Here's a photo of me working with my peeps this past Saturday. Pictured are my friends, photographer Augie Chang, hair/makeup expert Maria Chang (no relation!) and my clients, Mai-Anh and David. (Plus, Augie's second shooter and assistant, Jason and Veronica.)
Original photo can be found HERE.
Not pictured, MB Wedding Designs, Enhanced Lighting, Cards De Luxe, The Bently Reserve, Cake Coquette, and others :-)
See Augie's original (uncropped) photo and the rest of his post HERE
The day before Valentine's Day, I gave my wife her Valentine's gift because I had a wedding on the actual Valentine's Day. (I just said "Valentine's" three times in one sentence. Gnarly.) Luckily I married a very understanding wife so I didn't catch heat for it.
Joyce and Fernando - who booked me without having met me - are a very sweet, soft-spoken couple who have a great sense of humor. (Or at least they laughed at my jokes. I assume that means they have a good sense of humor... maybe I'm wrong ;-) They had the keen foresight to know to book great vendors because great vendors = a great event.
I always tell my clients to try to book vendors that work well together as a team. I'll give you an example why. (This story kind of paints me in a negative light, but I think you can see through it and see my point. Plus, it's a great story so I'm telling it anyway.)
Maria and me. What am I doing? Throwing up gang signs of course.
It usually takes about 40 minutes for me to get from my house into San Francisco. This morning, I gave myself an hour. But I guess it was Valentine's Day or whatever and everyone was headed into the city, the traffic was pretty bad.
About 10 minutes before the ceremony start time, I called Crystal Lequang of Amazae Special Events, the day-of coordinator for the day and told her in as calm a voice as I could muster - in spite of my elevating panic - "Hey Crystal... so, what's the sitch? Are you guys all there?"
"Yeah, we're all here. We're ready. Where are you?" Crystal responded. She probably expecting me to say that I was just pulling up or I just parked my car.
"Um... yeah,... I'm still on the bridge."
Even when I heard my own words, my stomach sort of sank a little. Remember, we were 10-minutes from the set start time of the ceremony!
My friend, world-class photographer, Tanja Lippert has started a wicked new studio in Los Gatos and she's formed a photography collective between Jill Johnson, Kristy Behrs, Karen Rusten and herself. The studio is called Artique and they double as a photostudio/retail space.
Check them out when you get a chance... I haven't been there yet, but the next time I'm in the area I will definitely drop in. (I'm going to surprise them and check to see if their desks are cluttered or clean. ;-)
Here's a picture of Karen, Tanja, Tia (hair/makeup extraordinaire), and me crammed into a photobooth at Mountain Winery last week. I was working a Nicole D'Ambra wedding and it was so cold that was honestly the only warm place outside of doors.
A few weekends ago, I worked with Ed and Monica Pingol as well as Maria Chang and Karen Alumno of Professional Makeup Artistry and Fresh Bloom, respecively. I posted about it here, but promised some more photos. Well, here's me making good on my promise.
Maria is the consummate professional. She really is the photographer's best ally on the wedding day. She's constantly touching up makeup, helping to bustle the dress, refreshing the curls, herding the crowds and doing whatever else needs doing. It almost makes me wonder how photogs get along without a Maria Chang in the mix! Here are two candids of Maria rocking the glam without even trying.
Here's Ed, Maria, and Karen.
Karen had this awesome minimalist floral display set at the front of the ceremony area, but a curious little girl accidentally knocked it over causing glass and river rocks to skitter across the floor. After checking to see if the little girl was OK, Curtis - Karen's husband and assistant as well as old videographer colleague of mine - cleaned up the glass and rocks before anyone got hurt or was the wiser. Karen and her quick-thinking re-made the display with a spare vase and the show was back on in no time.
Weddings are never perfect, but with a crew of top wedding professionals at your disposal, your wedding can be darn close to it!
Remember not too long ago I mentioned a secret project that was going to be inspired by Bond, James Bond? Well, you guessed it; the secret project has to do with a photoshoot with a team of awesome collaborators. I won't mention too much about the shoot just yet, and the images have yet to be revealed, but just know that we decided to pursue a James Bond look-and-feel because of the triple-helping of suave and oozing sexiness that Bond consistently brings.
Dang. Look out smooth Bond is!
Here are some snapshots of the behind the scenes at the shoot (all taken with my iPhone)
The gals' all here! Wait... where's Jen?
There she is! Sorry for the blurry photo :-(
You know how if you stay up too late past your bedtime you start to get delirious? Yeah. 'nuff said.
So what did the actual shoot look like? OK... here's a teeny tiny sneak peak...
More to come!
Tuesday night was the first ever South Bay Martini Madness mixer. For those who are long-time fixtures of the SF wedding and event scene, you know Martini Madness as the regular ultra-swank cocktail mixer that Duncan throws to keep all the vendors in touch with one another. What's the purpose of that? Well, consider this: suppose a super chic wedding videographer is booked for your wedding date. Wouldn't you want him to be able to refer you to another super chic videographer in whom he trusts? How would Videographer-A know about Videographer-B if they don't get together regularly to chat and connect?
So you see - even though it seems Martini Madness is just a way to get together with other cool folks, relax, drink, socialize, gossip, feel hungry, wish you could sit because you've been standing too long in high heels, spend 45 minutes looking for parking and then end up with a parking ticket anyway, ultimately get home later than you planned and be tired the next day - it's actually a service to you!
Here are some screen grabs from the 30 seconds of video I took of Tuesday's Martini Madness, at San Jose's upscale Santana Row.
Hotel Valencia's V Bar - almost at capacity!
I'm a fan of cool shoes. I don't always have a huge budget to buy the ones I love, but my favorites brands are Kenneth Cole and Dolce and Gabbana. I'm not a women's shoes connoisseur, but even I think these are pretty hot. $10 if you can guess who's shoes these are and another $10 if you can guess the brand.
I'm not really sure what's so funny, but it does look like they're having a good time, doesn't it? The four pictured in the foreground, from left to right, Tanja Lippert, Maria Chang, Jennifer Skog, Armando Serbia. No hyperlinks for each name... just check out my preferred vendors list in the right column -->
If I can get these two to submit their interview answers, Armando and Claudia Akers will be featured in upcoming Take-a-Look Tuesday Vendor Spotlights! Here they're just shootin' the breeze.
Let's play Two Truths and a Lie. Read the following statements...
A) Jennifer Skog never went to Barbizon School for Models.
B) Maria Chang has never gotten into a fight.
C) When asked who would win in a dance-off, Skog said of Maria, "She'd kick my @$$ at dancing AND in a fight!"
Of the three statements, which one is a lie?
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