Bio

VENDOR REVIEWS

1) Florist: Parties & Petals (Sharmila Gokel - highly recommended!) - My florist was by far my best pick as a vendor. The pictures of the flowers and décor at my wedding really speak for themselves! With very little guidance from me, she picked up a vision and pulled it together to make for a most elegant and vibrant wedding site. All I told her was that I wanted calla lilies, and that I wanted orange to be the dominant color. Here’s a list of some of the things she provided, really, I can’t think of a detail that she did not cover! ·

Decoration of huge concrete Greek amphitheatre. Flowers and ribbon along the aisle and fabric and flowers draped around the amphitheater. Numerous free standing arrangements with roses at the ceremony, decoration of mandap with orange and red lilies and roses that were beautiful and elegant. We had little Indian lady statues, and even the lady statues had beautiful flower arrangements to hold! Peacock style arrangement at the program table, and coordinating fabric on the tables, the stage, the aisle and along the perimeter.

Decoration of huge ballroom at the Hilton Pasadena. 15 tall centerpieces with calla lilies, 15 short centerpieces in beautiful copper gold bowls, with lilies and roses. Huge arrangement on the placecard table with lilies, several arrangements on and around the sweetheart table, flowers and décor on the guestbook table. Orange and gold zardosi table squares to snaz up the reception table cloths, and orange and gold napkin treatments to tie it all together. Cake was highlighted within a gold lighted gazebo, courtesy of Parties & Petals, and that gazebo even had orange roses artfully placed on it. The ballroom entrance had lady statutes with flowers, at the foot of which were paisley floor designs in the shape of mango leaves – just beautiful. The cocktail tables, buffet and dessert tables all had smaller arrangements. The décor was beyond my expectations, so elegant, so creative – just beautiful!! I would highly recommend this florist, her work is tasteful and classy, that people are still talking about how beautiful everything was at the wedding. If she can pull off a 300 person wedding and decorate both a ceremony and reception site like ours, she can pull off anything!

2) Photographer: Jonathan Meiners My photographer was very good. It meant a lot to us that he and his assistant captured every detail of this wedding – and we just love all of the photos. He worked hard all day – close to 12 hours – and that was included in the original package we negotiated with him. He gave us our high resolution dvds with all 1500 pics within 2 weeks of the wedding, and now we just have to tell him which 150 of those we want printed. We love his creative style and the fact that he was willing to get on the floor and jump above people to get the right angle.

3) Hair and Makeup: Brenda's Beauty Supply (Artesia) 562.809.5352. I went through a trial with Tess, and was not altogether happy with the results. I thought Tess did a good job on my hair but she wasn’t really listening about my make up, and I didn’t end up liking what she did. So I then tried Brenda and she exceeded my expectations. The make up and hair were exactly what I envisioned! Not only that, it was important for me to have someone that was able to put on my sari for me. Brenda calmed my nerves, got me in my sari and jewelry, put little gold flowers in my hair and eyebrow ornaments above my brows. I can’t tell you how good it felt to have Brenda focusing on me that day, and making sure every detail about my hair, makeup, clothing and jewelry was perfect. Also, the price can’t be beat. As a bride, you can’t go wrong using Brenda.

4) Invitations: 123weddingcards.com – No complaints. Our invites came out beautifully.

5) Mandap: Krushna Mandap – No complaints. The mandap was beautiful, especially after my florist decorated it!

6) Day Coordinator – Jeneva Snyder – We had a few meetings before the wedding so she could check out the ceremony and reception site and understand the process of an Indian wedding. She created a detailed timeline for the day of and sent it to all my vendors in advance so I didn't have to deal with it. Things kept changing on the timeline the week before, and she made all the changes quickly for us. Unfortunately, Jeneva’s assistant flaked on her for the day of, and so she had to pull in her boyfriend to help her.

Some of the things that got done: she put direction signs all around Oxy campus so guests would not get lost. She had some cassette tape music for the dances burned to a CD the night before the wedding so it could play better. She was there to direct guests coming as to where the family photographs were being taken. She paid all the vendors that needed to be paid that day, and generally directed the show at the ceremony. When the ceremony ended, she took out the baskets with sweets and set them up at the exit for people to take on their way out. She also collected all our gifts at the end of the night and had them taken to our room, and decorated our room beautifully with candles and rose petals.

Some bad things: The night before the wedding, I gave Jeneva several cd’s to give to the DJ. On the wedding day, the dj did not have one of the CD’s – so we were unable to play a special song (Track 9) at a key point in the ceremony, because it had not been given to him. Jeneva was also in charge of the marriage license, and forgot it! She had to have her assistant bring it to her at the site while we waited along with the priest. Meanwhile, back at the Hilton, Jeneva had promised to handle several tasks including placing favors on the tables, setting up the guest sign in table, and table numbers and placecards. Her “acting” assistant for the day didn’t get it done. I understand that he was a substitute, but he really didn’t know anything about what needed to be set up where. Then, on top of everything else, he left the reception site with all of my favors, table #s, placecards, guest book, pictures, etc. in a bag to drive the license over to the ceremony site. The Hilton coordinator, the florist and my friends had to pitch in to get all that stuff done. As a result, guests were arriving while things were still being set up. No one was there to direct them to the cocktail hour so they were left wandering in search of the event. This made everything appear disorganized. The cake was almost left out of a lighted arch that I had specifically rented to highlight my cake. At the grand entrance lineup, the best man got left out of the lineup. Finally, Jeneva had in her contract that she would stay to clean up, until 2 am, but she left well before clean up began. I really am sad about Track 9 not being played and the fact that the reception set up and clean up had to be done by my friends. When I first interviewed her she said that the majority of her time would be spent setting up the reception, and it turned out she didn't do very much of that at all. I'm thankful that my friends, family and the florist were there to fix the glitches - I just wish they hadn't had to.

7) DJ: Kamil Sandhu (714.222.7860) – No complaints. Played what we wanted and was on time. Has good Indian music in his collection.

8) Videographer: Spotlight Digital Creations Only seen the highlights video – but I love what he’s done so far! If you click on his website, you'll see our demo under demos (Shashi and Anil). Price was $1500, which included 10 hours coverage, 2 cameras, one still and one manned, and travel from northern california.

9) Cake: Rosebuds -- The cake tasted and looked great. There were way too many left overs because people were stuffed and the cake cutting was somewhat late. My only complaint with Rosebuds is the delivery person brought the cake and left, without helping to put it in the gold gazebo. We pay for delivery and setup, so I thought this was not very good. Also, I didn’t even realize (and nobody from Rosebuds told me) that the thin piece of wood that the cake was on had to be returned – it didn’t look like a stand to me. If you order from this place, make sure to return that thin wood base (looked like cardboard to me) or you will lose a $40 deposit.

10) Mehndi - Shear Artistry, Diamond Bar 909 861 1112 – No complaints here.

11) Reception Location – Hilton Pasadena -- Generally easy to deal with. Beautiful, large ballroom. The Hilton coordinator, Rebecca Young, really stepped up to help when it appeared my day coordinator wasn't around. We had some trouble at the end with the bar bill and improper accounting, but after some strongly worded emails, we were able to get the bar bill reduced to our satisfaction. Also, another caveat – they didn’t honor the 10 miles per dollar spent on Hilton Honors website – just gave us 1 mile and that doesn’t amount to much – we were tired of fighting but make sure to get this kind of thing confirmed before you sign the contract.

12) Ceremony Location - Occidental College Hillside Theater – All in all it worked out great, but the process gave me a headache, because Oxy told us things in the beginning (you’ll have all the set up time you need) that they later took back (we’ll have to charge you for any extra set up time). I don’t think they’re very organized and the coordinator there didn’t do a whole lot for us, but the site was beautiful and the place where we took pictures was also beautiful. I am very thankful that they did not make a deal about the ceremonial fire.

13) Calligrapher - Sofia Campos (meganadamkelly@aol.com) -- Beautiful, very professional calligraphy. i can't thank her enough!

14) Chair Covers - Mona's Flowers and Party Supplies -- 323.733.0683 Since I found this place just driving around, I was a little worried, but there was nothing to complain about here, especially for the price of $1.50 per chair cover/sash. The delivery and set up fee was $120. The chair covers were nice quality, and the organza sashes were the exact color of darker gold we wanted. Be sure to specify what time you want them to pick up the chair covers as they came a bit earlier than we expected and before the party was over!

15) Caterer - Diamond Palace is incredible authentic gourmet style Indian food. Not only does the food taste incredible but the owner sets it up in a visually stimulating way. Everyone was raving about the food – and has been asking since where they can get more of it. Again, the price of this food cannot be beat. Most importantly, there was enough food for everyone to leave feeling stuffed – and not even have room for cake!

16) Bel Air Limo - On time, no complaints. Nice big new car. (Fully stocked with not so good quality liquor!)