Beware! Bridal Scam!!

I just got a call from this lady that claimed that I had won a raffle... a 2 night 3 day or something like that all inclusive vacation in Bahamas or Cancun... my choice. Sounds too good to be true. She was laughing at the fact that I sound so skeptical about it. All I have to do is go to this bridal showcase at Loews Annapolis Hotel on Sunday at a certain time and give them a claim number to claim my prize. Granted, it's legit so it's not really a scam. I did some search online and this is a common scam. They call and say that you won because someone entered your name on and online raffle or you went to a bridal show and it was entered that way. You have to go and claim the prize by showing up and sitting through a 90 minute cooking showcase. Not too bad if you're not busy and want some free food and don't mind being talked to. BTW, don't think airfare is included.

Honeymoon!

We're going to Maine! Lobsters here we come!

... I travel for food.

Invitations DONE! Well.... almost.

Finally! They're done. Well... actually most of them are done. I ran out of $.41 stamps so about 30 of them will have to wait to be finished tomorrow. Halfway through stuffing the envelops, I realized that I forgot to mention the hotel, so I quickly came up with a hotel and things to do around the area insert. Thanks goodness I didn't need too many of them, since only Ryan's extended families are coming from out of town.

I tried to keep with the same colors as the Save the Dates... red, black, cream, and gold.

Hua and Cynthia helped me finalize a design for the invites. I've already decided on a tri-fold design. But I couldn't figure out the color or the design. I knew that I wanted to keep the flower theme going. Ryan's mom had sent me a few designs that she came up with, after playing around a bit, I combined her designs and what we came up with. First, I wanted to have the double happiness design somewhere on the invites...but the design was just too large. In the end, we still embossed the design just like in the STDs and just cut the character out of the square and backed it in gold. This is tacked on to the flap of the invites.


A pile of double happiness squares ready for the next step.


Red tri-fold invite with the square double happiness.


Working on the front design.


Pasting the English insert.

When you open up the invite, the middle will have the English portion, and the left flap will have the Chinese. I found a template for the Chinese online and had my sister-in-law type it out in Word since I couldn't type Chinese on my laptop. Unfortunately, it was done in simplified Chinese...which I think most of the my family reads. However, I can only read a limited amount of Chinese and most of that is in traditional. It also gives it a bit more of a classy feel. The next day, I actually figured out how to type the Chinese on my own computer... Windows comes equipped! The best part was the IME pad! For the characters that I couldn't read, I was able to write out on the pad and it recognized the characters for me! GREAT!



Finalized inside.

Later on, I realized that the RSVP cards needed to have Chinese too! Unfortunately returning response cards to wedding invites isn't a Chinese tradition. I'm hoping that most of my guests will return the cards.

I made two different types of RSVP cards. The one lined is for the guests where their whole family is invited... i.e. relatives. The two lined ones are for Name and their guest. The guest list is already over the limit right now. I know the two lined card is a bit blatant and obvious and maybe a bit rude, but I need it to be obvious. I added the flower stamp on the corner of the cards to make it a bit more fancy.

There were a few other inserts that needed to be added into the invites... direction cards, registry info, and hotel info.





Ryan made the direction cards and they're printed on gold parchment text paper. I was able to cut squares of vertical lined vellum to face the RSVP cards and use the leftover vellum for the RSVP and hotel cards. All papers were bought from paperandmore.com. A great site!

Registry Cards... To Insert or Not To Insert

While researching registry cards, I became enlightened to the fact that it is generally considered bad form to include any form of registry mention in your invitation envelopes. Etiquette suggests that registries should be informed by word of mouth, or through the invitations to the bridal shower that someone else holds. I would say that about 80% of what I've read online says not to, don't do it, it's never right, etc etc etc. 15% says to go ahead, it's efficient and their guests actually were happy that the information was included in the envelope. The rest says it's up to the bride and groom, and that times are changing. I'm more inclined toward the latter 20% of the people. I've invited a lot of people that I don't know and certainly don't expect them to go out of their way to figure out where we've registered. In the end, I printed up some cards and they will be an addition to some of the envelopes. The Chinese side gives red envelopes, so they won't get a card in theirs.

On a side note, I hit upon a couple forums while searching on this topic. I have to say that there are some real snippy, nasty, and just plain ridiculous brides out there. Can't we just get along?

Dresses and more dresses

Last weekend, N and I drove up to Pittsburgh to visit K for the weekend. Our main goal was to finally track down some bridesmaid dresses. We hit up Alfred Angelo and after many many dresses where N's comment was "I'm neutral," we finally found one which she gave more than the usual comment. We knew that was it. Originally I had planned on picking the color and letting them pick the style. Unfortunately, that turned out to be too hard to accomplish, so we settled on one dress for all three girls. We ordered N and K's right there. F called the next day and gave them her measurements. Even though we found the dress that we liked, we weren't too enthusiastic about the help. The girl just seemed so uninterested and her comments were pretty funny if you think about. However, she should think a bit more before she opens her mouth. Either way it was a relief to finally get the dresses. I think they may have to be altered.

Right afterward, we decided to hop over to David's Bridal that was down the road. I'm still in search of an evening gown. After a quick browse, we found this pink slinky sequine endowed dress that was hanging in the front. I decided to try it on... let's just say that if I wasn't so vertically challenged, the dress might have worked... the lack of support and the boobage exposure was the other reason it was not chosen. I felt cheap. But nevertheless, the visit was a success. We left the shop with a nice dress... size 2, it will have to be shrunken. They don't make things any smaller for bridesmaid dresses or specialty gowns.

Speaking of which... my wedding gown is still at the shop. I was supposed to have picked it up about 2 weeks ago. Such procrastination.