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Ceremony Location:
Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden
-Highly Recommended!-
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Photo by Aiyah.
| We got SO many compliments on our ceremony!
As one of my friends said, "It felt very intimate, even with 200 guest."
Another friend said, "There was no bad seat in the house."
Everyone enjoyed the beauty of the garden and especially the koi pond. Many guest stayed until the very end to hang out, feed the koi, and just enjoy the setting. The garden was such a beautiful setting for the ceremony. The children (and adults) loved the koi pond and feeding the kois.
The garden coordinators are actually CSULB students. They don't guarantee that you'll get the same person at rehearsal and the actualy wedding, but they take notes at every meeting and keep it in your file. Lucky for us, we had the same person from our consultation through the wedding day.
We never went over the schedule and ceremony with her until the night of rehearsals though, so rehearsals went long (2 hours). We could've saved time that night by meeting with her beforehand, but she never brought it up and we didn't think about it. But the day of the wedding went very smooth. We handed over everything the night of rehearsals and they took care of all the set up.
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Lunch reception caterer: The Grand
-Highly Recommended!-
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Photo by Linda
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Great food and great display for a great price!
The chocolate fountain was a major hit. It ended up being a windy day, so the catering manager added that white cloth in the back to block the wind... otherwise, I would look like a cow. :)
The staff was very professional, attentive and friendly.
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Engagement Photographer: William, from Taipei-LA
-Recommended-
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For $3200 (~$3500 after tax), they included unlimited hours, unlimited locations, 2 photographers, engagement session, framed enlargement of an e-pic, flush bound wedding album, 2 parent albums, enlarged wedding photo, and all of your images on a CD. I referred my best friend there too because I thought they offered such a great package. I love our engagement photos. They offer a great package for a great price. Main criticism is that they do posed shots well, but doesn't capture candids as well. Great shots of location and set up, but candid shots of people are fair.
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Wedding Photographer:
Skye Blu Photography
-Highly Recommended!-
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| Danielle and Andreana were SO awesome to work with!! Super talented, friendly, and great attention to detail! I cannot say enough about her! She took over 1500 photos. It took me 2 weeks to narrow it down to these 469 photos.
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Videographer:
Angel DV
-Highly Recommended!-
OMG, Angel DV were the best last minute splurge we made. We weren't planning to get a videographer, but when The Knot contacted us 2 weeks before the wedding to say that they'd like to feature our wedding, we needed to get a videographer. We found them through my friend who also used them. They were there literally the moment I woke up (which is what The Knot requested) and they stayed all the way until the end. There was 3 cameras - one focused on me, one focused on my groom, and one on the surroundings. Not a detail was missed! They actually caught more details than our photographer did. Their video was cleanly edited and very easy to watch. The final DVD was 1.5 hours, broken into 3 parts. It was like watching a movie. They caught our parents and guest reactions throughout the day and watching it really made us relive our big day... with many of the details that we missed filled in. They were so ninja like! They came in all black and really were like flys on the wall. Totally non-intrusive, so they don't disrupt the ambiance, but they really captured everything! Awesome work ethics!
Makeup:
Tania Russell
-Not Recommended-
She arrived on time and was super sweet. But on our trial, she did not do my lashes, so on the day of, the lashes came out bad. She used her fingers to apply individual lashes and you could see the clumps of white glue on my lashes. My eyes came out uneven and she tried to fix it, but it still looked uneven. Unfortunately, I did not take a picture of her work. On my wedding video you could see though, but I had the other makeup artist on site for my MoHs fix my makeup. See below for contact and review.
Makeup:
Lisa Heil
562.506.7088
-Recommended-
 | Lisa does AWESOME work! Me, my mom and MoHs makeup were all done by Lisa. She did our body makeup too. The only reason why I didn't originally book her for myself is because she is difficult to get in contact with! She doesn't take a deposit and there is no contract. She does this just for fun now that she has kids. But she does the best makeup I've seen. The only reason why I only Recommend her and not Highly Recommend her is that she's difficult to get in contact with. Every time I've had to leave a message and she returned my calls a day or two later, but she does AWESOME work. She also did my best friend's wedding and also did an awesome job. She has not flaked to my knowledge. |
Ceremony Harpist:
Julia Cunningham
-Highly Recommended!-
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Really sweet and easy to work with. You can give her any song and she'll learn it for your big day. She was good at improvising to make the music flow throughout our ceremony. She was there on time and stayed until the time we contracted her for. Looked professional and brought all of her own equipment.
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Florist:
Orchid Boutique
-Recommended-
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| I was very happy with how my MoHs and my bouquet turned out. Only thing is the opened tulips she used in my bouquet didn't last all day. They were wilting by the reception. I provided glass for our sweethearts and cake table and asked her to elevate the glass and decorate underneath. I wish she used more colors to make it stand out. She used broken glass and lots of light colored flowers that blended in with the table cloth too much so it didn't stand out, but still overall very nice. Anyone who actually walked up to look thought it was amazing. We also rented that tree behind our cake table, which she had those glass cups that held tea candles. she filled the bottom of the glass with broken glass and removed the tin from the tea candle to make it took better. Only thing is once the candle melted, it dripped to the bottom of the broken glass so the candle was out by our grand entrance. Little things that she just needs to be made aware of. She does get really busy and forgetful though. She has great taste, she just gets swamped and will forget any details you talk to her about (although she does writes it down) until the week before your wedding. She does take care of what she needs to and gets things done.
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Dinner Reception:
Empress Pavillion
-Recommended-
 | AMAZING food! Everyone raved about the food, even our pickiest eaters. Only difficult thing is that they practically have events non-stop, so you really only have from 4pm to set up and you have to be out by 11pm because the parking garage closes. So if you have any intricate decor, make sure your vendor knows of the time constraints and able to work around it. That was the only difficulty I had with them. Other than the time constraints, I could not have asked for better food and price! |
Cake:
Porto's Bakery
-Highly Recommended!-
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Photo by Anne
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We got lots of compliments on our cake! It was moist and tasty! Just the right sweetness. I just ate it (a week and a half later) and it's still really good! :D
Lourdes helped us from beginning to end and she was wonderful! Patient and attentive to the details. We changed our cake about 5 times and she redrew the cake each time for us with just as much detail. The baker created exactly what we wanted!
Only thing is delivery time was supposed to be 5pm, but they came at 4pm. Luckily, our florist came early and had the cake table almost done. When I asked the delivery guy if he could wait 10 min so the florist could finish the cake table, he flat out said no. That would be my only complaint because if my florist didn't happen to start an hour earlier than scheduled, the cake table would not have been set up yet.
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Dance Instructor:
Rikki Barton
818-767-2898
-Highly Recommended!-
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This was definately the highlight of the evening for us. We took 4 group lessons with Rikki, then 3 privates. She really teaches for the love of dancing and we had to call it a night at our private lessons otherwise she would've wanted to go forever! Everyone's jaws were on the ground when they saw our first dance. Rikki really helped us put together an unforgetable first dance. Our only regret is not doing a second dance!
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Lighting:
Lighten Up Inc
-Highly Recommended!-
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MJ and Nathan were SO wonderful! They agreed to do our wedding 2 days before our wedding after our previous lighting guy backed out. They were super quick in setting up and tear down. They set up in about an hour and tore down in less than an hour. They brought a large crew to get the job done quick. They worked around all the resturant staff and were ninja like! Very non-intrusive so the resturant was able to set up as if they weren't even there. They put 18 uplights for us and pinspotted our head and cake table plus lit our dance floor. They created the perfect ambiance!
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DJ & MC:
High Resolution Productions
Steve Kikuchi
hirezkikuchi@sbcglobal.net
626.821.0573
-Highly Recommended!-
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Steve is very organized and detail oriented. We met him a week before the wedding with our iteniary and he went through everything in detail. He understood exactly what we wanted, so he really took over the reception. We didn't have to worry about anything! He worked closely with our coordinator and ran a very smooth show. Very little cheese, which is just how we like it. :)
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