Vendors & Services

Thanks to the vendors of the following services and products:

Engagement Ring

San Francisco Provident Loan Association. "It was all so perfect, and I cannot say enough about them, or the ring that Thu very much enjoys" from Troy's post, Dream Merger.

Domain name and hosting

DreamHost. I already had hosting from Dreamhost so it was an easy decision to go with them to register my domain and host my web site. It is a great value for the capabilities and capacities that I get. The friendly customer service is quick to respond and tries to be as helpful as possible. -Thu

Apps (Sites, Docs)

Google Apps. Google Apps has been very useful for planning and publishing our website stuff. We have the public site on the root of the domain, and a private site to coordinate our planning using Sites, Spreadsheet, and Calendar. My sister will also be helping me with wedding planning so it's pretty useful to be able to collaborate across great distances. We are also able to share things like the guest list with our parents in their respective states. -Thu

Save the Date Email

Nothing says "Class" like emailing your save the date, but at least it can be nice to look at. We used Apple's Mail templates with wording composed from various wedding sites on the web. It's also possible for power users to make simple edits to the template's HTML.

Marriage Preparation

I learned a lot from the Marriage Prep 101 workshop. I think it has helped improve our relationship even before getting married because it helped us understand concepts that explained our abstract feelings and responses.

Reception Banquet

Ming's Restaurant has great food, ambiance, lots of free parking with easy access to a freeway. Its Palo Alto location makes it a central location for people coming from different parts of the Bay Area. You can use Google Maps for directions.

Engagement Photos

The engagement photos on this site were taken by the groom's mother, Janet Koelling at Creative Dimensions. 

Ceremony Site

Cupertino Quinlan Community Center is located in a beautiful building. Unlike the other venue sites we considered, we just came upon this one by accident. It almost did not work out because only Cupertino residents could rent facilities in the center. Fortunately, we were able to get help from Tom to sign up for the ceremony space. Thanks, Tom!
 
For those of you who know pop culture, the nature of our discovery was like this: Our parents were visiting for Labor day and we had planned a picnic in the park. It was a nice day for a picnic but then, "Let me tell you, I'm really happy for you, I'm going to let you finish that sandwich, but Quinlan hall has one of the best wedding sites in the area."1

However, we are both glad that we were able to turn a relaxing day in the park into a productive visit to our future ceremony site.

One drawback to the location is that the seating capacity is smaller than the number of people that we would like to join us in the celebration at the reception so not everyone would be able to attend the ceremony. However, we look forward to partying it up with our guests at the reception!

Wedding Jewelry

We got our wedding bands from Vardy's Jewelers. Ben from SF Provident Loan Association referred Troy to Vardy's as a local jeweler for us to get our wedding bands. Because of the shape of the engagement ring, a regular wedding band would not fit flush against it. At Vardy's, Jay found a beautiful diamond wedding band that looked great with and without the engagement ring. We even found Troy's wedding band there.

As part of the morning tea ceremony, my mom was to give me a necklace, which did not necessarily have to match the dress, but I wanted the necklace to be able to be worn for the rest of the day. At Vardy's, we found a beautiful pearl pendant that went great with my dress and was also something that I could wear after the wedding.

Another part of the tea ceremony was that the groom's mother would give the bride earrings. I had trouble finding the perfect earrings, so I ended up having it custom made at an independent vendor in Southern California. I will need to look up the name.

Wedding Coordinator

Hiring Mega, our wedding coordinator, was one of the best things we did for ourselves. She helped to reduce stress and took care of details so that we could enjoy time with family before and during the wedding.

Wedding Photography & Videography

The wedding photos and video were taken by Vijay Rakhra. You can see the various links to the photos/video he created on our Wedding Photos page. The photo album and video that he created turned out great, too. We have not watched the full video yet because we did not want our memories to be replaced by video so soon. We have seen the highlight video and enjoyed it. We liked Vijay's style because he had experience doing real documentaries, so that the album and video he produced did not turn out corny and cheesy. For video, he used his DSLR so that he and his assistants did not have to carry around a bulky video camera and compete for shots. Check out his portfolio at Wedding Documentary.

Beauty Services

One of Mega's services was to help find vendors. Troy and I were able to find most vendors on our own, but hair and makeup was hard because the price range and quality was so all over the place. She recommended Bloom Beauty Boutique, where I had a trial hair and makeup run with Ming. I planned it so that I was dressed up for our New Year's Eve eve dinner date. I was so happy with the results that I booked Ming to do hair and makeup for the big day. I used to wonder if I could ever look as beautiful as every bride I had ever seen. Ming helped me answer that question with a resounding YES!

Swords

In order to get a wedding band that complemented the engagement ring, we had to pick a ring that was out of our budget. The compromise was that I would buy Troy something that he had always wanted: a real sword. If he was getting a sword, I wanted one, too. Thanks to advice from a smart Googler, I decided to choose swords that would reflect our different heritages. I ordered the swords from Kult of Athena, which sold the swords at really good prices and shipped them in great condition.

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