Bridesmaid gifts

Wow it’s been 6 months since I last posted!  Sorry folks!  I guess I have been too busy with the wedding planning, and I have so much to update!

I’ve been looking at bridesmaid gifts for ages.  Probably for a year now.  A lot of the wedding websites that have a section on bridesmaid gifts weren’t really my thing.  I’ve never ordered from those websites before, so I was also afraid the quality might be cheap.  So I asked around to see what my friends have received as bridesmaid gifts, and one said a Steve and Barry t-shirt and earrings from Claire’s.  Hmm.  I think I can do better!  But I can relate because when you get closer to the wedding (100 days left!  eeek!), your budget starts to balloon because you forgot to account for stuff and then you are forced to trim stuff like bridesmaid gifts.

So now I’ve finally figured out what I wanted to give them.  I thought long and hard about what they had in common.  I wanted to give them all similar gifts, which is so cliche, but I think it’s cute!  Now I can’t wait to give it to them!!

Planning update, Part II

More wedding planning in August:

3.) Our engagement shoot! It’s usually unbearably hot and humid in
August, so I never planned for us to do our engagement shoot while
Frank was here. Honestly, I was nervous when we could do it because
he’s going to be super busy interviewing this fall. But when we were
suddenly having 75 degree, low humidity weather in August, I
immediately sent an email to our photographer asking if she was free
that weekend for a shoot. It was pretty last minute because I was
afraid the weather might get hot again, and I was thankful that she
wasn’t shooting a wedding that day, so we were able to shoot on a
Saturday morning. This meant scrambling to buy some tinted
moisturizer, lipgloss, and book a hair appointment! I couldn’t get the
stylist I wanted, so I just booked with their new stylist, which also
happened to be the only non-Korean stylist. But no worries because I
liked the haircut. I did walk out of Sephora with the wrong lipgloss
color (I wish everyone had clear packaging!), so I was freaking out in
the morning when I came home and it was a completely different color.
Sigh. I didn’t have time to exchange it because I still had to iron
all our clothes and reattach a button on Frank’s shirt.

Here’s the link to some of our engagement pics:

http://www.laurakayphoto.com/blog/?p=423

The engagement session was so fun! We literally only walked a few
blocks in Old Town Alexandria for an hour and a half, but Laura is so
good that it looks like that we spent all day shooting! We were never
more than 2 blocks from our car! I picked Old Town because I knew
there would be some funky painted walls and alleys we could use, but I
could’t recall exactly where they were, so I was worried that I didn’t
scout the place out beforehand. But it didn’t matter because Laura
kept finding awesome places to shoot! And it helped doing them in side
streets because we were away from the crowds…which is why I ruled out
doing them on the Mall (and also it’s hard to get those huge monuments
in the pics!) I love how our pics turned out but I can’t help noticing
our minor flaws like slouching, weird arm positioning, my hair out of
place, chin too high, etc. But know that I know all of this, we’ll
have even better wedding photos!!

Everyone keeps asking where I found my blue dress. Filene’s Basement!
I buy so many dresses because you can find nice ones for $40, so I
don’t feel guilty if I only wear them once.

4.) Dance lessons – we took an hour lesson with a private instructor
(who was half an hour late, grr!). We learned how to start and end the
dance and the basic steps of the foxtrot. It sounds simple on paper
but we had a really hard time! I don’t know if we have the time to
practice before the wedding day…Frank said we should just dance high
school style and rock side-to-side, but I’m not convinced yet. I have
no idea how many lessons couples usually take before their wedding day,
but I think you’d want to have at least 2-3 lessons to feel comfortable.

5.) We also booked a string trio for the ceremony. The organ at the
church is shipped overseas for repairs, and it takes a year for them to
fix it (kind of like Metro escalators)! There’s not much stage room
for the bridal party and the musicians at the church, so I opted for a
trio than a quartet. One of my friends regularly performs at weddings,
but unfortunately she is in the same boat as me, moving to wherever her
bf gets a job, so she couldn’t commit to my wedding. She recommended
two that she plays with and one quartet was already booked, so I
hurried to book the other! I also love the idea of a string
trio/quartet playing Pachelbel’s Canon.

Planning update, Part I

This month has been crazy! Frank is in town doing a rotation at GW, so we’ve taken advantage of his time here to do a ton of wedding stuff. I’m so proud of how much we’ve accomplished!

1.) We did our premarital counseling with my pastor. He said the more problems you have to work out, the more counseling sessions you need. Well, we were able to finish in 3 sessions since Frank is always so darn agreeable, and then one more closer to the wedding where we talk about our vows and the passage we want read at the ceremony. We also led bible study at the request of our pastor so that we could be thinking about how we can serve in the church together.

People ask, “what do you do during premarital counseling?” We took a personality test to gauge our emotional maturity and talked about our strengths and weaknesses. We also talked about the Five Love Languages and how we show our lover for each other, which we had read in bible study (last summer?). We also talked about our upbringings (since childhood baggage could be brought into the relationship) and financial backgrounds/habits. Frank and I are both Taiwanese-American and come from very similar households, we didn’t have much contrast, but I’d imagine if people come from different socio-economic backgrounds, race, religion, or financial habits that could be a source of potential conflict, that would be discussed. There’s also a conflict resolution session that we had to skip because we still have yet to have a major fight. Our pastor said that we can come back to that after we’ve had a big fight. Apparently leaving the toilet seat up is not a big enough fight (which he remembered to do the entire time he’s been here! Whoo!).

2.) Wedding cakes are crazy expensive (and not well appreciated after you’ve stuff yourself on a 10 course Chinese banquet)! I was about to give up my dream cake, but even the cheaper cakes just wasn’t satisfying either because the whipped cream cakes have a tendency to melt. So I’ve asked my friend Sally to do my cake so I can afford fondant! It’s so pretty but not that good to eat–guests can just throw away the fondant if they want to. I just like it for the smooth look..plus it makes the cake more stable.

So we had a cake tasting with Sally a few weeks ago. Frank doesn’t care about the cake (he also knows he doesn’t get a say in the cake flavor..ha!) but I dragged him anyway. I had a bunch of her cakes already, so I know they’re all fabulous, but she said we should have a cake tasting anyway to pick out the filling flavor. How could I say no?! Here’s a pic of our cake tasting–Sally made 2 different kinds of vanilla, one white (without egg yolk) and one yellow (with egg yolk), 4 different types of buttercream – chocolate, caramel, raspberry, and strawberry, 2 fruit fillings – raspberry and strawberry (I told her those are my favorite!), and Nutella. I’m glad we had the tasting because it was so much fun and an excuse to pig out on cake!

For now, we’ve decided on white cake vanilla bean with strawberry buttercream filling. I’m really digging a modern polka dot fondant cake right now.

Cake: Collette Foley Specialty Baking
Photo By: Photography by Mary Ellen Bartley

Part II to come…

Bride wins $150k after Fiance Calls Off Wedding

So I’m going to try to blog more now that I downloaded a bunch of new add-ons for Firefox and bought a new Mac. Or I should finally accept the fact that I am not cut out to be a blogger.

Anyway, I read this interesting article sent to me by Frank. (is he trying to tell me anything by sending this? haha). You have to read the article. It’s just too crazy to summarize…especially since she won! I think my lawyer friends will have to explain this one to me!

http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/article/7292/

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/16966088/detail.html

An elephant of an entrance

Here’s something you don’t see much in the US–a groom making his entrance on an elephant–in downtown DC!  It gives the phrase “an elephant in the room” new meaning!  Supposedly this had been the groom’s dream since childhood, which is the first time I’ve heard of guys planning their dream wedding.

I picked a bridesmaid dress!

So I’m back from several weeks of traveling: Vegas, Montana, Wyoming, and New York. I still haven’t uploaded all my pics yet, so hopefully I’ll do that this weekend.

My original color was pink pink pink. I love pink! But I really didn’t like the pink dresses at David’s Bridal or the pink style at Ann Taylor. But when the Ann Taylor Celebrations dresses in crimson came out, I thought, OMG, I love these! But they weren’t in my color so I decided to shop around some more. My MOH and I went to a huge bridal store and tried on some dresses from Bill Levkof, Watters, and some others, but they were all missing the initial “ooh” factor. They were more like “eh” and I didn’t want to pick out $200 dresses that were just “eh.”

A few weeks ago the crimson one was on sale for 25% but since the economy is bad, I knew it would be marked down even further. And then I thought, well, maybe they will come out with another pink dress, but then, should I risk passing up the crimson dresses? What if the new Ann Taylor dresses are uglier, or worse, don’t even come in pink! I was ambivalent. But then yesterday I went to the website to look at something else and I noticed they were 40%! Yay, and I had a coupon code that would knock it down another 20%! Score! I figured I couldn’t miss this opportunity since we might risk not getting all the sizes we needed. And I really do like the color so I have no regrets.

So that’s how my color changed to crimson!

Click on the thumbnails for bigger pics.

Ann Taylor vneck crimson

Ann Taylor strapless in crimson

Bridal events

There are tons and tons of bridal events that I didn’t know about until I got engaged. It’s a huge money-making industry, so I guess it makes sense that they are constantly trying to get the attention of brides. One event that perked up my ears was like a happy hour event hosted by Wedding Wire.

Wedding Wire is a website where brides review their vendors and you can read through their comments..very much like say Amazon or Zappos. They also have a lot of tools to help you organize your wedding. They’re also located in DC, which is why I think they had this event.

It was at Cafe Asia, which is two blocks from my work, so I thought, why not check it out? Free sushi, cupcakes, and an open bar (of course I ordered cranberry juice..but the pink mixed drinks were to cute, like Blushing Bride!). My friend Helen was gracious enough to come with me. We made a beeline for the food and plopped ourselves down at a table while everyone else was standing up at mingling. Eventually I thought maybe I should actually talk to at least one person since that was the point of the event, and somehow I ended up talking to cute HK couple that met online. Yes, for some reason I always end up talking to the only other Asian person in the room!

The event was really chill. I expected that someone would give a speech or would try to promote some book that was on display there, but it was really low key, which was nice. So after two rounds of food, we headed out. And I got to leave with a goodie bag! I got a pink tshirt that says “The Best and the Bridest”, and it is so cute but it’s so big! Like a men’s size large! I also got some mints, vodka (how fitting, I gave it to Helen, who’s Russian!), and a Martha Stewart notebook.

I booked a photographer!

I’ve been behind in posting because work has been ridiculous lately!  April 30 is our fiscal year end, so we’ve been cramming in projects like there’s no tomorrow (haha literally!).  Anyway, for the 3 people who read this, I booked a photographer!  This is the fourth big wedding hurdle after buying the dress and booking the church and reception.  YAY!

I probably looked at every DC photographer’s website listed in The Knot and Wedding Wire (I’m a little obsessed about photography) , so I am really relieved that I finally was able to make a decision.  I found out that I love photographers with blogs.   Not only can I screen photographers by catching a glimpse of their personality from their blog, I love seeing their very last wedding they shot, because you know they’re recent and not just showcasing their best weddings on their website.  Also, in the age of digital photography, I want to make sure that they’re computer savvy.  I interviewed 3 of them, one ended up getting booked, so it was down to two.  I really liked them both, but what swayed my decision were Laura Kay’s pics of Tim and Talida’s wedding.  Here’s her blog:  http://www.laurakayphoto.com/blog/

Here is the other photographer’s blog, Garrett Hubbard: http://garrettsphotographs.blogspot.com/ I also really like his commercial photography/videography he does at USA Today.  I loved his picture of Tony Hawk, though I doubt I will be pulling off any stunts like that during my wedding (and his pictures of the pope are better than mine!).

And look at the cute surprise in the mail after I signed my contract!  She’s so sweet!!  Even the envelope had her logo on it (not shown).

Sharing a room? Like college all over again.

Ok this may sound superficial, but I don’t look forward sharing a one-bedroom apartment after we’re married. I wish I knew how other couples do it. Most of their places I’ve been to are super cluttered…like stuff from floor to ceiling. I think that would drive me crazy.

Here’s more stuff I don’t look forward to:

-Sharing a bed: what if he hogs all the sheets? Or what if I end hogging all the sheets? (the morely scenario) Can we buy a king sized comforter for a queen bed or is that way too big?

-Sharing a bathroom: toilet seat will constantly be up because he will forget. I think my cousin’s house in Texas has his and hers toilets. So one seat can always be down and the other always up. Rock on! Time for us to move to Texas and buy a house.

-The big kicker: sharing a closet. And where am I going to put all my shoes? I am spoiled and have 2 closets right now (though I think my shoe closet is actually a linen closet). If we rent a one bedroom apartment after we’re married, I’m afraid we’ll need a lot more furniture for storing clothes.

I guess all of these can be solved when we buy a place or live somewhere that’s bigger than 700 sq. ft. But I don’t see us buying anytime in the next 5 years, so I just hope we don’t kill each other.

Reflection

So when I was first engaged, I was seriously thinking about having a wedding in Vegas.  They have hotel packages where there is an on-site wedding coordinator who takes care of everything.  I wouldn’t have to worry about flowers or decorations or anything.  I wanted someone else to take care of it and all I have to do is show up…like what the grooms do!  At one point, I even considered my mom to plan my wedding!  I didn’t care about which flowers to use in my bridal bouquet!

..but now it seems like I really do like wedding planning!  I’ve been reading some wedding blogs lately, which inspired me to write my own blog that documents this experience.  Hopefully I can look back on this blog and say it was all worth it.