Weddingbee

Now that I’m back, I can really give my final grades on my vendors.  Overall, I was happy with most of them but here is my report card:

Duke Photography: A++! I absolutely loved my photographer. Not only was he classy, super nice and very efficient — he had to deal with a lot of problems and was really cool about it. He would say, “Don’t worry, let it go. Remember… just have fun!” He was also very fast in changing lens and making quick decisions. He was very upfront and honest with you, but at the same time he was always gentle and very sweet. And his pictures were awesome!

Renaissance Montura Hotel/LAX: A+ This newly remodeled hotel was great to us! The room was a bit tiny so we were all smushed in 2 sections of the ballroom, but I think it was okay. The food was pretty great (I had never really experienced great wedding food) and the fruit fondue was a hit! We rented our own lights and sound equipment so I can’t really speak for their stuff. Their dance floor was spacious and I liked the arrangement of how the room was set up.

This is the kicker… the food was GREAT and it cost only $38+ per person! According to my research, that is amazing! I remember the reason why we chose the Renaissance Montura Hotel is because while we were pondering over our options, our sales rep Tiffany sent us a beautiful bouquet and vase on Valentines Day, wishing the both of us well on our engagement. I was so shocked and amazed… and thought “wow, that is super classy!” They definitely do keep up their standards all throughout. If you decide to pick this vendor, you should ask specifically for Sarah Salimi, who is their events manager. She’s great!

Marylinn’s Bridal: A One thing I’ve always imagined to prepare for my wedding was to be in a beautiful boutique and try on gowns. Well, this is definitely the place for that! It even has the cliche couches where your bridesmaids & moms can sit and watch. The Beverly Hills store is a cute little boutique and they had lots of fabulous gowns. However, I have to say that most of their gowns are expensive! I only went in because I thought they had a sale, but my gown was the 2nd cheapest to cheapest gown there. I told them that my maximum price was $1000, and they took away ALL the gowns but two. Luckily, I ended up loving one of the two.

Their service is great but I give their alterations an “ehhh” grading because it ended up being too short on me! The dress didn’t fit me perfectly at all, but I wonder if it was just because of the way the dress was made? I’m jealous of those girls whose dresses fit them SO snug and perfectly because my dress had always fit weird. I don’t really recommend their alterations as much as their service. One great example of their service is when I went to go pick up my dress. For some reason, they had set it to be ready on Friday but I remember telling them Thursday because Friday was jammed packed. When they realized this, they said they would drop it off at my house! So the manager came by herself and dropped it off on Thursday night. Nice huh?

Wilshire United Methodist Church: B+ I don’t think it was really their fault, but their wedding coordinator was out for vacation, so we got stuck with their substitute. If you are booking at this church, make sure you have Lori, their regular coordinator.  However, the church was beautiful and everything went very well! They provide lots of free decorations so make sure you ask about them before you talk to your florist. Also, make sure that the candles are pre-lit because one of our mothers had to stand there for about 10 minutes trying to set her candle!!

Utopian Designs/Florist: B I chose this florist by a weddingbee blogger awhile ago, and what caught my attention was that she and her husband had this business right out of their home. I’m all about giving small home companies some business so I went straight to her. She’s so nice and very honest - that’s what I liked about her. She always followed up very quickly and was efficient. The reason why I gave her a B is because I really disliked my wedding bouquet. It was bad because a lot of your wedding day pictures have your bridal bouquet as the center of attention. It looked almost nothing like what we had discussed, and it looked like there were parts of a Christmas tree in it! (Pictures will be shown later) It was a lot smaller than what I had thought and I liked my bridesmaids’ bouquets much better. The centerpieces were great and so were the men’s bouts, but it was just my wedding bouquet. (But that’s very important!)

HAIRDAY: D Wow, pretty bad right? Let me explain… First of all, I woke up on my wedding day to a frantic voicemail. Our appointment was set for 9am, and I had my Korean speaking bridesmaids call about 5x during the week to check up on that. Sorry to say, but Korean places always screw up!! I can say that because I’m Korean, right? haha. So knowing this, I went out of my way to not have any Korean vendors except for my makeup/hair because I feel like they do it best on me. The frantic phone call went something like this: “oh noooooo!!!!! why aren’t you HERE!? oh nooo… what are we gonna do?! we can’t finish in time! you were supposed to be here at 8am! oh nooooo….!”

That is not a professional or great voicemail to wake up to on your wedding day! So I called and they were super snappy and annoyed that I was late, even though I knew that my time was correct! I remember thinking that 9am was stinking early for a 3:30pm wedding, so I tried to get a later time but they said 9am was the absolute latest. I would have never agreed to 8am! Anyways, it went back & forth “no we said 8am” and “no, it was always 9am!”

Well we got there and no one was ready for us. So we waited off to the side and the place was packed. Jessica told me she had 9 weddings to do that day (when I first booked with her, it was only me) so it was super crazy. We all got our hair & makeup done by 11:30am…. so I wonder, why they were freaking out? We had all this time to go get food next door, hangout, take pictures, and even buy some fake boobs. I have no idea why they were fussing about us “being late.” I had to roll my eyes and ignore the annoyed tension they had around us because they thought we were super irresponsible.

Only my MOH and I got our hair and makeup done, the rest of the bridesmaids got their hair done and their makeup done by my cousin. I rate their hair as a D and almost none of them liked their hair. It was such a simple task, just asking them to curl it and leave it down. However, since I’m into doing hair, I noticed that some of the curls were going the wrong way and it looked… strange. My MOH’s makeup was terrible. They put red/pinkish eyeshadow on her even though we were wearing blue dresses. My cousin took it all off and re-did her makeup and then it looked great! Even the famous Jessica asked “is that girl a professional?”

I did end up loving my hair & makeup, but I literally had to walk my hair girl every step of the way. If I had let her do her own thing, I would have hated it. I had to literally pick up strands of hair and say “put this piece here” and re-curl some things. I could tell she was super annoyed with me, but it was my wedding day and I didn’t want crappy work! I could also tell that she was in a super hurry and wanted us out of there ASAP so she could start on the next girl. I brought pictures and tried to be super nice & detailed with her, but she really isn’t any sort of hair specialist.

If I could do it over, I’d only hire Jessica for makeup and get everything else done by someone else. Honestly, my cousin and I could do so much better for so much less! They charged me $75 for my MOH’s makeup job, but my Korean speaking friend was able to negotiate it down to $35. The hair was $35 per person, and my hair and makeup was $250. So…. Hairday is only good for Jessica’s skill, but otherwise — go somewhere else!!

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