jamiesue's reviews

I'm so lucky that I found Katrina through Project Wedding! Katrina is just so talented - her penmanship is beautiful and perfect!! On top of her talent, I found her to be very personable, responsive to email and easy to work with. After I shipped my envelopes to her, I realized that I didn't send enough. I panicked and called her. She's offered to run to Paper Source herself and buy some extras instead of having me buy them and then ship them to her. What a life saver!!!

My envelopes turned out amazing!!!! I'm glad I thought to get one for ourselves as a keepsake. I got so many compliments on the calligraphy.

I highly recommend Katrina!!! She's uber talented, responsive to email and she turned the envelopes around quickly.

I cannot say enough good things about Giao. She is super talented, so friendly and great to work with!! My relationship with Giao started when she so kindly offered a custom made hair piece to the winner of a raffle at a PW Northern California GTG. I won!! After communicating via email and with a few photos, Giao made a beautiful grey hair flower for me to wear during my reception. It added the perfect touch to my outfit.

Next, I had the opportunity to have Giao do my hair when I was a bridesmaid for a friends wedding. She was very professional - arrived early to set-up and we got started right on time. I showed her one picture of the style I wanted and she replicated it perfectly!! I was sooooooo thrilled with my hair that day. I had never done a style like that before and I think Giao could see a little hesitation on my face when she finished. But, she's so kind and reassured me that once I got dressed and had my make-up on, I would love it. And sure enough she was right!!

She did 5 bridesmaids hair and the makeup and hair for the 2 mom's that day -- and she did that ALL BY HERSELF!!! She never seemed stressed and remained so friendly and gracious the whole time.

If I could, I'd give Giao more than 5 stars ... she's just amazing at what she does and is just a wonderful person!

My husband worked with Linda to design my engagement ring. He talked with her, showed her some pictures and left the rest up to her. Linda took his vision and created my perfect engagement ring - I love it!! It's a simple 6 prong cathedral setting ... simple yet elegant. I love it.

We went back to Linda when it was time to get our wedding bands. We made an appointment with Linda so we could have her undivided attention. I was convinced that I wanted 2 thin pave bands - one to flank each side of my engagement ring. But, it just didn't look right. Linda showed me a band she thought would look good -- channel set baguettes -- and she was right. It took quite a few long stares for me to be convinced, but I was. Linda has such great taste! I love the way this band looks with my engagement ring. She even made a few small adjustments to my engagement ring so that the 2 would sit flush together.

Linda's great to work with. She responds quicker via phone than email. She's very friendly, personable and has great taste in jewelry! I thought her prices were also very reasonable. She's open on the weekdays, but does open on occasional Saturdays - which is great for people who can't make it up there on a weekday. It's best to make an appointment for those Saturday's though. I'm sure I'll be visiting Linda in the future as I start to build my jewelry collection.

OMG ... I was just blown away by the cake Kelly made for our wedding. It was gorgeous -- more beautiful than I could ever imagine. It was a simple 5 tier square cake, but she made it so glamorous with beautiful grey satin bows topped with brooches on alternating tiers.

On top of being beautiful to look at, it was also delicious! We had alternating flavors of white cake with strawberry filling and salted caramel chocolate - delish!! Everyone commented about our cake - first about how nice it looked and second about how tasty it was. One of my bridesmaids texted me a few days after the wedding and said she dreamt of my cake last night. I cannot wait until our first anniversary, so I can order a replica of our cake and enjoy it!

Kelly was also awesome to work with. She was very friendly, easy going and always very prompt with all of our correspondence. I would highly recommend Kelly to any future brides looking for their wedding cake!

I have very mixed feelings about this salon. My dress shopping experience was great! They have a wide variety of gowns and their sales people are extremely helpful! They have a lot of different accessories you can try on with your gown too – which can totally change the look of your dress. The store is very nice and clean.

However, when it comes to alterations, I think UB is just ok. I scheduled my first fitting 2 months before my wedding. I wanted a very complicated pick-up bustle so I brought along a few pictures to show them. The first seamstress I worked with simply said that it couldn’t be done but gave me no reasons. She pinned a few points to appease me and it looked NOTHING like what I wanted. I was so disappointed because it was my dream bustle! Since it was 2 months away, we decided not to alter the dress and to just leave it pinned.

I came back for my next fitting a month before my wedding. Another seamstress, Carmen, came in to work on my bustle and she got it right! It took a long time, but I loved it! I was ecstatic. We did some other alterations to the dress – shortened straps, fixed some parts of the lace that were kinda bumpy and turned the skirt into more of a mermaid (from an A-line). So we did quite a bit. I came back 2 weeks before the wedding. The bustle was perfect – but the straps weren’t. One side was too tight and it was cutting into my shoulder. I had the dress on for 1 hour and already had red marks. Carmen said she’d fix it and I had to make yet another appointment to go back to the salon with only 10 days left.

To my dismay, at that next appointment, it still WAS NOT RIGHT! Now the strap that was too tight was too loose! Imagine my frustration & anxiety at this point – we were only 4 days away!! She tried to give me excuses as to why it wasn’t even – saying that our bodies weren’t symmetrical. It was such crap! Even if I’m completely lopsided, her job is to make my dress fit!! I had to come back again later that same day to try it on again!!! She had only pinned it, so it was difficult to tell how it would fit. I didn’t have any time to come back again. So the Friday before my wedding, my mom had to race to the store to pick it up after it had been steamed and then go to my rehearsal.

In the end, the strap was still loose – I had to keep pulling on it to keep it up. It wasn’t that annoying – the joy and excitement of my wedding day overpowered that. But, if it shows up in any of my professional pics, I’ll be highly irritated!

In summary, I’d recommend to future brides to purchase their dress there, but I’d hesitate on the alterations. I know my dress required a lot of work since I wanted to make so many alterations, but I was paying for them. I expected better service from such a nice bridal salon. No bride needs the stress of their dress not fitting perfectly the week before the wedding. And most of all, I didn’t appreciate them trying to make excuses for why it didn’t fit.

Kathy officiated a wedding we attended in 2008. And for some reason, her ceremony just stood out to me. I’ve been to many many weddings and I can’t pinpoint exactly what it was, but she just sounded so genuine and the ceremony wasn’t cheesy or too long or too short – it was just great! We set up a meeting with her and booked her on the spot! Kathy is so organized, very pleasant to work with and so friendly and genuine.

We mixed and matched different readings and vows from examples she provided to create our own customized ceremony. She provided guidance when we needed it and even proof read our own personal vows that we wrote to each other. I also have to say she’s quite patient – we were both a bit tardy in sending her our vows, but she still managed to insert them into our ceremony booklet.

She ran our rehearsal very efficiently – told people where to go, answered all questions and all with a very pleasant demeanor. She was timely on the day of and our ceremony was flawless! She even took care of sending in our marriage certificate.

I’d highly recommend Kathy to any future brides!!!

Ryan was one of the 1st vendors we booked when we started wedding planning. Once we secured him, there wasn’t much that we needed to go over right away. However, a few months before our date, some things changed with our plans. I needed to contract more services from Ryan – namely providing music for our ceremony as well as set-up the uplights that I had purchased. This wasn’t a problem for him at all – he was glad to do it.

We were the first couple to get married on the grand staircase at our venue. Since my event manager, DOC and I were unsure about acoustics and sound, we asked Ryan to come out to our Rehearsal. He gladly obliged and came early so he could set up some equipment. He also talked with the event manager & DOC to discuss set-up of the chairs so he could strategize the best location for his speakers.

On the day of, Ryan was prompt. He was professionally dressed and the set-up went smoothly. He was ready ahead of time and made the transition to the reception seamlessly. Once the reception program ended and the dancing begun, Ryan played a wide variety of music. He started off with some oldies (per our request) and then transitioned to more recent music. The dance floor was full all night – and we had 3+ hours of dancing so that’s saying a lot! Everyone from my 5 year old flower girl to my parents had a blast!!! He took requests from our guests, did a little MC-ing and kept the party lively. Everyone was raving about my DJ – even my parents couldn’t stop talking about how good the music was.

If we had another event, we’d hire Ryan in a heartbeat. He was very professional, prompt with email correspondence and encouraged a lot of communication. When I’d forget to respond to his emails, he’d ping me again in a few days just to make sure I didn’t drop the ball. He has his own equipment - speakers, mics, wires, etc … and now he even has uplights. You can tell he takes great pride in his work. I’d recommend him to any bride that asked me for a DJ referral.

Oceano Hotel is a brand new hotel in Half Moon Bay; I believe it opened in March 2008. The ballroom seats about 250 and is absolutely gorgeous with 3 beautiful chandeliers. The dance floor is in the attached atrium, which features a huge skylight for a ceiling. Apparently, it's like dancing under the stars at night. The ceremony site on their garden is also beautiful with views of the ocean. Nancy, their event coordinator, is wonderful -- very nice, easy to work with, responsive via email. When we met her, she even gave us a tour of the hotel & the guest rooms. I believe they are one of the only certified "green" hotels in the bay area. Most of the rooms have ocean views & balconies.

After our visit, I was in love! It was the 1st venue we visited & I thought this was it! However, to appease the parents, we looked at hotels in SF since that is where all of our families are from. We narrowed it down to 2 -- Oceano & The Stanford Court in SF. Both FI and I were torn for weeks. Ultimately, it came down to a proximity issue and we went with TSC in SF instead. I think I would have been happy either way. (Secretly, I still try and think of ways I could plan some type of event there!)