Helena & Kyle’s wedding on “Carmageddon” weekend

We met Helena & Kyle in February to start working with them on planning their big day.  At that time, they basically only booked the venues, photography and cake. So we recommended a florist, a DJ/ MC, and chair rental company to them.

The beautiful marina

Little did the couple know that their big day, July 16, 2011, would happen to be the weekend that the Caltrans decided to do a demolition of the Mulholland Bridge, causing a shutdown of freeway 405 between freeways 10 to 101.

Helena & her bridesmaids

Although their wedding in the marina was barely on the cusp of the shut down, the fear that the shutdown would affect traffic everywhere and causing a delay in their vendor set-up or out-of-town guests being lost was still imminent. But thanks to all the media coverage, people stayed home and stayed away from the areas of the shut down. Traffic was not bad at all and the whole wedding wrapped up nicely!

The ceremony at St. Sophia - traditional chanting through the  entire wedding

The happy newly wed

Helena is Mark’s sister, whose wedding we coordinated a year prior at the Roosevelt Hotel. So right from the beginning, there was more of a comfort level and trust because she knew that we did a good job for her brother. Things were a little different for Helena since she works and resides in Washington D.C. with Kyle, her now husband, but they wanted the wedding in California since Helena’s friends and family are mostly here.

Helena & Kyle had their wedding ceremony at St. Sophia’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral like Helena’s brother Mark, but their reception is by the waters at The Ritz-Carlton Marina del Rey. So the two weddings have very different themes.

Helena’s wedding colors are silver and purple. The whole set-up is elegant, yet romantic. Her dress was dramatic – in fact, her dress-shopping experience will be aired on TLC’s popular “Say Yes to the Dress” soon! She accented the room with 4 spot lights, silver chivalry chairs, and she has flowers that were ivory with some purple. We have two small branches as her “wishing trees” where her guests write on little die-cut shapes of birds, and hang them on the tree branches. 

Guest sign-in area

Wishing tree

The ballroom while it's being set-up

The highlight of her reception was a 30-minute belly-dancing performance. It definitely got the guests hot and ready to groove! The wedding party also did an Arabic dance like at Mark & Christine’s wedding. The guests love the upbeat Arabic music!

There were also touching moments such as when Helena's dad danced with her, when one of her bridesmaids got all choked up when she was delivering her speech, and when the guests watched and enjoyed a very well made slide show produced by the groom himself! It was an evening filled with fun, drama, and memories.

We are so glad to be part of this mixed cultural union and even happier to have repeat business from the same family (The Zaky’s). In fact, since this is the second time we work with the family, we got to know each other better! Helena’s mom made us feel so much like part of the family, and honestly, that is the best feeling a coordinator can have at the end of a successful event!

We transport some of the flowers from their reception to the honeymoon suite

Our last touch as a parting gift to the newly wed - a romantic suite!

Congratulations to Helena & Kyle again! 

Newest Idea for your reception - Flip Book

Have you ever drawn your own cartoon when you were little? If you did, you would use a little booklet, and draw the same object over and over on the pages, one slightly different than the other, so when you flip through it, it'd appear as though the object is moving?


That's the idea of a Flip Book. Now thanks to technology, making still objects look like they are moving is much easier! One of the couples I worked with last year developed this idea of a Flip Book at their wedding reception. They have a digital camera that takes still frame shots every few seconds, a machine that cuts the paper into business card size paper, and into a Flip Book. 


When you put all the still shots together and flip through the book, you have a little mini movie! It's using the idea of time-lapsed photography to create such a fun project.  Of course, the key to a successful Flip Book is gradual motion. 


Take a look at the video below for a Flip Book sample.

If you're interested in providing your guests a fun, interactive, and a different kind of souvenir, try having a Flip Book station at your wedding reception - it'll be a blast for everyone! For more info on how to get one for your wedding, and pricing, please contact us!

10.10.10 Joy & Will's Wedding

It was unusual for Southern California to be still so warm by mid-October, but on this special day for Joy & Will, where they have the perfect Ten times three, it was sunny and warm, which was great for an evening outdoors wedding on a hill top. Because of the popularity of the date, the venue was triple-booked from brunch, lunch to dinner! We were very nervous that the whole decoration in the ballroom would not be done in time before the ceremony ended. Fortunately, everything worked out, thanks to a team of dedicated vendors and friends from the bride & the groom!

Joy & Will's wedding is adorned with various shades of purple, from the flowers to the lanterns hanging to the ballroom ceiling and the bridesmaides' dresses!

Joy & Will are very creative and crafty. Joy made the boards below to hang all the "travel tags" that contain the guests' names. Joy also made all of her own stationery, from the invitation to the wedding programs, menu cards, and the special fortune cookies that were flown in from San Francisco, hand-dipped with chocolate and packed in favor boxes.

This centerpiece contains a vase with a goldfish swimming in it! It's one of the centerpieces for tables with children.

Below is a screen for the couple's same-day-edit video.

What is more impressive is that Will built their photobooth, plus a Flip Book station! More on Flip Book later.

Professional looking photo booth and Flip Book station! Guests are having a good time being silly!

Below: This is where the Flip Book is "filmed."

Congratulations, Joy & Will!

A "Cool" Idea for summer receptions!

How do you cool down in the summer time? Go to the beach? Dip in the water? Or if you can't do that, how about eating something cold? 


Ice creams and icy treats are usual favorites when it comes to hot weather. If you've been to Hawaii, you've probably heard of Matsumoto's Shaved Ice. It's not just shaved ice, but shaved ice with ice cream. Yum! 

It's basically shaving a block of ice to make an icy treat. But shaved ice is fluffy, not granular. Top with some flavored syrup and formed into a shape of a snow cone is a cool and refreshing treat guests of any age can enjoy!

Now there's mobile ice, so a shaved ice bar can be set up to provide these cool treats to your guests for summer receptions! See the video below to get an  idea of how the shaved ice bar looks and what the final products look like!

And guess what? It's affordable. In fact, it may help cut down some of your costs for alcohol or other beverages because once your guests are full with the shaved ice/ ice cream, they probably won't be able to drink that much!


Please contact us to find out how to get shaved ice catered to your wedding reception!

05.22.10 Christine & Mark's Hollywood-Glam Wedding

Christine & Mark’s wedding is a perfect blend of traditional meets modern. The sites they’ve chosen for their ceremony & reception are both historic landmarks. The Greek Orthodox Cathedral where the ceremony was held still upholds their old traditions, where the entire ceremony were led by priests, chanting in Greek from the bridal processing toward the benediction. 

Inside the beautiful St. Sophia Cathedral

The venue where the reception is held, while a historic building, has added much of the modern touches to its design – for example, pre-lit, built-in LED light ceiling in the ballroom, where the colors of the room can be programmable to change with the music or however the couple wanted.

The gorgeous ballroom at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel

Christine & Mark’s wedding colors are gold, coral and brown. While gold is a traditional color often used in Egyptian weddings, it also happens to be a trendy color of the moment. Both the church and the reception ballroom have the gold color throughout the interior. Coral is used in the flowers and stationery. Brown is used in the bridesmaids’ dresses as well as the invitation. While gold provides a feeling of elegance, coral and brown bring warmth and welcoming. The three shades matched harmoniously.

the bridal line-up

party favor

Christine on her way to the reception

Christine and Mark made their grand entrance and went straight into a traditional Egyptian 
dance, where the wedding party joined them. The party went on with lots of dancing in both Egyptian and hit music.

The wedding was grand, completed with the Hollywood glamour of limousine, sparkling items, photos on the walk of fame (and lots of photo opportunities for the guests via photo booth), fancy lighting, hip music, partying down in style, delicious cuisine and impeccable service from the staff of the hotel.

Note the shoes of the couple - Christine is wearing a pair of coral heels, and Mark is wearing Converse!

The happy couple on Hollywood Blvd.

It's dancing time!

Congratulations to Christine & Mark! 

Pictures courtesy of Paul Gero Photography & Janet Chen.

03.20.10 A Big Wedding for Anthi & Long

I rarely take on a project like wedding day coordination with less than a month's notice, because by this time I probably would not be involved in meetings and discussions with key vendors like the ceremony site, the reception site, and the DJ. Usually, if I am not involved with these key vendors, a lot can go wrong, so I didn't want to put my reputation on the line. However, Anthi & Long's wedding was a special case because Mary, my partner, knows Anthi, and she tells me that Anthi is the scrap book queen and she is super organized.


It turns out that Mary is correct. Anthi did have a lot of details in her wedding, from decoration details like hanging the ceremony programs on shepherd hooks, using paper lanterns to accent the garden, and decking out the reception ballroom with drapery and lights - basically, whatever romantic and creative ideas you can have, you can find it in Anthi's wedding. Her wedding reminded me of both Joyce's wedding (Japanese garden ceremony) and Daphne's wedding (paper lanterns and drapery), yet, it was individually unique as its own.

Anthi & her bridesmaids were intimately involved with the entire wedding process from the inception to make her wedding personalized and special. But the problem is, all of them are in the wedding party, so that means someone needs to be in charge when they are doing their processional, their entrances, speeches, and partying. Anthi & Long's wedding is also very big, with 350 confirmed attendance, which makes it riskier as there are more potentials of things going wrong. 


It helps to have one point of contact for all the vendors and helpers on the wedding day to know who to talk to for answers. As I have mentioned before, a wedding day coordinator is like the conductor of an orchestra. Each of the musicians is highly talented, but in order to perform beautiful music together, they need the conductor to help everyone jive along.

Anthi's 10-people bridal party and her countless volunteering friends help make the set-up and tear-down at the ceremony and reception easy. All I had to do was making sure that we move along as planned, and tried to make each activity connect as smoothly as possible.  Since Mary is expecting her baby any moment now, I recruited my husband, Greg and her husband, Daniel, to help with some set-up & clean-up. 


I think my presence also gave her wedding party and volunteered helpers the chance to relax a little & to enjoy the wedding toward the end of the evening. As they danced the night away, I slowly started to clean out the vases and prepare to tuck things away. I stayed until the very end to make sure all the items that Anthi needed saving were put away in her honeymoon suite.


And the wedding? It was a beautiful spring wedding at the Japanese Garden at Cal State Long Beach preceeded with a traditional tea ceremony which the bridal couple paid their respects to their elders. The reception was at at Lincoln Plaza Hotel with the traditional 10-course Chinese banquet dishes with Chinese appetizers during the cocktail hour, complete with photobooth, an open-bar all night long, and awesome lighting and music. There were a total of 37 tables in the reception ballroom. The guests partied and danced until 11pm, when the restaurant staff gave the courtesy notice that they had to start the clean up.

Set-up for tea ceremony

The guest's view of the bridge where the couple gets married

Anthi walking down the aisle with both of her parents

Guests seated by the pond

The couple says I do on the bridge

Place cards hanging on a board

The sign-in table - notice the 7 framed photos of the couple's families, the hand-made sign-in boards and the bird cage in lieu of a gift receiving box.

The table decor - note hand-made table card and menu

The reception ballroom - note the draped walls and chandelier, and the lighting.

The wedding cake

The sweetheart table on an elevated stage

The centerpiece

The bride in her traditional red dress with the groom and her father, thanking the guests for coming and making their day special.

The guests dancing the night away!

It was a long day, but seeing how everything was done so beautifully, and that everyone seemed to have a good time made it worth my time!


Congratulations to Anthi & Long on the beginning of their new journey! Thanks for letting me be part of your big day!

 

Photo slide show courtesy of Jan Garcia Photography: