Happy Thursday! I would love to introduce Sophia, our guest blogger today. Sophia and Denby’s wedding celebration was filled with tons of friends, family, and culture. Their pink color scheme was incorporated throughout the entire wedding; evident in Sophia’s second dress change!
My husband Denby and I met back in 2000 in college through mutual friends. A few months later, we ran into each other at a rave and spent the entire night talking because we were just glad there was a familiar face. A few months after that, we started to spend more time together at school and outside of it as well. We slowly fell in love and spent nearly every waking moment together. If one was working, the other would go there and hang out. After 7 years, Denby was going to propose on a cruise that we planned to take with my cousin and her husband, but since my mom sort of ruined the surprise, he had to change his plans. He got me off work early the night before the cruise and took me to dinner. After dinner he said he was taking me to look at a really nice house in Pasadena but actually took me to the Langham Hotel. He proposed on their famous Picture Bridge and after saying yes, he took me to our room, where he decorated the room with rose petals and candles. There was a bubble bath waiting for me, along with sparkling wine and fresh cut strawberries.
After Denby and I got engaged and decided to take our engagement photos in Taiwan, we started to worry about all the other stuff that needed to be done: flowers, music, attire, etc. Our first priority was to find a coordinator and luckily I came across Carolyn Chen from The Special Day. After meeting with her, we decided to book her even without meeting with other coordinators. It helped a lot that she spoke Chinese because our parents do not speak a lot of English. Carolyn helped us choose most of vendors because she has worked with them before and trusted their work. Planning came easy after that because Carolyn was able to tie up all our loose ends into a pretty bow. I have always loved pink and Japanese Cherry Blossom flowers so this was the perfect time to bring all of that together.
Since Carolyn had worked with Elysium Productions before, it was easy for us to understand how important it was to have the best of the best for everything in our wedding. We saw a video for the Arthouse Edit and loved it. We loved how it looked like a movie, instead what we’ve seen in the past, which was hours of unedited footage with all the background noise. We wanted our friends and family to experience something that they’ve never experienced before, and since we are one of the first to get married, it was easy to set the standard. Everything about our wedding was modern and fresh, and Elysium captured it in a way that will allow our friends, family and us to enjoy it for years to come.
Since I only had less than 4 hours of sleep in the 2 days before the wedding, wedding day was nearly a blur. In a way, we were glad that our final day has finally come so that we could sleep and not think of payment due dates, schedules, and anything wedding. Our eyes were open and seemed to comprehend everything but both of us were really sleeping under that, haha. We followed Carolyn’s timeline even though we didn’t know it well. We didn’t get to eat most of our meal but that was expected. My favorite memory of the day was when I pulled Denby into the photo booth so we could take some pictures together. We went in there twice because I had 2 different dresses. It was the only part of our day where we had to ourselves with no one around, even if it was only minutes at a time. The wedding looked and felt better than I expected. Everything and everyone I loved were all in one area; the pink, the cherry blossoms, the friends, and the family, even the family who came from other countries. Like I said before, Carolyn pulled all the strings together and made it into a pretty bow. Everything ran smoothly and couldn’t have been more perfect.
Tips for future brides: Find out how much you can afford to put into the wedding. If parents are helping to pay for it, make sure you guys agree on who gets to make the decisions and whether or not whose money it belongs to will affect that decision or not. Choose your wedding party wisely. Just because she is your best friend, she may not be the most qualified because she may be unreliable, irresponsible, or just may not have the funds to help with events. Choose your guest list wisely as well. I’d like to say that everyone I invited to the wedding are going to be people that I will continue to keep in contact with, but that is not always the case. And lastly, don’t be afraid to ask for help. I didn’t want to burden anyone and by doing that, we hardly had any sleep the week of the wedding. We were bickering with each other because we were tired, irritated and frustrated.
-Sophia
Elysium Productions: Contemporary & Stylish Wedding Video in Orange County and Beyond!
Vendors:
Venue: Hyatt Huntington Beach
Wedding Coordinator: The Special Day
Photographer: Travis Hoehne Photography
Event Filmmaker: Elysium Productions
DJ/Lighting: Honored Occasions
Photobooth/Projector: Cheesy Photobooths
Linen: Wildflower Linen
Chairs: Chiavari Chairs 4 Rent
Flowers: Fragrant Flowers in San Gabriel, CA
you’re just buying the doniams to redirect to the main site, then they won’t get indexed as there’s no content on them. Because of this, they’ll offer no value unless someone directly types it in. And I certainly wouldn’t advise using them on your marketing material as you’d only be diluting your main brand domain.I would suggest only buying multiple doniams to redirect that are key to your brand (i.e. the .co.uk if you’re UK based, and maybe the odd obvious misspelling) if only to prevent someone else buying it and charging you through the roof for it.Hope that helps