Giao is such an amazing person, not only as a makeup/hair artist, but as an individual person and mother. I found Giao via WeddingWire and then soon realized that she also worked on my friend’s wedding. I contacted my friend regarding her services and received nothing but positive remarks. I decided to contact Giao and request for availability and pricing. With her availability on my wedding day and fair pricing, I decided to arrange for a trial hair and makeup to be done on the same day I scheduled an engagement shoot. If you’re gonna spend that money for a trial, might as well look good for something.

After my first trial and engagement session, I went back to hang out at a friend’s house and everyone complimented on my hair and makeup. They all suggested I book Giao for my wedding day and not to bother doing any other trials. So I did. During my first trial, I had planned to have my hair down with loose curls for the entire wedding, but then changed my mind and wanted an updo for the ceremony and then have it down for the reception. Giao was very accommodating and had also suggested that it would be a good idea so that I don’t have the same hairstyle as guests. Giao had me come in for a second trial to see how I would like the updo, since I was afraid how I would look since I have a narrow and long face structure.

During my entire wedding process with Giao, she was quick to respond to my numerous emails. She helped me with recommendations for accessories as well as hair styles for my bridesmaids. In all honesty, I would have booked Giao for my bridal party as well, but I wanted to keep her all to myself. My one day to be selfish =)

Giao was more than just a vendor, she became a good acquaintance/friend. I enjoyed talking to her about life, family, or even wedding every time we communicated via email or in person. She is very professional, sweet, outgoing and talented. So talented that she even created a custom bridal hair piece for me. Giao is very fair priced. You get your money’s worth. Thanks Giao for turning me into a beautiful bride! I still get compliments from people on how well my hair and makeup turned out. I am definitely spreading your name around the wedding world.

I first met Giao back in August, 2009 when she did my good friend's hair and makeup for her wedding. Giao made my friend look absolutely stunning! I booked Giao to do hair and makeup for my wedding shortly after that, along with her husband Thai as our photographer. This decision came almost two whole years before my actual wedding, but I am sure glad I did. Giao did an amazing job for my trial, e-session, and wedding day. I am not the type of girl who wears makeup everyday, so I was very pleased with Giao's work. She skillfully enhanced my features, but did not make me look over-done at all as I had experienced in several other makeup trials. I received numerous compliments from my friends and relatives on how beautiful I looked on my wedding day. All thanks to Giao! Giao also knows very well how to do Asian makeup, which is not easy to find. My husband even commented at the e-session, "Hey, you look more Japanese!" He was also very impressed with how I looked at the wedding. He said that Giao made me look more beautiful than I have ever looked before. Some of my relatives also commented that at first they didn't recognize me and that I looked like a model. As for may hair, I did not really have a very specific vision for what I wanted, but Giao was great in helping me find a look that was absolutely perfect! It was clean, elegant, and held throughout the whole day. Giao also skillfully placed a crystal headband I had and helped position my veil nicely. Giao was also there the whole day to touch up my makeup and hair as needed which was so helpful and kept me looking fresh. Giao also served as another photographer with her husband Thai which was awesome. Giao and Thai are definitely a great team. I recommend Giao highly for anyone who is looking for a sweet, friendly, and amazingly talented hair and makeup artist. You will be thrilled with her work. Thanks for everything Giao!!!

Giao is the best! Seriously the best! For a few reasons.
1. She is super resonsive to emails and calls
2. She is AMAZINGLY talented!
3. She is fair with her pricing
4. She listens and does what you want but better
5. She is a kind, nice, wonderful person

I am seriously so so happy that I had the opportunity to work with Giao for my weddings. She treated me like royalty! She provided hair and makeup services for my bridesmaids, sisters in law, flower girls, and mothers. She came on time (actually earlier than me) and went right to work with her assistance to ensure we would all be ready on time.

We had so much fun the day of the wedding, she listened to what everyone wanted and did just that! Everyone looked so amazing that all of my guests wanted to know who the makeup/hair artist was.

As for me, she made me look AMAZING! I had done a trial with her and it was so fun and then the day of the wedding I just looked gorgeous. She also knows how to do makeup for photos so the photos came out great too.

She also created a custom hair piece for me that she gifted me! So sweet of her!

I would ABSOLUTELY recommend her and I hope I have the chance to work with her again!

Giao is an incredibly sweet and talented woman. My husband and I along with our bridal party all enjoyed working with her. On special occasions, I hope to go back to Giao for more hair and makeup sessions!

Trial: As a cost saving measure, Giao suggested I schedule my engagement photo session on the same day. I was pleased she made the suggestion rather than waiting for me to request it. I requested a soft and romantic chignon, which required curling all my hair and then lots of pinning/tucking. I have very soft, fine, and straight Asian hair that I do not color, perm, or blow dry. Such hair does not hold curls well but Giao is extremely skilled and managed to get it to behave.
I wanted some loosely curled strands in the front but did not have any bangs for this look. Giao volunteered to cut my hair and upon my acceptance, she took out the chignon, straightened all my hair, and gave me bangs. She also took care to add layers to the side-front so that the bangs integrated in with the rest of my long hair. My new haircut looked amazing and based on the fluidity of Giao’s movements during the haircut, it was clear she was skilled in cutting hair as well. (At work, everyone complemented me on my new hairstyle, guys included)
When doing my makeup, Giao also shaped my eyebrows. I spent approximately 3 hours with her that day. This is NOT because she is slow. Rather, she had done a lot of beautification on me (curled, styled, straightened, cut my hair and then did makeup). She really went beyond the services included in a hair and makeup trial!

Wedding Day: I had gone with heavier makeup for the engagement photo session and requested a lighter look for the wedding day since I would be interacting with guests. Giao was able to accommodate my request with no problem. She airbrushed my shoulders and upper back as I had a few pimple scars and tan lines. She also let me substitute false lash strips with individual false lashes to achieve a more natural look. Hair and makeup took about 2 hours and 15 minutes (very efficient considering the time it takes to glue individual false lashes).
I had Giao do hair and makeup for my bridesmaids. She did eyebrow shaping for both of them. One BM had straight, thick, slightly above shoulder length hair, but Giao had no problem pulling it up into a lovely updo. Each BM took about 1 hour and 10 minutes.
Giao also lightly airbrushed my then fiancée to give him an even skin tone. It looked natural and he had no problems with it despite having oily skin.
Total prep time for 1 Bride + 2 Bridesmaids + 1 Fiancée was around 4.5 hours. Giao’s efficiency was very important to me as I had a very packed day. In addition, considering I could not really sleep the night before, the later I had to wake up, the better!

Touchup: On the trial day, my makeup lasted more than ten hours with no problems. As a result, I did not request Giao to stick around for touchups. After the wedding, everyone’s makeup and hair was intact. This is impressive as we had an outdoor wedding in the August heat! My bridesmaids and I were all dancing (lots of jumping up and down) but none of us had a hair crisis.

Working with and getting to know Giao was one of the best experiences during my wedding preparation process, not to mention the actual day of the wedding. Although it took a little time for her to respond to my initial inquiry for availability and pricing (I later found out she was technically on maternity leave so VERY justified), she was very quick to respond to all of my Emails thereafter.

She is very detail oriented and really listens to the bride's needs and desires. She makes every effort to fulfill every bride's dream... she truly made me look and feel like a princess on my wedding day.

She's so accommodating and truly has the bride's best interest in mind. For example, on the date of my trial, we started by discussing my ideas and then she took pictures of me. She then started curling my hair and when she was about half way done, the topic of E-sessions came up and I asked for her opinion about getting hair and makeup done for it. She honestly answered that she usually recommends they schedule the shoot on the same day of the hair/makeup trial. I expressed a little disappointment since if I had known that earlier, I would have done that also... but, without a moment of hesitation, she said, "well, that's no problem, all I did was curl your hair so far so we can just reschedule the trial for when you have you E-session." I honestly was shocked that she was willing to do that for me, especially because, she again was still technically on maternity leave. To take it a step further, she even finished curling my hair so I didn't have to go home and fix it myself. Now, if that doesn't exemplify professionalism and accommodation, I don't know what does.

The day of the wedding was no exception to the high level of quality care and meticulousness. She arrived promptly at the scheduled time with her assistant (Cindy, who also by the way is great). It did take a little longer then expected to finish all the hair and makeup for myself and my entire bridal party including mothers on both sides, but I prefer that than finishing up on time for less quality.

I highly highly highly recommend Giao with the utmost enthusiasm without reservation. You won't regret working with her!!!

Giao was great to work with in getting my hair & makeup done for the wedding & engagement session. She is a really sweet person.

I would suggest of bringing pictures of how you would like your hair & makeup done on wedding day. Also, purchase clip-in hair extensions in advance if you would hair to have your hair down.

I had found Giao on other wedding websites whom many brides raved about. I was eager to meet her and fell in LOVE on our first trial run. I couldn't have asked more from Giao, she was sincere, personable, and detail oriented. After my first trial, I had changed my mind about my look and Giao gladly let me come in for a second trial! She wanted to make sure that I was happy with my makeup and hair! The day of our wedding, she was punctual and even with all the chaos that was surrounded by us she was calm and collective. Giao had exceeded all my expectations for my makeup and hair artist and made me feel beautiful on my wedding day.

Giao did a WONDERFUL job on my makeup and hair for an aftershoot for Thai Mai Photography.

I actually got married in Southern California and I wasn't fond of my makeup artist and Giao surpassed all of my expectations.

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND GIAO FOR BRIDAL HAIR AND MAKEUP!!
1. She will make you look like a movie star. (flawless and beautiful)
2. She is very FAST and efficient (only took 1.5 hrs whereas my wedding day artist took 3 hrs).
3. She is the sweetest person to work with!

I just wrote a review about Giao's husband, who was also my wedding photographer (Thai Mai Photography), and I've gotta say...these two make an AMAZING team. If you're looking for a photographer and a hair/makeup artist, look no further than Thai and Giao!

But anyway, this review is about Giao. I had my trial and wedding day hair/makeup done by her, and I was soooo pleased with the results! Giao definitely knows what she's doing...I can only describe her work as magic in the making. But not only is her work phenomenal, Giao herself is a wonderful person to work with. She was so friendly and open with me during the trial, and i could tell she really loves what she does and genuinely cares about her clients. On the wedding day, Giao came promptly at 5:30am to our hotel, got straight to work on me, and transformed me into a beautiful bride! She was really meticulous and took her time working on me, yet still stayed true to her time estimate (and if you've been in a wedding before, you know how hard it is to stay on schedule!).

I was also totally floored by Giao's attentiveness throughout the rest of the day. She stayed for the reception and all of my dress changes (I think i changed dresses three or four times that day), and did touch ups after each change. Not only that, but she kept reminding me to drink water and stay hydrated, she gave some helpful reminders to my bridesmaids, and even worked with the photographers on getting some portrait shots of me during some down time! Giao really gave 110% of herself to us on our wedding day, i feel like i lucked out tremendously with her. She so sweet and caring, and totally went above and beyond all my expectations...I can't thank her enough!

Giao was great.I don't know how to express my thanks to her and her work.
For the trial I did bring some pictures with me but I wasn't sure what I liked.So I had two trials and made up my mind the day before my wedding day(May,29,2010).
On my wedding day Giao did a great job.I had big cold sore on my lip but nobody noticed it. And after the wedding everybody said that I was so beautiful.She is really easy going and make you feel comfortable on your big day.Thank you, Giao.