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Earlier today (Sunday), I had the privilege(?) of attending the 2nd Annual Wedding University at the Four Season Hotel, Silicon Valley. What's Wedding University you ask? Well, while planning a wedding can be fun and exciting (for the bride-to-be), it can also be pretty stressful (for everyone). So the goal of the Wedding University was to feed us with lots of information to help us evaluate options, make decisions and "design a wedding that truly expresses who [we] are."
Nearly 2 weeks ago, I got an email from Jubilee Lau inviting me to this Wedding University, offering free tickets to the first 5 couples who responded to her email. I didn't know who Jubilee was, how she got my email address or what this "Wedding University" thing was, but free is free so I emailed her back 10 minutes after receiving her email and won a pair of free tickets (valued at $100).
Little did I realize that the Wedding University was a 6.5-hour event (from 11AM - 5:30PM)! Had I known it up front, I probably wouldn't have tried to win the free tickets. But (unfortunately?) we did win and Rashida seemed mildly excited about it, so we decided to go. Plus there were going to be a number of giveaways at the event (the grand prize being a 3-Night Honeymoon stay at one of the luxurious Tropical Four Seasons Resorts), so that was even more reason to go. And fearing extreme boredom for 6+ hours, I decided to do a running diary of the event in order to keep myself occupied. It turned out that this gimmick wasn't necessary because the event was actually pretty interesting on its own, but it was still fun to do. So without further ado...
(wait, before I start, I want to give a shoutout to my iPhone. I was able to take all my notes and pictures with it. No pen & pad, no laptop, no digital camera, just my iPhone. "Need a gimmick to keep you from falling asleep & drooling on yourself during 6+ hours of wedding talk? There's an app for that!")
10:50 - arrived at the Four Seasons Hotel. We left straight from serving in SafariKids at the 8:30 service so we were actually early for the event. "Ben" & "early" is a rare, rare occurrence.
10:53AM - because we were early, after checking in we had to wait outside before the event opened. There was no room in the lobby, so we waited in the bar of the restaurant that was right next door.
11:00 - the organizers are telling groups of people that the event is starting and we can head on in, but they forgot the Black couple in the back (remember we're in the bar). As we're getting up to join the group, the restaurant hostess says she'll be right us to seat us, not realizing that we had been sitting at the bar for nearly 10 minutes. I think this is a new record for the longest two Black people have gone unnoticed in a fancy hotel...
11:05 - turns out that the other coordinator of the Wedding University, Jean Marks, attends Abundant Life and her husband works with Rashida and I in SafariKids. I had seen him earlier in the day running around with Marlan in Special Adventure. We were talking to Jean while waiting in line to grab some food. Let's just say that the conversation was much better than the food. I think it's a problem when the best part of the food is the dried fruit. Fancy food has never been all that good to me...
11:30 - the show begins with the MC completely amazed at how many grooms-to-be are at the event. Apparently they didn't have too many in last year's event. I gotta say I'm kind of surprised too. I thought I'd be one of the few dudes there. I mean if Rashida had really wanted to go to this event and we were paying for it, we definitely would've only shelled out the $55 for one ticket. I'm pretty sure I didn't bring anything to the table besides someone to talk to (and to hold her purse while she went to the bathroom
12:00PM - they just finished introducing the 13 Wedding University "Professors" (the people giving the informative talks). They came in walking in like runway models. I guess it makes sense since a wedding is a "fashionable" event, but it woulda been a lot cooler if they would've been introduced like Jordan's Chicago Bulls and ripped off some breakaway pants. Hmmm... maybe this 6+ hours would've been better spent watching basketball games...
12:06 - just received two pieces of information during the first talk on planning a wedding (by Mary Dann Wedding & Party Coordinators) that made me want to just skip the whole ceremony & reception and holla at the Alameda County Courthouse. 1) The reception place settings that are in bridal magazines/websites (you know, the ones Rashida reads ALL DAY LONG) cost somewhere between $700 - $1000 per table! 2) On average in the Bay Area, people spend between $300 - $500 on each person for their wedding! Now I got some good friends (some that I've known for over a decade), and I love my family members, but there is nooooooo waaaaaaay that I'm spending $400 ea. to make them happy at my wedding. And if it were me, I'd rather get the new Apple iPad and a 2-cent Polaroid of your courthouse wedding than have $500 spent on me for your wedding. Now that's what I'd call money well spent!
12:07 - Obvious statement of the day: "Sending out save-the-date cards significantly increases the number of people who will actually RSVP and come to your wedding." Really??? Why is that?? Is it maybe because they actually saved the date of our wedding??? Hmmmm... what a radical idea...
12:10 - Helpful Hint #1: Don't expect to be able to please everyone. Someone's not going to like the colors. Someone's not going to like where they are sitting. Someone's not going to like the music. It's gonna happen so don't do anything you don't want to do just to please someone else. Just give up trying to make everyone happy because it isn't going to happen and will only stress you out!
12:12 - Helpful Hint #2: Don't plan to do too much (vacation-wise or extra-curricular-related) in the last couple of months leading up to the wedding because you've got too much other stuff going on.
12:13 - Helpful Hint #3: Plan for people to disappoint you. People are people and they're going to let you down. They're going to forget to call someone, forget to pick something up, forget to send something out... wait... I think I just told on myself. In any event, expecting the disappointments to happen can help prevent those inevitable things from ruining your wedding.
12:30 - now enters Paul Kuhn, the representative for the host location (the Four Seasons Hotel) to talk to us about "beverages." Might as well have just titled the talk "alcohol" or "booze" cuz that's all he talked about for 10 minutes straight.
12:33 - just learned that a hosted (open) bar can cost around $3500 for every 150 guests. Don't be expecting free liquor at our wedding...
12:43 - just heard a hard thud, followed by a crash and then a scream. Turns out that this middle-aged lady had tripped & fell over these floor lights that had been set up for a demonstration. She hit her head on this metal thing and careened to the floor. When I got to her and helped her up, she seemed pretty dazed. She could've just been highly embarrassed, I couldn't tell the difference. When she went back to her seat and told her daughter what happened, her daughter didn't seem the least bit interested. I think she was more focused on seeing if she had won the raffle prize than if her mom might've just suffered a concussion. "Walk it off mom. Put some 'tussin on it."
12:48 - bathroom break after the first session. The lobby bathroom was quite ridiculous. Instead of paper towels or hand driers, they actually had individual wash clothes for you to dry your hands. Just throw it into the laundry basket after you're done. I wonder how much of the $200/night (minimum) rate goes towards maintaining that...
12:58 - Rashida and I browsed around at the place setting displays, each of which had a model showcasing a wedding dress from Gabrielle's Bridal Atelier and hairstyling & make-up by Armando Sarabia. All 4 models were both tall and White. In general, there's nothing wrong with that, but Rashida is neither, so there wasn't too much comparing she could do. She's always lamenting at how all the bridal magazines (particularly Today's Bride), don't have any Black brides in them. She sees lots of pretty bridal gowns or bridesmaids dresses, but is never sure how they'll look on darker skin.
1:03 - sitting in on the session about about wedding design, particularly wedding reception design by Gloria Wong and Nancy Liu Chin. I just learned that the two most popular styles are Classic &Mmodern (whatever that means), although only 5% of the audience said that that's the type of wedding they would like to have.
1:26 - Gloria and Nancy finally did something that appealed to me! They took one of their extravagant vignettes (called "The Penthouse"), and employed some of their cost-saving tips to make their "modern" look work on a tight budget. It was pretty cool. I'm all about ways of cutting costs and saving money! Although the demo was pretty interesting, the actual cost-saving tips weren't all that inspiring. They were pretty obvious stuff like using more readily available flowers instead of rare or exotic floral arrangement, simple vs. complex centerpiece arrangements, digital print vs. letterpress for invitations & place cards, etc. Still good info to have I guess.
1:36 - funniest moment of the day: Nancy was pointing towards the centerpiece of the "budget" place setting, trying to prove a point that one couldn't really tell that the design was done on a low budget. She asked the audience "can you even tell that that centerpiece is plastic?" Unlike most of the women in our session, Rashida could tell that it was plastic (as opposed to ceramic or some other undeservedly expensive material). She quietly nodded her head "yes" to herself. The only problem was that we were sitting in the front row (10 feet away from the panel), so Nancy saw Rashida and had this "oh... well... I don't think it looks like plastic!" look on her face. It was funny because Rashida didn't mean anything negative by it – it being plastic wasn't even a bad thing. She was just being honest that she could tell it was plastic. For the rest of the talk Rashida was known as "Plastic Girl." lol
1:50 - just missed out on all the food in between sessions because we were just hanging out in the main ballroom. I didn't know there was going to be more food! All I got was a cookie.
2:05 - in a presentation by Lara White & Kevin Chin about wedding photography. It seems like this presentation is going to be more about showcasing the photographers' work as opposed to providing helpful information on choosing a wedding photographer.
2:22 - looks like I was right. It was essentially a showcase of the photographers' work, but I have to admit that the work was pretty good. Now I have an idea of the quality of a photographer's portfolio I should look for. Apparently there are certain types of shots that only professionals can take either because of experience or superior camera equipment.
2:37 - there are three tiers of wedding photography pricing: FREE - $1500 (part-time inexperienced hobbyist who more than likely hasn't done too many weddings and probably has only one camera), $3000 (has been around the block a few times and may get you a couple of great shots), and $5000+ (full-time wedding professional with lots of equipment and from whom you can expect lots of amazing shots). Wait... gimmie a sec... Okay, just checked out our budget and I'm looking for a professional who doesn't mind being paid like an inexperience hobbyist. Do you exist??? If so, please email me. No seriously, email me. Please. Pretty please? With cherries on top? I'll be you're best friend...
2:57 - there's only dessert available during this in-between-sessions break. We're hungry...
It's sad when you can't fully enjoy dessert because you're hungry for actual food
(courtesy The Flirty Blog)
3:35 - funnest (not to be confused with "funniest") moment of the day: during the music & entertainment session Rashida and I got a mini dance lesson from Cynthia Glinka. She was very spunky and pretty helpful. Rashida and I might have to hit her up for a session in order to be good for our wedding dances. She was probably my second favorite professor (after Andrew Hsu, the event filmmaker). The DJ, Ron Grandia, was also pretty cool too. Helped us realize that our DJ needs to be able to handle some MC duties (like introducing bridal party, etc.)
3:50 - yessssssss! Fooooooood!!! How many short ribs sliders can I take before someone complains? Looks like 4! We were so hungry. We really hadn't eaten all day. Rashida ate three of them! No, not the short ribs – the Portabella n' Tellegio ones...
![Sliders at the Wedding University (by The Flirty Blog)](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ghI2knp4txs/S2bkpQtFJoI/AAAAAAAAKTQ/r1fAAhqm8r0/s400/the_wedding_university_portabella_lobster_sliders.JPG")
4:02 - the next session is "attire & beauty." did somebody say "nap time"?
4:08 - Armando Sarabia offered a complimentary hair or make-up makeover for one of the brides-to-be during the wedding dress talk to show off his work (so much for this just being informative). I seriously think he was about to pick Rashida before some dude on the other side of the room offered $20 for his fianceé to go up there. I was gonna put a joke here, but that would just be mean and unnecessary. It would have been interesting, however, to see if Armando's make-up artist would have been able to work with brown skin.
4:13 - Gabrielle Medrano bridal shop sells wedding gowns cost between $1,500 and $10,000. I guess we can add another professor whose services are out of our budget. It would've been nice if all the professors of the Wedding University did something similar to what Nancy Liu Chin did and provide a "budget" alternative. I'm not judging, but it seemed like most of the "students" there, like us weren't about to have a $30,000+ wedding. But maybe given the elite selection of professors, "budget" wasn't possible. I'm sure Nancy's wedding design services weren't "budget," just the type of stuff she could help implement.
4:40 - can someone please explain why a wedding veil (you know that sheer piece of fabric covering the bride's face) costs $300 on average?!?! I mean it's a glorified sun visor! If Rashida wants a veil, I'll just cut a couple of eye holes in a sheet of notebook paper and call it a day. I mean it accomplishes the function (covering her face) right??
4:42 - the woman who had a minor concussion 4 hours ago just won a prize for wedding gown preservation. I asked Rashida if she'd want to win that and she said, "What for? It's not like I'm ever going to use the dress again." Why aren't we just rent a wedding gown again??? One of the many reason men (tux renters) are sometimes more logical than women (expensive wedding dress buyers).
5:01 - looks like they saved the best for last. Andrew Hsu of Studio MSV just showed an amazing wedding highlight video. Definitely redefines my perspective on wedding videos. Instead of "videographer" he calls himself an event filmmaker. Judging from his work that title is more than accurate. It kinda makes me want to forgo the wedding photos altogether and just do an awesome video. The only problem is that these videos can take 6 months to a year to produce! And even though a majority of Andrew's talk was centered around showing off his own work (just like the rest of them), he did also include a number of great questions to ask your videographer in addition to the typical "are you free for this date?" and "how much do you charge?"
5:23 - aaaaand that's a wrap folks! We didn't win the grand prize from the Four Seasons Hotel for a free 3-night honeymoon stay in any of their tropical destinations. But even though we didn't win anything, we both felt that attending the Wedding University was definitely worth our time. We learned a lot about what to look for (and what to avoid) when it comes to figuring out place settings, choosing a photographer, DJ, etc. Definitely tired now and looking forward to a much needed nap, but I'm glad I attended.
![Bridal Magazines from the Wedding University (by The Flirty Blog)](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ghI2knp4txs/S2cICc_siDI/AAAAAAAAKUY/XXl6AZu17Ic/s400/P1110482.JPG")
Just when I thought Rashida had enough bridal magazines they give us many more...
(courtesy The Flirty Blog)
For more pictures of the event, check out the live blog from The Flirty Blog. All of my cool pictures are from there.
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