HI!

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wedding part two!

Our first wedding on Feb 27^th 2010 was a tsunami wedding, an earthquake hit Chile causing 53 countries to be on Tsunami watch. Our little outdoor wedding in San Diego wasn’t spared mother nature’s wrath, it not only poured buckets of water, huge waves crashing onto the cliffs but the gale force winds started to take out our tent. At which point our DOC had to shut down our wedding for safety reasons, two hours from when it started it was all over, nearly a year and a half of planning gone. I was devastated, then the opportunity to redo our wedding day was in front of us, a blessing I thought, how lucky that our DOC from our first wedding thought to consider us for a redo!

Working with Diann Valentine was a blast, she truly is gifted, and I wish I had the millions it would cost to really hire her to do an event, but since this was for TV, everything was for the show first, though I think their budget limitations were the major reasons why the entire thing wasn’t a complete success in my eyes.

We were able to describe in detail to the producers what our “dream” or ideal wedding would be, and there weren’t a lot of those aspects that were translated into the redo, for instance, my guests were served chicken as their dinner, my guests knew right away I didn’t pick the menu, I would have never served chicken at my wedding, the open bar, made guests pay for their sodas, since both my husband and I don’t drink, the biggest pet peeve of ours is having to attend a wedding and pay for sodas! Why ask me what I want to serve or what type of music I want if you aren’t going to provide it anyway? Why ask us about our dream vacation if you aren’t going to send us there, planted seeds to lure us along to make sure we wouldn’t drop out? Maybe, or the show just really had zero budget, I paid for a lot of my family from the East Coast to come out, I couldn’t ask them to do it all again less than a year from the original date!

The final reveal when I got to see the beautiful setting was truly spectacular, I was so mesmerized by the view, it was prefect in every way, except the COLD weather, something mother nature has against me, im not quite sure, but IT WAS FREEZING! The production folks all knew it would be cold because they were packed up like sardines in the arctic! Im not quite sure why we didn’t think a CLEAR tent wouldn’t have come in handy but hey im sure if we had a tent to make sure everyone was warm then some other weather disaster would have probably hit us! Beyond the décor and beautiful setting, my first wedding was everything I wanted, because my focus on the guests were apparent where as this second redo was really focused just for the show aspect and everything else was secondary.

I feel a bit used but at the same time I ended up spending money that I probably shouldn’t have and had I not spent the extra money which wasn’t necessary I probably wouldn’t feel as bad. It still wasn’t a good time; it literally felt like it was 20 degrees! My guests were all freezing and all we could think of is when is this going to be over so we can all go home. If I could have done things differently I would keep my expectations low and understand that it’s a show first, we didn’t win some lottery where some philanthropist decided out of the goodness of his heart to just throw me another wedding.

The fimlimg was quick and was painless, there is a lot of downtime and setup time where you should be prepared with multiple phones and lots of battery life to keep you busy. Reality TV, CHECK and I can say its off my bucket list. Im not quite sure what you will see since the magic of editing will happen but I imagine you will see a very “overwhelmed/speechless bride and groom” we tried to put smiles on as we knew there were so many great folks working behind the scenes for the show, and Diann was a real pleasure to be around, you can see her talents, and im sure there were things she would have preferred but wasn’t able to get because of the budgetary restrictions or network constraints (or id hope she wouldn’t serve chicken at any wedding – don’t get me wrong I don’t mind chicken, I just hate it at a wedding) I just wish the crew and Diann success, overall I am able to appreciate my Tsunami two hour wedding because of the redo, which I would have never been able to do without this opportunity, so thank you WETV!

didnt meet my expectations

the entire thing was a bit of a whirl wind but the views in Malibu were beautiful and i couldnt have asked for a more gorgeous backdrop. Unfortunately the weather still didnt cooperate and it was freeeeeeeeezing! the floral decor was beautiful. I met some very cool folks and vendors I would have never had the opportunity to have worked with but in the end if i had to do it all over again, id have to pass, it just wasnt focused for the bride and groom, i should have expected that, show first everything else last.

I do hope the pictures come out beautifully.

got it!

we nailed it! :D some good news and some bad news comes with all of this.... NDA signed, so i cant say just yet... stay tuned

soooooooooooooooooo close!!!!!!!!!

we're 1 of 3 finalists!!!!!!! this friday the film crew is coming by!!!!!!

WeTV

Well its been a month since we became applicants for a redo wedding from WeTV! we should find out sometime next week if we have been chosen as one of the Los Angeles area couples for a fabulous redo wedding, all expenses paid from WeTV! *crossing fingers*

ZaZa Gallery... a family run business from California..Beautiful Canvas Prints

Lets try and spread the word on small business owners who do great work and for a reasonable price....

On my most recent trip back home to Philly, my brother in law (@JeaLeePhotoblog) who is a photagrapher had a beautiful canvas of a print shot he had done of the city skyline, and he told me about zaza gallery http://www.zazagallery.com , which coincidentally was in California (where i currently live)

The quality and picture was beautiful and the best part of it all? It was FREE!! ZaZa Gallery (http://www.zazagallery.com) had a promotion to spread the word of their business and for that they gave away 16x20 canvases. Now, you would think for something free it wouldnt be as high quality as what they sell, nope, the quality was amazing and just as the original you would purchase from them. Kudos to the husband and wife team at zaza gallery who i hope will continue to grow!!