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We got a one picture preview from our photographers... Holy crap holy crap holy crap I am so excited about these pictures. Question for jewelry folks: My wedding band is really hard to get off and I have to take it off when I am at bjj training. Then my knuckles are so swollen that I can't get the ring back on. The band has a milgrain edge and has some engraving on half on the inside. Do you think it's possible to have it resized or will it look all screwed up because it's basically impossible to get the milgrain to match up?
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Oct 10, 2015 19:20
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ch3cooh posted:We got a one picture preview from our photographers... Stunning picture! Re the ring - the engraving won't matter since it's only on half of the ring. The milgrain definitely makes it harder but not impossible to resize. A skilled jeweler should be able to do it.
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Oct 10, 2015 22:58
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Yay, we did it! DIY photo booth was a blast. Edit: Now that I'm at a computer, a bit more info. Here was our setup: iPad Air 2: $500, but we already had this Grifiti Nootle iPad holder: $14 iShutter BlueTooth remote: $12 Ravelli tripod: $26 PB Party app: $40 (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pocketbooth-party-photo-booth/id560180763?mt=8) The app was quite expensive, but it worked really well and had a lot of customization, and supported locking out the controls and such so no one could screw things up. The Bluetooth remote stopped working at some point, but I haven't figured out why yet, and people did fine just pressing the button on the screen anyway. I also bought a lighting rig in case it was too dim, but the section of the museum where we setup was well lit so we didn't use it in the end and that is getting returned. We also bought a Canon Selphy printer, but it didn't work out, at all. The software we had for the iPad supported auto-printing, but it took at least a minute to even start printing, and then each printout took at least two minutes. After we did a test run at the venue, we realized it wasn't going to work and would just be a huge backup in the room we had things set up in, and we would have run out of paper/ink anyways. So instead we posted all the photos to Facebook the day after the wedding, and are buying a hardcover book with all the photos for us. So, if you already have an iPad available to use, and don't care about giving out photos to the guests, a DIY solution works really well and will cost less than $100. Otherwise, it's probably worth hiring someone. smackfu fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Oct 12, 2015 |
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Oct 12, 2015 12:13
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Has anyone had a Sunday wedding? I don't want to do brunch, I want a dance and party into the night super casual affair, and we are looking at a holiday weekend (memorial day) so that should help, but are there any details I should be aware of on a Sunday that don't come up on a Saturday?
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Oct 12, 2015 23:36
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Nicol Bolas posted:Has anyone had a Sunday wedding? I don't want to do brunch, I want a dance and party into the night super casual affair, and we are looking at a holiday weekend (memorial day) so that should help, but are there any details I should be aware of on a Sunday that don't come up on a Saturday? We just got married on the Sunday of the Labour day long weekend 5 weeks ago. If the next day is a holiday it doesn't really change anything except prices sometimes. Namely some venues do cheaper pricing on Sunday vs Saturday (which may or may not be held to on a long weekend, it might be Saturday prices both days). Also for hotels nearby you have to block book farther in advance because they're more likely to book up on long weekends.
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Oct 12, 2015 23:40
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Nicol Bolas posted:Has anyone had a Sunday wedding? I don't want to do brunch, I want a dance and party into the night super casual affair, and we are looking at a holiday weekend (memorial day) so that should help, but are there any details I should be aware of on a Sunday that don't come up on a Saturday? Some towns have antiquated rules about alcohol and noise (ie. party must be over by 10pm or no alcohol can be served on Sundays) so you should check if any of that affects you - your venue should be able to tell you.
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Oct 12, 2015 23:54
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vyst posted:So I'm shopping for engagement rings for the lady. I have her sister doing some recon on some styles she might like in a couple of weeks but I'm big on research and making sure I get the best deal I can so I'm starting shopping around now. I just had a couple of questions for the SA collective which are pretty subjective but I'm interested in opinions regardless. Does she have pinterest? If so, find out her login, dollars to donuts she has a wedding pin board and there's a chance she has ring styles she likes on there. Also, friends/siblings to coax info out of her helps. For ring buying, I knew she wanted a solitaire with diamonds on the band, so I shopped for diamond first and ring second. Diamond reseller offered to make the band for a good price, had him do the whole shebang, worked out great, recently recommended him to another friend of mine who just got engaged whose ring came out amazing as well. If you go solitaire, I can't stress enough that you should shop for the diamond overall. It will be your main cost and most important piece. With a halo, you can usually get away with a smaller diamond because the halo gives the illusion of size. I have (had) a titanium boone ring. It was amazing, quality was great, and his turnaround was super fast. Unfortunately I am stupid, wore it when I road in a mardi gras parade last year and must have slipped off my finger and gotten thrown to a lucky reveler with the help of half a bottle of moonshine. Luckily, I just bought my replacement and it should be here tomorrow.
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Oct 13, 2015 00:16
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Nicol Bolas posted:Has anyone had a Sunday wedding? I don't want to do brunch, I want a dance and party into the night super casual affair, and we are looking at a holiday weekend (memorial day) so that should help, but are there any details I should be aware of on a Sunday that don't come up on a Saturday? Make sure your state doesn't have any puritanical alcohol laws that would prevent you from serving alcohol on Sundays. I can't think of any states off the top of my head that would have such laws, but you never know. Some states are real weird. If you're doing a holiday weekend affair, especially over memorial day, get the word out way in advance since most people have plans that weekend. Aside from close friends and family if someone's already got their family beach trip/barbeque/whatever planned for that weekend when they get your invitation they're probably not going to come. If you want a small wedding this may work in your favor.
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Oct 13, 2015 01:43
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Well my girlfriend who has been in a back brace for 3 months got it taken off yesterday and was declared to be in stable condition by her doctor! Good timing as the wedding is the 24th, would have really put a damper on the pictures and her mood if she had to wear the brace!
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Oct 13, 2015 21:46
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Nicol Bolas posted:Has anyone had a Sunday wedding? I don't want to do brunch, I want a dance and party into the night super casual affair, and we are looking at a holiday weekend (memorial day) so that should help, but are there any details I should be aware of on a Sunday that don't come up on a Saturday? No advice for Sunday weddings in particular that hasn't already been said, but keep in mind not everyone will have Memorial Day off. Our wedding is going to be on Memorial Day weekend too (Saturday) so we're making sure to send out the save the dates and invites well in advance before people make other plans.
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Oct 14, 2015 15:02
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We have a meeting with a potential caterer. She seems genuinely interested in doing a menu that we want, vs developing an over the top expensive thing. She has good reviews and has been very professional and polite so far.
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Oct 14, 2015 15:26
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Some follow-up on the videographer discussion from a few pages back. We did hire a videographer for our wedding last weekend, because we had budget left and I didn't really feel like fighting it. Pros: My wife *loves* the 90 second preview he already put up on Facebook. I'm very happy our vows got recorded. The videographer was really cool and very professional. He was able to use available light for most of the shooting, so it wasn't that intrusive. Cons: It was quite expensive. Like as much as the photographers. There were cheaper options but I thought they were not nearly as good. He had to use an LED light during the dancing, which was really obvious to us as the bride & groom. Spending the limited photo time getting two sets of setups isn't great. And the video shots tend to take more time to set up and figure out if they will work. Photographer and videographer have very different needs, and one will end up being the dominant force, and it might not be the one you want.
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Oct 14, 2015 16:05
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We hired a studio that does both photography and videography, and to add the basic videography package it was only a few hundred bucks more. I'd recommend people who want videography to see if they can find studios who do both, because it eliminates some of the cons you listed below since they should know how to streamline everything and you should be able to get some sort of package discount. My wife and I decided videography was very important and we loved the finished product, but if we had to find a separate company to do videography and pay another $2000 for it on top of the ~$2300 we paid for photography I don't think we would have sprung for it. We ended up getting both done for like $2800 by the same company.
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Oct 14, 2015 18:34
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Yes, that's a good point. We had hired all our other vendors in February, and then in July my wife decided she really wanted a videographer. So we didn't really plan it optimally.
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Oct 14, 2015 19:10
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If anyone is considering hiring separate photographers and videographers, I'd ask whichever one you hire first for recommendations on the other. That way you'll get two people who have worked together before and like each other. Photographers/videographers are great for recommendations in general, they see the good the bad and the ugly from start to finish of dozens of weddings a year and are usually not affiliated with any other vendors so they can be pretty honest and aren't getting any kickbacks from recommending anyone in particular.
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Oct 15, 2015 01:52
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Man it feels like half the people I am dealing with for our wedding have an absolute inability to follow through or communicate. The new coordinator at our venue (The 4th since we booked with them) can never seem to call me back. I always have to call and leave several messages, when I call and she finally answers I always get "Oh I was just about to call you!" I spoke to her early last week about our final balance, I gave her my credit card and she said she was going to run the card and email me a copy of the receipt. Here we are a week later and my credit card hasn't been charged, and my messages have gone unanswered. Three weeks a go I ordered in a case of champagne which was supposed to take only a week to come in. We were in that part of town and stopped in on Saturday, they had two cases of the same product for other orders, but ours was nowhere to be seen. The guy said he would call the warehouse and make sure it got sent in, said it should be here Wednesday (today) and that he would call later that afternoon to confirm. Well what do you know, he never called and the order still isn't here. I called just a little bit a go and talked to two other people, neither of which could find my order, or even the order sheet for that matter. I told them I didn't want the champagne anymore, I will just find it somewhere else. I don't understand how people can be so inept at the basics of their job. I know people get busy and whatever, but I would think the venue would want to charge me for the full amount right now instead of just a fraction and the remainder the day before the wedding. I literally want to give them my money and for whatever reason it hasn't happened.
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Oct 15, 2015 05:20
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Our videographer was a 4th of the price of our photographer. He was really cool and was actually a fun guest. That said, he does it as a side job and thus his editing takes a long long time. We only just got the preview for our video with our 1 year anniversary a month away.
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Oct 15, 2015 15:17
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Just starting on wedding planning yesterday. I've browsed a little through Off Beat Bride, Here Comes the Guide, and A Practical Wedding. Oh man is this poo poo overwhelming. We plan to get married sometime in 2016. The original plan was December 29th, 2016 which would've given us a good amount of time to prepare, but I decided that maybe earlier in the year, when it's warmer, would be better. (Especially if we decide on an outdoor ceremony.) That means instead of 14 months to sort out the venue, catering, photographer, hotels for out of town guests, etc., we might only have 6 - 11 months instead, which might be starting planning a little bit too late? Does anyone have any opinions about locations you've used or considered for your own ceremony/reception in the SF Bay Area? I looked up a few on Here Come's the Guide's database. Currently considering any type of secular venue at the moment, with slight preference towards less pricey, but still pretty, outdoor options. (I couldn't find any information about who you'd need to contact about having a ceremony at Sutro Baths for instance. Muir Woods was an idea, but we've got 10 more guests than they allow for wedding parties.) Things we've figured out so far: - In the SF Bay Area. - Sometime in 2016, leaning towards summer or autumn. - As inexpensive as we can make it while still being pretty. I'd really like to stay under $10k if possible. - Small and brief non-religious ceremony: Walk down the isle, vows, ring exchange, sign certificate, kiss, let's have dinner. - A small reception for dinner or a late lunch. No idea about what kind of food or caterers, just that there must be a vegetarian option for some of our guests. - Guest list somewhere between 41 to 52 people, mostly friends in their early 30's, though a handful may have infants and toddlers with them. - Open bar (rather limited selection is okay, or only serving wine and beer). - Can definitely skimp on the music. If we could just set up a playlist or hook Spotify up to some speakers, that'd be great. - If we can manage an outdoor ceremony, we'd definitely consider local parks and arboretums if they allow weddings. But I'd prefer place that doesn't attract too many bees or mosquitoes. (Not really into flowers anyway. More of a tree and succulent person.) - Dress code: Anything more formal than jeans and a t-shirt. - I'm likely not going to do the traditional bridal gown. On the lookout for a less expensive option that fits well and looks nice. No real solid idea on the style yet though. Maybe a sundress or a qipao? (My family is Chinese but we've very non-traditional.) I'm not well versed in dress styles. Nothing that drags on the floor though. I've short legs, so I like my skirts to end before the knee. - We wouldn't have special bridesmaids dresses made. I'd like for them to have a unifying general color scheme though. Need to think of a color all of them would have something of in their wardrobe. Man, I don't even know what color my dress should be. Why are weddings so complicated? 
Squats fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Oct 16, 2015 |
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Oct 16, 2015 05:15
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Giant Boy Detective posted:Things we've figured out so far: I'm in the middle of planning for an October 2016 wedding, and this is almost exactly what we're doing (except in Milwaukee, not SF). My best friend is incredibly frustrated with me/our plans because they're so not traditional. I've had a lot of "but you HAVE to have *insert random traditional wedding thing*! You're going to be so disappointed if you don't!" thrown at me over the last few weeks. It will never end 
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Oct 16, 2015 14:27
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I have no idea of the prices, but have you poked at the Asian Art Museum? I got married in June at the Monterey museum of art. It was amazingly gorgeous, we had run of nearly the entire place (not galleries, but all outdoor areas and parlor), but it was $5k for the venue.
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Oct 16, 2015 16:14
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I figure you probably mean SF and surrounding areas, but I had a friend who got married at the Hakone Tea Garden in Saratoga. I guess I would check any of the local schools for botanical gardens. When we got married, the local universities all had great venues for outdoors ceremonies. Bonus discounts if you're an alumni.
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Oct 16, 2015 18:00
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Is there a reason you can't push it into 2017 if you're feeling overwhelmed moving it up to earlier 2016?
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Oct 16, 2015 18:13
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Giant Boy Detective posted:Why are weddings so complicated? They're only as complicated as you make them. It's your day, do it how you want. We were considering doing our 2nd (family) wedding at the SF Zoo. May or may not be your thing.
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Oct 16, 2015 18:17
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Just saw this in another thread. It's amazing.
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Oct 16, 2015 18:25
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overdesigned posted:Just saw this in another thread. It's amazing. Not going to lie this is pretty clever
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Oct 16, 2015 18:57
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Giant Boy Detective posted:Just starting on wedding planning yesterday. I've browsed a little through Off Beat Bride, Here Comes the Guide, and A Practical Wedding. Oh man is this poo poo overwhelming. Your list of wants for your wedding sounds really similar to ours. I would suggest looking outside of the wedding websites for outdoor venues. If it has wedding in the description/title they up the price tenfold. I know SF has a lot of lovely parks, I would google the specific park for contact info and ask the director if they allow weddings and what the rules are. Our wedding venue (in much less expensive WA ) is costing us $900, and that includes all the table, chair, dance floor rentals for the entire night and the people there are incredibly nice and helpful (http://www.ohmegardens.com if anyone is in WA). Don't let people discourage you from doing what YOU (and the bride/groom) want to do. Weddings are a reflection of the couple that is getting married. My bridesmaids aren't wearing the same dress (just similar colors), we're not doing anything religious and we're probably not doing toasts. It's weirding my mom out but I think once she experiences a more casual wedding, she'll appreciate it. Try not to compare yours to ones you see online/TV.... I started doing that and I questioned everything I was planning before I realized that's just not my style. As long as you don't have a lot of guests that need to travel and you're able to find a venue, I think your timeline should be fine for a casual wedding. Locking down the venue seemed to be the biggest challenge so far (we still need to do pretty much everything else for a May 2016 wedding). Have fun!
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Oct 19, 2015 18:44
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 So after a year of stress and attempting to plan this ridiculous Jain/Jewish wedding, we actually managed to pull it off and by all accounts people had a great time. Probably the best moment was my husband's family very enthusiastically joining my family on the dancefloor for the hora after the DJ explained it as, "It's like garba, you all know how to do that." So take heart, goons who are planning. There is a light at the end of the tunnel no matter how terribly complicated planning seems.
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Oct 19, 2015 22:21
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Does anyone have experience with booking a block of hotel rooms for weddings? We'll probably have about 40 out of town guests and I know a few are bringing pets (on the trip, not to the wedding). The hotel we're planning on staying in allows pets and is a decent price. The only other hotel that allows pets and that's less expensive is the Econo lodge... Which I really don't want to put on the invites (Hey, I've stayed there! I just feel odd reserving rooms there). I've heard you're suppose to give two hotel options, do you guys think that's really necessary? It'd be different if we were paying $300/night with 100+ guests but this isn't the case. A Game of Chess posted:
Two beautiful ceremonies!
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Oct 21, 2015 20:49
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Chessna posted:Does anyone have experience with booking a block of hotel rooms for weddings? We only booked with one place and it seemed to work out alright, but it also had a shuttle going to the venue so that may have been why no one opted to stay elsewhere. I've heard different stories, but when we were researching pretty much every place was similar. We didn't have to pay for any rooms except our own, but there were a specified number of rooms "on hold" for our guests at a discounted rate. The rooms were only held until a month prior to the wedding date, so people had until then to book, and any rooms that weren't taken by our guests were released back to being available to the public.
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Oct 21, 2015 21:40
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We looked into booking a block of rooms but they wanted a $1500 deposit that was only refundable if we rented out all the rooms we booked so we were like "lol nope". This was a Holiday Inn in a rural area in January, not some swanky popular downtown hotel during tourist season or something. No one had problems getting rooms. I'd only recommend blocking out rooms if you're getting married in an area at a time of year where a lot of hotels might be booked already or are price gouging for a particular event, like if you're my friend who didn't bother to check school schedules and booked her wedding in a college town on graduation weekend 
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Oct 21, 2015 23:42
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Giant Boy Detective posted:Just starting on wedding planning yesterday. I've browsed a little through Off Beat Bride, Here Comes the Guide, and A Practical Wedding. Oh man is this poo poo overwhelming. Have you checked out the sfrecpark.org site for places to rent out? The Stern Grove clubhouse seems really beautiful http://sfrecpark.org/permits-and-reservations/indoor-facilities/stern-grove-clubhouse-trocadero/ but you have to be there in person early Saturday morning to put in a reservation. Check out zerocater or catercow for food ideas and caterers. Zerocater is really helpful as you tell them your budget and what you want and the rep will do all the hard work for you. The beauty I've found with being in the Bay Area is that there's literally a startup for everything and I'm sure you can find some company to help ease this process. Keep in mind that you'll probably need to rent utensils, plates, etc. if you end up doing your wedding at a park. And also since a qipao would be on your list, hello Chinatown! Haggle yourself a fabulous qipao. Find a style you like and work with a seamstress. As for color scheme, just flip through some color pallets and go with one that catches your eye. And then google image search those colors and the word wedding and see if it is really the colors you want. And good on not having special bridesmaids dresses. Just tell them the color you would like them to wear and the style of dress.
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Oct 22, 2015 00:24
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My cousin got married at Sutro baths, it was lovely. The reception was in Emeryville, at Hong Kong East Ocean. Also very nice in my opinion. Not sure about prices, and honestly, it was 6 years ago at this point, so the economy is totally different.
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Oct 22, 2015 17:31
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Giant Boy Detective posted:
Hey you again. I found this list http://www.herecomestheguide.com/wedding-party-ideas/detail/affordable-san-francisco-wedding-venues/ which led me to this: https://www.hornblower.com/port/category/sf+weddings A cute cruise brunch/dinner wedding ceremony. $1130 brunch/$1300 dinner cruise and then around $73/person to get on that cruise. Includes food, cake, flowers, music, champagne, pictures. The other venues that are listed on that first link all seem pretty neat and decently priced.
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Oct 24, 2015 01:07
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 Its 11 PM here, but I get married tomorrow at 4PM! Less than 24 hours to go!!
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Oct 24, 2015 07:10
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Got engaged yesterday! http://i.imgur.com/a/yy0CX
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Oct 24, 2015 22:46
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Chessna posted:Does anyone have experience with booking a block of hotel rooms for weddings? We'll probably have about 40 out of town guests and I know a few are bringing pets (on the trip, not to the wedding). The hotel we're planning on staying in allows pets and is a decent price. The only other hotel that allows pets and that's less expensive is the Econo lodge... Which I really don't want to put on the invites (Hey, I've stayed there! I just feel odd reserving rooms there). I've heard you're suppose to give two hotel options, do you guys think that's really necessary? It'd be different if we were paying $300/night with 100+ guests but this isn't the case. If you're paying for it, just do the one. If the bill is on them it's considerate to have another option
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Oct 25, 2015 03:29
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We only did one hotel, and they provided a shuttle. It was reasonably priced ($120) and any cheaper options weren't something we were going to recommend. A friend who got married last year in a more remote location suggested a close expensive ($250) B&B and a far away cheaper option, and had a shuttle from the cheaper option, and that seemed like a good idea too. For our block, at a DoubleTree, we had a certain number of rooms and people using our code were the only ones who could book them. When we used them up, they added more rooms to the block. If we booked more than 10 total nights we got a free room or a suite upgrade. I think it was 10 nights, it might have been 20. And we probably only should have got one night of a suite but my wife yelled at them for trying to gently caress with our shuttle at the last minute. The only other problem we had was that we had family members booking rooms for other people, because I dunno why, people don't understand how to book hotel rooms, and then the desk got confused because they weren't sure what rooms were for which people somehow. Which made my mom an hour late for the rehearsal dinner she was paying half of. But not our fault.
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Oct 25, 2015 18:12
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Giant Boy Detective posted:Things we've figured out so far: We're getting married in September 2016 here: http://saratoga-springs.com/wedding/. Their larger areas (Longbridge and Cathedral Grove) have guest count minimums of 100-125 (which works for us), but their smaller sites have minimums of 50-75 and don't even have a rental fee! The bigger sites have a rental fee of about $1850 for Friday, $2850 for Saturday and $750 for Sunday (which is what we're doing). And you have access to the entire grounds for photography prior to your ceremony. This really appealed to us because we wanted a very natural setting, and they do a heavy chunk of the decorating and catering (including an open bar) themselves. A pretty standard price for the food (buffet style) and open bar is about $58/head (cheaper for kids).
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Oct 25, 2015 20:20
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Astro Panda posted:We're getting married in September 2016 here: http://saratoga-springs.com/wedding/. Their larger areas (Longbridge and Cathedral Grove) have guest count minimums of 100-125 (which works for us), but their smaller sites have minimums of 50-75 and don't even have a rental fee! The bigger sites have a rental fee of about $1850 for Friday, $2850 for Saturday and $750 for Sunday (which is what we're doing). And you have access to the entire grounds for photography prior to your ceremony. This really appealed to us because we wanted a very natural setting, and they do a heavy chunk of the decorating and catering (including an open bar) themselves. A pretty standard price for the food (buffet style) and open bar is about $58/head (cheaper for kids). wow that place looks absolutely amazing! Love it.
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Oct 27, 2015 01:28
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Finally got our rings today (after we missized my fiance and his ring needed to be resized), 2 days left of work before I head to the bakery to pick up our mini wedding cake and then it's wedding day! We're going on a 'last legally single people' date Thursday night which I'm excited for, too.
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Oct 27, 2015 20:12
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