the photobooth

so stephen loves photobooths. im not sure he would admit it but he likes to take pictures in them by himself. my friend owns a photobooth company so it was natural to go with him. his also does video which im actually pretty excited about and hope people use it to record some messages for us!

the flowers

so believe it or not, i actually wanted to and thought i would do my own flowers. afterall, im a crafty person right? right? i originally asked a friend's wife for a quote and honestly the number scared me. so i thought to save money, I would do it on my own. my friend had done her own flowers and she was doing her sister in laws. she said it was a ton of work so i wasnt sure if i wanted the added stress that day.

i began researching some more and getting more quotes from people. it seemed that many of the florists in sf charged more than others. eventually i interviewed one in sf, one in redwood city, palo alto, and mountain view. i actually really liked the one in sf but the examples she showed me in the style i was looking for didnt look that good. plus she was out of my price range. then i went to the one in redwood city. she was super technical telling me about how carnations hold an arrangement up because they are stiffer flowers. i hate carnations! no offense to carnation lovers. she also was doing another wedding at our venue and went in to look around. she was very opinionated about what color lanterns, what kind of tables i should have. i felt a bit stiffled! then the palo alto one was super straightforward, honest, and nice but again i wasnt in love with the examples she showed me. finally, last but not least, the one in mountain view. she didnt really have a store front but more of a place where she did her work. she was a bit scattered brained and wasnt too expressive but i loved the work she showed me. she listened and seemed to really understand my vision.

im excited!

the music

So we went to a wedding this past weekend where the music was incredible! i mean for the dancing portion, they had a band that could sing all the hits. they could rap and sing! sadly our music will not be spectacular but it was budget friendly.

for the ceremony, cocktail hour, and dinner that is outside, there is to be no amplified sound so we had to find a band. i knew that the ceremony would be classical music and then cocktail hour and dinner would be jazz. i basically googled that and contacted a bunch. a lot of musicians charge by the musician by the hour. I was lucky in finding someone who was willing to work with me. even though he doesnt like to send documents electronically (we signed the contracts through snail mail) he is accommodating. He is bringing in a classical trio for the ceremony and then just him as a jazz soloist for dinner.

after dinner, i found a dj for cheap! even though ive never heard him spin. he does spin for visionshock parties so i feel partly safe because of that.

the videographer

stephen really didnt believe in getting a videographer. so much so that i basically went to meet and sign the contract on my own. i know it was a bit sneaky but i was really afraid of regretting not getting one to capture the day. we had prioritized photos first but photos dont talk. they dont have sound. and if sound can give another dimension to the memories of the day then im all for it. even cleaning out my dads place and watching the old vhs's that we have made me nostalgic and though a lot of people say they wont even watch their wedding video again, i hope to revisit it every once in a while. just to remind me.

i had contacted (again) many videographers just to compare prices. the thing about wedding vendors is that they never disclose their prices online so you actually have to email them and then get that information. i was looking for more bang for the buck. there were some that i really liked that had a lot of style, was great at telling a story. but they can get so expensive, just like everything else wedding related. some even included super 8 clips. i didnt want my entire wedding to be filmed in super 8, i much preferred the crystal clear imagery of HD.

it basically came down to two people for me. one sounded like he had done many weddings at mountain terrace. his style was a bit more oldfashioned and he often put music to the videos that ive never even heard of. he also did a lot of blurring, or i dont know what the effect is called but the video was blurry on purpose. i didnt really like that. it looked like 80s film to me. the other had videod a few of my friends' weddings. eventually i went with the familiar just because i could trust him. to tell you the truth i dont even remember him at either of my friends weddings but i like that. he calls his style journalistic which means hes there to capture everything but not intrude.

im excited to have him document our wedding!

the dress

i started this process early as i was afraid that it would take me a long time to find the dress. i had scoured the internet before actually going into stores, trying to find something that was affordable and nice. when i started trying on gowns it occurred to me that i couldve never found something online without trying it on. i had found many reasonable, designer gowns that were used but without being able to try them on, they were pretty much a no go.

i took some fridays and weekends to look with my sister and then with my mom. we went to quite a few places - looking at sample sales and also full priced gowns. some places i stopped in were: priscilla of boston, bella bridesmaid, the bella bride, marina morrison, and glamour closet. the priscilla at santana row also carried vera wang so it was nice to be able to try those on as well as priscilla gowns. i had made appointments at bridal galleria in sf and also jcrew, kleinfelds, lovely, and jenny yoo in ny but i cancelled those because by that time i had already found the dress.

some criteria:
1. trumpet/fit to flare
2. natural materials
3. no jewels/rhinestones
4. some interesting detail: swiss dots, lace, tiers etc

the funny thing about the dress i ended up getting was that i had tried it on once before. marina morrison was having a sample sale and i went in to take a look. i picked out some gowns to try on but the salesperson insisted i try on this particular gown. i told her i didnt like it because it gave no shape and she told me i needed to wear a sash. i left but i keep thinking about how she was right!

my mom and i went to a bunch of places before going into glamour closet. the first day we went they couldnt take us because they were maxed out but my mom loved all their gowns. i actually saw another girl try on the dress i had tried on at marina morrison and i was so jealous! so the next morning we woke up early to be first in line. and thats it!

the photographer

so we finally nailed down a photographer! photography is pretty important to both of us so we really wanted to nail this down as a top priority. Also a lot of photographers start booking a year in advance, just like venues.

once again i had collected and got together an extensive list (70+ photographers!). some i had seen their work in blogs and some on yelp. i contacted all of them or most of them through email because their rates are not posted online and then began to eliminate them by price. Then i went back through the list again and went to the photographer's blog to see if i still connected with their style. i preferred photos with great uses of natural light, that were softer and lighter. then stephen went in and did the same thing. he preferred images that were not processed as much. after that we only had a handful we actually wanted to interview:
1. allyson wiley
2. anna and michael costa
3. bret cole
4. colson griffith
5. leila brewster
6. stephen hughes

one was immediately eliminated because she never contacted us after she went on vacation. i actually didnt even remember until just right now. of the five left, 2 were film photographers. I had actually sort of fallen in love with film photography. they produce images that are softer and lighter. two were not local so we tried to facetime which actually worked pretty well! google video however failed so one we only got to chat with on the phone. we eliminated one because she seemed a bit young, with less experience. we eliminated another because the albums he brought had some images that didnt seem good to us.

we narrowed down to two that we really thought hard about: one was film and the other digital. i think in the end we went with someone who was laidback, had enough experience, whose images were consistent, and who we could expect a level of quality we were comfortable with. he's also shot at our venue before so that was a plus. we had to think about whether we wanted a few great, awesome, "wow" images with some that were not focused properly or whether we wanted all our images to be good. in the end we decided with the latter.

the venue

so it took us a good couple months to nail down a venue. i think we looked at about 20 venues if not more. the places were compiled from blogs and pictures I had seen or even here comes the guide. there were several things we knew:
1. we wanted to get married nearby. no destination wedding. and anything that was more than an hour's drive was kind of out of the question. this eliminated tahoe, carmel or monterey but included napa, sonoma, healdsurg, sf, marin etc i was a bit opposed to east bay and also peninsula but we ended up in peninsula
2. we wanted to get married outside.
3. we wanted to get married next summer/fall
4. we wanted the party to go past 10 or 11pm

there were also some things that i thought i really wanted but eventually fell off the list. I thought i wanted to get married under a big old oak tree. i know it sounds silly, but the pictures ive seen where the ceremony takes place under an oak tree struck a cord with me. i loved it. another thing i thought i wanted was a big barn.
The excel i kept of all the venues had about 100 places listed. we eliminated a bunch right from the getgo due to high site fees. in retrospect, the rate isnt just dependent on the site fee though that is a big part of it. but the main thing is the cost per person for food and alcohol. even though the site we ended up with was closer to the higher end of our site fee threshold, the food and beverage was a lot lower than some places we had looked at. that brought the grand total down quite a bit.

at one point we thought we wanted a hotel. hotels can be very expensive because you do everything through them. we thought that people could stay with us especially our out of town family members and friends which made up for about half of the guest count.

we actually visited the calistoga hotels twice thinking that we would go with one of them but the price was just too much. so then we began to look in the peninsula too. mainly palo alto. once we saw mountain terrace it was hard to look at anything else. we were comfortable with the price. the venue was beautiful. we could stay at a nearby hotel/resort. everything just seemed to fit.

the ring

having had a sister that worked at tiffanys, it actually made me question whether i needed a ring with a brand name. i do believe that the craftsmanship is in a way guaranteed and maintenance is easily accessible. You can walk into any tiffanys and ask them to clean it or fix it etc for free. my aunt and uncle are actually jewelers in hong kong as well. i worked at their store in central when i was in high school as did many of my other cousins.

when we had started looking we actually wanted to go through my aunt. my sister was there at the time but communication was difficult with phone and email. in the end we opted for getting something here so that we could see it before purchasing. when stephen told me that he was going with his friend to his jeweler, i immediately wanted in! i wanted to have a say in what my ring looked like. in retrospect i think that if i had zero clue about the ring and proposal, i wouldve been shocked and surprised into tears. im not sure which i prefer but im definitely happy with the ring. i think its so pretty. we had gone into tiffanys once before to try stuff on and i was smitten with the lucida. the jeweler said that the lucida is a modified radiant cut so we looked only at a couple radiant stones. on our first or second visit we had found a stone we had really liked with a good weight, color and clarity etc. i also picked out a setting with two pears on each side. originally i thought i had wanted baguettes.

i also went through a phase where i didnt want an engagement ring and just a band. stephen wanted it for investment's sake and also as something we might be able to pass onto our children later. well i think he also thought it would make me happy.

we just got it insured so i can wear it with less worry! it went as a separate item under homeowner's insurance.

wedding planning

so how many variations of the kewpie88 usrename can i make? lets see. well i didnt want to take any of my other blogspots and make it a planning one so here goes. i am imagining that as my life changes I can blog here about planning for a variety of things - wedding, kids, home. first up, wedding

i have to be honest and say that i was never a kid who dreamed of getting married. it might have to do with my family and the number of unsuccessful marriages in it. i almost want to go back and look at this one project i did in elementary school. i think we all wrote a book called when i grow up.

after dating stephen for more than a year, i had started to think about getting married to him. i had many thoughts on what the wedding would be like, the flowers i like, the dresses i thought i would wear. fast forward to this year, four years into the relationship and i am more excited about being married than actually getting married. weddings are hugely commercialized and everything "wedding" related costs an arm and leg.

we actually got engaged on May 17th. it was a tuesday. we had just turned the keys over to my new tenant. stephen wanted to go celebrate. when i took his phone to message the tenant about a question, I saw that he had an opentable reservation for foreign cinema. i asked him about it but he just said he wanted to celebrate getting a tenant. I didnt really want to go out to eat. i like eating at home. when i got home i started making food. stephen came out and was like "what are you doing?" so he convinced me to go out to dinner. we had a plentiful dinner at foreign cinema. including 3 apps, mains, and dessert. stephen wanted tea but i said that we could just drink tea at home. afte we finished, i noticed that they had stopped playing the movie outside. then stephen got up and asked me to go outside. i was like "why? its cold and rainy" when i went outside there was a slideshow of us playing. at the end it said "claudia will you marry me" in scrabble letters. he got on one knee. i kept saying "this is crazy. whats going on" he was like "you have to say yes". i was like "ok yes yes please get up"

during dinner i asked him when he was going to propose as i usually do. we had picked out a stone and setting together back in dec/jan so i was anxiously awaiting proposal. he told me that maybe after we come back from peru he would propose. he had been on the computer often and i told him that i thought it was because he was making a slideshow for me. he told me it was for his sister's wedding. i asked to see it and he said "yeah!" but not really.

Slideshow at Foreign Cinema