Fun and Fancy Wedding at the Bently Reserve

There's no better way to meet a new client than to have them walk in on one of your events during set up, be completely blown away by the design, and then decide right then and there that they've got to hire you to design their own wedding.

That was a true story of how I met Dana. Our team was installing for a beautiful event at the Bently Reserve and was about 75% done when Dana walked in with the venue manager to do a site visit. She was too polite to interrupt our installation but after conveying how much she loved what she saw, the venue manager introduced us. I felt so humbled at all of Dana's compliments at the time, and was thrilled when she reached out to me the very next week, asking me to plan her wedding.

Dana and Hisham lived in Southern California and were both extremely busy with their careers, so they basically entrusted our team with all aspects of the wedding, from the more macro tasks of hiring the right team, to the tiniest of details like preparing comfortable flip flops for her guests to dance in. They flew in once to do their menu tasting, design meeting, table mock up, and final site visit and left everything else to our team.

The Bently Reserve is one of the most classic venues in San Francisco, and is a wonderful blank canvas for us to work with. After curating through all of Dana's pins on Pinterest, we proposed a design concept that conveyed a style/mood of a dreamy luxe garden that would be fancy, yet fun. The details would be refined, yet relaxed, and we would incorporate a clean mix of Old World details and modern touches. Dana loved this concept and so we ran with it, using warm tones of grey, blush pink, and metallic gold.

The results were just what Dana and Hisham envisioned, and we couldn't be happier to watch them walk down the aisle that day! Hope you enjoy these lovely photos from Chung Li:

The awesome team that made our clients so incredibly happy:

Event Design, Planning + Production: Jubilee Lau Events

Venue: Bently Reserve

Catering: Melon's Catering

Bar Service: Best Beverage Catering

Photography: Chung Li Photography

Floral Design: Cherries

Lighting + Draping: Enhanced Lighting

Stationery: Aerialist Press

Rentals: Classic Party Rentals

Linens: La Tavola Fine Linen

Votives: Theoni Collection

Cheers,

FROM MOOD BOARD TO REALITY

Some of our clients come to us with a very specific vision for their wedding. Some have absolutely no idea what they want in terms of design, and some have wayyy too many ideas (thanks to Pinterest) that are all over the place. If you fall into any of these categories, that's okay! Know that most couples are likely in the same boat as you are, and part of the process in the beginning of the wedding planning is to filter and curate through all the different ideas to hone in on a design direction that truly speaks to you! 

When we kick start the wedding planning process with our clients, we always start off with an extensive Design Questionnaire. It's a series of questions that encourages you to think through some of the bigger wedding questions. It's also a way for our team to get to know you and your relationship on a deeper level. Some of these questions could be:

What are you known for as a couple?
What are your favorite brands and what do you like about them?
Where do you dream of traveling to and why?
How would you describe the mood of your dream wedding?

....and so on. After reviewing all of your answers, and taking the time to go through every pin on your Pinterest boards, we would present a Design Summary with a mood board that portrays that look and feel of your wedding. Below, you'll see one that we did for a wedding at the Bently Reserve in San Francisco, where we described the wedding style as clean, modern, sleek, streamlined, structural, refined and polished. We went for a color palette of black, pearl white, champagne and blush, with accents of metallic gold.

We love dreaming up great ideas and beautiful details with our clients, but what we also happen to thrive on is the work that is required to bring all of those ideas to reality! This includes finding vendors that are the best fit to produce the results that we want, working out the logistics on the backend to ensure the ideas can truly execute well, and a lot of other "behind the scenes" production work that is absolutely critical. Although such detail-oriented work may not feel fun to most people, our team truly finds it as one of the most rewarding parts of what we do! 

Here's a collage to show how we brought the above mood board to life at the Bently Reserve! 

Photos by Milou and Olin Photography

Cheers,

MARY-ALEX AND THOMAS' DESTINATION WEDDING AT DE YOUNG MUSEUM

I would say that more than half of our weddings are destination weddings, many of which are in San Francisco. Between our beautiful city and nearby gems like Napa Valley and Carmel Valley, the Bay Area attracts couples from all over the world as a popular destination for weddings.

Our lovely couple from Texas, Mary-Alex and Thomas, visited San Francisco a few years ago and fell head over heels in love with the city. They knew then, that if they were to get married one day, it could only be in San Francisco.

Fast forward to 2015 and their dream came true. With all 120 friends and families from different parts of the country, they united in this magical city by the bay to celebrate their union.

The wedding day began at the historical Mark Hopkins, perched atop picturesque Nob Hill. With 12 bridesmaids and 2 moms to keep her company, Mary-Alex's bridal prep in the morning was filled with laughter and champagne--a great combination! Thomas' suite was bustling with people as well, and a million dollar view of the city!

Their first look took place right outside the hotel, and to add to the sentiment, they decided to exchange gifts to one another as well. 

While their bridal party of 24 hung out in their hotel suite, their photographer took them around the city in a cable car trolley for some iconic shots. They then reunited with everyone and headed to the De Young Museum for more photos before the ceremony began in the late afternoon.

The ceremony took place in the Sculpture Garden, and despite the chilly weather that day, everyone was in good spirits as they witnessed Mary-Alex and Thomas being joined together as one. 

Cocktail hour was held in the Hamon Tower, with a 360 degree view of San Francisco. As you can imagine, guests were incredibly fulfilled up there, between admiring the view and indulging in delicacies by Componere Fine Catering! 

During the planning, both Mary-Alex and Thomas expressed that they weren't very fond of the traditional seated dinner, despite its formality for a wedding. They much preferred having guests eat, mingle, and dance simultaneously throughout the evening so that it felt like one great party. We worked closely with Componere Fine Catering to develop food stations that would be interesting, filling, and easy to move around with. We also provided a mix of tables/chairs, furniture vignettes, and cocktail tables for those who did desire a "home base" while they ate. It all worked out beautifully. The elderlies appreciated the seating available, and the younger crowd loved not being confined to a seat for 2 hours. Just as our couple envisioned, people ate, chatted, danced, and ate some more. It was truly one awesome party! 

Thank you, Mary-Alex and Thomas, for entrusting us with your wedding from the start, and thank you to our all star team for working so hard to make it spectacular! 

Event Design, Planning + Production: Jubilee Lau Events

Venue: De Young Museum

Caterer: Componere Fine Catering

Photographer: Augie Chang Photography

Floral Designer: Cherries

Custom Linens: Wildflower Linens

Furniture: Pleasanton Furniture

Wedding Cake + Groom's Cake: Jasmine Rae Cakes

Cable Car Trolley: Classic Cable Car

Vintage Rolls Royce: Nationwide Limousine Service

Makeup + Hair: JBeautique

Lighting + Draping: Enhanced Lighting

String Ensemble: Starlite Strings via Bay Music Entertainment

Live Band: Lucky Devils

Officiant: Reverend Charlies Regal

HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR WEDDING VENDORS

After you've set a date and secured a venue, the next big task on the wedding planning to-do list would be to pull together the best possible team of vendors.

As a side note, I usually don't like to use the term "vendor" because it misrepresents the amazing artists and talented professionals that these people are. Vendors make it sound like they are commodities and they truly are anything but. The event professionals that we recommend and work with are passionate and creative artists that are devoted to producing the best possible work for their clients. There is heart behind their work, whether it's creating a bridal bouquet, designing menu cards, or photographing an engagement session.  They care about your wedding and feel honored to be a part of it.

That said, there are certainly some black sheep that have caused a bad rep for everyone. We've all heard the horror stories of photographers closing shop before albums were produced, of Officiants who pronounced the couple with wrong names at the ceremony, or cakes that didn't hold up in perfectly fine temperature. The truth is, as with any industry, there are unethical, unreliable, and untrustworthy people in the wedding world as well. What I'm hoping to do in this blog post, is to provide you some tips to avoid hiring such vendors as part of your wedding team.

If you have a Wedding Planner, you should most definitely trust him/her to recommend the right event professionals for you. They would know the ones to be the best fit for your budget, your personalities, and the overall context of your wedding. If you are not working with a Wedding Planner, here are our top tips for you to vet your own event professionals:

1. When asking them to provide references, do not ask for the names/contacts of former clients. It goes without saying that businesses will only provide names of highly satisfied, happy clients who will give raving reviews of their work. Instead, ask for a list of venues they work at most often, and then reach out to the events department at those venues to ask about their experiences with these event professionals. 

2. When reading online reviews, pay close attention to any negative ones. You can often tell if the reviewer is a high maintenance, overly demanding client or if the event professional truly failed in certain areas. If possible, see how the issues raised were resolved. Did the event professional respond to the review in a defensive manner? Or did he/she show sincere regrets and tried to make things right for the client? The truth is, we all make mistakes no matter how great we are at our jobs. The important thing to note is how we handle mistakes that come up, which can be telling of our integrity and business/personal values.

3. What kind of processes do they have in place when working with clients? Those who have been in the business long enough knows the importance of having some kind of process. There are so many details in a wedding, and by having a good process in place, you can rest assure that the event professional will be organized and on top of the details for all of their events.

4. Attitude matters. How excited are they about your wedding? Does it sound like your event is just one of many events for them? Hiring people that are passionate about what they do makes a big difference on the quality of work they produce. We all know that if we love what we do, it never feels like a "job" and we would put in our best efforts at all times.

5. What other event professionals are they associated with? For example, if the company you are vetting claims to do "high end weddings" and prices their services that way, check out their past work to see what venues, event planners, and other event professionals they have worked with. Are those all high end professionals as well? 

6. Be wary of prices that are too good to be true or that are not in line with the quality of event you're looking to host. Event professionals who are serious about their jobs know that they need to charge fairly for their time and expertise. Those that are quick to give discounts may either be weekend warriors (they have another full time job during the week) trying to gain more experience, or they have to make up for the loss somewhere else (such as cutting the time they have to spend preparing for your event, or taking on more volume even though they are not equipped to handle it). 


In this age of social media, it is often hard to tell if a company's online persona is truly reflective of their real personality and business values. Therefore, we encourage you to chat with them over the phone, Skype, or to meet in person. Getting to chat with them live will allow you to see if you can establish a good rapport with them. At the end of the day, you want to hire people you genuinely like and trust, because you will not have the capacity to micromanage them on your wedding day.

Lastly, I want to mention that the team dynamics on a wedding day can really impact how well the event is executed, so it would be to your benefit to hire a team that is already familiar with one another. Just like in an office setting, working amongst team members that you know and genuinely like can make a project so much more fun and productive. Everyone pitches in to help one another and works harder. It's the same for wedding professionals! Once you've hired a photographer, ask them who they enjoy working with for makeup/hair, cinematography, flowers, etc. Chances are, those references would be a great starting point for you to go off of!















Happy planning!

Cheers,