Enter Nancy. I came across her via a blog post on StyleMePretty about her own wedding. She had planned basically her entire wedding (with a wedding planner for the day of). She had incorporated the most beautiful DIY elements into her wedding including hand made invitations. She was also so gracious and offered her designs she and her husband made to the StyleMePretty community. I was impressed and when I found out she had switched careers to become a wedding planner, I wanted to meet her! I emailed her around 1am and she literally emailed me a hour or so later around 2 or 3AM! Love it! (Since then her response time via email has always been super fast)!
We met her at a local coffee bar on a Wednesday night. She had driven from Orange County to Los Angeles and had just started to get sick from a wedding she did the weekend before. Despite all that, she was a breath of fresh air. She was sweet and warm and genuinely wanted to get to know us. We were a little apprehensive at first since she was fairly new and our venue is rather complicated because we have to bring in every single vendor, but she exudes a confidence and a calm strong presence that put us to ease. The latter also gives me confidence that she will not freak out if something goes wrong on the day of the wedding. She had about 5 weddings under her belt but over 20 more booked before our wedding next June. We figured by then she would have done so many there would be nothing to worry about.
We left the meeting excited. I really wanted to book her then and there. But we had one more meeting with another planner. Needless to say, after that meeting we knew Nancy was the one. We were so excited to realize we had found the planner that would be perfect for us. The next day Mr.Lovebird and I called her together to let her know and she was excited!
Since then, Nancy has come through with a list of photographers that are more within our budget, has received a fabulous quote from a caterer we would have never thought of, has come with us to do a site visit (and offered great ideas while we were there), re-evaluated and revised our budget, negotiated with videographers, and given us a timeline to follow.
So far we are very "happi"!
We have a wedding planner!
We finally have a wedding planner! We brought Nancy Park of So Happi Together onboard several weeks ago and she has been great so far! MrLovebird and I debated long and hard on whether we needed one for the entire year or just needed one for the day of. Our venue requires that we have one at least for the day of the wedding. We seriously interviewed no less than 6 planners. Some didn't offer enough evidence or photos of their past work, a couple were great but priced for the superstars, and still another that we were really excited to meet turned out to dissapoint us with her lack of quick communication and unimpressive first meeting.
Your very own wedding movie
The thought of watching someone's wedding video is enough to make one run in the opposite direction. Who enjoys watching long drawn out footage, long speeches, and choppy camera motions? We were not even that into getting a videographer initially. Needless to say, I have been scouring tons of videographer's websites and vimeo pages in the past month. I think I must have looked into over 40 videographers and watched over 100 videos (although some only lasted 3 seconds in)! In the process, I've completely forgotten about this blog in the past month. All we've been focusing on is booking the videographer before they get booked by someone else.
The quality of some of these filmmakers is so amazing that I don't even mind that the videos are of people that I don't even know. With Canon's delivery of the 5D and 7Ds, videographers can now film some awesome footage with a small and lightweight camera making it much easier to incorporate glidecams and steadycams into their footage. Plus they can switch in and out lenses so easily allowing the ability to switch from zoom lenses to super fast lenses in the dark. The final result seriously resembles movie footage.
I think MrLovebird is happy that my search has finally narrowed down and he doesn't have to sit through too many more videos. Here's the list of our favorites.
2. StillMotion
6. MichaelYWong
Our favorite one so far is Joe Simon. This guy is a BMX rider turned BMX film maker turned wedding film maker. What a cool story! I love his work! He is fantastic at storytelling, his composition is perfect, and his timelapses are amazing! Videography wasn't in our original budget so we're looking at ways to reallocate other items so we can hire him. Hopefully we can make it happen before he gets booked by someone else. But hey, this and photographs is what you can still hold onto 30 years from today. Our kids will watch this video and have a glimpse into the lives of their parents on one of their most special days of their lives. Take a look at this and you will see how awesome he is. This has got to be one of my faves.
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