standstill

since i started preparing for this new school year a month ago, wedding plans have come to a standstill. i spent most of the summer researching the internet for ideas and resources, and definitely came up with some really creative ways to make our wedding special. now that things have gotten busier for me, i haven't accomplished as much as i would have hoped to have accomplished at this point in the whole process.

luckily, i have the help of a wedding planner and friend, good ol' francia. during her visit to the bay, we were able to spend almost one whole day driving around sf on wedding-related errands. we took a visit to the reception venue and scoped out the area for decoration ideas and logistics. i actually started to visualize what it may look like on that day! we also went to the church and realized that the parking situation may present some problems -- mainly, there is no parking lot next to the church. my guests will have to park at the garage on the corner (unless by some miracle a metered spot opens up) and walk across to the church. it's not a far walk at all, and the church is visible if you're at the parking lot. i just hope people don't get confused. because if i was a guest coming to my wedding, i think i would get lost. then again, i get lost driving home from work sometimes.

after visiting the church and reception venues, we ran around searching for paper for my invites. we come up with an invitation suite and its color scheme! and, fabulous francia even put together a mock invite and sent it to me a few days ago. seeing our names on that paper was sort of a trip. anyway, we have a general idea now of how the invitations are going to look.

here's my list of to-do's for the next month or so...

• create and put together our STD's
• finalize our videographer
• contact our band (we're in negotiations right now. not even sure we'll have them.)
• find a DJ
• ask a few more close friends to be a part of our ceremony
• contact our new catering manager at the hotel to introduce myself and ask more questions(we're really sad about this! :( our previous catering manager was moved to the long beach hyatt. and she was one of the reasons we chose that hotel!)
• decide whether or not we will be using a florist
• make plans to order barongs
• look for bridesmaids dresses
• find a dress

the last one i'm not so excited about. in fact, i'm not really looking forward to it. i've been to two dress shops so far and have had pretty good experiences. why so hesitent now, you may ask? i think it's because i'm not comfortable with the way i physically look in any wedding dress at this time. i'm planning on losing weight before the big day, and people keep telling me just to try on dresses and just have them take it in later. that's probably what i'm going to end up doing. however, i just feel as though i dislike every dress i try on because of my body size. oh well, we'll just have to see.

by the way, is it too soon to be thinking about the bachelorette party? my girlfriends keep asking me what i want to do and i get so excited thinking about it! vegas, anyone?!

a couple weeks ago at happy hour with the faculty at my school, one of my coworkers asked me what i'm most looking forward when it comes or our wedding and our married life. to the first question my answer was our ceremony. as much as i am looking forward to having a smashing reception, nothing excites me more than thinking about saying our vows before God and our family and friends. as for what i'm looking forward to most about married life, it is definitely having a family. i simply cannot wait!

oh, photographer update: we've booked with the very talented caroline tran! she's the one that took the pics in my previous post. david and i met with her last month when they were here shooting a wedding in napa. see, she's located in socal so we'll have to fly her up for our wedding day. but, we're taking engagement photos in socal. we got such a good vibe from her and could tell right away that we would get along. she is also a uci alumnus and so we know so many people in common! how cool is that?

and the best news of all...i asked father pat to celebrate our wedding and he said...MAYBE! :D he didn't say "no", he said "MAYBE"! i was 99% expected him to say no right off the bat, but everyone was encouraging us to just ask him and see what happens. i'm so glad i did.

...photographer break-up PART 2.

since i got engaged last october, i started my wedding research online. the internet has been my primary source for all ideas, vendors, and advice. since i'm the first person in my immediate group of friends to get married, i didn't have anyone located in the bay area to help me, and therefore the 'net soon became my best friend for all things wedding related.

i became a frequent visitor of theknot, which is the biggest website for anything and everything about weddings. they have forums on there as well, which, depending on the type of posts you read, can be quite informative. so, last week i decided to vent about my photographer qualms on the northern california board, just to ask the advice of other brides like me and see if i was stupid to trip about that vendor or if my feelings were justified.

lo and behold, i come to find that i was not alone when it came to my dealings with the vendor. i hadn't even posted her name in my original post, and i had people already call her out and know who i was talking about as they had similar experiences with her! there were 3 others like me, and then another one that posted on this blog! that made me so upset! i posted a review about her on yelp that night, for no other reason than to inform others like me about the experience i went through. i only spoke about my dealings with her on my review, and in my opinion i wasn't negative at all, save for one little part where i sarcastically mentioned that she does 60 weddings a year (she quoted this number), which is like 4x the amount of any other professional photographer. i even had my brother, who is always able to step out the situation and give me an objective perspective, read the review to make sure it wasn't mean.

the photographer calls me the next morning. on my cell phone. (i guess she still had my number from our previous dealings?) she tells me that my post was mean and that she couldn't understand how i could write that review, and that she was upset about it because she felt like it was a personal attack on her. i told her that those were just my opinions and that i was only commenting about our business interactions, not her as a person. to make a long story short, i apologized to her if i made her feel bad, but that the review stated my honest opinions about what happened. i felt like others, like me, that do all their vendor research online should have this sort of information at their disposal.

since then, i checked her website twice, and each time her prices were higher than the last. the first time i checked, her price went up a couple hundred dollars. this last time i checked, it went up by $900. she now states that her increase in prices is due to the fact that she wants to do less weddings next year so that she can spend more time focusing on her clients. good for her.

because i'm the type of person i am, i can't help but feel bad that i made her feel the way she felt. however, as a consumer i have to be honest when i say that customer service and professionalism should be #1 in the business world. when dealing with vendors for our wedding, david refuses to work with anyone who he even gets a bad vibe from! and who can blame him? when you are shelling out so much money (not to mention, faith) for certain services, who wouldn't want only the best?

with that said, i am happy to say that we found another potential photographer to work with. she's actually from socal and she's flying up next week for a wedding. her flight comes in late in the evening and she still wanted to meet with us! we've been emailing back and forth and she's been very professional and straight up in our conversations. i'm really excited to meet with her, and once everything is settled i'll post more about her.

for now, here's a teaser! ;)



a million points for those that can name the celebrity in the first pic and the location of the second! welcome to the good life, indeed! i think it's a sign...

too good to be true.

our photographer broke up with us today. :(

from the beginning, i always had this feeling inside that she was too good to be true. she was cheap, and we were going to get an engagment session and trash the dress along with the wedding day coverage, all for under $3K.

well, we met with her a few weeks ago and the feeling inside grew slightly worse. she's young and energetic, but somewhat unprofessional. david and i pretty much led the meeting as she just waited for us to ask questions instead of telling us about her services. she had to meet with another client after us, so when we were done she pulled out a scrappy piece of paper that had scribbles on it out of her back pocket and read the name outoud, then told us that she forgets the names of her clients sometimes. when i emailed her the next day to tell her we wanted to book her, she emailed back with a "i forgot to tell you i charge $100 for travel fees to burlingame" message. um, $100 for a 16-mile (20 minute) drive? ooookay. well, it would still be only $2700, so david and i agreed even though we didn't think that it was necessary. i was very tempted to tell her i'd pick her up myself.

i then noticed she increased her prices on her website by $200. so, i made sure that she would only charge us for the price she verbally quoted us during our meeting. luckily, she agreed. she said that she'd email us a contract by last friday. well, tuesday rolls around and still nothing. so, i emailed her to remind her and she then sends over a contract. i'm not a lawyer or anything, but the contract itself was pretty sparse, and there were all sorts of typos. the bad feeling starts to increase.

well, i get an email this morning saying that her cousin is having a wedding on the same day as we are and she "just found out." i'm trying to believe her and give her the benefit of the doubt, but given the feeling i get from her and my interactions with her, she seems a little sketchy.

i can't pretend i'm not disappointed and that i don't care, because i am and i do. but this is the way things go, and sometimes you can't help how things plan out. luckily for us, it's still somewhat early in the game and i can still have our pick of photographers. at least she didn't bail on us a few months before the wedding! unluckily for us, we're probably going to spend more for photography now. which means less money for other things.

she did offer us a free day-after shoot. however, given the circumstances should i even believe her? should i get my hopes up once again, only to be let down when the time comes? i don't know...is it worth it to still try and work with her?

what a steal!

seeing as though photography is david's "hobby of the moment," we spent a lot of time researching potential photographers for our wedding. in the beginning, we quickly fell in love with photographers whose names have saturated the wedding industry for many years.

jessica claire

gene higa



apertura

we drooled over the fine art of these pictures and spent much time viewing slideshows of their work. this was before we even thought of our ceremony or reception, before we settled on a budget, before we realized that the rates of the photographers above started at $10K. wow. so, the search began again for great photographers under $10K. we did find a couple:

ed pingol

lisa + james

we actually met the two husband and wife teams above at a a bridal show many months ago. both were really friendly and had a lot to offer. unfortunately, we decided that $6K+ was still too much to pay for photography. i knew that there were many photographers out on the market that we could potentially afford, but because we are so picky about photography i wasn't sure we'd be able to find one of our liking.

one day i was browsing the boards at weddingbee, a blog i frequently visit during my planning and research, and stumbled upon a post where someone was in search of photographers around the $2K range in the bay area. perfect! this was right up my alley. i followed the directions of the posters who gave their advice and came upon the website and blog of erica berger.

we met with her earlier today at a coffee shop in the city. her most expensive package is $2,600 and that includes an engagement session and 8 hours the day of the wedding and a trash the dress session, which is her specialty! i believe the reason why her prices are so competitive is because she is only a year old in the wedding photography business. she's quite young, but very hip and down for anything. we got along great with her and are excited to start working with her.

with an engagement shoot lined up in the next few months, i really better start taking my workout up a notch!

this in an S.O.S

CALLING ALL FRIENDS AND FAMILY!

one of our favorite photographers (we have many!), apertura, is holding a contest for a free engagement shoot! we really want to book these guys for our wedding, but they are super expensive -- and for good reason. their work is amazing. so, we have a favor to ask of you. if you find yourself bored on a rainy day within the next couple weeks or so, could you please send them a story/short essay and photo of david and i as an entry to their "blogstalkers unite" contest (click the link for details!). they're going to pick the best story/couple and announce the winner on their blog. we thought that enlisting the help of a few of our blog readers would fit perfectly with the theme of their contest.

the photo above and below can be found on their blog. aren't they stunning? so, would you consider helping us out? david and i would be eternally grateful. thanks, friends!