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.

Up to Now and More to Come

Originally the date was set for in the fall. I asked my mom to call the reception restaurant to see if they were available September or maybe May. Ryan and I had tossed around the idea of moving the date up to the end of May. My mom had her "Qing Jia Mu" (my sister's mother in law) call the restaurant to make the arrangements since Auntie E and the management are friends. Mom called one morning and said that we're set for May, and I had a minor panic attack. So the date is now in May.

Since then, we've attended and finished PreCana or premarital class. We've met with our presiding priest and reserved the church. Fingers crossed here... I'll explain in a bit. Went dress shopping with my bridesmaids. Ordered the dress and accessories. Arranged for a string quartet for the ceremony. Requested a friend to take pictures. Worked on Save-the-Dates.

When we met with the Father, he said he'll check with the church to see if they're free that day. And if we don't hear from him, that's good news.... meaning he'll call us if there is a problem. We didn't hear from him. So hopefully that's good news.

There are so much more to do...
Send save-the-dates, make and send invitations, arrange for makeup and hair, rent tuxes, flowers, menu selection, cake, favors, gifts, ... and so much more. Maybe I should be more anxious.

Save the Dates

So this starts my new blog. I'm going to try to document my wedding planning and DIY projects on here. Let's see how well I keep this up.

The wedding is in less than 4 1/2 months... I feel like I should be panicking a bit more. But I just can't seem to work up the energy or interest to actually get down and do things. I ordered my dress and accessories and they've arrived at the store. Next weekend we'll go and check it out. Hopefully I'm still happy with my decision. For the past two weeks, I've been on travel for work which put me a bit behind on the Save-The-Dates. Really it's a bit late to send them out, but I like the idea of them and they're already made. I know it's another money sucker facilitated by the wedding market, Save-the-Date announcements aren't usually done for a traditional Chinese wedding. But then... we're not exactly going with the traditional... American or Chinese.

While I was in Alabama, I drove over to Georgia to visit my future in-laws on the weekends. Ryan's mom came up with the design of the cards. The flower design is from Stampin' Up which we stamped on off-white card stock then embossed in gold.

The design is then trimmed and glued on black. After trimming, it is glued onto red card stock. I still need to include the information and add one more bit of decoration on the inside. The final result is elegant and classy. It's a bit more fancy than most Save-the-Date cards on the market, but overall it looks great and cheaper to make. Not to mention I had a great time making these. Stamping is fun. I can get into this.

Did I mention cheaper? After doing some market research... single sheet announcements are around $1 each... give or take some. We made 150 cards.... which would bring us to $150 + shipping + tax had we ordered it. Since we already had the stamp and other stamping supplies, we only had to purchase the paper, which was less than $30.

While I was in Georgia, we brainstormed a design for the invitations. With my color theme or red, gold, cream, and possibly black we were able to come up with some ideas. It's still a working progress. :) Eventually I'll have pictures up... once they're made and sent out.