tours of the picturesque cities like Hudson.
But owner Ron Broadsword said about 90 percent of their business comes from wedding parties.
"It gives (the couple) some time to sit back and relax," he said. "It's 10 minutes where there's no pressure on them."
Rosewood Carriage is based in Litchfield and offers services to much of Northeast Ohio, but Broadsword said they typically don't go to Cleveland after dark because of safety concerns.
Party buses have become more popular with wedding parties and bachelor and bachelorette parties as the gadgets included with them have gotten fancier.
"The lighting has changed a lot," said Michele Carothers, a manager for Shima Limo in Mentor. "There's LED lighting, they have wifi, today we have wide-screen televisions in them and you can stream movies."
Many have the look of a swanky dance club or an upscale martini bar on the inside and Carothers said bridal parties love them because they have so much interior space.
"As the technology has moved, it's made those buses even nicer," she said.
The party buses have U-shaped couch seating rather than the buckets see you see in most passenger buses.
Most wedding parties have between 20 to 24 people, including the bride and groom, Carothers said, meaning they usually want a 28-person passenger party bus.
Katie Hominsky, an office manager for BVIP Limo in Medina said they usually ask that a party have four fewer people than the maximum capacity for a limo or bus because the dresses that brides and bridesmaids wear tend to take up a lot of space.
BVIP has dozens of limos and buses in its fleet, but Hominsky said the party buses are the most popular for weddings and bachelor and bachelorette parties.