We are married!

Yes, we are married. What to blog about now. Well, how about the wedding. Things went wrong, things went right, but things went smooth. That is the way it should be. I will be blogging about this later as I am probably on my honeymoon and just post randomly.

For those who are using Michael C. Events for your wedding, email me at baleong at gmail and I will have to tell you what to watch out for when you use him. Just some bewares which we found out first hand.

Woot woot, married and now it is honeymoon time!

What's my name fool?

Yeah, what is my name. Let's just say my name is Dan. You know my name is Dan, my parents know my name is Dan and my librarian knows that my name is Dan. My name is not Daniel, Danny, Dannyboy, David, Ron, Bob, or any other creative name. On my wedding invitation it says Dan Doe and Jane Doe's Wedding. The check that you are getting from me says Dan. So why do you insist on calling me Danny?

We were at my wedding and this DJ, let's say it was a she and her name was Karen (b/c as Dane Cook says, "Karen is always a douche bag") can't my name right for the life of her. So Karen proceeds to say, "Welcome to the wedding of Danny and Jane". Strike 1. My name is Dan. Then she goes "Danny and Jane want to hear those glasses clang." Strike 2. You get the point. Even after we go up there and tell her that my name is Dan, she proceeds to call me Danny. Even after my grandma goes up and says "Listen douche bag, his name is Dan and I don't know who Danny is, but you better get this right before I take my teeth out and throw down", Karen still gets it wrong.

Now, how are you suppose to make money after this wedding if you can't even say the groom's name correctly. Do you have some place else to be? Do you have to go meet your boyfriend DANNY. Who is this Danny who is supposedly at the wedding. Some summer fling you can't get out of your mind. A hidden 90210, Melrose Place, or Gossip Girl character?

Please, how hard is it? I would understand if they had some name that was like 10 syllables, but for realz. 1 syllable. That is it. 1 syllable, 3 letters. That is all it is. you suck as a MC because you don't even know who is getting married. And you suck as a DJ b/c you can't mix worth a $@!t. You are fired. End of story.

I hate Gary Fong

Ok, I don't hate Gary Fong, but I hate the inventions that he has made for the camera flash. There are two that are just horrible: the Lightsphere and the WhaleTail. If you don't know what these are, here is a picture:



Essentially they go on top of the flash to make the light softer so that you look prettier. I have no problem with diffusers as they really help, but these completely suck. Not for the photographer, not for the subjects, but for all the people around these monstrosities.

Let me get my first beef out of the way: They are both ugly. Who wants a freakin WhaleTail coming out of your camera. This isn't some rice rocket Civic cruising down the street; this is a wedding, an event. The photographer is not suppose to stand out. It isn't suppose to look like Shamu is breaching from an ocean of guests everytime the photographer gets up from their knees. We are at a wedding, not Marine World.

My second beef with these things are: They light up like a lightbulb. Seriously. The whole thing lights up like the sun. Not only do they light up the subjects, but they light up every one around it. They light up Mom to the left, Dad in the back, and Grandma up top. Every time the photographer takes a picture, you think it is distress beacon. You immediately look for a raft and life vest until you realize you are at a wedding. (Of course you are drunk, so this realization might take a minute or so.)

I have been to two weddings with photographers who use these beasts. The first one, I was just in awe because I have never seen anyone use it before. The 2nd, I was just plain annoyed. Mainly because I sat in front and sometimes the photographer would come in front of me and take pictures. After a while, I just had to close my eyes because it was getting some damn annoying. I started hallucinating and thought I was in a X-Files episode and the aliens were doing experiments on me.

In general, photographers don't use these products, but I would just inquire when you are interviewing them so your guests are not subjected to constant strobe light.

Talk about Quick Cash

I know how to make quick cash. I wheel and deal and make extra money here and there, but this officiant business is some serious quick cash. Now granted you only can do like at most 3 weddings in a day and most of the weddings happen only one day of the week, but you could make some serious money on that one day.

We went down to the wire on the wedding officiant (as in booked him two days ago) because I couldn't stomach the amount of money it would cost. $400 for the day of, $50 for commute, $150 for rehearsal. Are you serious? $150 for rehearsal seems like a steal compared to the $400 for the day of since they have to stay for like 1.5 hrs versus a ceremony which is on avg 15 minutes. I mean if you do the math, the officiant is making $1600/hr. Insane in the membrane, insane in the BRAIN.

I need to get into this business. All I got to do is put on a bed sheet, wrap my neck with sports tape or color it with whiteout and grab myself a leather bound book to hold and know how to read. I bet I could even get by without reading as long as I have a good memory.

In all fairness, they still have to do a good job and hopefully they do if you are paying them that much. Now I let that guy who quoted me $400 to do the wedding go. I decided to take a friends recommendation and go with Reverend Bob. Dude is cheaper than most guys at $225. You generally don't need them at rehearsal because all they do is walk out with the guys, read from a paper, and then sign a document. Not rocket science and not a lot coordinating needed for him. Plus for $150, I could myself a pretty nice streak at Lawry's.

The Photobook of all Photobooks

So I have printed out quite a few photobooks in my time and have been trying out different companies from MyPublisher, Shutterfly, Snapfish, Kodak, ArtsCow and Blurb. These are all reasonably priced photobook suppliers. I have not tried Apple's service because it is just too darn expensive. Well for our signin book, I wanted to try another company, AdoramaPix. It is basically the photo department of Adorama.com, the photo equipment retailer. Now I found out about AdoramaPix by a review done by another photography site, XEQUALS.

My first thought was, how much better can this book be? It is hands down the best I have gotten so far. I wouldn't say the construction of the outside is the best I have ever seen versus some leather bound books, but it is definitely good for a wrap around. The paper is what sets this apart. It is printed on matte photopaper. None of that photopaper that tends to look too glossy or cheapy. These pages are nice and thick and of great quality. The color reproduction is excellent and they provide you with the colorspace that they print with, which is a nice touch. Creating the book can be done all online and you can even save a local copy to your disk in case anything ever happens to their servers. The only thing about the online method is that there is no center on page for the photo. Other than that, the making of the book was simple and fast.

My only complaint is that there isn't a first throwaway page. The first page on the book is printed to photopaper that the glued to the front cover. It would have definitely been nice to know this since I would have left that page blank.

All and all, I will definitely be ordering from them again.