ard09's reviews

Located in San Bruno, CA on El Camino Real, Lucy and her team are so good! Don't let the looks of the place be decieving although there are tons of dresses hanging around everywhere and pictures of past bridal parties that have come through there but you can tell this place is a good place to have dresses altered by the number of dresses hanging for pick up! Lucy is by appointment only and will be considerably blunt if something does not look right on a woman. But her opinions are worth listening to because she is usually right!

The San Mateo location treated us very efficiently when the Groom and our Dad's went in to go get fitted. Originally we went to the Palo Alto location to select the tuxedo styles and that was equally enjoyable. They have great customer service and tons of styles and colors to select.

FYI-some Adult coats may not come in sizes for children.

Being on a once again strict budget, we searched for a florist who could accomodate that. Carol met with me several times to go over the differnt flowers that would be in season by the time our wedding came around (July wedding). we went over all the white flowers that would be easy to obtain, in season, and locally available. I don't know much about flowers other than what I think are beautiful and requested that calla lillies be the flowers of the day. She happily obliged and also offered other white complimentary flowers that would look beautiful with calla's. We opted for orchids and poms!

The amount she charged us for were 6 boquets, 3 flower girls, and 19 boutineers plus 25 table settings.

Events of Excellence in Sunnyvale are truly amazing. From the communication and the attention to detail of how exactly things should be on the wedding day is impecable. Please note, they are a bit pricey but their customer service and style of food and importantly the taste of the food is extremely worth it. They have every color linen, every style of china you would want and offer private tastings.

We asked for them to make a traditional filipino appetizer, something not offered on their menu, for our wedding reception and the chef fully obliged! He did thorough research about the food item and when we had our private tasting we tasted it and it was perfect!

For couples who are on a budget and opting to do DIY projects for their wedding to help cut costs this is a post for you. We were on a very strict budget (see my other posts under my user name ard09) and we knew that invitations would be really expensive. I wanted a traditional announcement but designed it to reflect our personalities. None of the styles we looked at matched us personality wise and not to mention, cost tons of money. The invites we looked at ranged from $600-$1000 and we didn't want to spend that money. So instead, a friend took me to Paper Source. This is the best store ever and they have a website for those who live out of California (www.papersource.com).

Papersource is the DIY, crafty, scrapbooking, etc type of store for all occassions. They have employees who are so creative and thinkers of out of the box. The staff at the San Jose, Santana Row location were so helpful to me and even asked for the finished product since our save the dates, invites, and programs were being made out of supplies purchased from their store.

Some notes, stamps are pricey so if you can find stamps elsehwere that would be helpful. Know that you are never rushed inside Papersource but plan on going on a weeknight as weekends are extremely busy and finding someone to help get "Creative" with you might take a while. All in all-we spend under $400 for all of our invitiations.

We were a couple on a very strict budget but photography was one of the areas in which we were willing to splurge on until we came across YJ Photography. We found him on Craigslist with an unbeatable price. We took a look at his website and felt that his style of capturing candids in a photojournalistic approach was the right fit for us. We contact YJ and immediately scheduled a face to face meeting to view other works he has done.

His communication has been quick in response to all of the questions I had via email and he totally takes the time to listen to exactly everything you desire for your wedding day. He will travel any where for your engagement session that is included in his rate.

If you are a DIY bride/groom, this is the photographer for you as he does not provide a wedding book at the very end. What he does provide is all pictures edited to you in low and high resolution for you to do what you want with them. For us, that is exactly what we were looking for. Hence, the reason his price is soooo affordable.


He even takes the time to visit the location that you will be getting married at to get an idea of how he we shoot your wedding day if he's never been there before. There is an option for a 2nd photographer-all included in the same price. He does not charge per hour, its a flat rate.

We highly recommend YJ Photography.