I was in the area during lunchtime today and found out the OACC had an exhibit of a local bay area…read morecontemporary mixed-media artist, Nimisha Doongarwal, on exhibit and display until the end of this month (November 1, 2025). So I stopped in to view the pieces. The venue is clean and spacious with a main lobby/foyer that leads into their main auditorium for their community music performances and tai chi classes. In addition, they have several small meeting conference rooms for other events. OACC seems like a great non-profit organization that provides lots of social/cultural/health-related activities for the local Asian community and diaspora. They had brochures of upcoming events on-site and the people I spoke with were informative, kind, and helpful. Since they offer many programs and classses for free or a reasonable price and are non-profit, please consider donating/suppporting them for the culture, service, and education they provide to the Oakland and surrounding area. OACC is in the Pacific Renaissance building, on the 2nd floor above the Oakland library. Note: underground parking in the building garage is $2 per every half hour. More expensive than metered street parking but safer and it is patrolled.

I've heard about the Oakland Asian Cultural Center (OACC) for at least over a decade+ and didn't…read moreattend an in-person event until a few weeks ago for a book signing/film screening event. The author and director of American Born Chinese spent their Friday evening with guests sharing their inspiration behind it all. The OACC is located upstairs above the public library. There is an exhibit going on right now with great pictures and historical facts that line up along the perimeter of the inside. There's a main auditorium inside as well, where many awesome events (such as the one I attended) takes place. They also offer various courses from art to health and various topics in between. In the past during the peak of COVID, I attended some of their virtual events, which were also excellent. Thank you OACC for all the cultural awareness you bring to the community and beyond. I'll be attending another in-person event soon. #35/2023

This is an annual two-day event celebrating the filipino-american community and culture through the…read morearts, food, and unique exhibits. The festival took place at Yerba Buena Gardens with the Saturday parade along Market Street. I enjoyed viewing the cultural performances, song and dance, along with traditional attire, both during the parade and on the event stage. Plenty of seating was available in the grassy field at the festival. The schedule even included a classified records tribute to music from the 90's... it was hard not to sing along to nostalgic hits by filipino artists from the bay area, like Pinay and Jocelyn Enriquez. MG also put on a show for us 90's kids, including a vocal performance of Sweet Honesty as staff danced the cha-cha on stage. There were tons of merchandise tents and food vendors selling a wide variety of filipino bites, along with ube everything. We enjoyed several snacks and dishes including lumpia, pork bbq skewers, longanisa, chicken adobo, and of course, rice. It was delish! The free polvoron and candies given out during the parade were yummy treats too. We did have to park a few blocks away, but it was worth it for such a joyful event offering a diverse range of entertainment, activities, and culinary delights for people of all ages.

This festival beautifully captured Bay Area Filipino culture in Yerba Buena Park. The parade was…read moregorgeous! There were many vendor stands selling merchandise and delicious food. At the stage, there were amazing vocal and dance performances that encapsulated Filipino skill! The only downside, however, was that many of the vendors packed up or ran out of product early. The festival was scheduled to end at 5:00pm but vendors were out nearly two hours before then. It's great to see that the community is showing their support though! Definitely will visit again next year!

I came here on Sunday for a brunch benefitting Three Squares. It was a really nice venue! Very well…read morelit, spread out, good acoustics so I could hear keynote speaker Sam Mogannam of Bi-Rite fame. The food was (unsurprisingly, duh!) very delicious; looks like they have a fancy kitchen in the back for catered events. It's a bit hard to locate. I had to have a student walk me because I can't find anything ever, but I swear it was really confusing! It's located on top of the Cal student store. There is a grand staircase next to the coffee stand in the lobby, or you can use the elevator.

My husband and I recently had our wedding ceremony at the Campanile Esplanade. It was absolutely…read morebreathtaking and perfect! Not only did the weather cooperate for a perfect July day (thank you Berkeley), the trees of the esplanade created the perfect amount of shade for our guests. Coordinating with event services throughout the planning process was smooth, especially with Jaime, who went above and beyond answering our questions and making sure the final details were ironed out. Gaby was also excellent in communicating with us once we were handed off to her. We are thrilled with the way everything turned out and couldn't have asked for a better location to exchange our vows in front of our family and friends.

I have been meaning to write a review and have not had a chance due to a busy summer so far! I…read morejust cannot say enough good things about Marlen! I have been working with her for years and she never ceases to amaze me! I recently contracted her to assist me with my grandson's 4th Spiderman Themed Birthday Party, and again this woman hit it out of the park! I promise to post more photos soon! Each and every time that Marlen gets involved with our events, she starts out as our personal dream builder. She listens attentively and helps us create the event we envisioned and beyond! Not only does she bring me back to reality with budget and expectations, she finds a way to make things happen within my budget and even though we may at times have to cut corners, she NEVER disappoints! From finding the right venue, theme, and team of vendors that fit the bill and cause, she is on top of it all. She assists in so many ways, and what is more important to me is that on the day of she is so "hands on" but in a way that it seems as if she is family. Truly this woman loves her clients, her cause and she is doing the thing she loves the most, making others dreams and events come true, no if's and's or but's! She has worked relentlessly for many years and has an established partnership with other vendors everywhere even abroad from what I just read on her site! WOW again Marlen! Anyhow, if you need a photographer or videographer, florist or cake, etc., she has an amazing network at all price points and they all love her too! Her husband is also an awesome addition as he usually helps her with her events! (You should try their incredibly yummy chocolate fountain and dessert table). I highly recommend her and look forward to our next event with MAE!!

Anyone should count themselves lucky to have someone as bright, friendly and dedicated as Marlen to…read morehelp carry out their events. For many years she has planned many of mi family's events in Honduras, from two of the most beautiful and memorable Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, two lovable and crazy-fun weddings, to the celebration of various anniversaries. Trying to plan such important events to perfection can be full of stress and anxiety, but I can say that with her help it was never easier. Marlen is one the most organized, creative, responsible and efficient persons I know, and with her skills in communication and problem-solving, she makes a great event planner. She is someone you can rely on and give her all of your confidence. She is meticulous and takes everything into detail. Not only that, but she is flexible, makes every request and even exceeds all expectations. I think that what makes Marlen so good at what she does is the passion she has for her job. I have no doubts about giving Marlen the highest recommendations.

Karen Bevels was FABULOUS to work with. Will, our catering manager, took care of everything and…read morecompletely brought my vision to life. I am so happy I chose Karen Bevels as our caterer for our office holiday party. I also love that Will worked with a pipe and drape company so I didn't have to deal with that. He also added cute touches to the party like adding signs for speciality cocktails and brought some holiday decorations I didn't even ask for. On top of that, the food was amazing!!! I will definitely be using Karen Bevels again!!

The prices are very reasonable The food is delish…read moreIt wasn't just one thing, It was most every dish. A few gripes on communication A few details left out But for how last minute the party was, To me there's no doubt. The presentation was lovely My guests complimented away I would choose KB again Any party, any day.

I am so glad we chose Kerri from exceptional events and entertainment. Leading up to our wedding…read moreday, we had no clue how everything was going to turn out. We had the vendors but not a clue about the details of how the event should go. That's when we found Kerri. We actually met her through another vendor and got to talking about all sorts of wedding things. During that conversation, it became pretty obvious she knew A LOT about weddings. We asked her at pretty much the last minute to be our day of coordinator and really helped pull everything together. She went above and beyond! She helped organize the vendors so that everything went smoothly. She knew our vision and helped everyone execute it. Admittedly, we weren't the most communicative. We literally had a box of greens and random decorative elements dropped off without telling her ANYTHING. What she managed with those random elements was better than we has envisioned. And while we had people set to help us out, the beautiful floral arrangements we had picked up still hadn't been hung on our arch 30 minutes before the ceremony. Kerri found all the tools she needed and went out in the blazing heat and made it happen. She's an MVP. I knew with her running the show everything would go smooth. Thanks to her, I can honestly say I didn't stress one bit on my wedding day. If you really want your wedding day to be one of the best days of your life, do yourself a favor and hire her.

This is a great venue to host an event. The building has ample space for dancing, performances, or…read moregeneral meetings. We had a blast celebrating New Years hosted by the city of Piedmont!

We've booked the Veteran's Hall for our wedding this November. We'll be doing both ceremony and…read morereception in this location. This is exactly the kind of facility we were looking for. For the price and flexibility, this place can't be beat. We were lucky enough to be given the Piedmont resident rate so we're saving a few hundred dollars, too. I really wanted to do an Oaktown wedding but the rental facilities we looked at were either too expensive, too restrictive, too small, or too ugly. I'll update after my wedding, but so far I'm thrilled.

Where do I even start? Calvin & Vanessa are a dynamic ginger duo who make wedding planning fun…read more Even though the couples and wedding styles were very diverse on their website, I could tell that we had a similar aesthetic so I reached out to them regarding their availability. They suggested that we meet in person to make sure that it was a good fit and ended up having a fabulous evening drinking rose, telling stories and of course talking [wedding] shop. For our wedding, C&V helped with overall event design and vision, invitations, signage design and production, day-of setup and teardown for both my rehearsal dinner and wedding. Our venue was challenging due to having multiple events in multiple spots onsite and also the people running the place were somewhat hard to deal with, but The Gingers made everything feel effortless. I am having a hard time not writing paragraphs about the various ways in which they helped along the way but all you really need to know is that they are incredibly organized, have fabulous taste, are easy to collaborate with, talked me off several ledges & always kept my budget in the back of their minds. And maybe most importantly, they are just lovely people who made the planning process feel less overwhelming. I literally could not have done it without them. One important side note: They gave me recommendations for all of my vendors and everyone was AMAZING. There is nothing better than feeling like you have a badass team that you trust implicitly to execute your vision.

We recently had the privilege of working alongside Calvin and Vanessa at a beautiful wedding in…read moreSonoma county. As wedding photographers, having professional and experienced planners + designers working alongside us is key in helping us do our best work for our clients. Their communication leading up to the event was extremely helpful in helping us prepare for the event. Their attention to detail and their professionalism ensured that the wedding day went off without a hitch! These are great people who truly care about their clients and executing their client's vision down to the smallest detail. We hope to work with them again and will definitely be referring them to all of our couples!