Our 2010 in Review

Happy New Year! We are so excited to welcome 2011, but before we do so, we want to take some time to reflect upon some wonderful achievements and experiences from 2010.

January--we started the year off with a beautiful New Year's wedding at the St. Regis in San Francisco, photographed by the very talented Jose Villa. Congratulations on your anniversary Michelle and Joe!

Also in January, we co-produced the second Wedding University, an all day educational session for newly engaged couples to learn the art of wedding planning, while enjoying champagne and sophisticated culinary from the Four Seasons Palo Alto!


The Wedding University SDE from andrew msv on Vimeo.


February and March--our entire February and March was dedicated to fine tuning the details of The Academy for Planners and Designers, a 3 day conference that we co-produced for event planners, event designers, and floral designers from all over the world. Over 120 attendees from all over the country, Canada, and Mexico traveled to San Francisco to attend this, and it was the most complex, yet amazing event we have ever produced! It was a year in the making, and we spared no expenses to bring in top notch speakers from around the country to teach all about business, marketing, design and planning. Ofcourse, a conference for planners and designers must have amazing parties as well, and there were two over the top parties as a part of the 3 day experience, designed by the very talented Gloria Wong Tritasavit of Gloria Wong Design.


TAPD Online Academy from andrew msv on Vimeo.

April and May were spent focused heavily on the planning of our clients' summer weddings. We also helped one of our clients plan a lovely, intimate birthday party at their Napa Valley home on the first of May!

In addition, we were especially ecstatic to see one of our weddings from last year featured as a multi page spread in the national Bride's magazine in May! Congratulations to our fun-loving couple Julie and Nathan!

In June, we had two beautiful weddings that couldn't have been more different. The first one was a romantic outdoor wedding at Beaulieu Gardens in the Wine Country--congrats to Leslie and Jeffrey! 

I am unable to post any photographs of this wedding yet as it will also be featured as a multi-page spread in an upcoming issue of Bride's magazine. Once the magazine is out, I will be sure to post the gorgeous photos from Lisa Lefkowitz! 

Our second wedding in June was a black tie affair at the Bently Reserve, located in the heart of San Francisco's financial district. Congrats to Helen and Hwa! Their beautiful wedding was featured on the popular wedding blog Style Me Pretty. Photographs below by Lisa Lefkowitz.

In July, I flew to Anguilla in the Caribbean for a site inspection at the Viceroy Anguilla. Ofcourse, I had to take my husband with me and make it a vacation! It is an amazing property, and you can read about our trip here.

I also flew to Dallas, Texas in July to film designer extraordinaire Todd Fiscus for a few educational segments that Wedding 360 was producing. It was tremendously inspiring, and I learned a great deal for my business. The videos can be purchased and view online here. All films produced by the very talented Andrew Hsu of Studio MSV.

In August, we had a gorgeous wedding at the Ritz Carlton Half Moon Bay that gave guests a winter wonderland experience in the middle of summer. The entire Ritz Carlton ballroom and foyers were recarpeted in white, and we had a stilt walker and contortionist to entertain guests. This wedding will be featured in Mocha magazine soon, so I can only post a few photos for now. Congratulations to Joy and Tim!

Also in August, we received a bit more press; this time, in Northern California Brides magazine! 

September was a HUGE month for us, with an over the top, ultra extravagant wedding at San Francisco City Hall. Congratulations to Nune and Roger! In 8 months, approximately 1200 hours were spent on the design, logistics, and production of this wedding between my team and the team from our design partner Gloria Wong!! What a journey that was, and I am so, so proud of the entire team for all of their hard work to make this wedding the success that it was. Here are some behind the scenes photos of our 33 hours of set up at City Hall...

A record high amount of paperwork I had for my team, detailing out the production of this wedding

HUGE decal for the dance floor! Performing on that stage were California from LA (American Idol's house band), and Village People! 

Nancy Liu Chin's dedicated team at work! 

It took a lot of hours and manpower to get this astounding floral arch up and in place!

October was a super busy month for us too, with two weddings. The first one was at the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, one of our favorite venues for its uniqueness and spectacular panoramic view from their Hamon Tower. Congratulations to Carolyn and David! 

The second one was deeply, deeply special to me. Amanda, who has been working with me as my Event Production Lead for nearly 2 years now, got married!! She married her cute high school sweetheart Steven, and it was an incredible honor for me to be her wedding planner. As I sent her down that aisle at the Julia Morgan Ballroom, I really had to hold back tears, as it felt like watching my little sister get married! Amanda has been such an integral part of my business ever since she came on board, and I am so thankful to have met her. Congratulations Amanda and Steven! 

I LOVE this wedding highlight video that Kevin Chin Cinematography just completed for them. I especially admire how he was able to convey the intimate, emotional feelings during parts of the day, and then the fun, party vibe in others. It is a perfect reflection of Amanda and Steven's 20 hour wedding day! 

Amanda + Steven from Phillip V on Vimeo.

Also in October, we participated in a cover shoot for Today's Bride, which was a lot of fun. We got to work with some of the very best talents in the industry!

We had our last wedding of the year in November, at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Congratulations to Minnie and Brian, a sweet, loving couple that was remarkable to work with. 

December is a time for us to really reflect upon all the learnings from each of the weddings that we worked on, and fine tune our processes so that we can continue to do the best possible job for our clients in the year to come. The last week of December is 'shut down' time for us though, as we also value the joy of spending the holidays with our families. 

All in all, we are extremely happy with 2010, and look forward to a spectacular 2011. Last, but not least, a huge shout out to all my event leads and assistants this year--Amanda, Joey, Katie, Karen, Ginger, Julie, Gail, Yvonne, Alice, Jean, Megan, Jacqueline, Steven, and Alan!