We are very grateful to have so many wonderful friends who shared such an important date with us. We hope that it was a unique and memorable event for not just the two of us, but everyone who was there. We haven't had the chance to thank everyone individually for being there, taking so many great photos and videos, we do have plans to mail out thank you cards, eventually ;-)
Many of you heard bits and pieces of details here and there, but I don't think anyone knows all the details that took place. Hopefully, this can be a good summary for the brides to be.
1. wedding planner - arguably one of the most important piece of the puzzle. some try to do away without it, but we didn't want to risk it considering it's a once-in-a-lifetime event and also the most expensive party we'll throw for many years to come. Our original planners were helpful in helping out on what we ask of them, but were also not on the same page with us. They seemed to have their own agenda and pushed for their own things, and didn't provide us with adquet transparency that we wanted. We decided that we'd rather spend more time worrying about wedding details than worrying about explaining them to our planners. So at the beginning of 2009, we decided to change to another friend who were more focused and in tune with our needs and preferences. The whole event wouldn't have gone so well if it wasn't for her help. We talked to one other planner in 2008, and felt she was too expensive and wasn't easily approachable.
2 . wedding venue - both of us liked the out-doors and my wife especially loved to be under the stars, so we set out to look for an outdoor venue. We didn't want to do beaches since that takes away the focus, and we didn't want to do golf-courses as I'm not a fan of golf by any stretch of the imagination, but we did want to be unique. First place we visited was Mt. Wilson Observatory and instantly fell in love with the site . Initially, they were very welcoming, gave us a tour of their 100 meter telescope and mentioned that it'd be the best place for the wedding. Suddenly, a week later, they ceased communication with us and refused to return our emails and calls , citing concerns about liquor, kids, and equipment. We were willing to not have alcohol, put the 2 kids on tight leash, and buy insrance for their equipment, but they wouldn't budge... Next we looked at the Wild Animal Park, which was nice but the experience felt like "buying a Porsche..." meaning every little thing was an added cost and the numbers added up pretty fast . For that cost, they weren't even willing to let us pet their big cats, which was one of the foremost attractive feature of the site. We decided to continue our search and keep it as a back-up choice and checked out a few other places but none where worth writing home about, so we looked up the wineries. A year ago, when we were still bouncing around the idea of having a wedding, we were wine tasting at Santa Barbara, and at that time, we fell in love with Rideau Vinyards for their wine and the location. Unfortunately, San Yenez Valley was just too far for everyone , especially the dozens of people from San Diego. The wife looked up all the wineries in Temecula (22 or so), came up with a list of 10 that looked reasonable, of which 5 were preferred and 5 were backup choices. We looked at all 5 locations, talked to their on-site coordinator, compared what they had to offer, their cost, the dates available, and many other factors, and ultimately decided to go with Wilson Creek. They were one of like 2 places that can do all out-doors, and one of 2 places that had 5/24 available. (Usually, Sunday wedding has lower minimum guest count requirements and lower per-person cost, and we set our sights on that day for various reasons) To our pleasure, they are also one of the most accomondating and easiest venues to work with, according to our wedding planner.
3. dress - Since my wife didn't get to attend her senior prom nor any college dance and such, we decided to invest in a dress for keepsake to help make it the whole event more memorable. We looked up various places to purchase the wedding gown, half-dozen or more brands from the mid-$1k to the excessively over-priced vera-wang that runs for over-$10k. I wanted mermaid, she wanted puffy; we wanted more sexy, but for consideration of the parents we had to be somewhat conservative. After trying on about 2 dozen or so dresses at half-dozen stores the one both of us liked was around $8k, so we decided to see if we can have a custom made dress for cheaper instead. We knew what we wanted by then, and the designer Nazzy at I Do in Newport Beach instantly understood us and made many contributions of her own. We negotiated the cost to $4k and paid half of it on the spot and two weeks later, we received a pencil sketch of it over email. It took her 2-3 months to get the materials, all silk and lace from France. Starting in Janurary, we drove to newport beach every other weekend for dress fitting and design. It was completed by end of March, just in time for bridal session in April.
3.1 the second dress - we wanted the bride to be outstanding in color so we settled on red, and since the wedding gown was mostly mermaid style we wanted the second dress to be puffy/princess like. Initially, we thought about having 3 dresses, but decided that it was too much time spent changing and settled on 2. The wife took pictures of 2 dresses she liked, sent it to her mom in hk along with some measurements, and a few weeks later we received a dress that's not as red as we asked for and not as small as it should be. Apparently, the tailor decided to make the changes without consulting us. One of many reasons why outsourcing doesn't work. We had to have it altered here, for a hefty sum, and all together came out to about $1k.
Many of you heard bits and pieces of details here and there, but I don't think anyone knows all the details that took place. Hopefully, this can be a good summary for the brides to be.
1. wedding planner - arguably one of the most important piece of the puzzle. some try to do away without it, but we didn't want to risk it considering it's a once-in-a-lifetime event and also the most expensive party we'll throw for many years to come. Our original planners were helpful in helping out on what we ask of them, but were also not on the same page with us. They seemed to have their own agenda and pushed for their own things, and didn't provide us with adquet transparency that we wanted. We decided that we'd rather spend more time worrying about wedding details than worrying about explaining them to our planners. So at the beginning of 2009, we decided to change to another friend who were more focused and in tune with our needs and preferences. The whole event wouldn't have gone so well if it wasn't for her help. We talked to one other planner in 2008, and felt she was too expensive and wasn't easily approachable.
2 . wedding venue - both of us liked the out-doors and my wife especially loved to be under the stars, so we set out to look for an outdoor venue. We didn't want to do beaches since that takes away the focus, and we didn't want to do golf-courses as I'm not a fan of golf by any stretch of the imagination, but we did want to be unique. First place we visited was Mt. Wilson Observatory and instantly fell in love with the site . Initially, they were very welcoming, gave us a tour of their 100 meter telescope and mentioned that it'd be the best place for the wedding. Suddenly, a week later, they ceased communication with us and refused to return our emails and calls , citing concerns about liquor, kids, and equipment. We were willing to not have alcohol, put the 2 kids on tight leash, and buy insrance for their equipment, but they wouldn't budge... Next we looked at the Wild Animal Park, which was nice but the experience felt like "buying a Porsche..." meaning every little thing was an added cost and the numbers added up pretty fast . For that cost, they weren't even willing to let us pet their big cats, which was one of the foremost attractive feature of the site. We decided to continue our search and keep it as a back-up choice and checked out a few other places but none where worth writing home about, so we looked up the wineries. A year ago, when we were still bouncing around the idea of having a wedding, we were wine tasting at Santa Barbara, and at that time, we fell in love with Rideau Vinyards for their wine and the location. Unfortunately, San Yenez Valley was just too far for everyone , especially the dozens of people from San Diego. The wife looked up all the wineries in Temecula (22 or so), came up with a list of 10 that looked reasonable, of which 5 were preferred and 5 were backup choices. We looked at all 5 locations, talked to their on-site coordinator, compared what they had to offer, their cost, the dates available, and many other factors, and ultimately decided to go with Wilson Creek. They were one of like 2 places that can do all out-doors, and one of 2 places that had 5/24 available. (Usually, Sunday wedding has lower minimum guest count requirements and lower per-person cost, and we set our sights on that day for various reasons) To our pleasure, they are also one of the most accomondating and easiest venues to work with, according to our wedding planner.
3. dress - Since my wife didn't get to attend her senior prom nor any college dance and such, we decided to invest in a dress for keepsake to help make it the whole event more memorable. We looked up various places to purchase the wedding gown, half-dozen or more brands from the mid-$1k to the excessively over-priced vera-wang that runs for over-$10k. I wanted mermaid, she wanted puffy; we wanted more sexy, but for consideration of the parents we had to be somewhat conservative. After trying on about 2 dozen or so dresses at half-dozen stores the one both of us liked was around $8k, so we decided to see if we can have a custom made dress for cheaper instead. We knew what we wanted by then, and the designer Nazzy at I Do in Newport Beach instantly understood us and made many contributions of her own. We negotiated the cost to $4k and paid half of it on the spot and two weeks later, we received a pencil sketch of it over email. It took her 2-3 months to get the materials, all silk and lace from France. Starting in Janurary, we drove to newport beach every other weekend for dress fitting and design. It was completed by end of March, just in time for bridal session in April.
3.1 the second dress - we wanted the bride to be outstanding in color so we settled on red, and since the wedding gown was mostly mermaid style we wanted the second dress to be puffy/princess like. Initially, we thought about having 3 dresses, but decided that it was too much time spent changing and settled on 2. The wife took pictures of 2 dresses she liked, sent it to her mom in hk along with some measurements, and a few weeks later we received a dress that's not as red as we asked for and not as small as it should be. Apparently, the tailor decided to make the changes without consulting us. One of many reasons why outsourcing doesn't work. We had to have it altered here, for a hefty sum, and all together came out to about $1k.
-- rest to be filled in later...
4. photographers
5. officiant
6. DJ
7. makeup
8. flowers
9. cake
10. dance instructor
11. designs (center piece, table arrangements, seating arrangement, cake, wedding favor, placecards, menu, schedule, song sheet, canvas print, dance steps, budgeting, etc, etc)
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