My fiancé and I recently had the pleasure of Monica taking our engagement photos. I can not…read morerecommend Monica enough! From the beginning to the days leading up to the shoot, she had us feeling well prepared with her style guide and creativity in shooting locations. She is a true professional and skilled behind the camera! With posing, she made us feel so comfortable and the whole experience was lovely. We can not thank her enough for the high quality photos, which turned out amazing.

I'd happily recommend Monica to anyone looking for professional photos in the Gig Harbor area! To…read morebe honest, she really faced an uphill battle getting photos of our extended family, and she conquered the task beautifully. Her communication from start to finish was on point - she was patient, warm, and responsive throughout. She even offered a style guide and feedback on our outfit considerations, which was immensely comforting to us for our first attempt at family photos! On the morning of our session, my three year old was in a MOOD. He was throwing a fit most of the time and I assumed we hadn't snagged even one photo of him smiling. Monica's photos make it seem like I remembered the morning wrong! She wasn't fazed at all by his fussing, rolled with it all, snagged other family configurations while he loudly melted down to the side, and then managed to get the photos we'd hoped for. Magical! The final results are beautiful and we feel really lucky we landed with Monica. Thank you for your warmth and talent, Monica!

Chelsea had a beautiful and creative eye for photography. If you want to feel candid and editorial,…read moreshe is your girl! We visited the mountains with her, and she made our entire family feel very comfortable. She had certain ideas she posed us through, and it was so fun to look at the photos later to see what she was up to. We ended up with some timeless pieces that I am so excited to put on my gallery wall.

The smoothest photography session ever. She knew how to pose you and made everything capture…read morebeautifully. She's also the sweetest person ever and made me feel so comfortable! Highly recommended!

Our family just got our 6 month shots back from Carmen at Baby Sprouts Photography and to be honest…read morewe where not very impressed. After doing hours of research on a good local photographer I found Carmen at Baby Sprouts Photography. She is the only Photographer for Baby Sprouts. My husband and I both had a pretty bad experience. When I contacted Carmen she was nice, polite and easy to talk to over the phone. She recommended we look over her site and choose our favorite items, props, backdrops... ect and let her know what we wanted before hand so she could have them ready for the shoot. We booked our appointment about 4 months before the shoot so Carmen also wanted us to call before her shoot to make sure she could sit. We also paid our deposit during this phone call. Overall I felt pretty good about things. I called a few weeks before the shoot to let Carmen know what props, accessories, and back drops we wanted as well to let her know that our baby was sitting and to pay the rest of the deposit. It turns out not only is there a fee for the shoot and the package you choose but a surprise "session fee" of a few hundred additional dollars plus tax. So our $650 shoot ended up almost being a grand. I also want to point out we asked for a digital copy of our images, and absolutely no prints... and the total cost was still almost a grand. Over the phone she failed to mention that you only got to choose 10 pictures from the shoot and that you could only print them up to a certain size, I only saw that upon reading the details in person when we signed the papers. I assumed we would be getting all of the edited pictures, printable to any size especially for the high fee! Now at this point any normal person would have walked away... but I didn't want to loose my deposit and I was a idiot who paid the full price before hand to make everything care free when we showed up. Also I knew I couldn't find another 6 month photographer at such a last minute and I didn't want to loose out on our baby as this age. So we went ahead with the shoot. Carmen had a bunch of props and accessories set out but none of the items I called and asked her about. She also only had half of the backdrop right (she used the wrong floor). When I asked her about the other props or outfits she told me she didn't think they would look good together or with the backdrop I was using. She even told me "Yellow and blue don't go together only yellow and pink can go together". Really? I thought I got to choose what my baby wore, that was half of the reason we went to a boutique for her pictures. I had to practically argue with her to get a couple of the outfits we wanted and even then she still refused to use them with the backdrop we wanted. During the shoot Carmen didn't even really seem to be trying. She didn't seem to attempt to get nice angles, or make our baby smile. I didn't understand this. We seriously have the happiest baby ever, always smiling, giggling, cooing and being super happy go lucky. My husband and I went to every possible extent to try to get our daughter to smile but she just smiled at us not Carmen so all pics of her smiling she isn't looking at the camera. I don't think Carmen even said anything to our baby except a stereotypical "coochy coo" once. After our shoot I wasn't really impressed. I hoped though, that she got some better pictures than I thought, so we kept our hopes up. When we came in for the viewing appointment, it was sadly as I had expected. Most of the pictures of our daughter, she was not smiling or she was looking away from the camera smiling. Also Carmen didn't really shoot any nice angles. Al lot of the pictures our daughter had moved her hand awkwardly and it was blurred in the background, or our daughter just looked confused staring blankly at the camera. Now here is what got me the most upset. We had narrowed our pictures down to our "final 10" and Carmen had edited a few in B&W, now I really hate B&W so I asked her if we could have those pictures but in color and she said "No what you see is what you get it". I was shocked! What happened to pleasing the customer?! I was confused so I went back and re-read all these amazing reviews for Baby Sprouts I had seen and looked at her awesome pictures she had taken in the past and I saw that all of these where from 2009. So my best guess is that Carmen had lost her passion and stopped trying because I saw a few more recent pictures taken by Carmen and I was not impressed. I also noticed she hadn't received another good review since 2009. In the end we do have three really nice pictures. Not amazing, but certainly above my photography level. I am happy with those, and the other seven we got are okay. All in all I am not recommending Carmen at Baby Sprouts, I am actually telling all my friends to steer clear from her.

We recently used Carmen for our newborn photos. She was very professional and the results were…read moreoutstanding. For a fee, Carmen will come to your home within the first week of your baby's life and do a 2 hour photo session. She brings a grab bag full of cute props. She is very patient and deals well with an uncooperative subject. After the shoot, Carmen culls the photos and invites you into her in-home studio in Redmond, where you can view the best photos and select the ones you want. That part of the process took less than an hour and was fairly painless. She offers many packages of prints, which she sends out to be professionally printed. Note that she retains rights over the images unless you purchase a CD of digital copies for an extra fee of several hundred dollars, which comes with a release that allows you to do whatever you like with the photos, for non-commercial use. I would definitely recommend Carmen to friends for her professionalism and quality. Note that Baby Sprouts is the baby photography brand of Carmen Chan photography. Apparently she also does weddings and that sort of thing.

When we had no power, this place worked perfectly. Parking was easy - in garage…read more We did Door dash as the bagel/cinnamon bun from hotel didn't hit the spot. The onside pool worked great except when there's multiple families it is loud and all seating is in a splash zone. Room was spacious enough and had all amenities. Clean and friendly front desk. We asked at checkin for the Camp Aloft Option for my kid. It looked cooler on instagram though. When it came, it was missing the actual tent canopy so it was just a twin air mattress with a forrest themed comforter. It was comfy enough for him though. You can walk to pizza poggio up the hill. The bar looked like a popular happy hour spot but we didn't eat there and instead ordered door dash.

New 3 star hotel that is owned by Marriott Bonvoy but think if it to be like a college dorm…read more The constant banging that I thought was a baseball being thrown against the wall the first morning here turned out to be the heavy glass shower doors. They started richotating about 4 am. As soon as you open the door after a shower, water spills onto the floor. Went through towels quickly due to this. The tile in the shower and bathroom have large grouts so it was uncomfortable stepping on them barefoot. I was here 5 nights and had to ask for TP and towels because the room was never refreshed. Their policy is to clean every 2 days. Told the manager at checkout who offered extra member points. There are 2 small square windows a foot from the floor without shades. So when it was the crack of dawn, the sunlight came in and woke me up. See photo. There's a desk with a side lamp and a rolling desk chair which was appreciated. The bed was all right. Pillows were super flat; two doubled still put my neck flat on the mattress. The closet rod is facing the wrong direction so one can't see their clothes, as the rod goes from the back panel facing you instead of left to right. 4 hangers weren't enough for a 5 day business trip so doubled items on them. There's an ironing board hidden in the headboard. No ice machines. There are bags of ice in a mini freezer so communal touching. Loud hallway noise. Can hear people in the next room just talking with the TV on. Charged for parking daily.

I attended a very large conference here in January 2025 with around 6000 fellow attendees and was…read moreimpressed with how well the convention center handled this size of a group! The center is massive at 988,422 square feet of meeting/exhibit space so I never felt like I was drowning in a crowd and had plenty of space to move and breathe lol! And the vibes were sort retro modern style - hard to explain but it was interesting and had a nice feel to it. The center has two buildings - Arch & Summit. Arch is 6 stories tall with a main public space/lobby that has a four-story atrium and even has its own restaurants, shops, and public artwork! There are plenty of escalators and elevators, and lots of tall windows with excellent views of downtown and the Puget sound all around you. The Summit building is across the street and seemed quite a bit smaller with only like 2-3 floors, much smaller meeting spaces, and no main atrium/lobby. But it was still adequate and very clean and well maintained. All the rooms and halls were well numbered and there are many maps throughout the building so I never had any issues finding the events and lectures I wanted to attend. Plenty of staff were available to help with all the tech and AV equipment and there were rarely any issues during the 4 days of talks and events I attended - which is quite impressive given the size of the conference and the amount of events/lectures they had scheduled. The entire convention center was surprisingly very clean - and there are ample bathrooms in strategic locations on all floors - and all very well attended and maintained also. The center itself is in an excellent location surrounded by nice hotels and so many food options - convenient for exploring some of the main tourist spots in Seattle too as it sits on Pike Street and is a nice walk down to Seattle's famous Pike Market. I'd recommend this venue to any group - but especially for large scale conferences - and would happily attend events here in the future.

Work hosted an event here. It was near all the downtown hotels…read more Spacious rooms, well ventilated, clean bathrooms. What more can we ask for I was primarily in the summit building so cannot comment on the other buildings

Vannessa was my wedding photographer and she was perfect! She is extremely sweet and professional…read more She worked with my husband, family, and I to get the best engagement and wedding shots. She is really knowledgeable about the lighting and poses. Her prices are very reasonable and she is of very high quality. She really cares about her work and is a perfectionist. I wouldn't have chosen anyone else.

We paid in full to have our wedding photos performed by Vannessa. we really liked her style and was…read moreexcited to have her work with us. The night before our wedding she canceled on us we were in shock and left scrambling to find a photographer. she claimed to have a a cold or something and gave us some other photographer to contact because she didn't feel good although she still managed to have a photo shoot for some other wedding the same weekend . This was all around 10PM the night before our wedding. ugh the panic set in. we had no choice but to use some other sub she recommended we use. so we did. The photo shoot was a total fail. not the style we hoped for. we then had to contact vanessa repeatedly to get our photos that looked like they all had the same bad filter with hardly any of the photos we hoped for. FYI don't pay in full before you get the photos and make sure she didn't double book the wedding dates like she did with us. because she had photo shoots on the same weekend wedding dates as ours and posted them on her website.

Went here years ago when it first opened. Back years later for my first concert of the year at…read moreShoWare Center. Honestly not the best venue for a concert. Their sound system was awful. Fun concert but could barely hear the artist. Still prefer Seattle's venues. Staff was great. Drinks were overpriced.

Great hockey & concert venue, with excellent concession and event staff, marred by some truly…read moreatrocious, smug, rude, condescending and callous management. Before delving into all that, though, I will summarize some of its best features: * Free parking (in the east lot only, however) * Wonderful security, concession, and event staff (minus one manager in particular) * Spacious venue, with great sight lines, even from the floor Now, on to the problem: Myself, my wife, and another 20-or-so attendees had VIP Meet & Greet tickets to meet one of the bands in the lineup for our event, to which we were invited into the venue early to hang out with them, take pictures, etc. Although our band was not the headliner, we were told by event staff that, once our session was done, we'd have to head back outside. However, we were explicitly told to line up behind the VIP line for the headliner, and once their session was one, we'd ALL be allowed entry into the venue early, partially to avoid the 90+ degree heat and direct sunlight hitting the glass and reflective mirrors on the sunny-side of the building, where our lines were told to assemble. We confirmed this multiple times with the gentleman, who was friendly, warm, helpful and welcoming. Once we were back outside, things took a turn south, as the Events Manager, the aforementioned smug, rude, condescending and callous mentioned above, decided otherwise, and subjected nearly two dozen people to several hours of sun exposure, simply due to her being on some sort of power trip. Multiple people in our group would end up suffering from heat-related health issues, including two diabetics. Thankfully, some of the caring concession staff inside, noticing our plight, offered some free cold beverages to help alleviate their suffering. Despite being informed of what the previous gentleman had said, as well as the condition of the people suffering in the heat, the Events Manager continued to be smug and dismissive, her response always distilling down to basically "because I said so". Her final excuse was that our tickets simply could not be scanned for entry prior to a certain time, which is true to a point. However, as one of the people in our group worked for Ticketmaster, and informed her, and everyone present, that this is adjustable by the venue AND Ticketmaster, she ran out of excuses. Once we were finally inside, things were great, once people had recovered from the heat. However, this Events Manager put people's live in danger for no reason other than exerting her power, and that is in excusable. A complaint is being filed with the BBB by multiple people in our group, as well as formal complains with the venue's ownership and upper management. At the VERY least, in the future, ShoWare Center needs to inform their management that extended queues for summer events MUST be moved to the shaded side of the building, and when people start to suffer legitimate risks to their health, then it's time to take action...or be the subject of legal action taken against them.

I spent many months trying to find a good photographer to take my baby daughter's first…read moreprofessional photographs, and we absolutely found it in Beautiful You. The owner and photographer, Ellen, really made us comfortable. She took the time to get to know my five month old daughter before taking any pictures, and worked out what I was expecting from the photo shoot. Over the next two hours we shot dozens of pictures in five or six different poses. Ellen was patient when my daughter got hungry, and was excellent at playing with my daughter to make her smile. A week later we got to see the proofs, and they were fantastic. Ellen really managed to capture my daughter's blossoming personality, and was genuinely excited to show me what pictures she had taken. I am now waiting on the prints, which were reasonably priced and of which there are plentiful options. There's no doubt I'll be going back to Ellen many times. It is more like going to see one of your friends to have pictures taken than going to a faceless studio.

I am so pleased with my son's senior portraits. They are amazing and she was able to capture his…read morepersonality. We went back and had our family photo session and had individual photos taken. Ellen is fantastic!