All posts in: Smilebooth

03 Sep 2017

The Cream Event

Whenever the topic of conversation lands on weddings, my friends always say the same thing, “I love weddings. They are SO much fun, but so incredibly expensive especially if you are a part of them.” Now, this isn’t new to any of you. Weddings are expensive. This industry is sometimes madness to me and while I have shelled out quite a bit of $$$ for my friends, I can’t help, but do it out of love and knowing the fact that if it were me in their shoes, they would do the same for me.

This year, Bash Please brought their wedding expo to San Francisco for the first time and there was no way I was going to miss it. I’d been following them for years and have loved all of their ideas from previous weddings so I knew that their vendors at the event would be top notch and that it would feel like attending another wedding myself! I think a lot of my girlfriends would have loved to come to something like this, but the one girlfriend of mine that I wanted to take more than ever was Elisa. She got married just a couple of months after we went to the expo and was having a very small wedding in Mendocino, which meant that a lot of these vendors wouldn’t actually be a need for her. Regardless, I wanted her to still go through this experience and have fun with it! We sampled some of the best hors d’oeuvres and desserts, drank from four different kinds of cocktails, spent some time in the photo booth (a favorite of ours!) and got down on the dance floor. Side note, I entered the dance contest with my friend Kim and we got out in the first round. It wasn’t our finest moment, but like – were we even really given a fair chance?!

We were greeted with these refreshing Agua Fresca’s the minute we stepped foot into the venue. How cute are these little mini milk containers?

at the Bentley Reserve in San Francisco

Savory sorbets for an appetizer!

The prettiest dining table set up we ever did see

Overall, Elisa and I had a blast. We hope that The Cream event returns to San Francisco in 2018 because we will definitely be there. For those of you wondering if you can still attend an expo without being engaged, the answer is yes! No one is asking your status so go just for the fun.

Uncategorized

10 Jan 2016

Yow Yow’s Yearly Recap

We didn’t intend to be as late on this post as we actually are, but unfortunately, we’ve just been a little bit under the weather. Also, if I’m being honest, I was actually dreading writing this post for the longest time because I knew how these stats would look and I wasn’t particularly excited about them. In 2015, these are the most dismal numbers we’ve ever seen. But instead of throwing ourselves a pity party, we’re going to share the numbers and then we’re going to move forward because I paid for another year on this domain and we’re not going to let it go to waste. I’m still really excited about Yow Yow! I went through each month in 2015 and quickly scanned through all of the posts that I wrote – some that I laughed at and some that I had forgotten I had even written this year. Writing in 2015 was hard and it’s often times difficult to juggle this and a full-time job that I really care about, but if we can do this for six years, we can do a 7th.

Stats from 2014 will be on the left and italicized while stats from 2015 will be right and bold:

1,400,602 total visits to Yow Yow! – – – – – – – – – – – 1,471,487 total visit to Yow Yow!

In just 2015 alone, we had 70,885 visits to Yow Yow!

10,113 Posts 2,878 Comments – – – – – – – – – – – 11,003 Posts 2,989 comments (cumulative)

Top Post of 2015 – “Meet: Cathy Nguyen” 1,988 views (written back in 2009)

Top Post written in 2015 – “I Like Your Style…Kiernan Shipka” 303 views

Busiest month in terms of views – January 2014 (11,072 views) – – – – – March 2015 (6,923 views)

Most popular day: Wednesday (probably due to Wedding Wednesdays!)

Most popular hour: 9:00 AM (5% of traffic)

Total WordPress.com followers: 1,476

Total daily subscribers: 2,027

Credits + References

Worked with

Sugar Brand Cosmetics

In 2015, we were reached out by a few brands and companies, but due to my work schedule and other time commitments, I was unable to fulfill certain requests and posts. We’ll try again in 2016!

Top Referring Sites in 2015 Were:

Facebook.com
Pinterest.com
Twitter.com
Quora.com
Bloglovin.com

Most of My Visitors Came From:

The United States
Canada
The United Kingdom
Germany
France
Australia

(same order as last year)

Other:

*In 2015, my friend Mandi got engaged and we gave her “Wedding Wednesdays” as a column to share her journey as she gets closer to walking down the aisle.

*We tied our Instagram account a little bit more closely to Yow Yow! And this was HUGE for us!

*We had one of our photos used on Moorea Seal’s Instagram account.

*Things that we tried for the first time and wrote about: SoulCycle, Dry Bar, being a +1 at someone else’s wedding (also first holiday wedding on Halloween!), dyeing our hair, and attending our first Golden State Warriors game.

*Concerts we reviewed: Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift.

*We tried two places in LA that we had once blogged about on Yow Yow! previously: Eggslut + Milk Jar Cookies.

*We showed love to Smilebooth and Canyon Child.

*We got in front of the camera again to do our OOTD fashion posts – the first time since 2013.

Design

13 Jul 2015

Smilebooth

836swa0194-L

A few years ago, I learned about Smilebooth through DesignLoveFest and promised myself that the next time I had the budget for it, I would rent a Smilebooth for an event that I was planning. Really though – my love for photobooths started at the ripe age of 18 when I was introduced to USnaps back in December at my high school graduation all-nighter party. From then on, I brought it to Seattle University and now in California we use Smilebooth. What I love about Smilebooth is how easy it is to use, how you can fit an enormous amount of people into one photo, and how easy it is to share online via email and social media. They’ve really won over my heart – especially that Bay Area team. 😉 I wanted to take some time to share some love because I’ve booked them for two of our company’s events now (and a 3rd one next month!) and they’ve been my favorite to work with. Here are some snaps from our party just a couple of weeks ago!