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:

Why Hire a Wedding Coordinator

Planning a wedding is a big job with investment of not only your money but also your time. Before you embark on this journey, consider the following misconceptions about wedding planning:

Planning my wedding has been a dream of mine since I was a little girl. I don’t need to hire anyone…
Picking out bridal gowns and theme colors is only a small fraction of the entire wedding planning process. The glamour starts to wane when you are confronted with deadlines, budgets, and contracts. The process may become arduous for those not used to managing endless details involving logistics and coordination with numerous vendors. Through years of experience we know what needs to be done, when it needs to be done by, and who to go to for the best price and quality. Our job is not to steal your joy of planning your own dream wedding. Instead, we are here to help make that dream a reality and ensure that you and your significant other get the opportunity to enjoy one of the most memorable days of your lives.

We don’t need to hire a coordinator. We have many friends and family who have volunteered to help with the wedding…
While it is nice to have those close to you offer a helping hand it can also be a double-edged sword. Tasks may not be done in your time frame or by your standards. Unless you have hosted a wedding before, you do not know the amount of stress and anxiety that can build up in the weeks/days leading up to the big day. Disputes may arise and tempers may flare. The last thing you want to do is spend the night before your wedding, much less your wedding day, checking up on everyone to make sure they’ve done their job. Also, think twice before asking your maid of honor or a close relative to be your wedding coordinator. Like other hired vendors, good coordinators spend most of their time working at your wedding not drinking cocktails and mingling with guests. Let your guests be guests at your wedding and leave the work up to us.

There is already a coordinator at my ceremony site…
Don’t confuse wedding coordinators with site coordinators. Site coordinators will only take care of things related to the use of their sites. They do not help you develop or adhere to a timeline, nor do they act as a point of contact for all your vendors and helpers. A lot of times they are present only at the start of the event to make sure rules have not been broken. Ultimately their number one priority is the well being of the venue, not you.

We can’t afford to hire a wedding coordinator…
Our vendor connections and know how puts you at a financial advantage. Clients who have used our services saved anywhere from 20-30% on the overall cost of their wedding. This is an investment that pays for itself. You simply can’t afford NOT to
hire us.