Autumn Wedding

We got our proofs from our wedding!!! I'm so excited!!!

2008-09-20T18:44:00.001-07:00

We got our proofs the other day from our photographer! I have to say he did a really good job of getting them back to us extremely fast.

First off, I wanted to give you the link to the picture montage that he sent over to us a little bit before the proofs got back to us: http://www.iqphoto.com/previews/08312008/

Out of the some 1000+ photos that he and his assistant took, we get to choose 550 photos from that mix. Below is the link of the photos that we decided upon:

http://www.pictage.com/client/eventPhotos.do?event=544031&folder=1386058&musicPlaying=false

I recommend you viewing them in the slideshow manner. It's a bit easier.

After looking at the photos, I'm really happy. His style was exactly what we were looking for. He has a few edgier pictures, but then a lot of traditional ones as well. Overall, we're extremely pleased with the pictures. I can't wait to get our album from him.

I know during my wedding I was getting a bit testy about all the photos we had to take and about having to run around in the street in my 4 inch heels, but after looking at the final photos, I'm so happy that we did it. Joseph, our photographer did amazing job. I couldn't have asked for more.

Photography

2008-09-14T14:02:00.001-07:00

One of the items that I told Henry that I would not compromise on for our wedding was our photographer. Out of all of the things in our wedding, the one thing I knew we couldn't skimp on was the photography. In my opinion, a good photographer can make all the difference in a wedding.

After searching through a variety of blogs (projectwedding, the knot, yelp) we finally went with a referral from a friend. One of my family friends, Talesa got married last year and her photographer was awesome. I wasn't sure initially because I was worried we wouldn't be able to fit it in our budget.

A few weeks went by and one of my co-workers got married. She mentioned that her photographer was incredible as did many of the guests at her wedding. We were sitting around at work and looked at some of his pictures that he had sent her and after that, I think I was completely sold on his pictures. In fact, several of her attendees pulled me aside and told me that I had to book Joseph Kohn for my wedding because he has a great eye for photos. My husband did some research, contacted Joseph and eventually we were on our way to hiring him for our wedding.

Talesa and Dave's Wedding Montage by Joseph Kohn.

August 15^th, we met with our photographer to shoot our engagement session. I think that the engagement session was helpful because it helped us get more comfortable with being shot for a period of time. I have to admit, it does feel pretty weird getting photographed by a professional photographer. I know that my friends and I are camera happy and that we love making muck faces for each other, but when someone is photographing you professionally, it's very different. For me, I got shy and just never really felt comfortable. I think that the engagement session helps a lot to alleviate some of the "strangeness" that you feel about being photographed and helps you relax a bit.

Our Engagement Session: http://www.pictage.com/client/event.do?event=528029

I was happy with several of the pictures in our engagement session and our photographer had us pick a few photos and he chose one to blow up for our wedding. I can't tell you how many compliments we got on the picture.

People told us that it captured the overall feel of our "San Francisco" wedding and that we didn't look too cheesy like most engagement photos they've seen at weddings. People mentioned that at first they thought it was just some artwork until they realized that it was our engagement photo. I do love the photograph and it doesn't look glaringly sappy like normal engagement photos tend to look like, so I think we could put it up somewhere in our house. We just have to figure out where. =)

On our wedding day, I have to admit. It was VERY tiring taking going through 3 dress changes and having 3 ceremonies throughout the whole day not to mention trying to keep up a smile and everything for photos.

Here were some small tips that our photographer gave us during our wedding that I thought were kind of interesting, but I guess they made sense and we'll see it in the final product.

First off, he mentioned to always look up. The shadows on your face are gone when you look up and you get great lighting on your face.
When it comes time for the "you may kiss the bride" you need to hold that kiss for at least 6 seconds for them to catch a good picture.
During dinner and during the ceremony, try and look up as often as possible and don't always look down at your food.

On the day of the wedding, Joseph and his assistant showed up on time and were very professional. I don't know how they do it. Put up with the wedding party snapping pictures all day. I think I would have lost it if I had to do that. Especially with our group. I know we're a bit unruly at times.

Overall, I can't wait to see the final product. I'm really excited and can't wait to see the photographs.

My Beauty Regimen

2008-09-08T16:00:00.001-07:00

Prior to my wedding day, I made a few vows to perfect my skin before my wedding. Unfortunately, I broke all of those vows. Initially, I was planning on abstaining from alcohol for 2 weeks before my wedding. I think I messed up on this one several times before my wedding. We had a lot of friends in town and over at our house for the days prior to our wedding, so we ended up having wine on nearly all of the nights before the wedding.

A week before my wedding, I had a facial at Soothe in San Francisco. I have to say that Jeska Manuel did an awesome job on my skin. I always have a lot of whiteheads on my nose and cheeks and she did an awesome job of getting as many out as she could without pushing my skin beyond its limits. She used an extractor tool, which normally makes me tear up a lot, but she was as gentle as she possibly could. I have to say, this was the least painful facial with extractions I've had. She gave me a few pointers for my skin and the salon uses a skin care line that I'm a big fan of, Dermologica. I was first turned on to dermalogica while at a salon in Asia. I really like the way their products feel on my skin and having a few allergies, their products so far seem not to contain any chemicals or fragrances that cause me to have a reaction.

I've learned to be good about exfoliation and sunscreen in the future. Normally, I'm not good with keeping a routine for my skin, but now as I'm getting into my 30's, I am starting to realize how I treat my skin now will have an impact on my skin later.

The day before my wedding, I went with my cousin to get my nails done as well as my eyebrows threaded. For those of you who aren't familiar with the threading process, the reason I use threading is because I have sensitive skin and often times when I get my eyebrows waxed, my skin burns and I have scab/scars on my eyelids. Threading is a bit painful, but doesn't hurt my skin. I normally go to a woman named Deepa the Threading Queen, but for my wedding, I decided to try another place, Seema.

On the day of my wedding, I had the honor of having my makeup professionally done by Jira and her team at WOWpretty. Jira and her team were awesome. Each of my bridesmaids and my moms (henry and mine) had their makeup done by Jira's Assistant, Adrian.

Jira uses the airbrush technique and I swear, I wore my makeup for 3 days and it was still near perfect. I know, I know, I just talked about keeping up a good beauty regimen for my skin's future, but the makeup looked so good, I really wanted to make it last, especially my eyelashes. Jira placed individual eyelashes on my eyes.

Each of my bridesmaids also got their hair and make-up done as well, the following are pictures during the actual ceremony. The wind was blowing a lot, so they're not the best pictures to show off their hair and makeup, but you get the idea:

Our Florist

2008-09-06T09:53:00.000-07:00

Well, my wedding has come and gone and I’ve yet to blog about a lot of it. Currently, I’m on a flight home from our mini honeymoon. Initially, we weren’t planning on taking a honeymoon since I had to be back at work and we just got back a few months ago from a trip to Taiwan and the Philippines, but we decided to just take a few days to get away from things and to spend some quality time together after officially becoming Mr. and Mrs. Chang.

Now, on this boring flight home, as the mister sleeps, I decided to sit down and really begin blogging about our wedding. I’ll most likely blog in small increments a day, divided up by category or thoughts. Today, as my first post, I think I’ll blog about my most favorite part of my entire wedding, the flowers.

I cannot even describe how above and beyond our florist went. We worked with a woman named Leanne and her company, Callalily. She was more than fabulous. All of my wedding dreams really came true through Leanne’s ideas and creations. After a referral from a family friend of mine and meeting with quite a few other vendors, we decided to work with Leanne. We felt the most comfortable and most at ease with Leanne. She was very down to earth and very nice.

Not to mention, her budget was very reasonable, in fact, I think we got away with a steal working with her. I cannot reemphasize how above and beyond my expectations the flowers were. Initially, some of the other florists we met with were asking for nearly double what Leanne did for us.

It seemed as if Leanne really cares about her clients and the work that she puts forth. As our wedding got closer, she met with us a few weeks before the wedding to look at the ceremony site as well as the reception hall. She was very organized and always very professional and prompt. She took down some notes and reviewed with us the flowers we had discussed.

In all of the chaos leading up to my wedding, I completely forgot to ask Leanne for flowers for my hair. Around 9am, I called Leanne to ask if by any chance she would be able to put together some flowers for my hair. It was no problem for her.

A few hours later, the flowers arrived to our suite, escorted by Leanne. I was so excited to see the bouquets and all of the boutonnières for the family.

Leanne then went to help set up the ceremony site. I know that Sutro Heights Park is on the complete opposite side of town from the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel, so we really appreciated all of the work her and her family did for our wedding.

Anyways, now for the part you’ve all most likely been waiting for, the flowers:

Please check my wedding photo group on flickr, little by little I'm asking friends to upload photos as we go.

(These were all taken through our friend’s cameras. Our official wedding photos will not be ready until later)

Flowers in my hair:

Bridal Bouquet:

Bridesmaids Bouquet:

Groomsmen’s Boutonnières:

Our Wishing Tree/Guestbook:

Centerpieces (I had 2 styles):

Flowers on our Arch for the Ceremony:

Ring Bearer and Flower Girl: (The Kissing Ball and the Ring holder)

Chair Decorations for Ceremony:

Decor for the Cocktail Hour:

Henry and my mom's Boutonnières:

Down to the final stretch! Boys night out....

2008-08-29T08:43:00.000-07:00

Well, we're down to the final stretch. Only a few more days until I will officially be Mrs. Chang.

This morning, all of Henry's groomsmen and close friends are going golfing at Cinnabar hills golf course and then going to San Francisco afterwards for his bachelor party. In away, I'm glad he's having his bachelor party today. This way, he won't be TOO hungover for the wedding and everyone will be too hungover on Saturday to get drunk the night before the wedding.

This way, everyone will hopefully be up and fresh early in the morning.

I have to admit, this morning after the guys left, I started getting a sudden rush of panic about the wedding. I don't know why I started feeling that way, since most of the items are now complete.

Last night, as I mentioned, I fiddled around with animoto, which by the way is an awesome service. All I did was drag and drop my pictures and then the songs I wanted and within a few minutes, the entire slideshow was complete.

Here are the videos I made last night for our wedding. I broke them down into 3 sections, one for me growing up, one for Henry growing up and one with both of us together:

Testing Animoto

2008-08-28T16:27:00.001-07:00

testing animoto

2008-08-28T16:23:00.001-07:00

After fiddling around with windows movie maker and realizing that I'm a complete computer idiot, I started to panic. My wedding is only 3 days away and I have no slideshow finished or even complied as of yet.

After asking around, someone mentioned animoto, it's really cool! The video below is just a trial (free version) that I wanted to test and see before I actually did my video. Basically, each video is $3.00 for a full version. I wanted to see how a test version would turn out and to be honest, it's not bad. All you do is drag, drop and pick your music and animoto does the rest. I really loved this product.

Wedding Party Entrance Songs

2008-08-27T10:55:00.001-07:00

Last night, Henry and I decided to pick our songs for the wedding party entrance and Bride and Groom's entrance.

The wedding party will be rocking out to Ne-Yo's Closer:

Henry and I will be coming out for the first time as Mr. and Mrs. Chang to Chris Brown's Forever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2IExa2A198

Initially, we were having a really hard time picking what to come out to. Our choices were as follows:

Chris Brown - Forever
Ne-Yo - Closer
Justin Timberlake - My Love (linus remix)
Ligaya (Ferry Corsten) ** Hahahaha, those of you who know me, know I picked this one.
Coldplay - Viva La Vida

Shoes, Shoes and Shoes!!!

2008-08-27T00:35:00.003-07:00

Earlier this week, I was also able to find my wedding shoes. My shoe for my white American wedding dress is a Stuart Weitzman shoe that I purchased off of Bluefly.com during their designer sale. I actually got a very good price for my shoes. After being marked down and then marked down one more additional time, the shoes came out to be only $144.00. Not only that, they also came with free shipping.

My most frugal find so far was my shoes for my Chinese and Thai dress. When I walked into Macy's, Henry and I were trying to find the perfect shoe to go with my cultural dresses. Most importantly, both of my dresses have gold in them, so I needed to find gold shoes.

Unfortunately, I was not able to find anything that fit my descrption as well as something in my size. After giving up on finding the shoes at Macy's, I decided to walk and check out their sales rack just to find regular shoes for every day wear. As I walked around, I spotted a pair of gold shoes in my size. I tried them on and they fit perfectly. What we both liked even more was that the shoes were only $35.00. After taking them up to the counter to be rung up, we found out that they were even marked down another 40%, making the shoes total cost to be about $20.00. You can not imagine how much we loved the shoes for the price.

On top of all of that shoe shopping, a few weekends ago, Henry and I were also able to find our bridesmaids and groomsmen gifts. Since some of them read my blog, I am going to refrain from posting all of the details of their gifts, but I got my bridesmaids a pendant from Tiffany's. I liked their bridesmaids gifts so much, I got a matching pendant but with a pink sapphire in the middle of mine.

I really like the groomsmens' gifts as well. They're pretty cool and ideal for an outdoor afternoon wedding.

I have a ton more updates to give you all, but it's somewhat late and we've got another long day of planning tomorrow.

Five more days and counting!!! Let them eat cake!

2008-08-26T23:09:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a long time since we've posted anything. Henry and I have been quite busy over the last few days. I wish I had more time to chronicle it on this blog, but I've been busy finishing out my last few shifts before I went on vacation and getting things done for my vacation.

Over the last few weeks, we've been doing a lot of things.

First off, we took our engagement pictures on August 16th. The photographs are available through Pictage, but I think you have to be invited to view the pictures, so if you're wondering how they turned out, feel free to e-mail us and we'll invite you to view them.

Our photographer, Joseph Kohn was extremely easy to work with and I was very happy with our pictures. I know I wasn't the easiest person to photograph because I was giggling all the time. Henry and I felt really weird taking the pictures and being mushy in public, but the pictures still turned out great despite all of our giggling.

Secondly, we finished off most of our favors and programs and things.

I think my most favorite portion of our wedding is our Wishing Tree. While in Taiwan, we went to the national museum and saw an exhibit about wishing trees. We decided that isntead of a guestbook, we would have a wishing tree and have people write their guestbook entries on these little cards and then hang them on the tree. Once the wedding is done, we will take down the tree and cut off the strings and place them in a book to keep for ourselves.

We also chose our cake. The following is a picture of a cake design I liked, the only thing though is I did not want the green and blue squirly things because they don't match our color scheme. We took those out and requested that the little dots are made in pink and our cake made in white. I hope that the cakes ends up looking how I'd like it to look.

Cocktail Hour Food and Ceremony Music

2008-08-19T20:51:00.001-07:00

Well, thanks to all of you who voted on the cold canapes and hors d’oeuvres for the cocktail reception. They will be passing around the following:

Norwegian smoked salmon and cream cheese roulade
Butterfly prawn on tortilla w/guacamole
Eggplant and goatcheese terrine on sesame crouton
Miniture crab cakes
Wild mushroom and thyme strudel

I also passed over a list of music that we would like to be played during our ceremony. Sutro Heights Park does not allow amplified sound, so as a result, we will be having a string trio from Vibo Music performing at our wedding. I spent the last few hours trying to figure out what songs we would like them to play. For those of you who don't know, I played the viola and the piano when I was a little and even performed a few solos from time to time in my school orchestra and during graduation.

Picking out my songs was very reminiscing for me. I really enjoyed going through a lot of old music that I used to play and it did bring back a lot of good memories. I really did love music growing up and I sometimes wish I would have kept playing the piano or viola. Anyways, for our song selection we wanted to try and keep our choices simple and classic, but adding a bit of our own flare to it.

Music for Before Ceremony begins as guests arrive:

Handel Water Music - Air,
Bach - Brandenburg Concertos No.3 - i: Allegro Moderato
Vivaldi Four Seasons - Spring
Gigue from Suite #3 in D Minor
Bach - Brandenburg Concertos No.3 - iii: Allegro
Chopin's Nocturne With String Quartet

Groomsmen Entrance

Pachelbel - Canon In D Major

Bridesmaids Entrance:

J.S. Bach - Air on the G String

Bride's Entrance:

Schubert - Ave Maria

Ceremony Speaker/Vows:

Bach - Arioso

Bride and Groom's Exit + Recessional:

Bitterswet Symphony - By the Verve (String Quartet Version) -Not sure if they'll be able to pull this off, but here's a small sample of the track: http://www.amazon.com/Bittersweet-Symphony-String-Quartet-Verve/dp/B001BWFV3M/ref=dm_ap_trk6
or Mendelssohn Wedding March.

First dance music selection....

2008-08-13T22:02:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know me, I really, REALLY like listening to music. So, when it came time for us to start narrowing down songs, I had a really hard time. After a lot of thinking and browsing through my tracks, I found the perfect song for what Henry and I both wanted out of a first dance.

I had picked the song, "Baby, I'm Yours" by Barbara Lewis. It's a classic/oldies song and I thought it fit the occasion rather nicely. It also is to a beat/pace that we both want, not too fast, not too slow. I also thought it would be a song that would appeal to our parents friends as well and not just be some random kiddie song that they didn't recognize.

Just the other day, however, I was clearing out my old laptop and came upon some old tracks I had on my computer and found the song, "Asian Girl" by Kai. After hearing that song, I started to think that it would also be a pretty cute song to dance to for our first dance. Some people would recognize it and remember it, but I don't think too many people lately have been dancing to it as their first dance song. Some people, especially my out of town guests would most likely not even recognize it, which is partially why it appeals to me because it would be somewhat original. The lyrics are also very cute and it is a bit more "heartier" as a song. The other onei s more of a melody type of song, this is more of a song song.

I figure if I decide not to go with the "Asian Girl" song, we can always use it as our last dance song. What do you guys think? Which song would you pick for your first dance?

Second batch of invitations

2008-08-13T13:57:00.000-07:00

Initially, when we were getting our invitations printed up, I asked my mom how many invitations she needed. She told me approximately 15-30 at the most. So...we overestimated and got a total of 120 invitations printed up. Our initial plans for our total headcount was 150, which means approximately a total of 75 invitations to be sent out (one person + guest). We knew some would have larger families so that actually would cut the total number of invitations even more.

As a result of all these factors, we decided to print up 120 invitations. That should be enough, right? Well, after we got the invitations, my mom started sending over her list in bits and pieces and soon enough, the total number of invitations exceeded what we had thought.

We had planned to have some printed up for family overseas as well, but we ran out. We couldn't get the exact invitations done over again, so I did the next best thing. I saw these invitations at Michael's made by Martha Stewart that actually look really cute and fit our color scheme of pink really well.

It is called the Waterlily line and the invitations and everything else are extremely cute!

This is the outside of the card:

This is the inside after using a really easy template provided through mathastewart.com:

I haven't affixed the inside insert yet with glue, but I think it looks pretty nice and it was extremely easy to make. If you're looking for ideas for invitation cards or even just cards for any occasion, I really recomend martha stewart's cards. It was extremely easy to make and it looks really nice. These did cost a little bit more than our original invitations, but I think that these even look cuter and better.

While printing up these invitations, I noticed that they had a ton of other really cute projects for weddings on her site as well. If you're one of those DIY type of brides, I highly recommend checking out the site to get ideas.

Louie and Aimee's Wedding.

2008-08-11T13:59:00.000-07:00

My co-worker Louie got married on the auspicious date of 08-08-08 (888) at Saint Ignatius Church in San Francisco. I ended up working the night before, so we weren't able to attend the church portion of the wedding, we did make it out to San Francisco in time for the cocktail reception which was at the Harry Denton's Starlight Room and the dinner at Sir Francis Drake Hotel.

The overall reception decor almost reminded me a bit of the movie Moulin Rouge because the colors and decor were so vibrant and had a Indian or middle eastern flare to it. I know that Aimee the bride does belly dancing and often performs with her troupe, so I think this was a large factor in their decor.

Overall, I really had fun at the wedding and Henry and I with our wedding only a few weeks away we were taking notes on how to organize our timeline.

Bay Area Bridal Shower and Bachelorette Party

2008-08-06T15:14:00.000-07:00

This last weekend, I had my bridal shower and my bay area bachelorette party. The girls met at my house and had Thai food catered to my house for the event. I got so many nice things from my friends. They were so generous and sweet to get me so many pretty things. I really love them all a lot. Henry thanks everyone as well. Hehe...I can't wait to try everything on for him after we're married. =P

My cousin leading one of the bridal shower games.

My Bridesmaids:

Out at Santana Row

Groomsmen's Attire

2008-07-31T15:11:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, Henry had to go get fitted for Kevin and Jennifer's Wedding (their wedding in Taiwan.) While we were there, we decided that we might as well decide on the menswear for our wedding as well.

Now, you all know by now that our color scheme is pink, white with hints of red. Initially, I wanted everyone to wear tradition tuxedos with cumberbun. I know this might sound stupid, but whenever I think of tuxedos, I always get this picture of James Bond with the traditional tuxedo and I don't know why, but no matter which James bond it is, he always looks so good in a tuxedo.

To me, sometimes vests end up looking outdated or 80's-ish. I begged and begged for Henry to please get a traditional tuxedo, but after talking it over, it is also his wedding and he really did not want to wear a traditional tuxedo. His argument was that he didn't want to wear a jacket all the time because he gets hot and according to him, wearing a traditional tuxedo without the jacket would make him look like a penguin.

Okay, fine. I guess since I got to pick my dresses, he should be able to do the same as well. We then toyed with the idea of the different colors for the vests. With our overall color scheme of the wedding being pink and white, I wanted the groomsmen to wear pink. Yes, I said it. I wanted them to wear pink. Henry got a good laugh at the idea of me trying to get the groomsmen to wear pink vests and ties without them killing me.

After spending nearly an hour just deciding on what type of vests to wear, we ended up just going with plain black. I still think pink doesn't look half bad. I even tried to reason with him and ask for pink ties. Here's a picture below of the comparison. Ignore the red vest/red tie underneath the pink tie. We were just overlaying it to get a mental picture. So, imagine the black one with a white shirt inside as well. I don't know, I still think the pink doesn't look half bad. What do you guys think? Perhaps I can get Henry to change it last minute if you guys are in agreement with me. If not, I think I already lost my case. Hehe...

The Finalized Dinner Menu

2008-07-29T16:33:00.000-07:00

Now on to my favorite part of the night, the food!!

Well, we finalized our dinner menu a few months ago. It was a lot of fun tasting all the different foods. One of my bridesmaids, Sabrina came along. She even ate some beef and fish for us (she's a vegetarian) to help us decide on what to get.

Afterwards, we did a little walk through of the ballroom and the hotel itself.

Cocktail Reception

Once again, please don't forget to help us decide what to serve as our cold canapes and hot hors d'oeuvres during the reception. To vote, please check out the right hand menu on our blog. The hotel is allowing 6 per person, but we're going to maybe pick the top 4 choices of each, that way the choices that are popular, people can try more than just one piece.

As for the dinner selection, we finalized our menu and it is as follows:

Salad
Mixed Greens and Champagne Poached Pear Salad, Candied Walnuts, Goat Chese and Pear Vinagrette

Main Course - (Fish, Beef or Vegetarian)

Grilled Sea Bass, Leek and Potato Gratin, Red and Yellow Pepper Timbale covered with a White Wine Sauce

Grilled Beef Tenderloin, Leek and Potato Gratin, Red and Yellow Pepper Timbale covered with a Red Wine Sauce

Grilled Vegetable Wellington with Warm Tomato Coulis– Layered Vegetables and Cheese wrapped in Puff Pastry and surrounded by Tomato

Dessert

Golden Delicious Apple Tarte Tatin, Tahitian Vanilla Bean Ice Cream, and Almond Tuile

I need your help!! Cold Canapes and Hot Hors d’oeuvres

2008-07-22T17:08:00.000-07:00

So, with our wedding quickly approaching, we need to start making some more final decisions.

At our food tasting, we were allowed to try the actual food, but since the Cold Canapes and Hot Hors d’oeuvres are somewhat time consuming for the chef, we weren't allowed to taste those. We just have to base our decision on the description.

As a result, we need your help!! Badly! I'm so bad with choices, especially with all of them sounding so yummy and good. We can choose 6 items to be passed around. It can include any mix from the hot and the cold selections. We might pick double of one item if something is popular, that way people can have more than one of that selection instead of just one (and in case someone else eats someone else's other one since they're just being passed around.)

Please see the poll to the right hand side and help us decide what to serve.

On another note, we got our first few responses in the mail! Yipeee!!! We also got our first wedding present as well! =) Yipeeeeeeeeee, thanks P'Damon! Too bad you can't come to the wedding.

Wedding Bands, Bridal Party Gifts + Wedding Favors

2008-07-20T21:42:00.000-07:00

This weekend, Henry and I also spent a lot of time out shopping for all types of things for our wedding.

The first stop we made was to Tiffany & Co. to pick up our wedding bands. We had gone in earlier in the week and ordered our bands and they came in this weekend.

The ring I chose was a Channel-Set band ring with a half circle of round brilliant diamonds in platinum. 2mm wide. [link to my ring]

The ring that Henry chose was the double milgrain wedding band ring in platinum, 6mm wide. [link to Henry's ring]

Surprisingly, after going to several different stores to look for our wedding bands, Tiffany & Co. was the cheapest.

The exact same band that Henry wanted from Tiffany & Co. at Bailey Banks & Biddle made my Scott Kay was $4,600. We were shocked. We thought that Tiffany & Co. would be the most expensive, but as different stores explained to us, since Tiffany & Co. is such a larger chain, they're able to buy in bulk. This means that they most likely bought their rings awhile ago, when the price of metals was lower. The smaller stores, unfortunately, have to buy their rings monthly or by each piece, so they are more susceptible to price fluctuations with the stock market pricing on precious jewels and metals.

So, if you're in the market for rings, don't discount checking out Tiffany & Co. as a cheaper alternative to other stores. They might be the most inexpensive place right now to buy your rings.

I ended up buying my bridesmaids gifts as well. I have to say that Andre was a pleasure to work with. He was very nice and was always completely honest with us. I've bought some items from him before and he was really nice that time as well. If you happen to go to the Tiffany & Co. at Valley Fair, I highly recommend him.

Henry ended up buying his groomsmen gifts. I think they're actually pretty cool. They'll tie in with our outdoor wedding ceremony. I don't want to post what I got for my bridesmaids or what Henry got for his groomsmen because we know some of them read this blog.

Wedding Invitations are now out!

2008-07-20T03:32:00.001-07:00

Well, I just got back from Vegas on Friday evening. After a fun, but long and tiring few days in Vegas, Henry and I woke up this morning and tried to tie up a few loose ends for the wedding.

First off, the invitations are off! Yay! Some of my friends have also let me know they received their invitations and have mailed out their responses, so hopefully I'll see them soon. From all the other blogs I've read about wedding planning, it seems that receiving response cards is a very exciting thing. I can't wait to get my first one through the mail.

Along with sending out the invitations, Henry and I ended up buying clear labels and printing out the labels on the invitation ourselves. We used microsoft word for the templates and used the Avery clear mailing labels. It was a lot easier than we thought and Henry had them all printed and completed in just a few minutes.

Next, we went off to the post office to buy some stamps and to figure out how much it would cost to mail out each invitation. While there, the postmaster told us that our response cards were actually too small to be mailed back. This was pretty disappointing. He told us that the minimum size of cards is 3.5 x 5 inches. Whoops...the cards that came in our invitation kits was slightly smaller than that. We ended up having to buy some envelopes and using those instead.

We picked out the Wedding Hearts stamp for 2 oz. packages. Too bad there isn't much of a variety as far as wedding stamps.

Henry was good about doing all the stamps and labels and finishing them up so we could get our invitations out while I was in Vegas.

Vegas Vacation!!!!

2008-07-15T12:05:00.000-07:00

Well, this week a group of us girls +1 guy decided to take a little vacation from work and head out to Vegas. It is also a pre-bachelorette bash. I'm going to play war with the dealer just like in National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation. I don't know why, but that movie makes me crack up really hard.

Anyways, we are leaving in a few minutes, but with the weather there being over 100 degrees, I couldn't decide what to wear.

Here are some examples of what I've decided to wear. My fiance was teasing me because I'm going for only 3 1/2 days, but yet I've packed about 10 outfits. Hey, you gotta think about how hot it is and the fact that there has to be a day outfit and a night outfit. My outfits include things from BCBG, Arden B, Club Monaco, Haviana (flip flops, which are the best in the world in my opinion,) Calvin Klein.

Anyways, I'll be taking my laptop with me to vegas, so I'll be updating pictures and things as we go along.

Invitations and CD are here!!!

2008-07-14T18:11:00.000-07:00

Now that Henry is back from the Philippines, we have a couple more things finished off the list.

While overseas, Henry had our wedding CD made by a couple who started their business after doing their own wedding CD. Henry found them via a website called www.sulit.com.ph, which is a citysearch type of website but in the Philippines.

The people who did the CD for us were really nice according to Henry and we'd highly recommend them. They helped us create our CD cover as well. We had some images that we liked and Henry gave them the pictures and they made it for us. I really liked the cover they made. It's really cute. Plus, their pricing was really good. Each CD ended up being approximately 85 cents each including a small cover. According to Henry, the person he was working with/the contact person was Diane Zapata.

We plan on tying a ribbon around the pink CD cover as well to complete the whole CD portion. Picking out the songs for our album was also rather difficult. Here is our list of tracks for our wedding CD:

Back to you - John Mayer
I Do (Cherish You) - 98 Degrees
Love's Divine - Seal
I Was Just Thinking - Teitur
At Last - Etta James
Such Great Heights - The Postal Service
One and Only - Teitur
Miracles - Pet Shop Boys
Way I Am - Ingrid Michaelson
No Stopping Us - Jason Mraz
The Way You Look Tonight - Frank Sinatra
Sleeping To Dream - Jason Mraz
How Deep Is Your Love - Lazy Grace ft. Billie Godfrey
The Game Of Love - Michelle Branch ft. Santana
Baby, I'm Yours - Barbara Lewis
Better Together - Jack Johnson
I need your love - Harrison Crump (Kaskade Remix)
Love Will Come Through - Travis
Brand New Colony - Postal Service

While in the Philippines, Henry also picked up our wedding invitations. Here are some photographs of our invitations.

The front of the invitation. It has a swirly texture type of paper, which I thought was rather cool.

The swirly paper:

This is the inner portion of the invitation.

This is our response card:

At the end of it all, our invitations including the envelopes, thank you cards, response cards, and all of the various inserts and our program cover, it came out to about $1.75 total. I don't know about you, but I was VERY happy with how it all turned out for such a cheap price.

The invitations and the CD all together came out to under $3.00 a piece. I was extremely happy with that.

Bridesmaids outfit.

2008-06-22T09:08:00.000-07:00

My mom was up here this last weekend, so I had a chance to show her some of the things we're doing for the wedding.

My mom also picked up my cousin's bridesmaids stuff so that she could send it with someone to Thailand so my cousin could try them on.

Here's a picture I took of the bridesmaid's ensemble:

The dress is from Ann Taylor Celebrations Line. This particular dress is called the Karen and it is in Berry color.

The Shoes are Ralph Lauren and they are in a metallic gold/silver color.

The Shawl I got in Thailand. I'm planning on giving them as part of the bridesmaid gift bag thing. I think it goes pretty well with the dress and overall colors/theme of our wedding.

Guestist blues...

2008-06-17T08:10:00.001-07:00

So, Henry and I have been working on our guestlist for the past couple of weeks. As our wedding is quickly approaching, I'm starting to get a bit stressed out over the guestlist. I wish we could invite everyone, but logistically and financially there is no way that we can invite everyone.

How do you cut down your list? The hardest thing for me is inviting all of my co-workers. At my work, we're all a pretty tight bunch because we work in such close proximity of one another. Especially, those of us who work on the same weekend (at my work they require us to work every other weekend, so you see the same people on the same weekends.)

The hardest part is, I would consider everyone at my work my friend, but as far as hanging out with people outside of work, there's only a handful of people there that I see or talk to outside of work. The question is, do I invite everyone or just those people I talk to outside of work. This is the hardest part as of right now. Who to invite from work. It's also hard because there are some people at work that I don't talk to outside of work, but I talk to them a lot at work and I consider them to be my closer friends at work and I would like to invite them. They're closer with other people at work and those people might be hurt that if so and so got invited how come they didn't get invited.

I'm going to be honest with you all, our wedding is a bit on the pricier side in my opinion. At least, it's a lot more than I would have liked to have spent.

For the reception alone, the pricing of the dinner and drinks and use of the hotel's ballroom is $185.00 a person. It is somewhat of a good deal, if you consider in that they're including everything, tax and tip as well.

This price, however, doesn't factor in decor, the dj, flowers, favors and everything else we're putting into this wedding. Multiply that by 2, since we will expect each person to bring a guest and we're left at spending $400.00. Sure, I get along with all of my co-workers and I really wish I could invite everyone, but I am not able to invite them all due to the financial issues.

We want to keep our guestlist around 150-175.

Any ideas or suggestions on how to keep your guestlist under control?

Wedding Makeup Trial #2! I love it!

2008-06-16T12:11:00.001-07:00

I had my 2nd wedding makeup trial and I can honestly say that now I am starting to get into the wedding mode. I was so happy with the results and I had a lot of fun working with P' Jira.

On Friday, after my usual night shift work, I came home and got about 2 hours sleep before heading off to my trial with P' Jira from WOWPretty. My appointment was at 1pm in the afternoon in Burlingame, which is located in San Francisco Bay Area. Her studio is located in a cute area near the caltrains station and nearby all of those restaurants and shops (like Straits and stuff.)

As soon as she opened the door, an instant rapport was formed. She was so friendly and sincerely nice, I felt quite at ease right away. I brought a few pictures I had snipped from magazines, but still from seeing Jira's website, I knew she was very professional and I actually trusted her eye and her experience more. What I really liked was she asked a lot about what I normally do and what I normally like with my makeup routine. I'm a strong believer that although your wedding makeup should be extraordinary, you should still look like yourself.

After talking a bit and looking at some photo albums with different hairstyles and makeup ideas, Jira talked about what we'd try today and encouraged me to offer my suggestions as we went along.

I was blown away by her work. She also takes quite a few pictures of the different looks and styles that way you can take a look at it and review it for yourself.

I am pretty sure that I will hire Jira for my wedding. I just have to wait to talk to Henry since he's in the Philippines again. He hasn't seen the pictures yet, but hopefully I'll talk to him about it tonight or tomorrow. I just want to get his opinion, even though I'm sure he'll like it.

Now, however, I wanted some of your opinions. I have a few options for my wedding and I wanted to see what you guys thought or what I should do as far as my hair and makeup for my wedding day.

Remember how I had my trial session with Julie Dy at Laura Mercier? I had picked up a face cream from there and to be honest, it makes my skin look extremely oily. A lot more oily than it normally is. I wore this to my makeup trial. Big mistake!! When you go to your makeup trial don't wear anything TOO oily as it will make the makeup come out somewhat differently and to be honest, it'll make your skin not as pretty in my opinion. I think I'm going to have to take that cream back or just keep it as a night time cream, even though it has spf in it.

Anyways, back to the makeup trial. So, Jira did two hair looks for me and two makeup looks. Normally, I usually wear my hair down or half up. I rarely put my hair completely up so we tried a half updo first with softer makeup. The idea of the softer makeup was to compliment the fact that my first portion of the wedding is going to be outdoors and in my white wedding dress. Here are some of the pictures of that look:

I need your opinions when you look at the photographs. So, I think I like this makeup combination the most. It looks very fresh and natural. I also like the veil, but without the extra portion in the back. We tried it out as an experiment. It was fun working with Jira. She offered a lot of suggestions and we tried different hair pins, etc. When Jira just suggested it and we intially tried it out, I think liked the extra portion in the back, but now that I look at the pictures, it might be too much. Jira mentioned this to me after I tried it and said it might be too much. Now I realize that she was right. What do you guys think?

I am also starting to think that maybe I should just go with a complete updo instead of half updo for the whole wedding. What do you guys think? Or do you think I should change it up and stuff between the ceremony and the reception?

Now, after our ceremony, we will be heading into the hotel for the reception portion and I will do a dress change into my Thai dress. I really think that the Thai and Chinese dresses would look best with a full updo and Jira recommended that maybe we do a bit sharper makeup since my Chinese dress is bright red. I won't be wearing the veil with my Thai dress or my Chinese dress, but I will make my entrance into the reception in my white dress. Here are some photographs of that look:

The session ended at about 3 in the afternoon and to be honest, I was getting pretty tired and I think you can see it a bit in my eyes. Her work would have looked ten times better if I was a bit more rested, but I was so eager to meet up with her and find a good makeup artist before they got booked, I took the first date available for a trial.

Now, this is where you all come in, please, please, please give me your thoughts and ideas about the makeup and which looks you liked best. I really do read all of your comments and e-mails and do take your suggestions into consideration.

Overall, I was really impressed with Jira's work. She was very fun, professional and easy to work with. She was very sincere as well, offering suggestions and advice, but still asking my opinion and making me feel like I could speak up and voice my opinion as well. For example, I was pretty adamant about having my hair half up and Jira suggested that I try an updo as well because she thought it would look really nice. I'm not used to having my hair up, but I trusted her opinion and now, looking at the photographs, I realize my hair looked awesome up.

I am so glad that I found Jira at WOWPretty. I can't even express how impressed I was. I'm not used to getting pampered so much either, it felt great getting your makeup professionally done by such an attentive person.

Thanks, Jira! Now I can't wait for my wedding day!!!

Meeting of the in-laws....

2008-06-14T15:35:00.000-07:00

Today, my mom and brother met my fiance Henry's parents. I was somewhat nervous, but excited at the same time. I was a bit more nervous because Henry is still overseas on business and I would have to do the introduction by myself. Henry's parents came to our house and we all talked for a bit before heading out to lunch. I'm pretty comfortable with Henry's parents, so I didn't feel as nervous or awkward about introducing them to my mom and brother by myself.

I think that everything went rather well. We ended up eating at a Dim Sum place in Cupertino, California called Joy Luck Place. It was a bit crowded, so the wait was about 30-40 minutes. This was good in someways because it gave them a chance to sit and talk for a bit while we waited for our table. Oh, and btw, if you ever decide to go eat there, Mr. Chang was telling me that they take reservations by the phone. So, to avoid the wait next time, try and call ahead and save a spot.

I wish Henry would have been here, but overall, I think it still went rather well.

My invites are in + First Wedding Make-up Trial

2008-06-10T22:59:00.001-07:00

I am so excited! Henry picked up our invitations today from the place out in Ortigas in the Philippines. The only problem is he showed me over the internet, so I can't scan an actual hard copy for you guys to see what they look like, but they turned out pretty good, not to mention they were extremely cheap! They were under $2 each for everything. We got our invitations from this Cardprints store.

I also had my first wedding make-up trials today. Before I headed out for my trial, I decided to take a picture of my wedding dress, so that I can start showing different vendors like my hairstylist and makeup artists the dress so they can do something that would go with my dress. I'm not wearing heels, so the dress is dragging on the floor a bit. I also am not 100% sure I am going to go with this dress. I might get another dress, but for now this is the one:

My first makeup trial was with Julie Dy, who was a referral from one of my bridesmaids. Julie had done her makeup in another wedding she was in and the pictures looked really nice. Julie works at Laura Mercier. I liked the make-up that she did and it looked great in the store, but once we got outside, the makeup looked a bit different. Especially since I have an outdoor wedding, maybe I might not choose to go with her. The cool thing was that you didn't have to pay $150.00 for a make-up trial since she does her trial at the make-up counters where she works.

The big draw back is that she doesn't do hair. I'd have to bring in another person to have my hair done along with the make-up. I am really considering using her, but I might try a few other people who also do hair. I also wish I took some pictures of my make-up so you guys could all see, but I had gone to get my trial after working a 12 hour shift overnight and I was pretty tired when I got home and just crashed.

Chinese style wedding - Kevin and Jennifer

2008-05-31T08:13:00.001-07:00

Well, I'm back from vacation. I was over in Taiwan and the Philippines. I went to see my fiance's company overseas and to meet his family in Taiwan. It was a really nice trip and I really enjoyed meeting my future family.

While we were there, it just so happened that one of Henry's good friends, who also happens to be our neighbor, was having their Chinese wedding ceremony there as well.

Jennifer, the bride (Hi, Jennifer!!) told us that overall, it was a somewhat easy wedding to plan since they sell it as a package, which is pretty convenient. They even include the wedding dresses and the photographers, etc. That was pretty cool. I wish wedding dress rentals would be seen more here in the States. I know in Thailand it is also pretty common practice to rent your dress instead of actually buying one.

The wedding was on a nice afternoon at the Howard Plaza Hotel, which was a very nice hotel. As some of you know, one of the most important parts of an Asian wedding is the food. The dinner was served banquet style and as you'll see in my pictures, there were a lot of different dishes.

I caught a portion of their wedding. I think this is the part where they are bowing to their friends and guests (I can only understand a few words here and there in Chinese.) I'll have to ask my fiance what the emcee said. Anyways, here's a brief video from their wedding:

Here are the pictures:

What I really liked was the fact that Jennifer and Kevin came out to a night market with us after the wedding. It seemed like her wedding was pretty much stress free and once it was over, they both still had the energy to go out. I hope my wedding is just as stress free. If you want to check out our pictures in Taiwan with them, they're in my Flickr Set.

They also had studio pictures done in Taiwan as well. I'll try and scan those later and post them as well. We were teasing Kevin (the groom) that he looks so different. It's not that he looked bad, but the purpose of the pictures is to be romantic and although they came out really nicely, it was just weird seeing him like that. Hehehe....

Facial and whitehead extraction

2008-05-14T09:46:00.000-07:00

As part of my wedding beauty routine, I plan on getting a facial or two before my wedding.

One of the things I hate the most about my skin is that I always get these little whiteheads on my nose. While here in the Philippines I ended up getting two facials as of yet. The cost of facials is very inexpensive in the Philippines so I can indulge a little while I'm out here.

The later of the two facials that I got here involved whitehead extraction. It's something I've had done before. It's something I really needed, but hate getting done.

For those of you not familiar with the process, after steaming your face, thereby opening your pores, the esthetician then takes this instrument that has a hole/loop and then starts poking and prodding your whiteheads in order to pop them out.

This process is one of the most painful processes I've ever gone through, but it is definitely worth it. I normally have all these whiteheads, but after enduring about 20 minutes of this process, all of my whiteheads were removed. The only problem is that the pores are still rather large, but at least the whiteheads are now gone. I've been rather meticulous to keep my face and skin clean in the hope that the pores slowly close up and don't get dirt and other stuff in it.

I am extremely happy with the results, but I do realize that afterwards for a day or two my face looks like someone squeezed the shit out of my nose. As a result, I think that I want to have a facial before my wedding, but I plan on doing it a week or two beforehand.

I don't know if any of you frequently get facials or have any advice or tips for me. If you do, please don't hesitate to post them here. I love hearing your opinions.

Susan and Justin's Wedding - Palms Event Center in Pleasanton, California.

2008-05-12T16:09:00.000-07:00

Before traveling to the Philippines, we had the chance to attend our friends Susan and Justin's wedding. The wedding took place at the Palm Event Center in Pleasanton, California. Unfortunately, my camera died pretty quickly at this wedding, so I ended up having to just use my iPhone for most of the pictures.

The thing that impressed us the most about this wedding was their officiant. They had a friend get ordained via the internet through the Universal Life Church. He was a really good speaker and I hope that we can find someone like that for our wedding. Since we're both not really religious, we are looking for someone who wouldn't incorporate any religious items, but one that would embody our personalities and just perform a nice ceremony.

Their location was also rather nice, although a wedding at 5pm on a Friday was somewhat difficult to manage, since there was traffic heading that way to the winery. They did do something smart, they told people their Wedding was at 5pm, but the actual wedding didn't start until about 5:20pm. Especially with Asians, arriving late is something of the norm.

The location was pretty nice and they featured Mitchell Katz wines. If you look through my flickr sets, we made a trip to Livermore, California for a wine road event and out of all of the wines I tasted that day, my most favorite was the Mitchell Katz wines. At their wedding, they had an open bar, which was pretty cool. I really enjoyed their red wine that they served. I believe when the server was passing it around, it was a Sangiovese grape wine that I really liked.

Their ceremony was nice and to the point, which we also really liked. Some wedding ceremony just seem to drag, which in my opinion can often take away from the overall feel of the wedding.

Our favorite part of the wedding was the officiant. They had decided to have one of their friends ordained at the Universal Life Church, which they told us was pretty cheap to do. If any of you guys are thinking about having a friend become an officiant, this is a really nice way to put a personalized touch on your wedding. We really enjoyed that portion, not to mention this guy was one of the best speakers at a wedding that we've ever heard.

After the ceremony, we had some cocktails and appetizers, which we enjoyed on the patio which overlooked the vineyards. It was a rather nice view since the weather was perfect. The open bar was a rather popular item at this wedding. Hehe...

The only thing that I didn't really understand until later was that the bar wouldn't let them serve shots of alcohol. That didn't make sense because, basically we'd order two drinks on the rocks and then just put it all in one glass to make a shot. It really didn't make sense, but after talking to the wedding coordinator at our venue, she told us that sometimes it has to do with insurance for the event. Apparently, drinking shots increases the overall insurance because people can get drunk faster.

They also had a really cool videographer who had the coolest equipment that we've seen used at a wedding. I'm not sure what the things are called, but I think they're called cranes or arms. They were pretty neat though.

I also don't remember seeing the photographer too much, which is also a really good thing. They were unobtrusive, but I know they were there.

Overall, it was a really nice wedding. We had a lot of fun. Afterwards, we drove back to San Jose, where the Bride and Groom had an after party going over at Hotel Valencia. I've seen some really nice weddings as well at the Hotel Valencia, so if you're interested you should look into it.

Greetings from Makati, Philippines!!!

2008-05-10T05:50:00.000-07:00

Hey, ya'alls! Greetings from Makati, Philippines! For those of you who don't know, my fiance runs a company out in the Philippines. We're both not Filipino. He's Chinese and I'm Thai-American. Since he travels here a lot, I thought it would be fun to come with him out here on one of his business trips. After a week here in Makati we will be heading to Taiwan, which is where his grandparents and the rest of his family live.

Prior to coming here, I needed to make a stop to Sephora. I told you all that I would post some pictures of my use of the aveda eye cream, but I'm currently putting that on hold because I changed my skin care regimen. After looking at different products, I decided to give DDF Skincare a try. I purchased their Decelerate line. After just using it for one day, I've seen a big difference in my skin. I normally have problems with whiteheads on the tip of my nose, but after using the DDF products, I noticed it has greatly diminished. I am extremely happy with the results. The only problem is, I forgot the serum, which is the part that I liked the most!! I couldn't find it in my luggage, so I'm extremely disappointed. I wonder if I'll be able to find any of their products in the Philippines.

Right now, we're currently in Makati, Philippines. It's a rather large metropolitan area. There are tons of things to do here, different restaurants and huge shopping malls. They have a lot of nice things in the malls, but some of them are still just as expensive if not more than the pricing in the United States. Perhaps it's just the area we are in, but I was hoping to find some better deals out here.

The reason I decided to come to the Philippines with Henry on this trip is because I really needed a vacation and because it is getting close to our wedding date and we still have so much to do. My main goal of this trip is to get as much done as possible.

So, after arriving in the Philippines and getting to our hotel, we made way to look for our invitations and other stationary for our wedding.

We checked out one store which was recommended by our hotel. It was called Themes and Motifs. The prices were pretty much equivalent to the prices as in the United States. We were pretty disappointed by this place. It was a much higher end store, but the quality of the invitations and such were pretty basic and rather expensive. When we got there, the person working at the store wasn't very helpful at all. She just sat us down with a bunch of books and that's it. Now, we're not chi-chi poo poo types of people, but if we're paying US prices in the Philippines, we expect a little nicer service. After looking through two of their books while the employees sat in the back eating, we walked out of there pretty fast.

After posting on yelp.com, another yelper suggested that I check out a store called Cardprints. They have a pretty extensive website, but we wanted to see actual invitations in real life, so we looked for their location and made our way via taxi to the store. It was a small kiosk in the mall. It was so small, it took us quite some time to find. We were expecting an actual store and not a kiosk.

Anyways, after talking with the salesperson and looking at various invitations and discussing pricing, Henry and I decided on getting the Amazed design. They allow you to pick different stocks of paper and colors of ink, so for our invitation the colors of the invitation are light pink, a deeper pink and off white. We made some adjustments to the actual invitation that they provide and added a few more inserts.

The invitations take approximately 3 weeks to make and on Thursday we get to see our proof. I'll post a picture then. =) This is their example from their website:

Their overall pricing is actually rather cheap. At this point, I highly recommend their services, especially since the pricing is really cheap. They have a lot of various designs as well.

Wedding invitation wording

2008-05-02T03:13:00.000-07:00

So, my task for this week assigned by Mr. Henry is to get our invitation wording completed before we leave for our trip to the Philippines. The reasoning is that the first day we land in the Philippines we will be going to get our invitations made.

How do you decide how to word your invitations? Although it's most likely not such a big deal, it is still most likely the most important invitation you'll ever create in your life.

After searching on the internet for a few hours, I have learned a few basic steps on how to decide on your invitation wording.

Firstly, one needs to look at who is throwing the wedding. Are the couple's parents or are the couple themselves throwing the wedding.

Once you have that decided, the next step would be to decide if you'd like the invitations to be formal or non-formal. In this case, you'd use Mr. and Mrs. titles and use wording like, 'request the honor of your presence.' For a more casual invitation, you'd most likely use wording such as, 'invite you to join us' in the invitation. Some people also incorporate religious themes or wording at this point as well.

When writing the invitation, the bride's name usually goes first in the invitation before the groom's.

Lastly, the date, time and location. On most of the sites that I visited the recommended that you write out the entire date in words, but since for our wedding we wanted it to be nice but somewhat informal, we didn't follow this step.

For our particular invitation (this hasn't been approved by the head hauncho, Mr. Henry, because he is currently snoring away) we decided that we wanted something not corny and not cheesy. We wanted something simple, but nice. Here is what I came up with. I'm not sure what you guys all think, but give me your input. I'm going to have my invitations made at the end of next week.
___________________________________

Because you have shared in their lives
by your friendship and love

Lisaya Mani
and
Henry Chang
along with their parents

Invite you to share
the beginning of their new life together
when they exchange marriage vows
on August 31^st, 2008
at 4:00 pm

Sutro Heights Park
48th Ave & Point Lobos Ave
San Francisco, CA 94121

Reception, dinner, cultural ceremonies and dancing
to follow at 6pm

Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel
One Nob Hill
San Francisco, California 94108

___________________________________

Don't forget that when you buy your invites you need to buy several pieces. When we go to the Philippines we plan on having several items printed. Since we all know that overseas it's a lot cheaper to get items printed, we are planning on getting the following while there:

The Invitation
Envelope for Invitation
Map and Direction Card
Response Card
Envelope for Response Card
Entree Item Selection
Thank you cards
Envelope for the thank you cards
Place cards for the dinner
Dinner table numbers
Programs
Favor tags

Hopefully by getting things printed there, it will be a lot easier to get things done. Now here comes the hard part. Since we haven't really planned our wedding outline or really sat down and discussed the details of our wedding ceremony and reception. The only reason I am having a program is because Henry is of Chinese heritage and I am of Thai heritage. I did want to incorporate a few traditional cultural practices in our wedding and as a result, I wanted to explain a few things in the program.

Overall, what do you guys think of the invitation wording? Any suggestions. Keep in mind Henry and I are both rather easy going people. We didn't want anything too stuffy or wordy, yet we didn't want something completely cold and not truly from our hearts.

Random Hair/Makeup Entry

2008-04-29T16:43:00.000-07:00

This morning after working a 16 hour shift at work (3pm - 7am,) I got my highlights redone at the Atelier Aveda Salon at Santana Row in San Jose, California. My normal stylist, Marissa was out for surgery, so they scheduled me in with another stylist, Jessica. I was really happy with the outcome of my hair. I highly recommend the services there. They really do a good job. I've never been unhappy with my experience there and while the pricing is more than most places, but in all honesty, after talking to friends, I think I'm getting a really good deal for the quality of service they provide.

While I was there, I remembered a few posts I read over on TheKnot message boards. Some of the other knotties on there mentioned that Aveda had this awesome eye cream. I decided I'd buy it and give it a try. After work tomorrow, I'll take a picture of my eyes and then put the cream on before going to bed and then take a picture again in the morning when I wake up. Anyways, here's some information on the cream.

It's called the Tourmaline Charged Eye Cream. The description of the cream is as follows:

Brightens dark circles, reduces puffiness and energizes skin.

•	Promotes radiance around eyes
•	Refreshes with lime and organic petitgrain essential oils
•	Protects with powerful anti-oxidants
•	Silky formula dries matte—not shiny
•	Wears beautifully under makeup
•	For all skin types

From what the girls on the knot rave about, this is the next eye wonder cream. I'll let you guys know how it goes tomorrow.

Thai Wedding Dress

2008-04-26T16:17:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, some of you were wondering what my Thai wedding dress looked like. I had posted a brief picture a few months ago, but never took the full view of my dress. Today, after checking out the Cupertino Cherry Blossom Festival, Henry and I had some time to do some wedding planning, so to get into the mood I put on my Thai dress just to see how it fits after I lost a few pounds. I'm wearing gray socks, so I didn't put on heels, but normally the dress has a little more height to it when I'm wearing my taller shoes.

Although there are no real traditional colors for a Thai wedding dress, the lucky colors are usually gold and beige are preferred as they are considered lucky, that's why I got a gold dress.

I'm not sure what shoes I will be wearing with this, but I was thinking about wearing these Charles David shoes that I saw on Bluefly.com for a pretty good price. [Charles David link on Bluefly.com]

What do you guys think of these shoes? They're pretty cute right?

I had my first wedding dream last night. I usually don't think about my wedding all that much, but I had a dream the other night that my wedding was completely unorganized and everything went wrong. I woke up and really thought about hiring the day of coordinator that we met with a few weeks ago. I'm really scared things will not go as planned. Do an of you guys have wedding dreams or nightmares?

My Diet Breakdown

2008-04-23T14:18:00.001-07:00

For those of you who know me in real life, you know I'm pretty lazy. I hate exercise. So, as my wedding date is quickly approaching I've been trying to find fun things to do to so I don't feel like I'm really exercising.

I've been trying to do something active every day. I've played tennis a few times and took my dog on a longer walk than normal around our neighborhood. I've also completely cut out all fast food and junk food from my diet (with the exception of today: hungover so I really craved something greasy.)

Since my post on the 15th, I've lost about 6 pounds. I have to admit, I'm feeling a lot better too without all the junk food loading me down.

Some people have asked me about the various diets I've tried in the past. I'll give you a breakdown of the ones I've tried and what worked for me and what didn't.

Alli: It's basically Orlistat but at a smaller dose so that it can be sold over the counter. It was normally prescribed as Xenical, but now at half the dose it is sold as Alli. I took the pills for about a week as as prescribed and ended up stopping after that week.

I did lose some weight, I think a few pounds. The reason I stopped was because the side effects are horrible and disgusting. Not everyone has the same side effects, but for me, I was leaking oil out of my butt. It was so gross. You could see it when you went to the bathroom as well. I had to wear a panty liner to make sure it didn't leak out randomly and cause me embarrassment while at work or out and about. Your poop stinks too and you fart a lot as well. The side effects eventually stop, so I tried it for a week and the side effects did not get better for me. I couldn't bear it anymore, so I stopped taking it.

Nutrisystem: After seeing all the commercials and after talking to a co-worker at work who did it after she had her baby and lost a lot of weight, I ended up ordering a few months supply. They basically send you tv dinner style meals and snacks. The food isn't half bad. I actually liked some of it, but there are also a few items that I did not like. The portions are small but you eat frequent meals. They want you to eat every couple hours. Initially, I started Nutrisystem a few months ago when I first got engaged. It works, but you have to eat their food. I got bored of it after a month and wanted to eat regular food, so I gave that up as well.

Hoodia: These are diet pills derived from a plant called Hoodia Gordonii. Henry and I saw some at Costco when we were wandering there one day and decided we'd try it. It did suppress my appetite but I have a few allergies, so I broke out when I ate this diet pill. It's not really worth it to me to have hives all the time while suppressing my appetite, so I stopped taking the pills as well. Here's a link to a cnn report about hoodia: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/health/2006/06/25/lin.hoodia.cnn

My diet now: A few years ago, I lost about 15 pounds for a trip to Hawaii. I decided to go back to this diet, but I modified it a bit. Before, I was a vegetarian. Now, I cut out all regular soda, so I drink diet soda now. I can't eat any fast food. I have to make all of my meals myself or if I buy it, it has to be something I know doesn't have any preservatives or things like that. Everything has to be as fresh as possible.

Usually for breakfast I'll eat things like yogurt, cottage cheese, whole wheat Thomas' English muffins and fresh fruit. For Lunch, I'll have something like rye crackers with peanut butter, fresh fruit, salads with a tiny bit of dressing. For dinner, I'll have some type of meat whether it's chicken, beef, or fish and a little bit of vegetables on the side. As for snacks, I usually eat a piece of fruit or vegetable. With my schedule working night shift, I basically have time to eat every 6 hours or so with snacks in between those 6 hours if I get hungry.

So far, this is what is working for me since even if I do go out, I can still order a salad or something to that nature. It's easy to pack fruit and salads for work or sometimes I just pick some up from Starbucks while I'm getting my coffee.

Overall, I know that weight loss is pretty simple. You take in less calories than you expend, you make better choices about your food, and you exercise. The hard part is executing it.

Oh, and this is a little off topic, but people were asking about my veil since I posted about it a few days ago. I forgot to post the picture of it. The veil I am wearing is the Cynthia Veil from Jennifer Leigh:

Bouquets

2008-04-18T15:17:00.000-07:00

Thanks for all the input on the bridesmaid shoes from my last entry. Most likely we will be asking the girls to get the Ralph Lauren shoes since it seems to be a landslide that people like those the most.

Henry and I are still debating who we would like to hire as our florist, but I've been looking at various magazines and found some bouquets that I really like.

I don't know much about flowers or about bouquets, but apparently there are several different styles to a bouquet.

While interviewing various florists, I have decided that I want either the nosegay or cascade style of bouquet.

Nosegay: This is the rounded style of flowers. I think this is the most common type of bouquet that people generally see. Ironically, the reason they are called nosegay is because back in the 14th century people didn't always bathe as they did now, so they used these bouquets to mask the smells.

Cascade: These bouquets are exactly how they sound. They cascade down from the rounded bouquet.

Handtied bouquets incorporate the stems as part of the bouquet.

I think for my wedding, I want a handtied nosegay (rounded) bouquet that has a little bit of texture to it.

I found these pictures of bouquets on the knot that I really like. Which style do you guys like the most and out of these bouquets which one do you think would fit my wedding and my personality most?

Bridesmaid's Shoes.

2008-04-14T22:21:00.000-07:00

Well, Henry and I went to the mall today to look at shoes for my bridesmaids. It's funny, he's so particular about shoes. Does that qualify him as having a foot fetish?! Haha...

Anyways, what do you guys think? We're debating between these two shoes:

Lauren by Ralph Lauren 'Aela' Sandal

These shoes go for $89 retail

Aldo Shoes - Mokolo

These shoes go for $60 retail

Which shoes do you think my bridesmaids should wear? Check out the poll on the right hand column and put your vote on which shoe I should pick for my bridesmaids.

Bridal Accessories

2008-04-14T17:27:00.000-07:00

A few weekends ago, Henry and I went to pick up my veil and my earrings at Haute Bride. I completely forgot that I never posted any pictures of them or blogged about them yet.

The veil is a face veil called Cynthia made by Jennifer Leigh.

My Earrings:

Although bridal accessories can add those last finishing touches to a bride on her special day, I think the best accessory any bride can have is to be healthy and to be really in shape. Today, I also started to really push my wedding diet into full gear.

The main objective of my diet is to no longer eat any junk food or any fast food. Everything that I put into my body has to be fresh. I'm talking about vegetables, fruits, etc. I guess you could say it's almost like that raw diet that people were raving about a few years ago, except in mine you can cook the food. I'm not sure if there's an official diet movement or food movement term for that, but I'll let you know how it goes. I am going to try to keep my caloric intake under 1,500 and even try to push it by keeping it under 1,000 on the days when I'm not working since most of the time I just sleep on those days.

I'm also going to start working out. I've never been one for gyms, but now that my wedding is approaching quickly, I think I'm going to have to suck it up and start working out.

Ever since I got my iPhone, I've been more into using iTunes. In the past, even though I've had a iPod mini, iPod video and a shuffle, I've never been into downloading podcasts or music. Now, however, I've been really into different podcasts and I think that they might even be able to give me that extra boost for my workouts. Are there any podcasts that you like to listen to while you work out?

Happy Thai New Year!!!

2008-04-14T00:18:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know, both of my parents are Thai. Being born in the United States, that makes me a Thai-American.

This weekend was Songkran weekend, or Thai New Year. Normally, if I was still back home in Riverside we would either meet up with our family and friends at the Thai temple in Ontario or go to Los Angeles to the big festivities that they hold every year.

This year, however, being in Northern California, I decided to take Henry to the Wat Thai in Fremont. In Thai, Wat means Temple. This temple is called the Buddhanusorn Thai Temple.

Why am I talking about Thai New Year and a temple in my wedding blog? Well, for my wedding, I want to try to incorporate some traditional Thai elements. One of the things I really would like to have is some Thai dancers. At the temple, they had a few performances, all of which were really good. Our favorite part was when the little dancers came out. They were so adorable.

Although they were extremely cute, we talked about how really young dancers most likely would not fit for our wedding. You know how little kids, while being adorable, usually don't have their dance routines down pat. Most likely, we will try to arrange for some Thai dancers like the ones below for our wedding:

My mom talked to one of our family friends and she is supposed to get me a number of a Thai dance troupe in Northern California. If I can't get it, I'll try and contact the temple directly myself and somehow arrange for their dancers to come. If anyone out there reading this knows of any Thai dance troupes in Northern California I would love it if you contacted me with some info.

Ceremony Venue is now booked!

2008-04-10T17:51:00.000-07:00

Yay!!! Everything in the last few days seems like it has just been falling into place so easily. I know that planning a wedding doesn't go without any bumps in the road, but as of right now, everything has been going so smoothly.

Earlier this afternoon, we booked Sutro Heights Park for our wedding ceremony. I am so excited.

So many ideas have been running through my head about how I plan on having the area decorated for our wedding.

The area was pretty bare when we went to look at it, so in order to make the ground look more lush, we're going to have to rent some grass and get a nice runner. With suggestions from our new potential planners we are thinking about going through Abbey Rentals or Classic Party Rentals.

For the ceremony itself, we are most likely going to get regular white wooden chairs. On those two rental sites they run for about $2.25-$2.75 each chair. Abbey Rentals is actually a little cheaper than Classic Party Rentals, but until we figure out which place offers all of the items we need, we won't decide as to which company we're planning on using just yet. We plan to use one company for everything, just to make all of the planning a bit easier, since one vendor for the decor rentals is easier to deal with than several.

I don't have a lot of time to write about all of the updates, but stay tuned for my Monday post for all of the updates. In the meantime, a photographer on flickr photographed a wedding there as well at the exact location that we are planning on holding ours:

I will have to draw up some sketches of the area as well as take a few more photographs in order to help me figure out how and where we are going to place things.

I love Makeup!!

2008-04-09T10:07:00.000-07:00

I'll have to admit, I love makeup and with my wedding coming up, I've been trying to keep my skin as clean and healthy as possible. I've been trying to change up a few things in my makeup routine and as of right now, I'm pretty happy with everything that I'm using.

A few months ago, I switched over to try Bare Minerals. I'll be completely honest with you all, initially, being a serious makeup addict, switching to Bare Minerals was difficult. I felt I wasn't getting as full of a coverage as I did with some of the other cosmetics I normally used.

Now that I'm not going out to as many bars or clubs anymore as when I was younger, I love Bare Minerals for everyday use. I love wearing it to work and just out and about running my daily errands. My favorite part of the Bare Minerals is the Mineral Veil. It adds this beautiful glow to your skin where you need it.

Sephora has the start kit for a pretty good price, only $60 right now. http://www.sephora.com/browse/product.jhtml?id=P116620&categoryId=C17971

I primarily use Bare Minerals as a base. For my cheecks, I usually do still apply Nars bronzer and blush. I love Nars Orgasm Blush and Albatross highlighter. I'm also in love with the Orgasm lipgloss as well.

When I do go out, I go back to using my Christian Dior Skin Airflash. I really like that it is easy to apply and that it goes on pretty nicely and the coverage is just right. It's not too heavy and it's not too light. Plus, it doesn't even really look like you have make up on at times, just nice clean skin.

Of course, every girl also has one item in her bag that she cannot live without. The one item that I have to carry with me at all times is my Christian Dior Liquid Eyeliner. I have about 5 tubes of this in both black and brown stashed away in my bags that I use a lot, my car and my locker at work. Whenever I don't use it, people always ask me if I'm sleepy or tired. The liner really perks up your eyes and it is really easy to apply.

Anyways, just had to ramble a bit about my makeup routine. I'm excited about getting my makeup all done by a makeup artist for my wedding, but at the same time, sometimes I wonder if I should just do my makeup myself. Did any of you out there do your own makeup for your wedding?

The Wedding Ceremony Hunt Continues...

2008-04-08T05:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Henry and I went to check out a few more wedding ceremony venues. He called up one of the people over at the Golden Gate National Recreational Area (National Parks Service.) We let them know what type of venue we were looking for and the guy gave him a few suggestions as places we should check out.

For our ceremony, this is what we are looking for:

Somewhere outdoors
Somewhere with an awesome view
Somewhat that is somewhat secluded or private
Cool breeze if possible (this is for Henry. For those of you who don't know, he sweats a lot. Hehe...we might even have to get him botox.)
Easy access to parking for our guests

We were given three places to check out as possible wedding sites.

Crissy Fields Amphitheater
Sutro Heights Park
Fort Miley

We also checked out a 4th site since we were in the area.

Legion of honor

Our first destination was Fort Miley. I've been to Ocean Beach before and to Golden Gate Park, but I've never been to this area and when we pulled into the parking lot, I was really excited. The view was beautiful. The area we were specifically looking at is the picnic area at West Fort Miley.

There is a rather large parking lot that would be great for guests. Once you pull into the parking lot, you get a view of the Golden Gate Bridge and Ocean Beach. The three pictures below are just from the parking lot.

After walking up a trail, you come upon the area that is our potential wedding ceremony site.

I've never been to Fort Miley, nor have I heard about it, but they had this small little description of the site. It's pretty amazing, they were able to shoot cannons as far as 10 miles out from this location because it was so high up. If you're interested in a little history lesson, I took a picture of the description of the site, you can click on the image to get a larger view for reading.

The next destination that we checked out was Sutro Heights Park. I really loved this place as well. It is one or two blocks from Fort Miley.

Out of all of the venues that we have seen, we are most likely going to choose a location in Sutro Heights Park.

There are two areas that we are looking at. There was this open field area that I think was some type of flower bed garden area and then there was another portion that was elevated up on some type of stone structure. I'm not sure if this was a part of the actual Sutro home or what, but it was a ledge type of thing with an awesome view. We're actually leaning more towards that portion of the park.

Here are some more photographs of the view from that area.

Once again, if you're interested. Here's a little info placard about the Sutro Home.

These are some photographs of the area that we are leaning towards to as to getting as our wedding venue. Most of the photographs I listed above are from the views from this site. I'm not sure how easy it will be for our vendors to get rental equipment up there, but the area in general is pretty barren and simple, so that would fit our needs even more because it is like working with a blank canvas.

As we were driving to the next destination, we happen to see signs to the Legion of Honor. Our photographer, Joseph Kohn had mentioned that the Legion of Honor was a nice place to take photographs, so we stopped by here as well. It was really pretty, and there was an area of the lawn that would be almost perfect for a wedding, but we're not sure how weddings at the Legion of Honor work. The view is nice, but not as nice as from atop Sutro Heights Park.

It was kind of neat that Annie Leibowitz's artwork was being displayed while we were visiting. I've seen a lot of her work before and I really like it. Too bad we didn't have time to check out the museum.

After this portion, we stopped off at Genki Crepes and got some snacks and drinks before checking out the last venue site. I know this has nothing to do with wedding venue searching, but they had these cute little Calpico drinks with Hello Kitty on them. For those of you who know me, I am a Hello Kitty freak. They were so cute, I had to take a picture of them. It was funny, I was even joking with Henry that the colors were in our wedding palate and teased him if I could get these drinks incorporated into our wedding somehow. His response was that he just rolled his eyes at me. Hehe..

The Crissy Fields Amphitheater was a pretty nice place with a great view as well. The reason we don't like this place as much is because of the fact that it is in a busy area of the park. There will be tons of joggers and bikers going by and people staring. I don't know if I want that for my wedding. Anyways, here are some photographs of the site. It also has a simplistic design, so it would be easy to fit any wedding theme into the venue.

Henry and I want to come upon a decision by the end of today so we can place our deposits on these places. They all are rather inexpensive, except for the Legion of Honor (we're not sure how much that place costs to rent.) Most of the venues in San Francisco cost anywhere between $300-400 to rent, which is really good. Once we get the venue booked we can really start looking at rentals for the equipment.

Everyone we've talked to so far has recommended that we check out classic party rentals for our chairs and table covers, etc. That'll be the next stop for our wedding planning, but for now, I'm excited about booking our ceremony venue soon.

As with all of the pictures in my blog, if you want to see a better view just click it and you can see a larger view of the image.

For those of you who know me, I'm a pretty indecisive person, so I do really enjoy your comments and suggestions. Keep them coming!! =) If you could add input as to which venue you think is nice, please do...

Disappointed

2008-04-04T11:48:00.000-07:00

Henry talked to the people over at the San Francisco Parks and Recreation department earlier this week and unfortunately Shakespeare's Garden is booked. My heart really dropped when he told me that the venue was booked. He said it was booked from 2pm-5pm, which would have been the time that we were looking for.

I am really disappointed that we didn't jump on this a lot earlier. My bridesmaid, Sabrina warned us that places in Golden Gate Park fill up pretty fast and that we should book any venue we liked as soon as possible. Anyways, here's a picture that I took last week of the park.

As mentioned in an earlier post, we also took a look at the Tulip Gardens. This venue is not booked per the person that my fiance talked to at the Department of Parks and Recreations. I really am hesitant about getting married here for quite a few reasons.

There is primarily only street parking, so it might be difficult for guests to find parking.
Tulips are not in bloom during August. That means that the garden might not be as pretty as I would have hoped it would be.
There is a huge windmill here. I'm not Dutch and neither is my fiance, so getting married by a huge stone windmill is not our idea of romance. I can see how this might work if you were Dutch or wanted windmills in your wedding for some reason, but for us...it just would be ridiculous.

Sabrina, one of my bridesmaids suggested that maybe I look into Crissy Field Amphitheaters, which she saw while reading The Wedding Bee. My fiance, Henry and I used to live in the SOMA district of San Francisco and we have a lot of memories of riding our bikes down the Embarcadero down to Crissy Fields. In fact, we used to take our dog there a lot as well. That's where she learned how to swim. Getting married there would kind of capture some of the nice memories that we had while living in San Francisco.

Plus, since it is rather simplistic as far as the setup of the amphitheater, should be a nice palate for our florist to work with as far as the decor. I still really wish that Shakespeare's Garden was open.

I used to also work at the Hills Bros. Coffee House in San Francisco at Gordon Biersch Brewery. I worked there for a few years and the plaza there is rather pretty. I'm going to see if we can rent that place out as well. Henry contacted their leasing office but we'll find out soon enough if it will work or not. I don't know if they allow weddings there.

We booked our photographer!! Yay!

2008-04-04T06:02:00.001-07:00

Yay! It's time to let out another sigh of relief! We finally booked our photographer! After looking at a few vendors and trying to figure out who we wanted to work with, we went with advice from a few friends and booked Joseph Kohn to be our photographer. We met with him yesterday to sign the contract and to finalize as many of the details as we could.

He did one of our friend's weddings, Talesa and Dave. I don't know if you guys remember, but I blogged about it awhile back: http://autumnwedding.blogspot.com/2007/08/talesa-and-daves-wedding.html

He also was the photographer in one of my co-worker's weddings as well. She really encouraged me to go with him. Which, after talking it over with Henry we decided to go ahead and then give Joseph the deposit.

Yesterday, we also met with another florist, Callalily, who was also a referral from another family friend who also used her in their wedding. I also just happened to have blogged about it as well: http://autumnwedding.blogspot.com/2007/08/so-my-mom-was-up-over-weekend-for.html

We really liked Leanne from Callalily. She was very friendly but also got down to business. We met her at Peet's Coffee in Castro Valley. I showed her my little inspiration book with a few cutout pictures of the colors I liked and the overall feel I wanted for my wedding. She asked me what flowers I liked and I told her some of my favorites, but then also told her that I didn't know a lot about flowers.

The thing I really liked was that she had a little book with her that had all types of flowers and we went through the book together. As we went through the book, she explained which flowers would be in season and which ones she thought would look nice, but then encouraged me to pick which ones I was fond of as well.

The one thing we really like are the branches look. The picture above is from Kulaya and Nine's wedding.

As of right now, we really like Leanne. She was very nice and easy to work with and as far as pricing, even though she hasn't sent us her finalized quote, we have a feeling she'll really give us the most for our money. It was funny though, when we were looking through Leanne's photographers, I noticed 3 pictures that I had taken at Kulaya's wedding. Kulaya asked me awhile back if she could use some of my personal pictures and give them to her vendors and I had completely forgotten about it. It was kind of funny when Leanne showed those pictures I took. "Hey! I took those!" Hehe...

After meeting with Leanne, we drove up to the city to meet with a potential wedding planner. We're currently looking for a partial services planner.

The one we met with, Angela from Lulu Events. We met in the lobby at the Hotel Vitale. I really wanted to grab a drink at Americano afterwards, but with our meter running, we decided to leave after our brief meeting with her.

Nevertheless, we were really disappointed when we met her. She had this weird look on her face all of the time and the way she talked to us made us feel almost uncomfortable. She seemed almost snooty. The fees she was asking for were not outrageous, but with the overall vibe we get from her, we are definitely not choosing her.

Anyways, with us being only 4 months away from our wedding, we hope to really start getting the ball rolling from here on out. Things are really starting to fall into place and we're rather excited.

Finding a Florist.

2008-04-03T05:50:00.001-07:00

I've noticed that whenever people talk about someone's wedding they just attended, no matter who they are, they always seem to focus on a few items. People always talk about the food, the venue, how the bride and groom looked and the flowers.

For me, flowers are a huge part of my vision for my wedding. This last weekend, Henry and I went and met some potential florists out in San Francisco:

In Water
Waterlily Pond Floral Designs
Not Just Flowers

We first met with Natasha from In Water Flowers located in the Pacific Heights area. My brother went to dental school around there, so it was easy for us to find the store, especially since it was located next to the Marc Jacobs. Natasha was very nice and the thing I really liked was that she was rather organized. I really liked that she had a pre-printed list of things people usually order for a wedding. That really helped, especially since she was the first vendor that we met with and really didn't know how the whole process worked. She basically went down her list and asked us what we wanted or how many we needed of each. This made the whole process very efficient and streamlined and ensured that we didn't miss anything. She was able to quickly give us a preliminary quote right there on the spot. She did let us know she would be e-mailing us a copy of the quote that we were working on in the store, which we received the next day.

Next we met with Natasha from Waterlily Pond Floral Designs. From her place, you could tell that she has a very artistic eye by the way it was decorated. She talked to us about our wedding and discussed the overall feel and look we wanted. She also had a few books that we looked through together and discussed which items we liked and which ones we didn't. After talking about flowers, she also let us know that she also does overall design as well, which is good because we were looking for someone to come in and help us do the overall design whether it be a planner or something. We looked through table linens as well and discussed chair options. She seems to have a lot of experience and seems to have done a lot of really big larger events. The photographs on her website and in her books look awesome. They are those events that you see in design books and in wedding magazines. Anyways, we gave her our budget and then went on to our next appointment. She let us know that she would contact us through e-mail with a tentative proposal. She also contacted us pretty quickly and sent some more ideas and referrals as well.

Not Just Flowers was our last vendor to visit. Their store was located in the Castro, so parking was rather hard to find especially since it was a very nice day out and it seemed as if the whole town was out and about. We found parking a few blocks away. Henry forgot his phone in the car, so I ran ahead to make our appointment on time. We met with Lisa, who was very friendly as well as Andrei. Lisa did the consultation with us. She also had a few books for us to look through after we discussed the logistical portion of the flowers. We also discussed what we were looking for as our overall theme, which flowers we liked and threw out a variety of ideas. The store was very busy and as we were doing our consultation, we saw Andrei make a few quick flower bunches (bouquets?) for various customers. Even those quick bouquets looked gorgeous. We also gave Lisa a tentative budget and she said she would also send us some information for the pricing quote, which we've received.

As far as which florist we liked, we liked them all. They were all so professional and they all had really beautiful flower samples in their various books and photos. We have one more florist to meet with today.

I know some of you are thinking that we're meeting with way too many florists, but as I mentioned before, the flowers are in my opinion what will make or break the overall decor of a wedding.

Wedding Ceremony Venues

2008-03-30T22:20:00.000-07:00

This weekend we went venue hunting again. After finding out that Inspiration Point in the Presidio wasn't open to events on Sundays, we decided to try looking around Golden Gate Park for other locations.

The places we looked at were:

Shakespeare's Garden
Queen Wilhelmina's Garden
The Rose Garden

The first place we checked out was Shakespeare's Flowers also known as Shakespeare's Garden. The reason why we really like this place is that first off it's somewhat secluded. Of course, when you get married in the park, it's still open to the public, which is fine, but I really doubt people are going to come in and try to get into the ceremony. This place kind of lends way to people not randomly wandering in either, since it is in an enclosed area. We also like this location because it is close to the parking structure, so parking won't be a problem for this venue.

We do realize that while the garden was absolutely stunning when we went this weekend, the time of year for our wedding might not offer as many of the blooming flowers as this season does. Either way, we really loved this location.

Another location in Golden Gate Park that we checked out was the Rose Garden. We actually just drove by, but after looking at Shakespeare's Garden, we weren't as impressed with the Rose Garden so we didn't go down and look at it too much. Here's a photo from the street as we drove past it.

After driving past the Rose Garden, we checked out Queen Wilhelmina Gardens, also known as the Tulip Gardens. It was absolutely gorgeous, but I can't picture anywhere in this area that would fit logistically for a wedding.

If you have any suggestions for an outdoor venue for the ceremony that is located in San Francisco, please let us know.

We also met with a few potential florist vendors. I'll be posting about my florists tomorrow, since we have one more meeting tomorrow evening, so if you're interested in hearing a bit about our flowers and working with florists, check back tomorrow.

Bridesmaid Dress - It's official!!!

2008-03-24T22:22:00.000-07:00

Well, it's finalized! My bridesmaids will be wearing Ann Taylor's Karen Crossdye Duponi Strapless dress.

Ann Taylor's Website Description:

Karen Crossdye Dupioni Strapless Our Celebrations Karen strapless dress in crossdye dupioni. Interior bustier construction with boning for structure and support. Strapless to accentuate shoulders and arms. Empire waist that minimizes waistline and hips. Pleated bodice and skirt. Detachable straps included. Invisible side zipper. Fully lined. 33 1/4" from waist.

100% Silk
Imported
Dry Clean Only
Style #203599

Bridesmaid Dress Shopping

2008-03-17T20:33:00.000-07:00

This weekend my bridesmaids were in town so we went to check out some possible bridesmaid dresses. In the picture above with the bunny, we were at the Westfield San Francisco Centre and they just so happen to be having some type of easter promotion, so we thought it would be cute to take a photo with the bunny.

Anyways, back to the topic, our first stop was Siri Boutique in San Francisco. This store requires appointments, so if you're interested make sure you make one before just showing up.

Neighborhood: Bay View/Hunters Point
540 Barneveld Ave
Ste D
(between Apparel Way & Dorman Ave)
San Francisco, CA 94124

I really liked their dresses here, but the pricing was pretty expensive. The dresses there ranged from $320-$450. Now, I don't know about you, but I think that's pretty pricey for a bridesmaid dress. Considering I got my wedding dress made for $700, the bridesmaid dress seems rather expensive. I liked the sashes and the color scheme of the pink dress. I was contemplating also the light pink sashes as well. What do you guys think?

Afterwards we walked around union square to check out some of the dresses there. We looked at the line of dresses that they had at Ann Taylor, which I really liked. I think the pricing there is a bit more reasonable than the dresses at Siri, but I can't help but shake that I really thought the dress were pretty at Siri and that each bridesmaid would be able to choose her own dress adding a bit of style to each one.

My friend Stacy had recommended the dresses at Ann Taylor earlier this year to me since many of her bridesmaids are also not in one place and it's just easier for everyone to get their dresses here, plus you don't have to worry about the alterations as much since they have basic sizing and they offer both regular and petites.

We also looked at some dresses that I had seen online called the Maggy London line that they offer at both Nordstrom's and Macy's. The color is called Begonia. I do like their dresses and they are pretty inexpensive (Ranges around $100-$150 a dress.) But, for some reason they don't really strike me as bridesmaid dresses. Here are some examples off of the dresses in begonia:

Most of my bridesmaids have been a dream to work with, but overall so far out of all of the wedding stuff, the bridesmaids stuff has been the most difficult. Everything else seemed to just fall into place, while the bridesmaids stuff is giving me the most trouble. How do you pick dresses for 4 other people and make all of them happy while keeping yourself happy as well? I think it is because I am so wishy washy all the time and so indecisive. I know they want me to make a decision, but at the same time I want them all to be happy.

So, I don't know what to do at this point. I think right now the Ann Taylor dresses in my mind are in the lead as far as which dresses I'd like to choose. Initially, we were going to ask the girls to pay for their dress and we would pay for a hotel room, for the night, pay for their makeup and hair, and also a small thank you gift, but since one of the girls expressed concern over the overall cost of the dresses and being in the wedding, I think I might have to reconsider what we are going to pay for in order to help out with the overall costs.

I am wondering if we should just buy the dresses and then ask the girls to do their own makeup and hair. Also, since most of them live in the bay area, skip paying for their rooms as well and use that money for the dresses. What would you do? What do you guys think is fair?

Traditionally, bridesmaids pay for their dresses right? I'm not sure how it all works, so if anyone could shed some light on the subject for me, please let me know.

I found this video on youtube that kind of made me think about how crazy some brides can get. I hope I don't get this bad:

Bridal Registry

2008-03-06T15:32:00.000-08:00

Last night, Henry and I decided that we'd start our wedding registry. First off, we had no idea where we wanted to register at. Ultimately, we registered at Macy's, but it was a long decision process.

For me, I wanted to register at Target's Club Wedd. Those of you who know me, you all know that I can spend hours at Target wandering the aisles. I love that place!! I figured, I really love it, so why not get registered there?

For Henry, he wanted to register at Bloomingdale's. His whole thought process was that we have most of what we need, a wedding registry is your chance to get what you want. Bloominngdale's is nice and classy and definitely has a lot of what we want, but not necessarily need.

After talking about it back and forth, we decided to get registered at Macy's. Why did we decide to pick Macy's? Most importantly, it is easy for everyone to access Macy's. I don't know any major area around the United States that doesn't have a Macy's there. I also think that Macy's is somewhat more reasonable than Bloomingdale's, but still offer a lot of really nice things. I also read somewhere that Macy's was the #1 Bridal Registry. Heck, if most people are using it, it must be a good choice, right?

Our bridal consultant, Cheryl Craft was extremely helpful. Ironically, she lives in the same housing community that we live in. What a small world! If you plan on getting registered in the Bay Area, I highly recommend going to her. She was extremely easy to work with and we were glad that we went to Macy's to get registered. They even gave us a cute tote bag as a gift for registering there! Who doesn't love free stuff!!

The hardest part was figuring out what we wanted. Macy's had a bunch of tips/suggestion sheets that we found to be very helpful.

Anyways, here's some photographs of us running around Macy's doing our registry.

We'll have to go back and pick out some more stuff later, since we went late in the evening. If you want to check out our registry, here's the link: Henry and Lisa's Registry @ Macy's

Quick updates...

2008-03-05T14:18:00.000-08:00

Hey guys, it's been quite sometime since I've updated anything on this site. My fiance was out of town again, so the wedding planning was placed on hiatus for a bit again.

Now that he's back, we're slowly starting to get the ball rolling. We've been contacting vendors, setting up appointments to see people and checking out some of the venues for our ceremony.

This weekend we had a chance to check out one of our potential wedding ceremony sites, Inspiration Point in the Presidio. I really wish we could have our ceremony there. It is small, intimate and has a gorgeous view, but after researching it a bit more, we found out it isn't open for Sundays. Great, scratch that one off the list. Anyways, the view was gorgeous so here are some pictures:

On the way to see Inspiration Point, we stopped off at Union St. to see if Haute Bride was open so I could pick up my earrings and my veil. Henry was pretty pissed at me when we walked up to the store after circling for awhile to find parking, only to find that it wasn't open on Sundays.

For those of you who know me, you'll know that I pull stuff like this all the time. Oopsie. Haha...I guess I should have looked up the store hours beforehand. This is why I think Henry and I are such a good match though. He kind of balances out the ditz in me at times. Thank goodness I've left him responsible for most of the wedding planning.

Since we were already there, we walked around a bit and ended up eating at Extreme Pizza. We haven't had a chance to really sit down and have lunch together, even if it was just pizza. Yes, we also shouldn't be eating that because of our wedding coming up, but oh well...

I'm pretty excited, next weekend I'm going to try to get all of my bridesmaids together so we can go dress shopping for them. It's really difficult though because my Maid of Honor lives in Southern California, so we can't all go look at things spontaneously, so that's why this weekend should be pretty fun...I hope.

I hope it doesn't turn into one of those crazy bridezilla weekends that you see on those tv shows. Hehe...I hope we find a dress that everyone agrees on and that fits everyone's budget.

I've researched some bridesmaids stores online and I'm thinking of going to these two places when all the girls are together:

Have any of you guys out there had any experiences with any of these places? Let me know, because I'd love to have some input.

Veil and Jewelry

2008-01-25T15:50:00.000-08:00

Stacy K., another bride to be had messaged me the other day online and asked if I wanted to check out bridal accessories with her. My initial thought was, I'm just going to look since I have a few more months of planning left and I had wanted to research a little bit about other companies for jewelry before buying..

She made the appointment for us at Haute Bride, located in San Francisco. The boutique is located in the Marina/Cow Hollow area of San Francisco. Driving from San Jose, there was a bit of traffic because of the rain and I was unfortunately 30 minutes late, but the ladies at the boutique were still extremely nice.

The store is extremely cute. They have a small selection of gowns and shoes as well as all of the accessories they carry, even though they are more known for their accessories.

Their jewelry designs are all extremely pretty. It was so hard making a decision as to which ones to try on, but after describing my dress and what I was looking for, Angela, the lady working with us was extremely helpful in pulling items that she thought would look good.

The first thing, however that caught my eye was a veil called Cynthia by Jennifer Leigh. It is extremely gorgeous! I think it is the portion of my wedding attire that I really like the most so far.

Once Angela pinned the veil on me, I knew instantly I had to get it. After that, she pulled some earrings that would fit with the veil and I am glad that I listened to her advice. I had seen a pair of earrings that Stacy happened to have picked out for herself and fallen in love with those earrings as well, but once I paired it with the veil, they looked compltely mismatched. One of the earrings that Angela had set aside for me was more fitting of the veil.

I highly recommend Haute Couture as a place for buying your bridal accessories.

Haute Couture
1954 Union St
(between Buchanan St & Charlton Ct)
San Francisco, CA 94123
(415) 923-5900

Afterwards, we met up with another future bride to be for dinner at Chez Papa's. I know it doesn't really have a lot to do with weddings, but I have to say the meal there was extremely good.

The Bridesmaids

2008-01-16T15:40:00.000-08:00

I've now officially asked all of my bridesmaids to be in my wedding. This was no easy task picking who I wanted to have in my wedding since I wanted to include so many people, but Henry and I decided to narrow it down to just 4 each in our parties.

My decisions on the bridesmaids were made in the hopes of having someone from every major part of my life in my wedding.

The Bridesmaids are as follows:

The Maid of Honor:
Nera Rattidham - The Cousin and Childhood friend.

I've known Nera nearly all of my life. When we moved to California her family lived near us and we used to play at each others houses. We didn't find out until later that we are distant cousins as well. She's been there with my family through a lot of things and I love her. She's my buddy!

Sabrina Wong - College Friend/Big Sis

Sabrina and I met during our freshman year at UC Berkeley. She was my big sis in my sorority, Sigma Omicron Pi and she lived kiddie corner from where I lived. She's been a good friend for years. Even when I don't see her for a long time, once we do get together, it's almost as if nothing changed. She's always been the level-headed one and is always someone you can go to for great advice. She rocks!

Jen Tse - San Francisco Days

There was a time when Henry and I met a great group of people over on mixture.com. I know, it's really random, but Jen, Henry and I hung around a lot during those days. She lived pretty close to us and we went to a lot of parties and just hung out every now and then. I'd go to work and they'd wait for me to get done so we could. She's always really laid back and chill, which we love. We hate dramaramas, that's why we love Jen.

Niza Manera

The newest of my friends who are my bridesmaids. I currently work with her at Kaiser. We even have almost the same work schedule, which makes it pretty easy to call her up and go out. She's a really sweet, fun, and awesome person and I'm glad I got to meet her this last year.

Welcome 2008!!!

2008-01-02T10:55:00.000-08:00

The new year is finally here and I'm starting to realize that we have so much left to do in our wedding planning.

We're about 8 months away from our wedding and we have yet to book our photographer, make-up artist, and florist, not to mention all of the little details.

I decided as one of my resolutions for this year, I would take more pictures to chronicle my life. That includes pictures for our wedding planning as well.

Here are some of the favors that we found in Thailand that we might use. For those of you who know me, know I'm obsessed with dogs. They're so cute! While looking at Chatuchak Market in Thailand, we found these cute little pepper shakers. The color scheme of our wedding is going to be Red and Pink and White, so these were some shakers we found:

What do you guys think about these as part of the favors? Pretty cute, huh?

Thai wedding dress

2007-12-22T08:14:00.000-08:00

I know people have been asking me to take photos of my other dresses. I lost my camera a few weeks ago (misplaced it somewhere in my house, it'll eventually turn up...I hope) and the only way I can take pictures is on my cellular phone, so the picture kind of sucks and I just woke up at 4am this morning unable to sleep so I decided to try on my dresses.

It's gold in color, which at the dress store they said is usually one of the colors people choose in Thailand because it is considered lucky.

Anyways, here's a photograph.

Rehersal Dinner Location

2007-12-14T04:52:00.000-08:00

Henry and I have been talking about where we would like to have our rehearsal dinner. We decided that a place we would like to possibly hold our rehearsal dinner at would be R&G Lounge in San Francisco.

The reasons why we picked this place are as follows:

1) It's conveniently located somewhat near by our hotel.
2) We both think the food is pretty good there.
3) We will he having Asian guests from out of town not to mention out of the country. It will be easier to make them happy by feed them something they're used to eating rather than trying to find an Americanized/Westernized restaurant that everyone would like.
4) Who doesn't like seafood, specifically crab?
5) They have room to accommodate for a banquet.
6) They have pretty reasonable banquet menu prices as well: Banquet Menu.
7) For a place in Chinatown, the decor is actually pretty okay.

Honestly, now that we have the venue and the date set, everything seems to be falling into place extremely easily. Perhaps finding a wedding planner won't be necessary after all.

Does anyone out there know how hard it is to do your own flowers or centerpieces? I was thinking of heading out to the city sometime this week to check out the Flower Market and just get an idea of what types of flowers I would like for my wedding.

I haven't had a chance to take any photographs lately, but here are some pictures of the dress

2007-12-11T05:07:00.000-08:00

I'm a member at Costco and on their latest e-mail flyer, I noticed they had a ring very similar to my engagement ring as far as cut, size and everything else showcased on the flyer: The Costco Ring. I thought it was kind of neat and I really like the emerald cut. I think it's pretty classic, and simplistic looking, which is why I think it's so pretty and why it appeals to me so much.

Anyways, I know you're all waiting for the dress pictures.

I haven't had a chance to take any photographs of me in my dresses just yet since it's been really busy with work and all of the various holiday parties going on, but here are some photographs of me at the 2nd fitting for my dress.

Yes, it's hot and stuffy in that place and after trying on all of my dresses, especially my traditional white dress, which has a petticoat making it even more hotter, I don't look happy, but I really am happy about how my dress came out.

This was not the final fitting there were some changes made to the dress, like on the back they added loops for those buttons so they are more straight/uniform and at the top they adjusted the dress so it wasn't all open kinda near the top. I am planning on losing some weight as well, so they made the dress a little tight, but otherwise...you guys get an idea of what one of my dresses looks like.

In the first picture, it's a view of the back without the petticoat and the dress hooked up for my first dance.

I was debating not posting them so that it would be a big suprise, but oh well. Who gives a frick...here ya go!

The task of picking your bridesmaids.

2007-12-08T08:53:00.001-08:00

Well, I've been back a week now and you would have thought I'd start getting back into wedding planning mode. Unfortunately, that's not been the case. I'm starting to wonder if maybe we should enlist a wedding planner.

With my wedding about 9 months away, I've begun to think about who I'd like to ask to be in my wedding. I'm having trouble narrowing it all down as we are hoping to have 4 people in each of our parties. I want to try and pick people from different parts/eras of my life. I know for sure that my maid of honor will be my cousin that I grew up with. The others, I have some what of an idea of who I'd like to ask, but I'm having trouble narrowing it all down. I know I can't ask all of them, but I think by the end of this week I'll have decided.

For those of you who have already picked yours or those of you who have already gotten married, how did you narrow down or decide on those you'd like to ask to be in your wedding party? Were people hurt if you didn't ask them? Any advice would be greatly appriciated.

Oh, and I'll try on my dresses for you all and take pictures to show you all what they look like. =) I am trying to drop 15 pounds before my wedding, so my dresses will most likely have to change later, but I'll post the pictures soon. While in Asia, I didn't lose any weight, but we walked around a lot over there. I felt a lot better with the food there as well. It didn't seem to bog me down, even though we ate a lot over there.

I think I might start doing the nutrisystem thing again. I started it for a bit and lost some weight. Some people at work were commenting that I look like I lost a few pounds. That makes me happy! =)

Oh and thanks to Andrea who tagged my blog. Check hers out too! I Love Weddings

I got my dresses!!!

2007-12-03T08:59:00.000-08:00

I know it's been quite sometime since I've posted anything, but I was on vacation overseas to Thailand.

My background/ethnicity is Thai-American, so I went home to visit family and to introduce my fiance to my family over there. It was a lot of fun and we spent a lot of time just resting and relaxing.

The one thing that I did get accomplished, that I didn't expect I would be able to finish is getting all three of my wedding dresses.

Since I am Thai and my fiance is Chinese, but we both grew up in America, I am lucky enough to be able to wear 3 different dresses for our wedding. Luckily, one of the dress shops that we looked at in Thailand is able to make all three dresses. I'm currently still in Los Angeles at my parents house, but when I get back to the Bay Area I'll take some pictures and post them up.

I wanted to just give a little plug for the store that I got my dresses at, it's called 'Look Mai' (Thai word for lace.) The store is located in Bangkok near the Balampoo area, which is right by Khao San(the same backpacker area from Leonardo Di Caprio movie The Beach.)

They custom made all 3 dresses. First, I talked with the designer as to what I was looking for and showed him a few dresses I had clipped from magazines and websites. He then sketched a drawing for me and then they made a form for the three dresses and then each day or every other day I had a new fitting.

Incredibly, the dresses were completed in only 1 week. It was somewhat of a rush job, so my dresses ended up costing a little more than what they normally should have cost at this store, but still it was a lot cheaper than what I would have spent here in the states. The total cost for all 3 dresses was equivalent to about $1,400.00.

Can you believe it?! It was pretty cheap for all three and this was still a higher price that they normally charge because it was a rush job. Normally, they make dresses over months for brides there in Thailand, but since I had to go back to the states in a few days, they were able to complete the dress for me.

The venue is set!!

2007-11-11T15:48:00.000-08:00

Henry and I will officially be getting married at Intercontinental Mark Hopkins in San Francisco.

I think the biggest and most important part of planning is picking the date and the venue for your wedding. Now that both of these are out of the way, it seems almost as if everything else will fall into place.

The hard part for us about planning is that Henry is always out of the country and we both wanted to be able to take a look at the venues and to talk over what we wanted out of a wedding venue and date together face to face.

Lucky for us, Mark Hopkins seems to offer everything that we want out of a venue.

Sorry my posts have been far and few lately. I've been busy with getting ready to go overseas for a much needed vacation to Thailand. I am taking my fiance back home to meet my family over there as well as take some friends around as well.

Hopefully, I'll have a lot of updates from overseas as well. I am going to be looking for a lot of wedding things there, since I know it will be a lot cheaper.

Some people are wondering why I even write this site.

2007-10-27T17:12:00.001-07:00

Some people wonder why I write this site. The reason I write on this site is because I need a way to chronicle what's been going on in my life as far as the wedding planning and to maybe just help give a little bit of input to others who are planning theirs as well. I work at night, so often times my days are a big blur to me. I feel like I'm walking through most of my life like a zombie.

In addition, we all know that the best referral for items is through word of mouth. So, I do appreciate all the responses and e-mails that people have been leaving me with recommendations and suggestions. I've found some places and vendors that I want to use because of all of you out there. I really appreciate it!!

Secondly, it does generate a little bit of revenue for me from the Google ads. I know it's not a lot, but hopefully, I can use a little bit of it to offset some of it with that money.

Insomnia strikes again...

2007-10-25T06:12:00.000-07:00

So, insomnia strikes again. I decided to try the video editing software that came with my computer. It's Windows Media Maker. It's not that great, but very simple to use. Perhaps in a few months, I'll be able to make my own slideshow for my actual wedding.

My Engagement
Turn Off The Background Music to the Website on the Right Hand Side First Before Starting This One
Add to My Profile | More Videos

Back on the horse

2007-10-24T08:30:00.001-07:00

After my little bridezilla freakout, Henry and I talked a bit and I feel a bit better about everything and I'm starting to get into the planning mode again. Before, I was feeling a bit discouraged and almost wanted to just give up and quit planning all together. Yes, I'm moody. What can I say?!

For those of you who don't know, I am an insomniac. I also work night shifts, so I am on a completely opposite schedule as most of the world. As a result, I ended up waking up at 3am this morning and decided to do a bit of laundry and wedding planning research online. I feel like I stumbled onto a lot of really great sites and feel like I'm ready to really start planning.

So, what did I get accomplished last night since 3am...

Bridal Gowns
First off, one of my girlfriends, Stacy who is also planning a wedding recommended me to a the Glamour Closet. One of our other friends recently got engaged so we all might go down there and check it out together. I need time to lose some weight though! Haha....

After reading the reviews about the Glamour Closet on Yelp and a few other sites, I'm ready to check it out and begin wedding dress shopping.

Planning
Secondly, I stumbled upon a really useful site, The Chopstick Bride. The site is very simplistic, but that's what I like about it. I also like the fact that the site seems to target Bay Area/Californian Asian-American brides. I also like a lot of the vendors that they have on the site. The forums section is also very helpful. I'll most likely start posting in there soon.

Makeup and Hair
I've been researching a lot of makeup artists and hair stylists as well. Of course, I'd probably want to talk to them or sit down with them before making an actual decision, but right now the people I've found that I really like so far in order are as follows:

The number one choice right now is WOWPRETTY. The work on the site looks really cool and not to sound stupid, but she worked in Taiwan and Thailand. Ironically, Henry is Taiwanese and I'm Thai, so I think it would be nice to work with her.

I also really like the work that I have seen and the comments people have made on review sites about Professional Makeup Artistry as well.

I really like Faces By Taylor, but it seems pretty pricey.

Photography
Right now, as far as photography, it seems like the photographer that is fitting all of our needs and wants is Danny Zhang. We liked the package that he offered and he seems like a pretty cool guy. It's funny, our friends/neighbor who are going to get married around the same time also sat down with Danny as well.

As mentioned in an earlier post, one of my co-workers and family friend used Joseph Kohn as their photographer. I really like his work, but after looking at the pricing packaging I really think that Danny will fit our needs more. From my co-workers and the pictures I saw, I heard that Joseph Kohn's photography is really good because he made her mediocre wedding look like a very beautiful/lavish/gorgeous one. I really would like to use him, but it seems like the pricing is just slightly out of our reach.

I really like Jade Studio Productions as well, but they are really out of our range. When Henry talked to them on the phone, their basic package/starting price was pretty up there and we didn't even ask what that package included. Henry asked if I wanted to sit down with them and maybe see what they offered, but I really can't see spending as much as they were asking for on photos, even though I do know that photos are one of the most important things. Do you think I should still request to sit down and go over package prices with them? Check out their website though. Both the photography and videography is awesome.

Well, I am going to shoot a few e-mails out and try to set some appointments for the wedding planning.

First bridezilla rant...

2007-10-22T10:56:00.000-07:00

Most people who know me know that generally I'm a very laid back and relaxed person most of the time.

All of this wedding planning and thinking is starting to get me somewhat frantic. Weddings are so ridiculously expensive. Everyone seems to be into these lavish and extravagant weddings. I don't even know how people afford them.

I am so jealous of everyone who has their parents helping out. I am also so envious of all of my friends who had sponsors at their weddings.

I am jealous of all the weddings I've been to, as they've all been extremely gorgeous and nice, but seem to be so out of reach for us at this moment.

Yes, I am the green-eyed monster right now and I can't help but flip through tons of bridal magazines and see these gorgeous weddings and dream about the type of wedding I wish I could have.

I have to admit, my ideas about money have been somewhat not in tune with reality most of my life, I somewhat attribute that to being a spoiled little girl, but now that I'm out on my own and starting to think about the future, I really do not know how people can plan such expensive weddings without putting themselves seriously into debt.

For some reason, going into debt over a wedding doesn't sound like my idea of the best way to start for a blissful life together.

What do people expect out of weddings nowadays anyways?

I know what I'd like out of one, but I'm not sure that Henry and I are seeing eye to eye on that right now. I'm so frustrated right now. It must be getting close to that time of the month or something, but man...Wedding planning is not easy at all, let alone setting the budget.

2007-10-14T18:10:00.000-07:00

Recently, one of my co-workers used a certain photographer for her wedding. I really liked the photos I saw at work and as I researched his website some more, I found that he had also done Talesa and Dave's wedding earlier this year as well. We were impressed with his work at that time as well.

I've been e-mailing him and I forwarded his information over to Henry so that he can contact him and figure out a good time to meet up.

Aside from the photography, I've been trying to find the perfect dress. I think I've narrowed it down, but I just need to go and see the actual dress on me and when my cousin comes up at the end of this month, we're going to go wedding dress shopping.

As of right now, the dress I'm looking at is an Alvina Valenta dress, style #AV9503. Out of all the designers that I have researched, I've come to the conclusion that I love a handful of designer's dresses. Right now, those designers are: Romona Keveza, Alvina Valenta, Judd Waddell, and Vera Wang.

I also know I'd like a mermaid style dress. I'm not big on the whole poofy princess type of dress, so for me, the mermaid style really appeals to me. The only problem is, if it's TOO fitted, I won't be able to dance at my own wedding.

I know that in order to find the perfect wedding dress, one most likely has to try on a variety of dresses before finding the right one. I'm not sure how I feel about wedding dresses. I even bidded on an Alvina Valenta gown on E-Bay. A part of me hopes I won't regret this, but I'll find out if I won the bid tomorrow.

On one hand, it's your day and you should have that dream dress you always wanted. However, you're most likely only going to be wearing that dress for a few hours, so why bust the bank?

What do you guys think? Should you spend an enormous amount of money for that dream dress? I think that the money spent on a dress could go elsewhere on something that would make more of a lasting impression. In all honesty, I've never been to a wedding where the bride did not look gorgeous in her dress regardless of the designer or price. Heck, there are times when I don't even really remember what the bride's dress looked like until after looking back at pictures.

Walk Through at InterContinental Mark Hopkins

2007-10-05T13:13:00.000-07:00

On Monday, Henry and I met with the venue coordinator at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel. I'm not sure how many of you native Bay Area people have been to the Top of the Mark before, but this hotel has a lot of history to it. In fact, it is a historical landmark as well.

That is one of the things I really like about this hotel. It's a pretty classy, historic hotel but it is still rather contemporary. I don't think the view can be matched at any other place. It's absolutely gorgeous. The coordinator we met with was very nice and friendly. She was also very helpful in helping us envision what things would look like in the room and discussed some of the newer renovations that would be happening in the rooms we were looking at.

They are changing the drapery to red and gold colored drapes and keeping the floor in that greenish color. I really don't know how that would work out in regards to the overall color scheme that I have envisioned for the wedding, but I'm sure with the use of some pipe and draping and lighting, it could end up fitting with my thoughts of having a pink, white and red wedding.

I forgot my camera, but took a few photographs using my phone.

After checking out the hotel, we ended up meeting with a potential photographer. I want a photo journalistic style of photography for our wedding. I really do not like posed photographs. Anyways, after looking at the Wedding Photo Journalistic Association website, we narrowed it down to a few photographers there and sent out some e-mails asking for price ranges and such. This was our first meeting with a photographer and everything seemed pretty nice that he showed us and his rates and the package he was offering was very competitive. We met up with him at Mondo Caffe, where Henry and I had a few beers on a nice afternoon in San Francisco while waiting since we got there a bit early.

Overall, wedding planning is a lot of fun and I'm enjoying it right now. I know that in a few months, when the time actually starts getting close it'll most likely turn from fun into stress, but for now I want to enjoy my time planning. I have to say, e-mailing and contacting various vendors via e-mail or phone was fun, but actually going around and seeing things in person is a lot more fun. It gives you a better perspective on things.

Prior to the appointment, over the last couple of days I've been cutting out photographs from various wedding magazines. I just took some magazines, a scrap book and some photo sticky spray stuff and I've been cutting away and pasting things that "inspire" me for my wedding.

I also saw a twin of my car, the BMW Z4M, except in the coupe model. I know that's not wedding related, but I always get excited when I see my twin car. It's the same color and everything as well. Hey, at least it's white, right? That ties into the wedding theme.

Jen Tse and Mike Kong's Wedding

2007-10-01T20:56:00.000-07:00

Some people wonder why I always post so many pictures from the different weddings we've been to this year. The reason is because I think the best way to really know what you want out of your wedding is to see a lot of different weddings and pick and choose what you like from each one.

This weekend we had a chance to go down to Los Angeles for our friends Mike and Jen's wedding at the Los Angeles Hilton in San Gabriel. It was a very large Chinese style wedding with approximately 480 people total. Wowzers!!!

The first night, the rehearsal dinner was at Monterey Hill Steakhouse and Banquets to which some of her friends and family were treated to delicious salmon or prime rib! Now, everyone knows at Asian banquets and weddings one of the biggest things that the parents are thinking is how good the food tastes. =)

The next afternoon, Henry and I went to the hotel to check in, but because there was a large number of early check ins, our room wasn't ready and we were told to come back in an hour.

We decided to wander around and came upon a beauty salon/spa. I decided to get a facial and Henry went next door for a massage. I've never had a facial before in my life and I have to admit, it's something I could get used to. The only part that I didn't like was when she was squeezing out all of my whiteheads on my nose. That was horrible, but after it was all over, my nose felt really smooth and no more whiteheads. I will definitely get a facial before my big day, but I'll try and get the treatments done a week before my wedding.

As for the wedding, it was a nice wedding. The ceremony was on the Garden Terrace of the hotel and as many of you know, my dream is to get married on a rooftop or terrace. The weather was gorgeous and the ceremony was just as pretty. The cutest part was the ring bearer got a bit scared and walked halfway down the aisle and then ran back the other way. It was so cute!!

The ceremony was also a nice length. It wasn't long and drawn out but it wasn't quick and short either. It was the perfect length. The terrace was decorated in a variety of flowers and tulle wrapped around the pedestals/columns. Her dress was so pretty! I tried to get a lot of pictures of it, but as the bridal party walked back down the aisle the photographer came and stood right in front of me, so I wasn't able to get any really good shots.

The cocktail reception began shortly after in front of the ballroom. The only thing that somewhat sucked was that there was only one bar for 480 people. Jen and Mike aren't big drinkers so I don't think that the bar was the part that they were really concerned with. We ended up sneaking off to watch some of the USC game on the outside lobby/bar and got a few drinks there instead. I thought it was so funny that he was so adamant about watching the game, I even took a picture of him watching the game.

The dinner reception was HUGE!! As I mentioned earlier, there were 480 people. The decor was much like the one on the terrace.

As many of you know, one of the biggest thing on the minds of Asian guests is how good is the food. As you can see from the pictures, Henry absolutely LOVED the lobster. We had quite a few women at our table that I think we were all scared to get our hands really dirty, but Henry sure wasn't! He went to town on those lobsters!! Overall, the food was really good, especially for a banquet serving 480 people. We really liked our food. They also did the whole presentation thing when they come out and do a circle around the dance floor. One of my family friends had that done at their wedding too.

The Cake was really pretty. The part I really liked about it is the cake topper! It's Marge and Homer Simpson! Hahaha, way cute! I liked how even though most of their wedding was pretty traditional, I loved how they added their own little flare to it by adding those cake toppers.

Jen also had a few wedding dress changes. Aside from the traditional white wedding gown, she also wore a traditional Chinese dress called the QiPao.

The wedding favors for the night were cute little chocolates made into poker chips with Mike and Jen's names and wedding dates on them. The bags were also filled with an actual lottery ticket, to which Henry won $4.00!! Yipeee!!

The First Dance - Mike and Jen

Jen and her father

Time to lose some weight...

2007-09-15T05:26:00.001-07:00

Well, it's time to start losing some weight. Initially, I had tried taking Alli for a short period of time, but the side effects were quite gruesome so I stopped. Not to get graphic, but I had to wear a pad sometimes to prevent "accidents" from happening. It was horrible.

The diet I'm trying now is Nutrisystem Nourish. I'm sure you've all seen the commercials on TV where they send the food to your house and you eat their meals and you begin to lose weight. So far, I've been on it for a few days and I've already lost a few pounds. I even cheated on some of the days and had beer at a SF Giants game and some alcohol while going out with friends. That's my one vice that I wish I could quit right now. If I cut alcohol out of my diet, I think I'd be able to lose a lot more weight.

The reason I like the Nutrisystem thing is because the meals are relatively easy to make. Most of them you just throw into the microwave or add hot water. This is good for me because I work long and odd hours, so preparing meals isn't always the easiest for me.

I'll keep you all posted on how this new diet goes. Hopefully, by the time my wedding rolls around, I'll have dropped a few pounds and at least 1-2 dress sizes.

After all that anticipation...

2007-09-05T13:23:00.001-07:00

After all that waiting and anticipation for the Bently Reserve, Henry e-mailed me last night from the Philippines, telling me that he placed a hold on our date at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins. Strangely enough, it was at the bottom of our list of 5 on the previous post about "Narrowing Down Venues." On that post, I had originally written the following in regards to the hotel:

"Finally, the Mark Hopkins looks nice, and it's in a desirable location in San Francisco. The pricing is actually not bad in comparison to the other hotels we've seen, but neither of us have seen too many photographs or heard much about people having weddings here. I've been to the top of the mark a few times and loved the view, but I can't really recall my overall opinions of the hotel, let alone contemplating feelings of getting married there."

Now, the reason it was at the bottom was mostly because we both did not know much about it, but after looking over their pricing and their menu and what they had to offer in their package, Henry made me another excel spreadsheet to compare the pricing between the outside caterer + Venue versus the Mark Hopkins. I'm not good with making decisions, but putting everything down in paper and on a budget format that is easy to follow makes things a lot easier for me.

In looking at those numbers, Mark Hopkins ends up being slightly cheaper not to mention they have our date available. Unfortunately, Henry is out of the country. I wish he was around so that I could go and take a look at the venue. I might plan on going to the city in the next few days to look at the venue myself.

Here are some photographs that they attached to their proposal:

Overall, we liked the peacock room which is pictured in the first two photographs, but of course as everyone knows, photographs always look great. It's just like anyone on Myspace or Facebook. Who would post an ugly photograph of themselves? Anyways, I think we have to just go and get a feel for the venue in person. I don't know if I should go by myself or just wait for Henry to come back before checking it out.

With all the numbers we've been crunching, Mark Hopkins ends up being about $1,000.00 cheaper than going with an outside caterer. Which actually is not that much of a difference, but the fact that Mark Hopkins is in a Hotel helps push us a little towards that direction now.

The package at Mark Hopkins includes the following: Unlimited beverage servage for 5 hours, hors d'ovures and the dinner, wedding cake, coatcheck/gift attendant, complimentary suite for the bridal couple. The dinner menu we are currently looking at is the "Mark Hopkins" dinner menu.

Keep your fingers crossed!! I hope we get the venue!

2007-09-04T10:44:00.000-07:00

After a lot of talk and looking at numbers, we are keeping our fingers crossed for having our wedding at the Bently Reserve. The only problem is that there is another group potentially looking at that venue. In order to book the venue, they need to provide the deposit by this Wednesday, so if they decide not to do it and not place a deposit, the venue will be ours.

We decided on this place because of several reasons.

The first reason was because we want to do an outside caterer. We chose this caterer because we attended two weddings who used this company and the food was absolutely the best food we've had at a wedding. The service they provide (the servers and such) were also some of the best we've had before as well.

Secondly, we decided not to go with a hotel since most of their open bar options are extremely expensive. I really do not know how people can afford to have a wedding these days.

Another reason we originally wanted a hotel was so that our friends could have a place to stay, especially because of the open bar. We wouldn't want people driving home when they were in no state to drive home. As a result, we needed to find a place that had hotels nearby. The Bently Reserve is perfect because next door are two hotels. We're looking at staying at Le Meridien which is within a few feet of the Bently Reserve. In the picture to the left the columns are part of the Bently Reserve and the taller building next to it is the Le Meridien.

We also like the Bently Reserve's overall look and feel as well. I have a particular vision as far as how I want my wedding to look and overall the Bently Reserve's decor inside is rather classic, neutral, and simple which is good because it'll be able to fit a variety of looks.

There were a few other reasons why we wanted this venue, but for now we can only keep our fingers crossed and hope that we are able to get it.

Outside Caterer Versus Hotel Required Caterer

2007-08-23T13:31:00.001-07:00

After running some more numbers tonight and we're starting to realize that maybe our vision of having a hotel wedding is not as economical as having a wedding at a venue and bringing in your own outside caterer. So far, the caterer (KC Catering Company) we've been talking to is extremely helpful and very reasonable. It's no wonder our two friends used the company. He even helped suggest some places that we might fit what we're looking for out of a venue.

As for the dress, I am not sure what type of dress I would like and I've never tried one on, so I have no idea what kind would look nice on me, but I have been looking on ebay and have checked out this site called Pre-owned Wedding Dresses. I'm thinking if I can save money on my dress, I can be able to afford the 3 dresses that I have to wear (a traditional white dress, Chinese dress, and Thai dress.)

I am actually very excited about the Thai portion of the wedding. I think that I will get my dress made in Thailand during the Thailand trip that we were going on this November.

My fiance suggested last night when we were running the numbers that maybe it would be a nice personal touch if we had my bridesmaids wear cheongsam (qipao). I'm not sure how I feel about it or how my bridesmaids will feel, but I think it could potentially be a nice touch. The problem is I can only imagine how tight those dresses might feel.

Looking at Wedding Venues

2007-08-22T17:11:00.000-07:00

Well, now that we've gotten the date set, we're now starting to look at different venues. We've been sending out a lot of RFP (Request for Proposals) to various hotels. We initially wanted to plan to have our wedding at a hotel in order to accommodate for all of our friends who we know will take full advantage of the open bar.

The website that I've found to be most useful in searching for venues has been Here Comes The Guide. Right now, in order of places we'd like to book are as follows:

I really do love the St. Regis hotel. I love the fact that they have rooftop weddings and the overall decor of the venue is something that both Henry and I loved as soon as we saw the photos. We would book this venue in a heartbeat, if it wasn't for the overall cost. The wedding photographs at the hotel that we've seen are gorgeous but we now realize that it all comes at a very expensive price. Are we willing to shell out all that money to have the wedding of our dreams? We're not sure yet....

Hotel Valencia Santana Row is a venue/area that we normally frequent a few times a month. Santana Row is one exit off of the freeway from our house, so we tend to go there a lot with friends, whether it's for drinks or to have dinner. Overall, I really like the fact that you can have a wedding in their courtyard. I don't know why I have such an affinity for rooftop/courtyard weddings, but it's something that I've found myself really wanting in a wedding venue.

Two weekends ago, we had the pleasure of attending Nan and Dave's wedding at the San Francisco City Hall. I know a lot of people have been married there, but now I know why. The venue is really nice. It's a large open space and although it is not an outside courtyard, the overall feel is open, which I really love. This is one of the only venues we've been thinking about that is not in a hotel. We talked to the caterer that a few of our friends have used in the last few weddings and from what we've seen so far, we love the pricing that goes along with hiring your own caterer. The only problem is, we really wanted to have our wedding in a hotel for friends to be able to not have to drive far.

Four Seasons Silicon Valley, also offers an outside courtyard type of wedding. From the photographs we've seen, we really liked this venue. Once again, the cost is pretty high up there and although we both like the venue, we'd have to take a look at it and see something that really pulls at our hearts as to why we should book it before all of the earlier mentioned venues.

Finally, the Mark Hopkins looks nice, and it's in a desirable location in San Francisco. The pricing is actually not bad in comparison to the other hotels we've seen, but neither of us have seen too many photographs or heard much about people having weddings here. I've been to the top of the mark a few times and loved the view, but I can't really recall my overall opinions of the hotel, let alone contemplating feelings of getting married there.

Finding a venue is so confusing. I guess the only way to really find a place that we both love is to just go and see them all. I'm hoping to be able to go and look at all the venues before Henry leaves again for the Philippines.

For those of you who don't know, Henry recently left his old job to start his own company, Open Access Marketing with some partners. This requires him to travel back and forth to the Philippines a lot, even though neither of us are Filipino.

Although a part of me hates the fact that he travels so much, a part of me is actually excited since I know that by him going back overseas a lot, we'll be able to take advantage of getting our printing for our wedding done there. The only problem would be that I wouldn't be able to sit there in person and look at things with him, but the amount we will be saving would be tremendous.

Anyways, I'll keep you all posted on the venue shopping. I really wish we could afford St. Regis. If only I could win the Mega Millions (current jackpot=201 Million) or the California Super Lotto (Current Jackpot = 74 Million.) Could you imagine what kind of wedding you could plan with that kind of money? Sigh...if only dreams came true!!

Kulaya and Nine's Wedding - Old Federal Reserve in San Francisco

2007-08-20T14:27:00.000-07:00

This weekend, my whole family attended one of our family friend's weddings. It was a nice wedding, unfortunately we we were a little late and caught only the tail end of the ceremony.

The wedding was at the Old Federal Reserve in San Francisco, which is now the Bently Reserve.

We've really like their caterer. I believe it is the same one that Nan and Dave used at their wedding, so we got the number of the caterer, KC Catering Company Their staff has always been very outgoing and the food has been extremely good. If we end up needing a caterer, I would be happy using them.

Photographs from Kulaya and Nine's Wedding at the Old Federal Reserve (Bently Reserve) in San Francisco, Ca. The wedding took place on August 18, 2007.

Kulaya and Nine's First Dance -

ARgh, back to the old date!!!

2007-08-15T18:12:00.000-07:00

Henry and his parents looked at the Chinese Calendar. Apparently, the first date we picked is actually the first date of the month after the unlucky month. So, we are keeping our date.

I feel a bit more relieved, but now we have to start looking for a venue.

After looking through a ton of wedding magazines, I think we are going to have an Asian theme to our wedding and have a lot of Parasols, Lanterns, etc. I want our wedding to be very colorful. As far as the color themes, I am not sure just yet, but we'll see.

It must be a sign that it's time to get married...

2007-08-10T10:59:00.000-07:00

Last night, I went out with two friends to a few local bar/lounges, which is what we usually do when we go out. We had a few drinks, talked to some people at the bar and then one of my friends was feeling a bit tired and decided to go home. My other friend and I decided that we would continue on since we were already out.

We thought it would be fun to go dancing, so we decided to meet up with my future brother-in-law at a club in downtown San Jose at a place called Taste Ultra Lounge. There were tons of young Asian girls running around in teeny tops and tight jeans and there I was in my Ted Baker dress (pictured left), which I thought was pretty cute, but apparently not "hoochie" enough to get us past the line as they were letting a few drunk and scantily clad dressed girls enter, but not us pathetic losers standing there waiting in line.

It reminded me of the scene in that movie, Knocked Up where the two sisters who are used to getting into clubs try to get into a club and are denied at the door be cause they're too old and not as young and "hip" as they thought they were. I felt the exact same way. I remember in my younger years, how easy it was to bypass the lines and not have to pay cover, but now it seems almost not worth it to make the trip out to stand in a line and not even get into the club.

Thank goodness I am getting married! At least I know that at home, Henry will be waiting for me and I won't have to wait in line to spend time with him. =)

Definitely changing the date...

2007-08-09T13:14:00.001-07:00

Well, I talked to Henry last night and having your wedding in that month is considered extremely unlucky.

As a result, we are going to change our date. Sigh, now I have no idea where to start as far as picking the date. Anyone have any suggestions?

Changing your wedding date...

2007-08-08T12:44:00.000-07:00

Well, my fiance told me this morning when I got home from work that the date we had picked is not a good day according to the Chinese customs. Apparently, the date we chose is in one of the "ghosts" months. It is a time when the Chinese believe that the dead come visit the earth.

Now, when we initially picked our date, I told my fiance to ask his parents if this was a lucky day or not and to consult the Chinese zodiac or any custom type of thing that he needed to pick. Heck, he even wrote a blog himself about finding the wedding date. I kept bugging him for weeks about this and of course he kept telling me that he would get to it.

Anyways, now after we have had our date chosen for a couple weeks now and he tells me this? You can not imagine how frustrated I feel right now.

Naturally, a part of me does not want to get married in a ghost month, because they say it is bad luck. There is another side of me, who is saddened because my father won't be able to be at my wedding (he passed away over 10 years ago.)

From what I'm reading about this holiday, it is a time for ancestors to come back to the earth, than maybe this might be an ideal time for me to hold my wedding, since in some ways my dad would be able to attend. I'm not sure how the holiday works, or if this is even a plausible assumption, but if it is, maybe we won't have to change our date.

Perhaps, if we can't choose this month, I'm thinking that Henry should just pick the date for us this time. The only thing I ask is that he doesn't pick a weekend that I'm working (I work every other weekend at my job.)

I'm just glad we are planning this way ahead of time. Do any of you know anything about this particular Chinese holiday? How did some of you pick your date? Any help would be greatly appriciated.

Talesa and Dave's Wedding

2007-08-06T11:05:00.001-07:00

This weekend, we attended a family friend's wedding. You can only imagine how many notes we were scribbling in our heads as far as things we liked and wanted in our wedding.

The food was incredible at this wedding. Although it was buffet, I can honestly say it was the best wedding food I've ever had. I'm not sure who their caterer was, but I'll be bothering them when they get home from their honeymoon for details. (Update: Their caterer was Kenneth Chow Catering in San Francisco.)

People say that pictures are worth a thousand words, so I'll leave most of the words of this blog entry to be spoken through my photos from the wedding. As you can tell from some of the people in the photos, this was an open bar.

Alii-oops! The recently FDA approved weight loss drug

2007-08-04T15:40:00.000-07:00

Well, as most of you can imagine, one of the biggest things on a bride's mind is losing weight for her big day. For me, although I'm not super obsessed with wanting to lose weight, I still would like to lose some weight before my wedding day arrives. I think that with over a year to go, we'd have plenty of time to lose weight.

We're planning on officially starting our diet this coming monday. As a way to help us on our diet, we have decided to try Alli, the new FDA approved weight loss drug being sold over the counter. It is the same drug as Orlistat/Xenical, but in smaller doses. The over the counter (OTC) form is called Alli. According to the studies that I have read, on average, if you lost 10 pounds on your own, you'd be able to lose 15 pounds while using Alli in addition to your diet.

The only thing I'm scared of is all of the ugly possible side effects that people go through. On the insert that came with the bottle, they claimed that people often found fat in their stool or had "leakage" issues with the fat that wasn't absorbed. The website describes the leakage to be similar to the fat that you see sitting on top of an oily pizza. This doesn't sound too pleasant, does it, but if it really works, I think it'll be worth it.

I hope to drop 30 pounds before my wedding, but I know it's going to be a hard journey. I'm planning on doing it little by little. If my own wedding can't motivate me to lose weight, I'm not sure what can. We will keep you updated on how it goes.