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| My Community Bio | ||
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| Knot Name: JHCBride | ||
| Location: Palos Verdes & Long Beach, CA | ||
| Age: 28 | ||
| About our wedding: It was the most AMAZING day! I feel so blessed that I was able to have the wedding of my dreams. Everything went off with very minor problems. I’m still reliving the day in my mind. It was the best day of my life!!! Thanks to all the knotties for all the ideas and support. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to e-mail me at carolcho23@hotmail.com Professional Pictures =) I forgot to put my engagement ring back on my left hand after we got married! Oops! My Beautiful Dress! How many bridemaids does it take to put on a wedding dress? All of them! My MOH and I are trying to figure out how to put on my mother’s traditional gown. I’m all giddy with excitement in this picture. I really felt like a bride once I put my veil on! I thought my BMs looked so beautiful! They’re so amazing! The Matchmaker!! Also my new cousin-in-law! I owe her BIG! My MOH This is my DH’s darling niece…isn’t she a cutie? Here’s a good pic of my bouquet with a locket that has my dad’s pic. I really wanted him to walk down the aisle with me, and now I feel like he did Here I am walking down the aisle with my brother. I think he’s even getting a bit teary eyed! I was so proud to have him walk me down the aisle. I was really having a hard time holding it together at this point. I saw my DH getting teary eyed as I walked down the aisle and I just lost it! My advice: put some tissues in your bouquet…even if you think you’re not going to cry!! Ahhh! Finally! The Kiss! This is the bench my DH proposed on. He donated this bench to the city with an inscription of my late father. We thought it was only appropriate we go back and take more pics there. When we got there, he had been there earlier in the morning of our wedding day and covered the bench with roses. How sweet! I started crying…again! Seating Chart I Copied from the lovely knottie young_love Our Gobo! Not exactly how we wanted it. I made it on word and sent it over and told them to make it without proofing. It turns out that they didn’t have our font and MS word automatically converted it, so we ended up with this gobo with a very basic font. My bad. Here we’re watching a surprise slideshow that our bridal party had prepared for us My MOH making her emotional speech. Just when I thought I was done crying! Here we are wearing our traditional Korean costumes for the tea ceremony Here we are catching a lot of dates during the traditional Korean ceremony. Lots of dates = Lost of children! Our first dance By the exit of our reception, we had this sign on a table full of krispy crème donuts and water bottles…for the road. Honeymoon Photos One night in Tahiti, 5 nights in Moorea and 4 nights in Bora Bora…Intercontinental all the way! It was the most beautiful place I have ever been. I have never seen water this color. A perfect place to spend the honeymoon. Some tips: bring water shoes, snacks, a bottle of alcohol from duty-free, sun block and bug spray. Food and everything else is as expensive as everyone says. If you really want to eat somewhere, make reservations as soon as you get there or even before you get there for some restaurants. When we got to Bora Bora, everyone told us we had to eat at Villa Mahana. When the concierge called to make reservations for us, they told us there was a 2 week waiting list to eat there. We were lucky, since there was a cancellation on the last day that we were there and we got it. The food was great, but very expensive…our meal was over $200…but hey…you only live once! I’m all about the food, so other good restaurants in bora bora were bloody mary’s (my DH loved their swordfish)& kaina hut. Good restaurants in Moorea were Les tipaniers (good value/pasta), Linareva-le bateau (good fish, but I started getting seasick in the end since it’s on a boat) and Hono Iti (great desserts, can feed stingrays during dinner). If you do the shark and stingray feeding, do it in Bora Bora!! It was much better than Moorea. Engagement Pictures Save the Dates Vendors Reviews: Ceremony: Wayfarer’s Chapel (Rancho Palos Verdes, CA) www.wayfarerschapel.org (www.wayfarerschapel.org) I knew I was getting married here even before I met DH! It was the most beautiful chapel I have ever seen! Most of our guests were from out of town and they thought it was just so beautiful. The even stayed around after to walk the grounds and take pictures. They do so many weddings there that it was so well organized. The only thing missing was the unity candle. When we went to light the candle, we both realized that there was no candle there, so we decided to just bring our candles together and pretend to light it. All our guests just started laughing and finally the minister apologized brought the candle over. Many guests told us that it was good comic relief since there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Reception: The Madison (Long Beach, CA) www.themadisonrestaurant.com (www.themadisonrestaurant.com) Our guests were floored by our reception site, they thought it was just amazing there! This was an old bank converted into a restaurant. It’s just beautiful here, no pictures give it justice. It has high ceilings with huge hanging chandeliers and murals on the walls. They had a doorman greet each guest on the way in. Many guests said they felt like “celebrities”. They food was AMAZING! I was surprised that a lot of our guests told us it was the best meal they ever had...in their life! Can you believe that! People raved about the grilled shrimp appetizer...I didn't get a chance to try it, but I suggest you consider getting this if you book here. =) The only thing that they messed up on was the cake. I still don't even know what happened. I asked for a cake with 3 different flavors on each level (vanilla cake with fresh strawberries in bavarian cream, chocolate with vanilla bavarian cream and then a cheesecake on top)….i know weird combo. What I got was strawberry cake on the bottom, then chocolate cake, then vanilla cake....all with vanilla cream. I had a funny expression on my face when I cut the cake and realized it was strawberry and everyone started laughing. In the end, it was no big deal. Everybody loved the cake and said it was delicious. Patrick the manager and his staff bent over backwards to make us happy. Patrick is charming, generous and a doll to deal with. The site comes with a day of coordinator (see below for review) Day Of Coordinator: Lauren Reeves laurenlreeves@hotmail.com www.prince-events.com (www.prince-events.com) Lauren is a professional wedding coordinator that came with our reception site. She did an amazing job, considering she was given our wedding a month before our wedding after the original coordinator quit. She was not so great leading up to the event, she kept on forgetting to follow up on little details that I wanted from her. In her defense, she was bombarded when the original coordinator left. I found the best thing I did was typeup a list on everything I wanted and how I wanted things to look and I gave her a detailed itinerary of the day. On the day of....she was amazing!!! She made things flow and did absolutely everything I asked her to do on that list as well as some things I didn't even tell her to do. (and trust me, I gave her a lot to do) She was definitely on the ball and you don't need a day of coordinator if you have her at the reception site. She was definitely a superstar that night! Makeup & Hair: Sherry from On Location Beauty www.onlocationbeauty.com (www.onlocationbeauty.com) Omigosh! She has magic hands! Seriously, I have never heard the words “stunning”, “gorgeous” and “unbelievable” used to describe me before and that day I heard it frequently. My one good friend even said to me “holy crap! Who was your hair and makeup person” when she first saw me! My DH started crying when I walked down the aisle (and he never cries). He said when he imagined this day, he knew I would look beautiful, but when he saw me, I took his breath away. Awww! He even asked if I would wear my makeup like that everyday. Sherry provided me with a list of all the colors and brands that she used on me so that I could reproduce the look. She is sooo patient! I changed my mind about my hair so many times and I even gave her a new style that day and she did it EXACTLY the way I wanted. I loved my hair so much, I didn’t even want to take it out at the end of the night. My BMs even started crying after I was done. My hair is pretty short and layered (making it thinner), but she made my hair look like it had so much volume…I’m shocked…I still don’t know how she did it. DJ: Tyler from Higher Powered DJs (tyler@higherpowereddjs.com) Super! Super! Super! Everyone was dancing! I still can’t believe it! The past few weddings that we had been to in our circle of friends, there had been no dancing. The DJ tried, but no success. When I interviewed Tyler I asked him what he would do if no one dances….he said that would never happen…and he was right! Even my mom was dancing! They were so great…tyler even checked with us throughout the night to make sure that we liked the music and that we were having a great time. During our Korean Tea Ceremony, he found some traditional Korean music to play, I still have no idea where he found that! George arranged and took care of ordering our gobo…one less stress for me to deal with. I really appreciated having him at the wedding. Flowers: Sue Orfila from Classic Creations I was planning on doing my own flowers, but in a panic, decided to book a florist last minute. I am soooo glad that I did this. They are sooo reasonably priced and will work with any budget. They quoted me half of what anyone else quoted me. I loved my bouquets and bouts...they came out fabulously! I saw some other pics of bouquets she had done and I noticed that the stems looked too long for my short frame, so I specifically asked her to not make my bouquets long. I was thrilled with the results! For the centerpieces, I gave her picture of exactly how I wanted them....in an 8 inch cylinder vase with the flowers peaking out 2-3 inches. Good thing I went the day before to see how she was doing. She had them sticking out 10 inches from the top of the vases. It was as if she just took long stem roses and put them in a vase. Just be very specific with what you want. Don't assume. In the end...the flowers came out amazing for an amazing price!! I was very happy with Sue and Carolyn. =) Chocolate Fountain: Pure Bliss Chocolate Fountain www.pureblisschocolate.com (www.pureblisschocolate.com) I am so glad that I got a chocolate fountain! I hadn’t even seen a chocolate fountain before until the knot! It was a new phenomenon to many of our guests as well. They loved it! I called at least a dozen companies before I booked Pure Bliss with the recommendation of knottie pompong. They had the best price for the Large fountain that I wanted (I wanted to make a statement). They even decorated the table to match my colors. Photographer: Ben from Sun-Dance Photography www.sun-dancephotography.com (www.sun-dancephotography.com) This review is pending since I haven’t gotten my pics yet. But seriously, these guys worked so hard and they were everywhere and taking pictures of everything. They were so polite and courteous and they went through film like water! I booked Ben without ever meeting him. His work from other knotties was enough to make me feel confident. I love the knot! Videographer: Young from Firefly Productions www.fireflyvideography.com (www.fireflyvideography.com) Amazing so far! I sent my itinerary to all my vendors prior to the wedding and he actually read it ahead of time. He even found mistakes on my (very detailed) itinerary and let me know the day I sent it. The guests raved about him. He came over an hour early to make sure to get all the details. They even had a hard time trying to get him to sit down and eat since he didn’t want to miss anything. He was so hardworking and many of our family members told us he captured everything without being intrusive. To tell you the truth, I didn’t even see him the whole day! Dress: Reem Acra’s Good Luck Ahhh! I loved my dress! So many people told me that it was the most beautiful wedding dress that they had ever seen. Even my wedding coordinator told me that she had done a lot of weddings, and she had never seen such a beautiful dress. =) I fell in love with this dress after seeing it on pipsqueak78 and mrsrobsbutton. I am planning on selling this dress, if you’re interested, e-mail me carolcho23@hotmail.com (it’s diamond white size 10) Alterations: Lady Jane from Toluca Lake (818)761-3541 I went to Lady Jane because I didn’t want to trust my Reem with just anyone, I wanted someone who had lots of experience with Reems. She was lovely, her shop was outdated and very small, but she definitely knows what she’s doing when it comes to wedding dresses. She is so old school that she doesn’t even own a computer. Her prices were a steal! Other people with no experience with reems quoted me 3 times as much! The only thing is that I had to go for more fittings than I think I really needed to. Since I live in Redondo Beach, it was a pain for me to drive there so many times. All I needed was a hem and a bustle and I ended up having 4 fittings. The first time I went she pinned the hem and told me that she would bustle it after the hem was done next visit. My 2nd fitting there was nothing done, she said she just wanted to make sure that the hem length was correct and then she pinned my bustle. My 3rd fitting, still nothing done, but she wanted to make sure that I liked the bustle. My 4th fitting (the day before the wedding), everything was done and it was perfect, she even steamed my dress and veil. I should have probably said something to her during one of my earlier fittings, but I didn’t have the heart. I’m still very happy with the results and I’m glad I was patient. One more thing, she only takes cash. I didn’t know that and I didn’t have enough cash with me, but she said that was alright and she just took what I had. Veil: Chapel Length Drop Veil from veilshop.com I had to get this veil after seeing it on the beautiful mrsctjnbride. I got is super fast as well! It was perfect! I am selling this as well if anyone is interested (carolcho23@hotmail.com) BM Dresses: Dessy 1986 from www.chrissyobridal.com Jessica from Chrissy O Bridal was such a gem! I still can’t believe how much I got my dresses for! The bridal store wanted to charge me $180 for each dress, I ended up getting them from Jessica for $80 something! Can you believe that?!?! Plus, Free Shipping & no tax! Invitations: DIY Thank You for Visiting My Bio! create your own visited country map  | ||