Photographer and others

Originally I was going to go with a wedding center in NYC mostly complete package. I know some of my cousins did that.... makeup, hair, glamour shots, photographer, videographer, dresses, etc with this lady Lucille. She used to work for the same wedding center that my mom's cousin used to/still work for. Recently she opened her own shop, Just Pretty. A few months ago, a family friend got married and hired her for most of their stuff also. I was able to talk to her so hopefully I can hire Lucy to do my hair. A few years ago, when my cousin Dawn got married, I was her maid of honor, Lucy was doing the hair and make up again. We were talking and she said that she was waiting to do my wedding... afterall we have the same name. LOL so I guess I'll get her to do my hair and make up. She'll do my BMs, and the moms also. Although, the Chinese girls in NYC tend to go a bit crazy with the hair and make up, so I'll have to have her tone it down a bit... I want classy and elegant. Not funky and overly pale. We'll make the trip up to NYC in a few weeks to go check out her store and maybe see if I can rent a dress or two from her.

As for photography, my friend Hoho is going to be the main photographer. I haven't decided if I'll have anyone else, but he does a really good job, especially the "in the moment" type ones. www.ihostar.com

Wedding Gown

Late last year, during Christmas break my BMs and I braved the awful traffic on 355 to go to David's Bridal to find their dresses and my gown one Friday night. I hate driving on that stretch of the road. We were late, but eventually got down to business. Only Frances found a dress that she liked... though I don't think she cared too much. Karen and Nancy didn't really see anything that they liked. The plan was for me to pick the color and they pick the style. I didn't want to be one of those bridezillas that had to have everything my way. Unfortunately, we couldn't find anything that they liked or that I liked. So we moved on to the wedding gown. Back (before I got engaged), N and I were visiting K in Pittsburgh for the weekend and decided to go to try on some dresses. I liked many but one stood out to me. It was ivory and champagne colored, split front. This time, I tried it on again, along with some other dresses. It still looked good and still liked it... until the last dress. It was red bordered with a red train. Loved the train, but the front was very plain. I liked it, but didn't liked it that much... until the lady put the matching veil on.. that completed the whole picture. As we were leaving the lady whispered to us not to buy the dress yet, wait a few more weeks after the New Year when the sale comes around again. She was very nice, N loved her. Originally I had planned to rent the dresses from one of those wedding centers in NYC... all my sibs and cousins did that. I mean, why buy the gown when you only get to wear it once. I'll probably try to sell it afterward. My future in-law made a comment when we were making the StDs once that it's such a romantic idea, that I could pass the gown down to my daughter. LOL I looked at her and said that I don't think my kids will be my size. Hehe she had a startled look then started laughing. Anyway, I bit the bullet and bought the gown over the phone and all the accessories that went with the gown. Somehow, I knew the lady ordered the wrong veil... considering the price that she quoted me was $100 less than what it should have been! Anyway, last week N and I went to check out the order and did a fitting. It was petite 0 already, and still needed to be hemmed and probably (hopefully not) taken in a bit. The veil was wrong, but we remedied that. I was worried that I wouldn't like the dress anymore, but it was still looking good...wrinkled, but good. The fitting lady was awesome and had some great advices. My heart hurted a little at the price of hemming and everything else, but I'm trying not to think about it. I highly recommend David's Bridal on 355, the service is outstanding. Comparably, it's not that expensive... but damn. Weddings are expensive... maybe we should elope.

In a few weeks, N and I will be meeting K again in Pittsburgh to go to Alfred Angelo's and see if we can finalize the BM dresses. I still want them to pick their own... but I may just again bite the bullet and pick their dress.

Registries

Last night, we finally went out to do the registry. This is supposed to be the best part of getting married right? What took us so long? Well, we couldn't really decide where to register and there wasn't really anything that we really needed or wanted either. Anyhow, we went to Bed Bath and Beyond. After all, everyone registered there. Ryan had control of the scanner, he wouldn't give it to me. Not because he wanted to scan things, but because he didn't want me to scan everything that I saw. :) Not that I would. After a couple hours, we only came up with maybe less than 20 items on the list. A couple items were pretty pricey, i.e. food processor, sheets, etc, but we also had some things on there that were $2. Granted, we certainly don't want our friends to spend a lot on us... those pricey things are for relatives... One point of contention was towels. We have them, I said we could always use more, he relented, we couldn't agreed on color, so I gave up. That's how most of our items got on the list.

We need to find another place to register at.... later at home, we signed up at Macy's, but there wasn't anything that we liked online so it's currently empty. Maybe Amazon.com. The problem is that we want to be able to touch and feel the items before we decide. Oh well, we still have a few more weeks to figure this out.

Save The Dates.. finally gone.

They're finally done and sent. Not everyone got one though. Some of my relatives (aunts/uncles) didn't get one. I'm not sure they would know what to do with it. It's traditionally not done in Chinese. They'll just wait for the invitation. Now that they're sent, I can show the inside. Check the first post to see what they look like on the outside.


The "xuan xi" is embossed in gold on black cardstock, trimmed, and pasted onto gold metallic cardstock.


The text was done in Word and printed on sand cardstock.

All the paper supplies came from paperandmore.com. A GREAT site! The red paper came from Stampin' Up. The xi stamp I ordered off Ebay from someone in Hong Kong I believe.