www.joelatterphotographer.com

Joe was hands down our best investment in the whole wedding.

All our friends have told us that our wedding photos are the best they have ever seen. One of my friends even said she wishes she wasn't married already so she could hire Joe as her photographer. You won't be disappointed. He also has a great laid back personality too, is very professional, and on time.

We decided right away that photography was the most important item on our vendor list. We figure that after the dinner and cake was eaten, flowers were dead, that we will always still have our photographs from our wedding.

He is pricey but after we got our photographs we decided he was worth every penny. Also all his packages are all inclusive with unlimited hours and a 2nd photographer. All packages except the cheapest one includes an engagement session. He also will photograph your rehearsal dinner. Instead of that we had our tea ceremony the day before and asked him to shoot that instead.

He has a great photojournalistic and artistic style. He's not afraid to get down on the ground, getting dirty to get a good shot. The one thing I would point out is that you won't get your digital files until 1 year after the wedding. You can order them online with him off pictage.com. We didn't care since we figured everyone plans to be married for years and years so what's 365 days? :)

You will get to view your pictures online within 2-3 days after your wedding on pictage.com.

Nancy is the most amazing wedding gown expert. they also have bridesmaid dresses, accessories such as veil, tiaras shoes etc.

I was about ready to give up on my search of the perfect wedding dress. I had already looked at all the big wedding gown stores in the san francisco bay area. I was not very hopeful when I walked into 2000 Dreams on Las Tunas ( they also have a San Diego store owned by her brother I think) but I was greeted by Nancy immediately and I described to her what I wanted and in less than 2 minutes she brought out 2 beautiful gowns that I was imagining.

I got an AWESOME price as well and she threw in a free veil and tiara. It's also free bustling. Her helpers are not very knowledgeable so beware! Insist on talking to Nancy.

I ordered my dress in November and I went last Friday to try it on for the first time and it fit PERFECTLY. No alterations needed at all! She only had to make the bustle.

I have heard about Nancy trying to sell more and more to customers but strangely that did not happen to me at all and I had great service with her even thought I bought nothing but the wedding dress from her.

I hired Jack and also saw him in action at my friend's wedding. I would agree that he tends to play too loudly. It was actually painful at my friend's wedding and our whole table had their fingers in their ears. It made for a funny picture at least.

I understand that Jack can speak ok Mandarin but I know it's not the best and he admits himself he is most comfortable MCing in English. It was not an issue for us because we wanted our reception completely in English. Just a side note for some of you gals.

His price is good. It's convenient that he can MC and DJ at the same time for that price. (price depends also on how many guests you have, we had 185)

He did a good job with picking fun games for us on the day of. I knew I wanted to play a couple games but didn't bother to plan which ones and I let him take the reins at the reception. We had a good time with the ones he picked.

Make sure you tell him specifically you don't want him to sing if that is a concern for you. I heard about his singing the first dance song for a couple so I didn't want that to happen to me and it didn't.

The only complaint that I had was that I was very specific with what music I wanted playing during the reception while people were eating, giving him a complete list of song titles and specific artists for each song and he for some reason decided to go off of the list. Also he decided to pick different versions of songs I had chosen, picking a SPANISH version of the song Hero I wanted by Mariah Carey by some male singer. I'd rather he just didn't play the song.

Also, he was not the most responsive with email. I'm sure he's a busy person. This is a side job. He is an engein

He was good at playing specific songs I chose for events such as first dance, grand entrance, cake cutting, and food parade.

He was good at improvising on the fly. DH and I went upstairs to change for the bouquet and garter toss and he started to announce the garter toss when I remembered that I had forgotten to put on the garter! So I interrepted him and he thought of a way to stall for time by playing the anniversary dance game and we awarded an older couple with an arrangement from the head table. That was a great idea!

His equipment sounded good (disclaimer:I don't know much about music equipment!) I do remember at my friend's reception the mic was WAY too loud however but I did not notice anything at my own reception. Hopefully my guests were okay.

He is ethical too. I had an appointment to see him before my friend's wedding that he was hired for and I was attending and was concerned that he might book my date before then and he said that he would reserve the date for me until that meeting a few weeks later. Meanwhile, he found out his cousin was going to get married on my wedding date and he still honored that agreement and I booked him right away.(does this mean he missed his cousin's wedding reception?!)

I am definitely glad we hired him because overall he is a good MC and DJ.

I would definitely NOT recommend Men's Wearhouse. I had awful customer service at the Fremont (nor cal) and Brea (So Cal) location. I think they just know they are convenient since they have multiple locations so they don't have to try.

My father's tuxedo fit horribly. What is the point of taking measurements?! The jacket ended past the middle of this thighs (he practically looked like he had no legs) and the collar did not go all around his neck while the rest of the shirt was huge on him.

I told the store that I understand my father is petite and it was hard to find something that fit him and just wanted to get a refund on 1 out of the 9 tuxedos we rented from them. They were completely not apologetic for the fit and accused me of wanting a custom tailored tuxedo. :roll: (this was in the Brea location) I had to speak to at least 3 different people and wait a very long time in the store. They first told me no refunds and then said they will refund me all but a cancellation fee. I pointed out that I was not cancelling but it was they who could not provide a tuxedo that fit. Of course I want my father to walk me down the aisle in a tux! He ended up doing it in a suit he already had. After haggling for a half hour, Men's Wearhouse finally refunded us the money.

They don't believe in doing anything as a courtesy for customers. My ring bearer was one day late to get his measurements for his vest and tie and they wanted to charge $20 for the $17 rental which we asked them to waive as a courtesy since we have spent over $1000 with them already, renting their most expensive tuxedos. We found out from headquarters that the store is able to do this but this location refused to. So we ended up just cancelling that small part of the order. (this is in the Fremont, CA location)

A minor problem was that my husband's shirt was supposed to be ivory to match my dress but it was white. Luckily he was the same size as his brother so they switched on the wedding day.

My friend just got married yesterday and was very worried days before her wedding because instead of shipping the tuxedos to southern california locations they had shipped to a northern california location. Also some tuxedos did not fit the groomsmen and they did not find this out until it was too late since Men's Wearhouse had shipped to the wrong location.

Great prices and tastes yummy too. A Chinese bakery. The girl said she will copy any cake picture you give her and if she can do it she will not charge extra for it. I worked with Mary and They were only about $280 for a 4 tiered cake for about 150 people.

If you like Elaine Chou, Nicole has a very similar make up style but a bit cheaper. She has over 10,000 brides make up experience b/c she used to work in a wedding photography studio called Promise on Las Tunas and the girls would hire them for their day of wedding as well. She also used to do makeup for Taiwan's #1 bridal magazine as well as TV personalities.

She has a package for 3 people, go to your location, hair and makeup for $380. Each additional person is $80 or it's $40 for hair and $40 for makeup.

I have done my trial with her and it was $90.

Oh I forgot to mention that she will provide veil/tiaras as well as hair extensions for free or actually a deposit which is returned to you when you bring them back.

Here is my review of Nicole after the wedding:

I LOVE not only Nicole's work but Nicole too. She is so sweet and really wants us to look our best on our special day.

Even though she had so many people to work on she did not rush AT ALL.

Then I had her also do my make-up/hair for the tea ceremony the day before the wedding.

Then the next day she came around 7:30am to my hotel room to do the hair/make up of me, my 6 BMs, 2 moms and 2 flowergirls for the wedding day.

Believe it or not she actually had a customer before me at 5:30 and she was not late at all to see me.

She brought an assistant to help do makeup/hair but I definitely loved Nicole's work better than the assistant's. After the assistant did one of my BMs I asked Nicole to have the lady do the Moms and flowergirls so that I could have consistency in makeup for my BMs.

I don't think this will be an issue for most of you. She had to bring an assistant for me b/c I had so many BMs!

I encourage you to bring photos of what you want and not go into a trial with a vague idea. I actually was not completely impressed with my trial but thought it was still good. I was VERY happy with both the tea ceremony day and the weddind day pictures because I brought her some pictures from a Chinese beauty magazine of what I wanted.

She made my BMs so pretty I told her I wanted to look like them! But of course she made me look a bit different as the bride should be.

Every time I look at my wedding pictures I am grateful I had Nicole do my makeup. I am amazed that my makeup didn't come off completely because I cried VERY hard at my ceremony and I didn't have one touch up all day.

I just got married on 5/5/07 and used Dirk too! I still have to wait on the video to give it a review but I thought his samples were great and his prices even better. He is a very nice and funny guy.

The day of the wedding he was so unobtrusive that I barely remember seeing him at all. (But I knew he was there b/c I saw a shot or two of him in the background from my photo proofs) I know he did a great job of running back and forth between the girls getting ready in one room and the boys in another on another floor.

I had my wedding banquet here. It went very well on the day of it but there were some issues working with the hotel months before. Do NOT work with Eliza if you want to book at this hotel. You will see consistent awful experiences with her. Check out chinabridal and you will see plenty more.

I worked with AMY TSUI and she was awesome. Very sweet and helpful. She helped me with so many emergencies. I hadn't been able to find a place to host my 45 person rehearsal dinner 2 weeks before the wedding and she helped me set something up at an awesome price. She even helped me check into my hotel room the night before the wedding while I was having dinner and handed me the key card so that I didn't have to go downstairs at all. She helped all my guests book rooms at a nice rate with the hotel.

She repeatedly told me I could just relax and let her handle all the details. She was right and did a great job! She is a hard worker. While I was staying up late doing wedding planning, I got email responses from her at midnight! I had to tell her to go home and get some rest.

We thought the food was delicious during our food testing. On our actually wedding day we didn't get a chance to eat much of it of course so it was cold by the time we did. Our guests said it was delicious! (we had a 10 course Chinese banquet dinner)

AWESOME service by the staff. They even refolded my guests' napkins when they got up to use the restroom. Beautiful ballrooms A,B and C. White glove service.

Make sure you work on all you can negotiate before signing your contract. It's definitely in your best interested in work with Amy. I had tried to work with both Eliza and Pauline.

I can't stress enough how important and helpful it was to have a day of coordinator. (Doris does more wedding planning as well I believe)

I just spent the whole day with my friend yesterday on her wedding day and I suggested she got a day of coordinator but she didn't want to in order to save money and she was VERY stressed the whole day. She had to constantly give orders to everyone while trying to get dressed, take pictures etc...

Doris is Chinese and is familiar with Chinese customs, tea ceremonies etc. She can speak Cantonese as well.

You do all this planning for months ahead of time and imagine trying to piece together the puzzle on your wedding day. Don't do it! Get a DOC to worry about it.

I was able to rest easy and ENJOY my entire wedding day because of Doris. Very importantly she kept us all on schedule. I don't even know if I would have gotten to the church on time if it weren't for her. She would gently inform me that I was running behind.

The part where I most relied on her to run the show was the reception. If you have tried to plan out your reception schedule you know how crazy it gets....it's a bit overwhelming to know that you have only 5 minutes to do this and then 15 minutes to do that etc...

She spent plenty of time with me before the wedding to make sure she knew my vision of the whole day and details of the reception. She made sure my entire reception's details were set up how I wanted from how the napkins were to be folded to exactly where I wanted the favors placed next to their plates.

She thought of things to make decisions on that I hadn't even thought about! It was comforting to know that she is the one making sure all the "T"s are crossed and "I"s dotted.

She came to me to let me know I had reached my limit on the open bar and asked if I wanted to open it for more money.

I was able to enjoy my meal and have her come to me and let me know that I had 10 more minutes until the table greetings, then when it was time to go change, cut the cake etc.

She coordinated all the vendors arriving and setting up, calling to confirm their arrival time the week before the wedding, solving issues that came up. She also reported back to me and updated me on relevant issues warning me not to tip too high for a certain vendor who did not so well or how another vendor DID do an extra good job.

Doris went above and beyond what I would have expected.

Great customer service. Jennifer was my representative. They were on time and I had a very courteous driver. Very organized and professional.

The car was in excellent condition, clean and was a great prop for some wedding pictures and of course we were styling on our commute from the church to the hotel.

Package includes chauffer who is dressed in a tuxedo and hat and rolls out a red carpet, holds a tray with champaigne and glasses as well as boxes of chocolates waiting for us. They will even play "Here Comes the Bride" if you wish. There is a Just Married sign in the back.

We made our first toast for each other then and there.

My guests at the church were able to ooo and ahhh it before we took off after some pictures. Guests mentioned to us they thought it was a cool car!

Pricing was not cheap for 2.5 hours but we are glad we got it.