For ceremony music, we have the choices of two guitars or violin/cello. We have decided to go for violin/cello (string duo), because I am a (pretended) classic music fan. For some reason I don't really like guitars at all. Plus string duo and classic music just sound much more appropriate for a 600 year-old Renaissance Palace.
We got a promised play list through our wedding planner Kike: Pachelbel: Canon D, Bach: Air, Haydn: Serenade, Schubert: Serenade, Boccherini: Menuet, Mozart: Andante. I am familiar with all the pieces, they are very typical for wedding ceremony, but I was surprised that they don't have Wedding March (Midsummer Night's Dream) by Mendelssohn or Bridal Chorus by Wagner. I requested them to add these two and Beethoven's Ode of Joy to the playlist. Beethoven's Ode of Joy was one of my favourite during my childhood, so I thought it's important to add that.
Traditionally, bride walks down the aisle with Bridal Chorus and the newly wedded couple leave together with Wedding March. I think Bridal Chorus (here comes the bride) is a beautiful piece of music, but it's a little too cliche (plus the story behind it doesn't have a happy ending http://www.oracleband.net/Articles/wedding-march.htm). I am torn between following the tradition or picking a piece of music that I truly love. Speaking of truly loved music, Pachelbel's Canon D is my adulthood favourite and it has nothing to do with the novel/movie Twilight. We picked my favourite to be our first dance music. Bear and I both really like Bach's Air as well, so I am thinking if I am not to use Bridal Chorus, I might choose Air as the bridal entrance music.
All the decisions seem to be harder when you have too much time to think about it.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Monday, June 06, 2011
Wedding Menu
We will be hosting our reception dinner at Restaurant Dubrovnik. If you search for "Restaurant Dubrovnik" on Google, there should be a lot of results, but those restaurants are all in Canada!!! The one we are hosting our wedding reception in is really a restaurant in Dubrovnik! The only info we can really find online is the review on TripAdvisor. http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g295371-d1484121-Reviews-Restaurant_Dubrovnik-Dubrovnik.html The restaurant is ranked as number one in the review in the area. It's not a super high end restaurant, but according to the review the food is very good! As much as I like pretty things, I think since it's a dinner, the quality of food is also very important. That's why after reading the online reviews, Bear and I decided that we will host the reception in Restaurant Dubrovnik.
We got some wedding menus from last year as sample menus:
Menu 1 (with 3 different options):
MEAT MENU:
Cheese cream with pumpkin oil
Prosciutto and melon with mint
Beef soup with noodels and cognac
Home made pasta with mushrooms and truffles
Beefsteak in green pepper sauce
Strawberries with green pepper and ice-cream
Coffee
FISH MENU:
Cheese cream with pumpkin oil
Marinated anchovies on rocket salad
Fish soup
Home made pasta with cream of shrimps
Fish trilogy (seabream, red scorpion fish, scampi) on swiss chard risotto
Strawberries with green pepper and ice-cream
Coffee
VEGETARIAN MENU
Cheese cream with pumpkin oil
Croatian cheeses with honey, walnuts and grapes
Vegetable soup
Home made pasta with mushrooms and truffles
Tofu with sauce of mushrooms and julienne vegetables
Strawberries with green pepper and ice-cream
Coffee
Menu 2 (with 2 different options):
FISH MENU:
Dalmatian fish soup: Traditional fish soup, served with fish meat and rice
Creamy shrimp risotto: Rice and shrimps sautéed in olive oil and garlic
Grilled John Dory fillet: served in olive oil, pepper and lemon sauce with boiled potato and swiss chard
Wild rocket and chicory salad
Creme brulee Dubrovnik Style
MEAT MENU:
Mozzarella with tomato: Mozzarella served on finely sliced tomato, flavoured with olive oil and balsamic vinegar
Cannelloni with chicken meat: Gratinated cannelloni, stuffed with chicken meat, served with tomato sauce
Beef fillet Wellington: Fillet of beef wrapped in puff pastry with mushrooms, red onion with additional flavouring ingredients, served with grilled vegetable
Tomato salad
Chocolate mousse cake
These menus all sound very good and the prices are reasonable (especially they are wedding menus). We really like the fact there are at least two options for each set of menu. I know that at least one of our guests is severely allergic to seafood. And it's not uncommon for that encounter Taiwanese people that don't eat beef due religion or family tradition. Having the choices between fish and meat makes things a lot easier. As far as I am aware, none of our guests are vegetarians, so we will eliminate the vegetarian option.
Back in April, we got some of this year's menus. They are pretty good but not as exciting as the menus we got previously. (something totally unrelated to us: we have also accidentally discovered that catering outside of the restaurant cost at least twice as much). They also added buffet menu option, however the food they provided for buffet doesn't sound nearly as interesting. In May, the restaurant still didn't have more menus for us, the wedding planner told us that we can just mix and match and menu in anyway we want. Flexibility is good, but not always true for us the indecisive ones.
It was such an hard decision Bear and I had to make. There are total of 4 sets of menus (2 from last year, 2 for this year) to choose from. At the end, we both think we should respect the chef's expertise, and keep the menu as it is, because they should know which items go together the best. We picked menu 2, because the main courses in both fish and meat option seem a bit fancier than the other set menus. I am very interested in trying out Beef Wellington. One small variation we asked for is to replace the dessert in menu 2 with strawberries with green pepper ice cream. The reasons are:
1. I know ice cream is very famous in Dubrovnik, and strawberries with green pepper ice cream sounds like something you won't encounter anywhere else.
2. We are serving cake after dinner, so ice cream is probably better so people don't get overwhelmed by desserts.
We will try out the menu on the day we arrive Dubrovnik.
We got some wedding menus from last year as sample menus:
Menu 1 (with 3 different options):
MEAT MENU:
Cheese cream with pumpkin oil
Prosciutto and melon with mint
Beef soup with noodels and cognac
Home made pasta with mushrooms and truffles
Beefsteak in green pepper sauce
Strawberries with green pepper and ice-cream
Coffee
FISH MENU:
Cheese cream with pumpkin oil
Marinated anchovies on rocket salad
Fish soup
Home made pasta with cream of shrimps
Fish trilogy (seabream, red scorpion fish, scampi) on swiss chard risotto
Strawberries with green pepper and ice-cream
Coffee
VEGETARIAN MENU
Cheese cream with pumpkin oil
Croatian cheeses with honey, walnuts and grapes
Vegetable soup
Home made pasta with mushrooms and truffles
Tofu with sauce of mushrooms and julienne vegetables
Strawberries with green pepper and ice-cream
Coffee
Menu 2 (with 2 different options):
FISH MENU:
Dalmatian fish soup: Traditional fish soup, served with fish meat and rice
Creamy shrimp risotto: Rice and shrimps sautéed in olive oil and garlic
Grilled John Dory fillet: served in olive oil, pepper and lemon sauce with boiled potato and swiss chard
Wild rocket and chicory salad
Creme brulee Dubrovnik Style
MEAT MENU:
Mozzarella with tomato: Mozzarella served on finely sliced tomato, flavoured with olive oil and balsamic vinegar
Cannelloni with chicken meat: Gratinated cannelloni, stuffed with chicken meat, served with tomato sauce
Beef fillet Wellington: Fillet of beef wrapped in puff pastry with mushrooms, red onion with additional flavouring ingredients, served with grilled vegetable
Tomato salad
Chocolate mousse cake
These menus all sound very good and the prices are reasonable (especially they are wedding menus). We really like the fact there are at least two options for each set of menu. I know that at least one of our guests is severely allergic to seafood. And it's not uncommon for that encounter Taiwanese people that don't eat beef due religion or family tradition. Having the choices between fish and meat makes things a lot easier. As far as I am aware, none of our guests are vegetarians, so we will eliminate the vegetarian option.
Back in April, we got some of this year's menus. They are pretty good but not as exciting as the menus we got previously. (something totally unrelated to us: we have also accidentally discovered that catering outside of the restaurant cost at least twice as much). They also added buffet menu option, however the food they provided for buffet doesn't sound nearly as interesting. In May, the restaurant still didn't have more menus for us, the wedding planner told us that we can just mix and match and menu in anyway we want. Flexibility is good, but not always true for us the indecisive ones.
It was such an hard decision Bear and I had to make. There are total of 4 sets of menus (2 from last year, 2 for this year) to choose from. At the end, we both think we should respect the chef's expertise, and keep the menu as it is, because they should know which items go together the best. We picked menu 2, because the main courses in both fish and meat option seem a bit fancier than the other set menus. I am very interested in trying out Beef Wellington. One small variation we asked for is to replace the dessert in menu 2 with strawberries with green pepper ice cream. The reasons are:
1. I know ice cream is very famous in Dubrovnik, and strawberries with green pepper ice cream sounds like something you won't encounter anywhere else.
2. We are serving cake after dinner, so ice cream is probably better so people don't get overwhelmed by desserts.
We will try out the menu on the day we arrive Dubrovnik.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Kayaking Trip II (what actually happened)
Friday evening, Bear dropped me and our "luggage" off at Andre's. He got to ferry terminal by transit. We (with the car) picked up India pizza for dinner. Ferry to Salt Spring Island was 2.5 hour, we arrived Long Harbour at 10:45 pm. The camp site is about 5~6 km from the ferry terminal. Bear jogged there, due to several reasons (darkness, miscommunication, poor cell phone reception, and Bear personality) Bear ended walking extra 2~3 km. Thanks to Deb who at the end went and fished Bear out from the dark. It was past midnight when we went to bed.
Saturday morning it was raining when we woke up at 8am. Due to the rain, no one was super eager to get on the water. Bear and I cooked bacon, and used the bacon oil to deep fried veggies, then mixed in egg to make deep fried veggie bacon oil egg soup....and Bear took more than an hour to make his Bearish coffee (ie. Bearish coffee is the type that takes very long to make :P). Cleaning up the bacon grease on the pot and pans was a lot of effort, as a result we didn't get to the kayak rental until noon, but luckily the rain had stopped at that point.
It took us about 2 hours to pack everything into the kayaks, Deb prepared us a quick lunch (we didn't finish everything they got for us for lunch, which resulted huge (yes, I really mean "huge") lunch meals in the subsequent days. We launched from Ganges at 2:30 pm, headed to James Bay on Prevost Island.
The current was going in the opposite direction, so it was a bit more tiring to paddling. After 2.5 hours of paddling we finally arrived our destination. Shortly, after we arrived, Soroosh and Kevin went out to put a crab trap in the water. While everyone was setting up the tent, Deb was busy cooking dinner and feeding us cheese, chips, tomato, avocado, cucumber and bread (left over from lunch). Deb made us mushroom, onion risotto and steak!! It was so delicious, all the snacking before dinner didn't prevent us from finishing everything for dinner. After dinner we had hot chocolate, tea (for Kevin who claims he doesn't eat chocolate because his parents were buried by chocolate) and waffle cookies for dessert. It was unbelievable that we had been eating 4 hours continuously.
It was cloudy on Saturday night, I wasn't able to see any stars in the sky. The ocean view was still very pretty. There were a few boats parked near the island. The night was quiet and peaceful, except we were quite loud :P. I had a very good sleep that night, the tent was exceptionally warm compared to my past experience. In fact, I would say that was probably the warmest night I had ever spent in that tent.
Sunday morning turned out to be warmer and sunnier than expected. Deb prepared us bacon then bacon oil poached eggs while Kevin dared Soroosh to climb a dead tree on a cliff. All my friends are so mature :) and guess what Bear was doing? of course he was busy making his coffee :) I was first helping with cutting green onion with my bone like fingers nails, but finally distracted by the tree climb on the cliff. I also climbed it after Soorosh did. After the relaxing breakfast, we decided to paddle around the island and go fishing as well. We also found out that we didn't catch any crab at all.
We paddled along east shore toward south end of Prevost Island. On the way, we saw lots and lots of seals, they were so cute!!!! Shortly before we landed for lunch, Andre and Deb caught a big fish (it's big by my standard, about 50 cm long). We served pizza and blueberries for lunch. Andre and Deb contributed a watermelon. The shore on this part of island had a very exciting bouldering problem, both Bear and Soroosh tried it. My attempt only went as far as I felt the texture of the rock were way too sharp and cutting into my skin a lot. It was sunny on and off, we sat around and enjoyed the sun until 3:30 pm. We paddled back to James Bay along the west shore. Most of the time the current direction was in favour of the direction we were traveling, therefore the looping around island wasn't super hard.
I prepared pork belly kimchi udon soup for dinner for everyone. By preparing I meant I boiled water and reheated everything. I didn't realize the difficult of serving soup while camping. Luckily we have tones of empty tupperware. I really lack experience in cooking meal for large group of people, never know what the amount is right. As a result, I ended up cooking too much food, we (especially Soroosh) were stuffing our face until we felt an explosion might occur. Andre and Deb cooked us the delicious fresh fish. Soroosh went out and put the fish head in the crab trap as a bait. The dinner felt a lot like a Korean meal, except none of us is Korean :P. Dinner was followed by hot chocolate and dessert again. Everyone of us agreed dessert goes into a different stomach, so we were able to consume dessert even after a more than satisfying dinner.
Monday morning, Kevin and Soroosh got up early to prepare oatmeal for us. Kevin was so nice and made Bear coffee. We finished breakfast early and started packing. We started paddling around shortly before 10 am. We caught 2 crabs with the help of the fish head. On the way back it started to become sunny. We had a bit of water flight with the very mature group of two (Kevin and Soroosh). We arrived Ganges around noon. The ferry we were aiming for departs at 3:25pm, however, the ferry was fully booked, Bear was walking on, so he was the only one ended up on the ferry going directly from Salt Spring Island to Vancouver. We drove to Fulford, lined up for the ferry to go to Vancouver Island. While waiting we had lunch, lunch was everything left in everyone's food bag. Some of the food looked and smelled a bit sketchy. Andre and Soroosh were brave (or hungry) enough to eat everything. We all "drank" the yogurt that was sitting for 3 days.
Fortunately, we got on the 3:50 pm ferry without any problem and arrived Vancouver Island at 4:30 pm. Because the kayak sitting on top of Andre and Deb's car, our vehicle was considered over sized which meant we got to line up in the very short oversized vehicle line and greatly increased our chance to get on the ferry. We were lucky to got on the ferry at 5pm. We arrived Andre and Deb's house before 7 pm, it was 5 min faster than Bear :)
At night, we sat in Andre and Deb's back yard enjoyed bubble tea, delievery Taiwanese food, and Andre cooked us the crab. The long weekend ended pleasantly with a lot of food in my tummy. It was a nice get away from the city. Thank you for the good time everyone!!! For Deb and Andre, thank you for planning the trip and inviting us!
Saturday morning it was raining when we woke up at 8am. Due to the rain, no one was super eager to get on the water. Bear and I cooked bacon, and used the bacon oil to deep fried veggies, then mixed in egg to make deep fried veggie bacon oil egg soup....and Bear took more than an hour to make his Bearish coffee (ie. Bearish coffee is the type that takes very long to make :P). Cleaning up the bacon grease on the pot and pans was a lot of effort, as a result we didn't get to the kayak rental until noon, but luckily the rain had stopped at that point.
It took us about 2 hours to pack everything into the kayaks, Deb prepared us a quick lunch (we didn't finish everything they got for us for lunch, which resulted huge (yes, I really mean "huge") lunch meals in the subsequent days. We launched from Ganges at 2:30 pm, headed to James Bay on Prevost Island.
The current was going in the opposite direction, so it was a bit more tiring to paddling. After 2.5 hours of paddling we finally arrived our destination. Shortly, after we arrived, Soroosh and Kevin went out to put a crab trap in the water. While everyone was setting up the tent, Deb was busy cooking dinner and feeding us cheese, chips, tomato, avocado, cucumber and bread (left over from lunch). Deb made us mushroom, onion risotto and steak!! It was so delicious, all the snacking before dinner didn't prevent us from finishing everything for dinner. After dinner we had hot chocolate, tea (for Kevin who claims he doesn't eat chocolate because his parents were buried by chocolate) and waffle cookies for dessert. It was unbelievable that we had been eating 4 hours continuously.
It was cloudy on Saturday night, I wasn't able to see any stars in the sky. The ocean view was still very pretty. There were a few boats parked near the island. The night was quiet and peaceful, except we were quite loud :P. I had a very good sleep that night, the tent was exceptionally warm compared to my past experience. In fact, I would say that was probably the warmest night I had ever spent in that tent.
Sunday morning turned out to be warmer and sunnier than expected. Deb prepared us bacon then bacon oil poached eggs while Kevin dared Soroosh to climb a dead tree on a cliff. All my friends are so mature :) and guess what Bear was doing? of course he was busy making his coffee :) I was first helping with cutting green onion with my bone like fingers nails, but finally distracted by the tree climb on the cliff. I also climbed it after Soorosh did. After the relaxing breakfast, we decided to paddle around the island and go fishing as well. We also found out that we didn't catch any crab at all.
We paddled along east shore toward south end of Prevost Island. On the way, we saw lots and lots of seals, they were so cute!!!! Shortly before we landed for lunch, Andre and Deb caught a big fish (it's big by my standard, about 50 cm long). We served pizza and blueberries for lunch. Andre and Deb contributed a watermelon. The shore on this part of island had a very exciting bouldering problem, both Bear and Soroosh tried it. My attempt only went as far as I felt the texture of the rock were way too sharp and cutting into my skin a lot. It was sunny on and off, we sat around and enjoyed the sun until 3:30 pm. We paddled back to James Bay along the west shore. Most of the time the current direction was in favour of the direction we were traveling, therefore the looping around island wasn't super hard.
I prepared pork belly kimchi udon soup for dinner for everyone. By preparing I meant I boiled water and reheated everything. I didn't realize the difficult of serving soup while camping. Luckily we have tones of empty tupperware. I really lack experience in cooking meal for large group of people, never know what the amount is right. As a result, I ended up cooking too much food, we (especially Soroosh) were stuffing our face until we felt an explosion might occur. Andre and Deb cooked us the delicious fresh fish. Soroosh went out and put the fish head in the crab trap as a bait. The dinner felt a lot like a Korean meal, except none of us is Korean :P. Dinner was followed by hot chocolate and dessert again. Everyone of us agreed dessert goes into a different stomach, so we were able to consume dessert even after a more than satisfying dinner.
Monday morning, Kevin and Soroosh got up early to prepare oatmeal for us. Kevin was so nice and made Bear coffee. We finished breakfast early and started packing. We started paddling around shortly before 10 am. We caught 2 crabs with the help of the fish head. On the way back it started to become sunny. We had a bit of water flight with the very mature group of two (Kevin and Soroosh). We arrived Ganges around noon. The ferry we were aiming for departs at 3:25pm, however, the ferry was fully booked, Bear was walking on, so he was the only one ended up on the ferry going directly from Salt Spring Island to Vancouver. We drove to Fulford, lined up for the ferry to go to Vancouver Island. While waiting we had lunch, lunch was everything left in everyone's food bag. Some of the food looked and smelled a bit sketchy. Andre and Soroosh were brave (or hungry) enough to eat everything. We all "drank" the yogurt that was sitting for 3 days.
Fortunately, we got on the 3:50 pm ferry without any problem and arrived Vancouver Island at 4:30 pm. Because the kayak sitting on top of Andre and Deb's car, our vehicle was considered over sized which meant we got to line up in the very short oversized vehicle line and greatly increased our chance to get on the ferry. We were lucky to got on the ferry at 5pm. We arrived Andre and Deb's house before 7 pm, it was 5 min faster than Bear :)
At night, we sat in Andre and Deb's back yard enjoyed bubble tea, delievery Taiwanese food, and Andre cooked us the crab. The long weekend ended pleasantly with a lot of food in my tummy. It was a nice get away from the city. Thank you for the good time everyone!!! For Deb and Andre, thank you for planning the trip and inviting us!
Kayaking Trip I (planning)
We were originally thinking of going to San Francisco to visit Bear's Uncle, unfortunately (or fortunately) Canucks was playing in San Jose, it was impossible to go to California for less than $1000 per head. After determining that we were not spending $2000 to go to San Francisco, we happily decided to join the Gulf Islands kayaking trip Deb and Andre were planning.
There were 6 of us in the group, Deb, Andre, Soroosh, Kevin, Bear and myself. Because it's a long weekend, it was almost impossible to get on the ferry with a car without reservation. We decided to only take one car, and Bear would do a combination of walking and busing. The overall plan was:
Friday: catch 8:35pm ferry to Salt Spring Island (ferry spot reserved), camp near Ganges
Saturday: Launch our kayaks from Ganges, paddle to James Bay on Prevost Island
Sunday: Paddle, Eat, Paddle, Eat, Paddle...
Monday: Paddle back to Ganges, line up for the ferry from Salt Spring Island (Long Harbour, close to Ganges) to Vancouver (since there was no reservation spot left), back up plan is to go to Southern part of Salt Spring Island (Fulford) to catch the non-reservable ferry to Vancouver Island then catch the ferry from Vancouver Island to Vancouver.
We planned for group of 6 meals. Bear and I were responsible for one breakfast, one lunch, and one dinner. I have only been on one kayaking trip prior to this one, so I didn't have much idea as to what kind of food was appropriate for a kayaking trip. Deb said it's somewhere between backpacking and car camping, by that she meant weight is not as much a problem, but it's important to remember to bring food that will keep without refrigeration.
We decided to bring our (famous??) homemade cinnamon bread, veggie omelet, and bacon for breakfast. Homemade pizza was our favourite choice of lunch (feasible for any type of camping). Bear suggested pork belly kimchi udon soup similar to what we did at our last winter trip, except we needed to somehow figure out how to make it not as deadly salty.
Thursday evening, Bear and I were busy preparing the kayaking trip meals. Bear made the pizza dough, and a dough for cinnamon bread. For some reason the bread dough didn't rise at all, so we had to buy some cheese scone to substitute for the bread. We made Caramelized onion and prosciutto pizza. I prepared (pre-cooked) all the veggies for the kimchi udon soup. As for pork belly, I washed and washed it, then boiled it to get as much salt off as possible.
There were 6 of us in the group, Deb, Andre, Soroosh, Kevin, Bear and myself. Because it's a long weekend, it was almost impossible to get on the ferry with a car without reservation. We decided to only take one car, and Bear would do a combination of walking and busing. The overall plan was:
Friday: catch 8:35pm ferry to Salt Spring Island (ferry spot reserved), camp near Ganges
Saturday: Launch our kayaks from Ganges, paddle to James Bay on Prevost Island
Sunday: Paddle, Eat, Paddle, Eat, Paddle...
Monday: Paddle back to Ganges, line up for the ferry from Salt Spring Island (Long Harbour, close to Ganges) to Vancouver (since there was no reservation spot left), back up plan is to go to Southern part of Salt Spring Island (Fulford) to catch the non-reservable ferry to Vancouver Island then catch the ferry from Vancouver Island to Vancouver.
We planned for group of 6 meals. Bear and I were responsible for one breakfast, one lunch, and one dinner. I have only been on one kayaking trip prior to this one, so I didn't have much idea as to what kind of food was appropriate for a kayaking trip. Deb said it's somewhere between backpacking and car camping, by that she meant weight is not as much a problem, but it's important to remember to bring food that will keep without refrigeration.
We decided to bring our (famous??) homemade cinnamon bread, veggie omelet, and bacon for breakfast. Homemade pizza was our favourite choice of lunch (feasible for any type of camping). Bear suggested pork belly kimchi udon soup similar to what we did at our last winter trip, except we needed to somehow figure out how to make it not as deadly salty.
Thursday evening, Bear and I were busy preparing the kayaking trip meals. Bear made the pizza dough, and a dough for cinnamon bread. For some reason the bread dough didn't rise at all, so we had to buy some cheese scone to substitute for the bread. We made Caramelized onion and prosciutto pizza. I prepared (pre-cooked) all the veggies for the kimchi udon soup. As for pork belly, I washed and washed it, then boiled it to get as much salt off as possible.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Makeup Trial
It sounded silly to have a makeup trial with a local makeup artist since I will hire the artist in Dubrovnik on my wedding day. I have been worrying about that the Croatian makeup artists might lack experience with Asian faces, and have been trying to figure out a solution. After a bit of research, the suggestion is to bring pictures of yourself with the makeup on that you really like or a picture from a magazine. So I came up with the idea, to get a local Asian makeup artist to do my make up, take pictures, and bring those pictures to Dubrovnik to show the makeup artist there. Since we were doing our engagement photo, I can just wear the same makeup for the photo session. I convinced myself it's worthwhile (kill two birds with one stone) to spend money for a makeup trial.
The makeup trial also included a hair trial. I was really lost with the hundreds and thousands of hair styles I found online. After talking with a few friends, I decided to do a loose curly updo. At the trial session, the makeup artist convinced everyone (my maid of honour and Bear) that I looked better with a bit of hair down, because I have a big head (according to Bear very squared head too) and chubby face. So she ended up doing a halfup-halfdown for me. She said it's very important that I respect my features :P. And if you look at the third picture, you will see she set my hair a bit high on the top of my head. That's a very common way to create an illusion of a longer skinnier face.
As for make up, she tried 2 different colours of eye shadow for me. One is the earth tone (brown) and the other is purple (to match my theme colour). We decided that purple looked better. And of course, we can't forget false eye-lashes which I think is probably the most important item for Asian makeup. Since I have very obvious double eye lid (it's a crease on the eye lid that a lot of Asian don't have) already, she decided to leave out the taping eye lid technique. Hahaha, you must be thinking what the hell is eyelid taping?? basically it's using adhesive or a small piece of tape to create a crease on the eye lid, here is a example. I did that for a bit when I was in university. Because the lack of sleep, sometimes my eyes were puffy, and the creases on two eyes wouldn't look identical, then I would use the technique to fix them. Anyway, it is doubtful that an Croatia makeup artist knows this technique, but I am lucky that most of time I don't need it.
The makeup didn't seem to be heavy enough, the foundation didn't have much coverage. The eyeshadow was quite light that on the our engagement photos it's hard to see I have eyeshadow on. Most of the work she did on the eyes were very similar to the ones that I used to do on myself anyway, but I am very out of practice now (since I don't climb rocks with false eye lashes or snowboard with eye shadow on). The end conclusion both Conny and I drew was that my features are not very typical Asian, so I don't need to worry as much. I will have a makeup and hair trial on Sept 19th before the wedding. I think I will only show the hair pictures to him. I will not show the makeup picture and encourage him to do what he thinks would look good on me. And if it ends up he has really bad taste I still have the pictures to guide him.
The makeup trial also included a hair trial. I was really lost with the hundreds and thousands of hair styles I found online. After talking with a few friends, I decided to do a loose curly updo. At the trial session, the makeup artist convinced everyone (my maid of honour and Bear) that I looked better with a bit of hair down, because I have a big head (according to Bear very squared head too) and chubby face. So she ended up doing a halfup-halfdown for me. She said it's very important that I respect my features :P. And if you look at the third picture, you will see she set my hair a bit high on the top of my head. That's a very common way to create an illusion of a longer skinnier face.
As for make up, she tried 2 different colours of eye shadow for me. One is the earth tone (brown) and the other is purple (to match my theme colour). We decided that purple looked better. And of course, we can't forget false eye-lashes which I think is probably the most important item for Asian makeup. Since I have very obvious double eye lid (it's a crease on the eye lid that a lot of Asian don't have) already, she decided to leave out the taping eye lid technique. Hahaha, you must be thinking what the hell is eyelid taping?? basically it's using adhesive or a small piece of tape to create a crease on the eye lid, here is a example. I did that for a bit when I was in university. Because the lack of sleep, sometimes my eyes were puffy, and the creases on two eyes wouldn't look identical, then I would use the technique to fix them. Anyway, it is doubtful that an Croatia makeup artist knows this technique, but I am lucky that most of time I don't need it.
Monday, May 02, 2011
Engagement Photo
Originally, I wanted a pre-wedding photo session in Taiwan. This studio interested me a lot. One thing I really like about this photographer is her composition. I think that's one thing I care the most about photos. Also, their price seems to be quite reasonable. But due the limitation on time and money, we gave up on the idea of pre-wedding photo session.
One day I was surfing online, I saw some really nice hiking-engagement photos. After some research, I realized that engagement photos are not as pricey as pre-wedding photos. They usually are done more casually which means we can do it in any setting we like. I mentioned the idea to Bear. We both thought it would be very meaningful if we can have some photos that show the things we like to do together. Since it's winter time, we decided to do snowshoeing engagement photo session.
We found our photographers online, Pure Souls Photography, their adventure photos caught our eyes. After talking to them , we found out that Josie and Ian love the mountains as much as we do. And their photos look fun and natural. Because of all that, we believed they would be able to produce the best pictures for us.
On Easter Sunday, we finally went to Mount Seymour and got our snowy engagement photos done! It was a raining day. I have been trying to line up my make up trial with our photo session, so it was impossible to change the day. We went up to the mountain despite the rain. We took some normal photo with our snowshoeing outfit. After that, we changed to our vintage dressy outfit to create a bit of "out of place" theme. The photo shoot lasted almost two hours, it was a lot of fun. Our awesome photographers made the whole experience very interesting and worthwhile.
We are still in the process of picking our favourite 50 photos out of 151. It is so hard, because all the photos are awesome. I will share the 4 teasers they sent us.
One day I was surfing online, I saw some really nice hiking-engagement photos. After some research, I realized that engagement photos are not as pricey as pre-wedding photos. They usually are done more casually which means we can do it in any setting we like. I mentioned the idea to Bear. We both thought it would be very meaningful if we can have some photos that show the things we like to do together. Since it's winter time, we decided to do snowshoeing engagement photo session.
We found our photographers online, Pure Souls Photography, their adventure photos caught our eyes. After talking to them , we found out that Josie and Ian love the mountains as much as we do. And their photos look fun and natural. Because of all that, we believed they would be able to produce the best pictures for us.
On Easter Sunday, we finally went to Mount Seymour and got our snowy engagement photos done! It was a raining day. I have been trying to line up my make up trial with our photo session, so it was impossible to change the day. We went up to the mountain despite the rain. We took some normal photo with our snowshoeing outfit. After that, we changed to our vintage dressy outfit to create a bit of "out of place" theme. The photo shoot lasted almost two hours, it was a lot of fun. Our awesome photographers made the whole experience very interesting and worthwhile.
We are still in the process of picking our favourite 50 photos out of 151. It is so hard, because all the photos are awesome. I will share the 4 teasers they sent us.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
A Confession of a potential bridezilla
Admittedly, I have been avoiding writing every wedding related item down on my blog these days, because I am ashamed to leave any trace of evidences that I am gradually becoming a bridezilla.
There are various definitions for bridezilla:
1. (a neologistic portmanteau of bride and Godzilla) is a difficult, unpleasant, perfectionist bride http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridezilla_(term)
2. (usually humorous) A woman who, in the course of planning her wedding, exercises or attempts to exercise an high degree of control over all or many minor details of the ceremony and reception. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bridezilla)
3. Today’s Bridezilla is continually redefining herself as a confident woman who knows what she wants and goes after it. If something goes wrong she doesn’t break into a million pieces and revert to toddler-hood, she simply finds the next best route to getting back on track. Bridezillas of today are strong, intelligent women who are not only well-versed in the arts of fashion, beauty and pop culture, but they also have a clear image of who they are and how their wedding will reflect themselves and their brand new husband. (http://www.bridezilla.com/bridezilla-defined)
While I am hoping to be the bridezilla in definition 3, somehow definition 1 and 2 caught me unguarded. Unlike what definition 2 describes, being a bridezilla is really not that humorous for me or people around me.
So how did I discover my internal bridezilla? There were a few things that frustrated me a little:
1. pre-wedding/engagement photo: pre-wedding photo session is a must for every bride from Taiwan. But unfortunately it's not something super popular in Canada. There are a few asian bridal shop or asian photographers provide such services, but they are rather pricy and quality is not as comparable to Taiwain. Since we don't have the time/money allowance to make an extra trip to Taiwan, we have given up on the idea of getting pre-wedding photo done. I was a little disappointed, but I have been telling myself we will have awesome photo on the wedding day. Also, I managed to interest Bear in getting engagment photo done. We ended up doing an engagement photo session in the snow on a mountain that's where we play and go on advantures together. That seems lot more meaningful to us.
2. makeup and hair trial: having a caucasian makeup artist is something that scares most of us Asians. Asians tend to have narrower eyes. Caucasion has deeper eye sockets, higher cheekbones. These different facial features require very different makeup technics. So I have been told a lot, the makeup artist in Dubrovnik would probably ended up doing badly with my makeup. I have been really worried. I ended up doing a makeup trial locally with an asian makeup artist and took some pictures, hoping to show the artist in Dubrovnik these pictures to help him get an idea of the type of makeup I like. I had the makeup trial last weekend, I wasn't super impressed with the results, it was not bad, but wasn't super. The solution is to do another makeup trial when I arrive in Dubrovnik. I will not suggested anything to the artist in Dubrovnik first. If it turns out to be horrible then I will show him the pictures of my trial here, and ask him to try to do the same. If it turns out to be better, then that's perfect.
3. Money and Time: it seems we are always short on time. Also I only have 3-week vacation per calendar year. I am a little frustrated that I won't have any vacation until September. As for money, after purchasing my mom's plane ticket to Dubrovnik, it surely hurt my wallet a bit. Now, I am just looking for cheaper accommodation for her, hopefully I can save some money on that one.
Luckily, I seem to resolved all the these frustration at the end with (im)perfect solutions. It's crazy, but when I read other bride's frustration online, it gives me the relief that I am not the only potential bridezilla :P
There are various definitions for bridezilla:
1. (a neologistic portmanteau of bride and Godzilla) is a difficult, unpleasant, perfectionist bride http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridezilla_(term)
2. (usually humorous) A woman who, in the course of planning her wedding, exercises or attempts to exercise an high degree of control over all or many minor details of the ceremony and reception. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bridezilla)
3. Today’s Bridezilla is continually redefining herself as a confident woman who knows what she wants and goes after it. If something goes wrong she doesn’t break into a million pieces and revert to toddler-hood, she simply finds the next best route to getting back on track. Bridezillas of today are strong, intelligent women who are not only well-versed in the arts of fashion, beauty and pop culture, but they also have a clear image of who they are and how their wedding will reflect themselves and their brand new husband. (http://www.bridezilla.com/bridezilla-defined)
While I am hoping to be the bridezilla in definition 3, somehow definition 1 and 2 caught me unguarded. Unlike what definition 2 describes, being a bridezilla is really not that humorous for me or people around me.
So how did I discover my internal bridezilla? There were a few things that frustrated me a little:
1. pre-wedding/engagement photo: pre-wedding photo session is a must for every bride from Taiwan. But unfortunately it's not something super popular in Canada. There are a few asian bridal shop or asian photographers provide such services, but they are rather pricy and quality is not as comparable to Taiwain. Since we don't have the time/money allowance to make an extra trip to Taiwan, we have given up on the idea of getting pre-wedding photo done. I was a little disappointed, but I have been telling myself we will have awesome photo on the wedding day. Also, I managed to interest Bear in getting engagment photo done. We ended up doing an engagement photo session in the snow on a mountain that's where we play and go on advantures together. That seems lot more meaningful to us.
2. makeup and hair trial: having a caucasian makeup artist is something that scares most of us Asians. Asians tend to have narrower eyes. Caucasion has deeper eye sockets, higher cheekbones. These different facial features require very different makeup technics. So I have been told a lot, the makeup artist in Dubrovnik would probably ended up doing badly with my makeup. I have been really worried. I ended up doing a makeup trial locally with an asian makeup artist and took some pictures, hoping to show the artist in Dubrovnik these pictures to help him get an idea of the type of makeup I like. I had the makeup trial last weekend, I wasn't super impressed with the results, it was not bad, but wasn't super. The solution is to do another makeup trial when I arrive in Dubrovnik. I will not suggested anything to the artist in Dubrovnik first. If it turns out to be horrible then I will show him the pictures of my trial here, and ask him to try to do the same. If it turns out to be better, then that's perfect.
3. Money and Time: it seems we are always short on time. Also I only have 3-week vacation per calendar year. I am a little frustrated that I won't have any vacation until September. As for money, after purchasing my mom's plane ticket to Dubrovnik, it surely hurt my wallet a bit. Now, I am just looking for cheaper accommodation for her, hopefully I can save some money on that one.
Luckily, I seem to resolved all the these frustration at the end with (im)perfect solutions. It's crazy, but when I read other bride's frustration online, it gives me the relief that I am not the only potential bridezilla :P
Monday, April 25, 2011
Glacier Picnic
Finally something more exciting happened this Friday. After my complaint about Bear's proposal in November, he decided to do something "bearmantic" (ie. romantice in bear's way) for me. He took my engagment ring for resizing last month. Then he told me he would give the ring back to me in a more romantice setting to make up for his super casual proposal.
Glacier picnic!! That's what Bear decided we should do! And guess what it involved no hiking!!! We went for a helicopter ride for an amazing view of Tantulas Range. We landed on Serratus Glacier for a nice lunch picnic where we enjoyed our wine and cheese.
We took some pictures, but they don't do the justice of its beauty.
To make it totally cliche, we also went as far as bringing a picnic basket and picnic blanket :).
Glacier picnic!! That's what Bear decided we should do! And guess what it involved no hiking!!! We went for a helicopter ride for an amazing view of Tantulas Range. We landed on Serratus Glacier for a nice lunch picnic where we enjoyed our wine and cheese.
We took some pictures, but they don't do the justice of its beauty.
To make it totally cliche, we also went as far as bringing a picnic basket and picnic blanket :).
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.473605502916.253521.504307916&l=db0a69789c
Random items
To all the faither readers of this blog, I have to emphasize again, I still remember I have a blog, but I haven't found anything exciting to write recently.
It might not find this exciting, but let me do a breif update on things we have been doing (both wedding and non-wedding related stuff).
I finally received the extra fabric (plated tulle) from Landy Bridal. The shipping time wasn't long, but there was moments of "what the xxxx" while dealing with the customer service from Landy bridal. After I ordered and paid for the fabric, the customer service messaged me on Skype and asking me what kind of fabric I want, if I want something a bit softer or a bit stiffer. I was so annoyed by that, because I really had no idea what would one consider as soft or stiff. I was on the verge of turning into a bridezilla, (maybe if you ask bear he would probably think that I was already a bridezilla long before that) but since I really needed the fabric from them, I tried to remain as calm and as polite as possible. So I politely told them I would like the same type of fabric they put on my dress, to my surprise they told me that they didn't remember what kind of fabric it was, and it would be easier if I could just tell them if it's the "softer" or the "stiffer" type of plated tulle. As you all know patience is never my strong suit, Bear had to coach me how to politely explain to them, one couldn't figure out if something is softer or stiffer without anything to compare against. At the end, they finally sent me the correct fabric. I dropped off the fabric at my seamstress the weekend before and she is working on it now.
I was looking for a borrowed tiara and Sara offered to lend me hers. I tried it on, it was grogeous. But, I didn't feel comfortable taking such a sentimental item to a destination wedding. I ended up buying a small cheap tiara.
We did Sun Run again this year. To be exact, I did sun walk and Bear ran it. I walked with my co-workers and finished just under 2 hours. Bear did really well this year he did it in 49 minutes and 36 seconds.
I bought a pair of rental skis from Cypress. They were super cheap, we figured it's more worthwhile than always renting them.
It might not find this exciting, but let me do a breif update on things we have been doing (both wedding and non-wedding related stuff).
I finally received the extra fabric (plated tulle) from Landy Bridal. The shipping time wasn't long, but there was moments of "what the xxxx" while dealing with the customer service from Landy bridal. After I ordered and paid for the fabric, the customer service messaged me on Skype and asking me what kind of fabric I want, if I want something a bit softer or a bit stiffer. I was so annoyed by that, because I really had no idea what would one consider as soft or stiff. I was on the verge of turning into a bridezilla, (maybe if you ask bear he would probably think that I was already a bridezilla long before that) but since I really needed the fabric from them, I tried to remain as calm and as polite as possible. So I politely told them I would like the same type of fabric they put on my dress, to my surprise they told me that they didn't remember what kind of fabric it was, and it would be easier if I could just tell them if it's the "softer" or the "stiffer" type of plated tulle. As you all know patience is never my strong suit, Bear had to coach me how to politely explain to them, one couldn't figure out if something is softer or stiffer without anything to compare against. At the end, they finally sent me the correct fabric. I dropped off the fabric at my seamstress the weekend before and she is working on it now.
I was looking for a borrowed tiara and Sara offered to lend me hers. I tried it on, it was grogeous. But, I didn't feel comfortable taking such a sentimental item to a destination wedding. I ended up buying a small cheap tiara.
We did Sun Run again this year. To be exact, I did sun walk and Bear ran it. I walked with my co-workers and finished just under 2 hours. Bear did really well this year he did it in 49 minutes and 36 seconds.
I bought a pair of rental skis from Cypress. They were super cheap, we figured it's more worthwhile than always renting them.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Wedding Shoes
Shoes, I love shoes. I have at least 30 pairs of shoes at home (excluding climbing, hiking, snow sport shoes). Due to the limited space in our apartment, I have to cut down my love for shoes. I haven't shopped for shoes as much, plus I have become older and lazier, so I don't wear all the beautiful high heels anymore.
The wedding gave me an execuse to shop for shoes. Choosing a pair of bridal shoes can't be as unconditional as my usual love for shoes. I have reached out my best friend, Google, and found some tips on bridal shoes hunting. However, I disagreed with most of the choosing criteria, such as material, matching with the dress, wedding style and wedding venue. The only thing I really considered was comfort. I didn't really consider the material or matching the wedding dress, because I figure my dress are long enough to cover them, so they are not likely to be seen, also I don't really like the traditional bridal shoes. My original ideal was to go for something contemporary like this http://onefabday.com/add-a-splash-of-colour-fun-wedding-shoes/. Ok, I know it sounds contradicting already, if I do not care weather the wedding dress match the shoes because the dress will cover the shoes, then why do I care how they look. Let me try to explain this, I think wearing a pair of funky bright coloured shoes with a fancy princess ball gown dress walking down the aisle would really destroy the fairy tale scene. And I believe that's why a lot of people want to make sure they wear proper white bridal shoes. However, I am not planning to show my shoes except when we are doing informal photo shoot. I would really like to add a bit of creativity and funkiness to our photo, therefore I wanted to go for a pair of nice bright colour shoes (they can be hidden under the skirt when we are pretending to be all formal and mature :P). But I really dislike satin shoes and it was really hard to find bright coloured leather shoes. Also I have convinced myself that I don't need another pair of shoes that I am likely to just store them but not wear them ever again.
So I took on my friend Cynthia's suggestions and looked for trendy nude colour high heels. The advantage of wearing nude coloured high heels is if I am to wear anything shows my legs and feet, because of the continuity of the same colour tone of my skin and the shoes, it would create an illusion of longer legs :) Although my dress is not going to show my legs, but I do think that's a nice advantage if I ever want to wear those shoes again with other clothes. The other advantage I have recently discovered was that my dress was a little tiny bit too short, but with nude colour shoes, they still seem hidden under the dress, I can't hardly notice them.
It doesn't sound right that I want comfort but I want to wear a pair of high heels. The reason behind this is due the my unfortunate height. My maid of honor Conny has strong suggested that my shape would be more flattering with high heels, plus she is not used to wearing flats, and she doesn't want to look too much taller than me when standing right beside me. From my past experience, I have to say I don't believe any high heels are ever comfortable, all I can say is there are some, that are less uncomfortable. Nine West high heels are the least uncomfortable ones in my opinion. After all the thinking, last weekend I bought a pair of Nine West nude coloured high heels. They are not exactly designed for long standing, so I will also shop for another pair of wedge flip flops (like this http://www.weddingfactorydirect.com/ivsehiweflfl.html), in case I can't stand for those high heels after a few hours of standing and walking around.
Here are some pictures of my new shoes. I will have to spend the next few months walking around the house in them to stretch them out and practice to walk with good posture.
The wedding gave me an execuse to shop for shoes. Choosing a pair of bridal shoes can't be as unconditional as my usual love for shoes. I have reached out my best friend, Google, and found some tips on bridal shoes hunting. However, I disagreed with most of the choosing criteria, such as material, matching with the dress, wedding style and wedding venue. The only thing I really considered was comfort. I didn't really consider the material or matching the wedding dress, because I figure my dress are long enough to cover them, so they are not likely to be seen, also I don't really like the traditional bridal shoes. My original ideal was to go for something contemporary like this http://onefabday.com/add-a-splash-of-colour-fun-wedding-shoes/. Ok, I know it sounds contradicting already, if I do not care weather the wedding dress match the shoes because the dress will cover the shoes, then why do I care how they look. Let me try to explain this, I think wearing a pair of funky bright coloured shoes with a fancy princess ball gown dress walking down the aisle would really destroy the fairy tale scene. And I believe that's why a lot of people want to make sure they wear proper white bridal shoes. However, I am not planning to show my shoes except when we are doing informal photo shoot. I would really like to add a bit of creativity and funkiness to our photo, therefore I wanted to go for a pair of nice bright colour shoes (they can be hidden under the skirt when we are pretending to be all formal and mature :P). But I really dislike satin shoes and it was really hard to find bright coloured leather shoes. Also I have convinced myself that I don't need another pair of shoes that I am likely to just store them but not wear them ever again.
So I took on my friend Cynthia's suggestions and looked for trendy nude colour high heels. The advantage of wearing nude coloured high heels is if I am to wear anything shows my legs and feet, because of the continuity of the same colour tone of my skin and the shoes, it would create an illusion of longer legs :) Although my dress is not going to show my legs, but I do think that's a nice advantage if I ever want to wear those shoes again with other clothes. The other advantage I have recently discovered was that my dress was a little tiny bit too short, but with nude colour shoes, they still seem hidden under the dress, I can't hardly notice them.
It doesn't sound right that I want comfort but I want to wear a pair of high heels. The reason behind this is due the my unfortunate height. My maid of honor Conny has strong suggested that my shape would be more flattering with high heels, plus she is not used to wearing flats, and she doesn't want to look too much taller than me when standing right beside me. From my past experience, I have to say I don't believe any high heels are ever comfortable, all I can say is there are some, that are less uncomfortable. Nine West high heels are the least uncomfortable ones in my opinion. After all the thinking, last weekend I bought a pair of Nine West nude coloured high heels. They are not exactly designed for long standing, so I will also shop for another pair of wedge flip flops (like this http://www.weddingfactorydirect.com/ivsehiweflfl.html), in case I can't stand for those high heels after a few hours of standing and walking around.
Saturday, April 09, 2011
Wedding Dress Part II
The dress I liked is called La Sposa Lambel. I couldn't find that exact style of dress in any local bridal shop, because it's from the 2010 collection. However, I found a similar one from the La Sposa 2011 collection. Both dresses had the same skirt, the same cut, just different details on the bodice. I didn't know the style name for the dress I found in the store> They usually avoid telling you the style name in the store, the reason is to prevent you from ordering the dress somewhere else. Anyway, trying on that dress had confirmed that I didn't look horrible in that particular style of dress. This dress came with a very unique skirt, and I was glad that uniqueness didn't make me look retarded :). I found the dress at Sposa in New Westminster. It's priced at $2800 before tax, and according to the sales lady, I would need to special order a "petite" size dress. Not that I would need a small size, what it actually meant was that I would definitely need something shorter than the regular length it usually came in. And for less material on the dress (shorter dress), they usually charge you $250 more.
So by the time, I walked out from the store, I was pretty convinced that I should just order my dress online. Even if it turned out to be horrible, I would only loose about 10% of the cost of a dress in a local store. The dress I was looking at was popular on the Internet, there are many bridal shops in China making very similar dresses (more accurately "intended to be replica"). I picked a store called "Landy Bridal". Judging by what I have read online, they have a proper store front in China. There seemed to be a lot European buying from them. There were both good and bad online reviews. After some research, I was expecting the dresses they produced to have an okay quality, but not expecting they were able to make the exact replica of a designer dress. I also heard of a lot buyers saying that Landy bridal tended to provide better service if you buy from them through Ebay. So I ordered my dress from them on Ebay (on Ebay, they have two stores, one is called Maryann Bridal, the other one is called asapy), paid about $305 including shipping, the petticoat, and the bustle on the train.
The dress arrived at the beginning of March. Like what I expected, the dress was not bad, but it't not perfect. The first problem was the zipper, the zipper busted as soon as I unzipped it for the very first time. Most brides would just freak out and cry at that point, but in reality, a zipper shouldn't cost much to replace. So I was qutie okay with it. Although I already knew that a new zipper wouldn't be too expensive, but I felt the seller should at least send a dress that's "wearable". So after arguing with them for an hour and threaten to file a dispute, they finally gave in and gave me a refund of $30 to replace the zipper.
I also understand that a lot of places over charge or any bridal related alterations. So I was very careful when I was looking for a seamstress. I got an quote for fixing the zipper for $30 from Angeline Bridal. The owner Angeline is a seamstress herself. I went into the store with my dress in a suit case. She explained to me that she would need to take out all the fake buttons right beside the zipper in order to replace it, and that's why it's more expensive than a normal zipper replacement. I also used that chance to fix the second problem that I found on the dress. There was a elastic belt inside the dress to help holding the dress up. The elastic belt that Landy Bridal put on the dress was about 1 cm wide, which was totally useless in my opinion. Angeline was able to also replace it with a proper wider (wider than 10 cm) elastic band with 3 rows of hooks, so I can adjust the tightness as I loose or gain weight and this costs me $35. She also sold me a garment bag so I don't have to squeeze my dress into the suit case anymore (this is $10).
On top of that, there is still something that bothers me a little bit. The baselayer (the layer that touches my body) of the dress is satin. The skirt consists strips of pleated tulle that's sew on top of the baselayer. However, they didn't put enough tulle on so there are a little bit of gap between each strip. You can't tell at all from a photo, and it's not even obvious unless you are less than a meter away from the dress. But I was really annoyed by that. After a discussion with Angeline, I decided to buy fabric from Landy and get Angeline to add the extra fabric to the skirt. I paid $70 for the extra fabric, and still waiting for it to arrive.
The dress fits perfectly. There is no size related alteration to be done. The bustle was done nicely, so I don't have to worry about that either. Angeline will charge me about $150 for sewing extra fabric onto the skirt. The total cost for the dress turned out to be $570 now. I am quite convinced it's still worthwhile, since I know if I spend $3000 plus on a dress I might just go insane. But everyone is different, I think it would make me happier to save money on a dress rather than go crazy if I can't justify my $3000 spending :)
So by the time, I walked out from the store, I was pretty convinced that I should just order my dress online. Even if it turned out to be horrible, I would only loose about 10% of the cost of a dress in a local store. The dress I was looking at was popular on the Internet, there are many bridal shops in China making very similar dresses (more accurately "intended to be replica"). I picked a store called "Landy Bridal". Judging by what I have read online, they have a proper store front in China. There seemed to be a lot European buying from them. There were both good and bad online reviews. After some research, I was expecting the dresses they produced to have an okay quality, but not expecting they were able to make the exact replica of a designer dress. I also heard of a lot buyers saying that Landy bridal tended to provide better service if you buy from them through Ebay. So I ordered my dress from them on Ebay (on Ebay, they have two stores, one is called Maryann Bridal, the other one is called asapy), paid about $305 including shipping, the petticoat, and the bustle on the train.
The dress arrived at the beginning of March. Like what I expected, the dress was not bad, but it't not perfect. The first problem was the zipper, the zipper busted as soon as I unzipped it for the very first time. Most brides would just freak out and cry at that point, but in reality, a zipper shouldn't cost much to replace. So I was qutie okay with it. Although I already knew that a new zipper wouldn't be too expensive, but I felt the seller should at least send a dress that's "wearable". So after arguing with them for an hour and threaten to file a dispute, they finally gave in and gave me a refund of $30 to replace the zipper.
I also understand that a lot of places over charge or any bridal related alterations. So I was very careful when I was looking for a seamstress. I got an quote for fixing the zipper for $30 from Angeline Bridal. The owner Angeline is a seamstress herself. I went into the store with my dress in a suit case. She explained to me that she would need to take out all the fake buttons right beside the zipper in order to replace it, and that's why it's more expensive than a normal zipper replacement. I also used that chance to fix the second problem that I found on the dress. There was a elastic belt inside the dress to help holding the dress up. The elastic belt that Landy Bridal put on the dress was about 1 cm wide, which was totally useless in my opinion. Angeline was able to also replace it with a proper wider (wider than 10 cm) elastic band with 3 rows of hooks, so I can adjust the tightness as I loose or gain weight and this costs me $35. She also sold me a garment bag so I don't have to squeeze my dress into the suit case anymore (this is $10).
On top of that, there is still something that bothers me a little bit. The baselayer (the layer that touches my body) of the dress is satin. The skirt consists strips of pleated tulle that's sew on top of the baselayer. However, they didn't put enough tulle on so there are a little bit of gap between each strip. You can't tell at all from a photo, and it's not even obvious unless you are less than a meter away from the dress. But I was really annoyed by that. After a discussion with Angeline, I decided to buy fabric from Landy and get Angeline to add the extra fabric to the skirt. I paid $70 for the extra fabric, and still waiting for it to arrive.
The dress fits perfectly. There is no size related alteration to be done. The bustle was done nicely, so I don't have to worry about that either. Angeline will charge me about $150 for sewing extra fabric onto the skirt. The total cost for the dress turned out to be $570 now. I am quite convinced it's still worthwhile, since I know if I spend $3000 plus on a dress I might just go insane. But everyone is different, I think it would make me happier to save money on a dress rather than go crazy if I can't justify my $3000 spending :)
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Wedding Dress Part I
I haven't forgot that I have a blog. But recently, I have been working hard on getting our invitations, my dress and my veil sorted out.
I don't want to post a picture for my wedding dress, so I couldn't really go into details about it. As a lot of you already knew that I bought my dress online! I have to say I am very brave.
First of all, let me give you a bit of idea of the culture background that I came from. In Taiwan, a bride would usually wear at least 3 different gowns in the wedding day. One of them is for sure the typical western white wedding dress, and the others are usually just formal evening gowns. An Engaged couple in Taiwan usually get their pre-wedding photo done a few months before the wedding. In the pre-wedding photo session, they often wear wedding dress and tux. For all the above reasons, in Taiwan, bridal attire rental is a big industry. A typical bridal shop usually provides bridal attires, photographer, and makeup artist. In short, I came from a culture that no one really buys wedding dress unless they are extra-ordinary people.
In Canada, there is really no such thing as renting a wedding dress. In fact, in a lot of cases, wedding gowns are usually the most expensive single item in the entire wedding budget. A wedding gown can range from $1000 to $8000. The average brand new wedding gown is around $2000 with tax included. The average bustle, hemming, and other alteration will usually cost at least another $300. Sometimes the alteration could be very simple, but since it is a "WEDDING" gown, they tend to overcharge. However I understand the reason behind it, just because it's a wedding gown, the bride might likely to have much higher expectation than usual customers which I believe from a seamstress's prospective, a bridezilla could be very stressful to deal with. Anyway, my point is, it is expensive to easily spend $2000 on a wedding dress (reasonably or unresaonbly), not to mention it's something most of us hope not to ever use for the second time.
A few friends from Taiwan heard my complaint about the ridiculous wedding dress price in Canada, they suggested getting a wedding dress tailor-made from China. One wedding photographer friend also mentioned she got a few wedding gowns from Ebay for photo shooting purpose. I was skeptical to start with, however, with the combination of not being able to find the type of dress I like in store, and the scary price tag in the local bridal shops, I was at the end convinced to make a gamble and buy my dress online.
Buying a dress online was not easy, it took fair amount of courage and research effort. There were a lot of "Are you sure that's a good idea?", "how can you not try a dress on?", or "The quality from China is not reliable". I knew everyone was just concerned for me, but it was also hard for me to tell people "I am just going to ignore you and do what I think would work for me". Anyway, as for the research on dresses, I first started with browsing through the pictures online, and found a few pictures I liked. The ones I picked were all very similar in style, except the waist line varied a little bit. Using those as a guide line, I went into local bridal shops to try on some similar dresses. I used that opportunity to figure out which silhouette was both appealing and most flattering for me. At the end , my conclusion was, if you were an average size person, there was really nothing that would make you look horrible. I also experienced the moment, other people shopping in the shop complimented how gorgeous I looked in the dress. And really I am just an average short and chubby girl. I believe that the happiness of finding love just made me glow from inside of my heart and that's what made every bride beautiful.
Here are a list of local bridal shop (greater Vancouver) I went to and my comments:
Mia's Boutique: not a huge selection but there were seasonably priced dresses
Angeline Bridal: nothing strike my fancy, but again good price, and the owner was very helpful and nice. The owner, Angeline is a seamstress herself, she charges very reasonablely for alteration even the dress is not bought from her.
Bello Wedding Word: Huge selection, but only one dress that I sort of liked. Price were on average $1500 or higher.
Bisou Bridal: The dresses were quite funky, trendy, and unique. They carried mostly higher end designer dresses. Price were $3000 and up.
Bridal Gallery: The biggest selection out of all the store I have been too. Price range from $1000 and up. I know a lot of people got their dresses there but I found the sales person a bit too pushy.
Sposa: I liked almost all the dresses I tried on in this store, they had an average size selection, but covered a wide diversity of styles. I found the dress I was looking for there for $2800. (but of course I didn't buy it there)
Lisa's Bridal: Very out of style selection. In my opinion, not really worth going, unless you are looking for something cheap.
This a long post, so I am going to stop here. There will be more posts on my dress hunting story...
I don't want to post a picture for my wedding dress, so I couldn't really go into details about it. As a lot of you already knew that I bought my dress online! I have to say I am very brave.
First of all, let me give you a bit of idea of the culture background that I came from. In Taiwan, a bride would usually wear at least 3 different gowns in the wedding day. One of them is for sure the typical western white wedding dress, and the others are usually just formal evening gowns. An Engaged couple in Taiwan usually get their pre-wedding photo done a few months before the wedding. In the pre-wedding photo session, they often wear wedding dress and tux. For all the above reasons, in Taiwan, bridal attire rental is a big industry. A typical bridal shop usually provides bridal attires, photographer, and makeup artist. In short, I came from a culture that no one really buys wedding dress unless they are extra-ordinary people.
In Canada, there is really no such thing as renting a wedding dress. In fact, in a lot of cases, wedding gowns are usually the most expensive single item in the entire wedding budget. A wedding gown can range from $1000 to $8000. The average brand new wedding gown is around $2000 with tax included. The average bustle, hemming, and other alteration will usually cost at least another $300. Sometimes the alteration could be very simple, but since it is a "WEDDING" gown, they tend to overcharge. However I understand the reason behind it, just because it's a wedding gown, the bride might likely to have much higher expectation than usual customers which I believe from a seamstress's prospective, a bridezilla could be very stressful to deal with. Anyway, my point is, it is expensive to easily spend $2000 on a wedding dress (reasonably or unresaonbly), not to mention it's something most of us hope not to ever use for the second time.
A few friends from Taiwan heard my complaint about the ridiculous wedding dress price in Canada, they suggested getting a wedding dress tailor-made from China. One wedding photographer friend also mentioned she got a few wedding gowns from Ebay for photo shooting purpose. I was skeptical to start with, however, with the combination of not being able to find the type of dress I like in store, and the scary price tag in the local bridal shops, I was at the end convinced to make a gamble and buy my dress online.
Buying a dress online was not easy, it took fair amount of courage and research effort. There were a lot of "Are you sure that's a good idea?", "how can you not try a dress on?", or "The quality from China is not reliable". I knew everyone was just concerned for me, but it was also hard for me to tell people "I am just going to ignore you and do what I think would work for me". Anyway, as for the research on dresses, I first started with browsing through the pictures online, and found a few pictures I liked. The ones I picked were all very similar in style, except the waist line varied a little bit. Using those as a guide line, I went into local bridal shops to try on some similar dresses. I used that opportunity to figure out which silhouette was both appealing and most flattering for me. At the end , my conclusion was, if you were an average size person, there was really nothing that would make you look horrible. I also experienced the moment, other people shopping in the shop complimented how gorgeous I looked in the dress. And really I am just an average short and chubby girl. I believe that the happiness of finding love just made me glow from inside of my heart and that's what made every bride beautiful.
Here are a list of local bridal shop (greater Vancouver) I went to and my comments:
Mia's Boutique: not a huge selection but there were seasonably priced dresses
Angeline Bridal: nothing strike my fancy, but again good price, and the owner was very helpful and nice. The owner, Angeline is a seamstress herself, she charges very reasonablely for alteration even the dress is not bought from her.
Bello Wedding Word: Huge selection, but only one dress that I sort of liked. Price were on average $1500 or higher.
Bisou Bridal: The dresses were quite funky, trendy, and unique. They carried mostly higher end designer dresses. Price were $3000 and up.
Bridal Gallery: The biggest selection out of all the store I have been too. Price range from $1000 and up. I know a lot of people got their dresses there but I found the sales person a bit too pushy.
Sposa: I liked almost all the dresses I tried on in this store, they had an average size selection, but covered a wide diversity of styles. I found the dress I was looking for there for $2800. (but of course I didn't buy it there)
Lisa's Bridal: Very out of style selection. In my opinion, not really worth going, unless you are looking for something cheap.
This a long post, so I am going to stop here. There will be more posts on my dress hunting story...
Friday, April 01, 2011
My Recent Favourite Cookie Recipes
My interest in baking is built based on the fact that I love watching things grow and raise in a very short time interval. Yes, that's right, I like to watch all kinds of chemical reactions. Explosions are chemical reactions too, but with too much consequence to deal with afterward (if everyone still remembers that juice explosions at our home resulted us 4 hours of ceiling cleaning), so I stick with baking only. Although the excess body weight from eating baked goods is still a negative consequence. But I have a Bear at home so the eating part is always taken care of.
I continue to bake from time to time, despite the fact that I never really like the cookies I made. I have been using a cook recipe book that I got from Sara for Christmas 2009. It is called "Ultimate xxxxxxx". The book is great, it has colour pictures, clear instructions, and recipes for very cute looking cookies. But I don't think the book like me, I have been making the worse cookies with the recipe from that book. The cookies always ended up too hard, so that's why I never like the cookies I made.
Recently, I have been craving for sweets, so I decided I need to make cookie for my own consumption. So I looked for the recipe for my favourite type of cookie, SHORTBREAD COOKIES. This is my favourite short bread cookie recipe so far:
Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Directions
1.Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2.Whip butter with an electric mixer until fluffy. Stir in the confectioners' sugar, cornstarch, and flour. Beat on low for one minute, then on high for 3 to 4 minutes. Drop cookies by spoonfuls 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
3.Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Watch that the edges don't brown too much. Cool on wire racks.
For some reason, we had 3 jars of peanut butter at home, so I had to make some peanut butter cookies too. This is my favourite peanut butter cookie recipe:
Ingredients
1 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Directions
1.Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2.In a large bowl, cream together the peanut butter, butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until well blended. Beat in the egg, milk, and vanilla one at a time. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt; stir into creamed mixture. Roll tablespoonfuls of dough into balls. Place cookies 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets. Press each ball once with fork tines.
3.Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are lightly browned.
Both recipes are from allrecipe.com.
I continue to bake from time to time, despite the fact that I never really like the cookies I made. I have been using a cook recipe book that I got from Sara for Christmas 2009. It is called "Ultimate xxxxxxx". The book is great, it has colour pictures, clear instructions, and recipes for very cute looking cookies. But I don't think the book like me, I have been making the worse cookies with the recipe from that book. The cookies always ended up too hard, so that's why I never like the cookies I made.
Recently, I have been craving for sweets, so I decided I need to make cookie for my own consumption. So I looked for the recipe for my favourite type of cookie, SHORTBREAD COOKIES. This is my favourite short bread cookie recipe so far:
Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Directions
1.Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2.Whip butter with an electric mixer until fluffy. Stir in the confectioners' sugar, cornstarch, and flour. Beat on low for one minute, then on high for 3 to 4 minutes. Drop cookies by spoonfuls 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
3.Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Watch that the edges don't brown too much. Cool on wire racks.
For some reason, we had 3 jars of peanut butter at home, so I had to make some peanut butter cookies too. This is my favourite peanut butter cookie recipe:
Ingredients
1 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Directions
1.Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2.In a large bowl, cream together the peanut butter, butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until well blended. Beat in the egg, milk, and vanilla one at a time. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt; stir into creamed mixture. Roll tablespoonfuls of dough into balls. Place cookies 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets. Press each ball once with fork tines.
3.Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are lightly browned.
Both recipes are from allrecipe.com.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Rules for a wedding invitation
For those of you who are here to read about the wedding, I have to say sorry, there is really not much new going on recently. The assembly and printing of wedding invitations have been taking longer than we expected; therefore, not much new updates except I have been learning how to address the envelopes properly. Trust me, all the rules are not that exciting to read about. If you are still curious for any reason, I found this site very useful, it listed lots of possible scenario (eg. judge, doctor, gay, lesbian...etc). In our case, most people we are inviting are ordinary (sorry if this offends any of my friends and family). The most special case would be people with two children, since we had to figure out how to nicely squeeze everyone's name onto the envelop and the response card.
Hopefully, we can start distributing our invitations soon. Oh, if I haven't bored you enough with all the rules and etiquette yet, there is also an article on delivering wedding invitations in person. The overall summary is:
- delivering in person is charming and personable. Bear and I are really not trying to be charming, but we would like to show people how much we like to have them in our wedding.
- avoid distasteful occasions, for example other people's engagement party, it's rude to take away the focus from the other couple.
- Also should avoid the occasions where certain people are excluded from receiving invitations.
I only listed the ones that make most sense to me. And I will be okay, if anyone find us charming when we hand deliver the invitations :)
Hopefully, we can start distributing our invitations soon. Oh, if I haven't bored you enough with all the rules and etiquette yet, there is also an article on delivering wedding invitations in person. The overall summary is:
- delivering in person is charming and personable. Bear and I are really not trying to be charming, but we would like to show people how much we like to have them in our wedding.
- avoid distasteful occasions, for example other people's engagement party, it's rude to take away the focus from the other couple.
- Also should avoid the occasions where certain people are excluded from receiving invitations.
I only listed the ones that make most sense to me. And I will be okay, if anyone find us charming when we hand deliver the invitations :)
Monday, March 28, 2011
Trip to Cerise Creek
This weekend we went for an overnight trip at Cerise Creek. Bear has been talking about Cerise Creek for a long time, finally I was convienced to go there this weekend.
Inspired by the Korean group we encountered at the Elfin shelter last month, we decided to put more thought into our food preparation this time. We ended up packing udon noodles, kimchi, salted pork bellies, and mushrooms for dinner. Ever since the Elfin Lakes Trip last fall, we decided pizza is one of the best choices for lunch, so as a tradition (only the 3rd time now), we made caramelized onion and prociutto pizza on Friday night.
Our goal was to sleep in Keith's Hut at Cerise Creek if possible. However, we didn't get to the trailhead until noon, and judging by the number of cars parked there, we were expecting the shelfter to be full already. When we left the car, it wasn't too cold, and it was kind of sunny.
Almost the first 1 km of hike is mostly in the woods. The sun had melted all the fresh snow on the trail, leaving the route with only ice and hard packed snow. Bear had a not super great time skinning up and down a narrow path in the woods where as I was totally satistied with the performance of my snowshoes . We then merged onto the old logging road. It was a steep uphill, however the amazing view made the uphill seem very worthwhile.
Inspired by the Korean group we encountered at the Elfin shelter last month, we decided to put more thought into our food preparation this time. We ended up packing udon noodles, kimchi, salted pork bellies, and mushrooms for dinner. Ever since the Elfin Lakes Trip last fall, we decided pizza is one of the best choices for lunch, so as a tradition (only the 3rd time now), we made caramelized onion and prociutto pizza on Friday night.
Our goal was to sleep in Keith's Hut at Cerise Creek if possible. However, we didn't get to the trailhead until noon, and judging by the number of cars parked there, we were expecting the shelfter to be full already. When we left the car, it wasn't too cold, and it was kind of sunny.
Almost the first 1 km of hike is mostly in the woods. The sun had melted all the fresh snow on the trail, leaving the route with only ice and hard packed snow. Bear had a not super great time skinning up and down a narrow path in the woods where as I was totally satistied with the performance of my snowshoes . We then merged onto the old logging road. It was a steep uphill, however the amazing view made the uphill seem very worthwhile.
After that we were back to the woods again. The conditions were again quite icy. We met some snowboarders with their split boards on their way down. It was quite obvious why they were not boarding down. We stopped for lunch before we stepped out into the open again. At that point, Bear thought we were about 1 km away from Keith's Hut. After walking for a while, the trail looped into the trees again. Bear said this part was new, it was probably rerouted into the trees to avoid the risk of being caught in an avalanche. It's all about expectations, before we went, I read online it's about 4 km from the trailhead to the hut. But we felt we walked at least about 6 km, and with the constant thought of "are we there yet". It tired me out a lot. Even a 10 km hike from the past wasn't as bad.
As we arrived the hut, not only I was excited to put my backpack down, there was a wonderful surprise. There were only 7 spaces taken in the shelter which means there were spaces left for us. And we were also soon to find out there other two groups were very friendly.
It was my first time to see a pee-tree, I was so totally amused that I needed to take two pictures to share with all my other friends who might not have seen this either.
Bear decided to slack off, so he didn't go skiing that evening. We stayed in the hut and made our best camping meal ever. The people in the hut complemented the smell of our kimchi porkbell mushroom udon soup by saying "I am not saying our meal is bad, but look at what they are having! Are you guys having steaks or what?" That was Gary, he was a funny guy we met this trip. After dinner, we went outside the hut and took some pictures in the twilight. Bear also tried to take pictures of stars, but they didn't turn out very well, he probably needs a little more practice.
The second day, I stayed around the hut while Bear went up with a group of people we met for a morning ski. It was snowing briefly in the morning. The visibality was bad for a little bit, but it was back to okay very quickly. According to Bear, it really added a bit of nice fresh powder snow for them. He had a lot of fun.
On the way down, I realized that the terrain was totally not suitable for crazy-carpeting. So althought the hiking back is mostly down hill, it wasn't as much fun as I expected. My conclusion is "I need to learn to ski" :)
Oh and we saw a full rainbow on the way back to Vancouver, that nicely concluded a fun weekend.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
A few more finalizations
We have got a few more things finalized this week. Yes I mean wedding related things, what else could they be?
1. We finally decided on our wedding favours, it would be something from Croatia. Bear did a bit of research and found something we both like. We both feel this gift is more exciting compared to my original idea of chopsticks with guest's name engraved on. I hope our guests will like the little gift as much as we do. We will have Kike order the gifts for us in July when we get an exact head count.
2. We got Bear's suit last weekend. He also bought a nice black belt, tie clip, and cufflinks. I really like those cufflinks, it has a bit of purple to match our theme colour. And of course, we bought two ties (one for Donald) and a shirt. I didn't like the tie when I compared the colour with the maid of honour dress. So we will have to return them and find something else.
3. We finalized the design of the Chinese side of the invitation. It's unbelievable how much time we ended up spending on it. I am so glad we didn't do it from scratch. We are still working on printing everything out (invite, RSVP card, map, return envelope, and outer envelope). Proper ettiquet is to address the evelope by a calligrapher or directly printing on it. People do use labels these days, but bear and I both decided labels are just not right for us, and since we have no budget for a calligrapher, so printing it is. Bear is going to use Crystal Report to prepare it, hopefully it will save us a bit of work. For people who live in greater Vancouver area, we decided to hand deliver the invitation to them if we have enough time.
4. I decided that I want a full gathered style veil instead of centered gathered, so I need to get it altered. I thought I didn't care before, so when I explain to the seller in China and realized that they didn't understand the difference, I just gave up and told them to do what they usually do. Last week, I tried to hold it with my hand to make it a full gathered style and I tought it just looked much much better. So I decided to ask my seamstress if she can alter that for me. http://www.theweddingveilshop.co.uk/id363.html This site explain very clearly how they are different. I was a bit confused at beginning, but it was very obvious if you had a veil right in front of you.
That's the update for this week. And this weekend no wedding planning!!! We are going camping :)
1. We finally decided on our wedding favours, it would be something from Croatia. Bear did a bit of research and found something we both like. We both feel this gift is more exciting compared to my original idea of chopsticks with guest's name engraved on. I hope our guests will like the little gift as much as we do. We will have Kike order the gifts for us in July when we get an exact head count.
2. We got Bear's suit last weekend. He also bought a nice black belt, tie clip, and cufflinks. I really like those cufflinks, it has a bit of purple to match our theme colour. And of course, we bought two ties (one for Donald) and a shirt. I didn't like the tie when I compared the colour with the maid of honour dress. So we will have to return them and find something else.
3. We finalized the design of the Chinese side of the invitation. It's unbelievable how much time we ended up spending on it. I am so glad we didn't do it from scratch. We are still working on printing everything out (invite, RSVP card, map, return envelope, and outer envelope). Proper ettiquet is to address the evelope by a calligrapher or directly printing on it. People do use labels these days, but bear and I both decided labels are just not right for us, and since we have no budget for a calligrapher, so printing it is. Bear is going to use Crystal Report to prepare it, hopefully it will save us a bit of work. For people who live in greater Vancouver area, we decided to hand deliver the invitation to them if we have enough time.
4. I decided that I want a full gathered style veil instead of centered gathered, so I need to get it altered. I thought I didn't care before, so when I explain to the seller in China and realized that they didn't understand the difference, I just gave up and told them to do what they usually do. Last week, I tried to hold it with my hand to make it a full gathered style and I tought it just looked much much better. So I decided to ask my seamstress if she can alter that for me. http://www.theweddingveilshop.co.uk/id363.html This site explain very clearly how they are different. I was a bit confused at beginning, but it was very obvious if you had a veil right in front of you.
That's the update for this week. And this weekend no wedding planning!!! We are going camping :)
Monday, March 21, 2011
Wedding Cake
One of the item on the checklist for this month is "decide on wedding cake". By the way, there are 210 tasks in this entire planning process. Funny that one of the item on the list is "to come up with a list". Since the list was from a wedding planning book, we weren't even sure how to decide on a cake. When in doubt, ask Google! Once again, Google didn't disappoint me. And guess what, all the articles seemed to imply wedding cake is important but none said it's one of the most important things. Yay, I have moved to dealing with tasks in the important category instead of the most important category. That's a really big relief.
According to my research result, Wedding cakes are a predominantly Western tradition in marriage ceremonies. It is the tradition that a newly married couple stand together, hand on hand, and cut the cake together. This is because cutting the cake is a symbol of unity and togetherness. Cutting the wedding cake together is also another essential marker of the couple's commitment to one another on their special day. This is basically the reason why wedding cakes are still so popular in modern culture. Knowing the meaning behind wedding cake has motivated me a bit more in choosing a nice cake.
Wedding cake decision was not as complicated as choosing a veil. It only narrowed down to two determining criteria, appearence and flavor. Traditionally wedding cakes are white, just like wedding dresses. However modern days, people sometimes have different colours of cakes to match their wedding theme. Since I have already decided on all the decoration and flower related items, I thought when it came to "eating" related item I should ask for Bear's input. The respond I got was essentially, isn't cake just a cake, why do we need to choose a cake. So I had requested Kike to send me a few examples of cake to show Bear (see pictures). The first one is nice, but totally not related to our theme, so it's out of the picture. Bear and I are sometimes a bit traditional, so we don't like the weirdly constructed cake in the second picture. The third one was the only one we both liked. But it's not super exciting.
According to my research result, Wedding cakes are a predominantly Western tradition in marriage ceremonies. It is the tradition that a newly married couple stand together, hand on hand, and cut the cake together. This is because cutting the cake is a symbol of unity and togetherness. Cutting the wedding cake together is also another essential marker of the couple's commitment to one another on their special day. This is basically the reason why wedding cakes are still so popular in modern culture. Knowing the meaning behind wedding cake has motivated me a bit more in choosing a nice cake.
Wedding cake decision was not as complicated as choosing a veil. It only narrowed down to two determining criteria, appearence and flavor. Traditionally wedding cakes are white, just like wedding dresses. However modern days, people sometimes have different colours of cakes to match their wedding theme. Since I have already decided on all the decoration and flower related items, I thought when it came to "eating" related item I should ask for Bear's input. The respond I got was essentially, isn't cake just a cake, why do we need to choose a cake. So I had requested Kike to send me a few examples of cake to show Bear (see pictures). The first one is nice, but totally not related to our theme, so it's out of the picture. Bear and I are sometimes a bit traditional, so we don't like the weirdly constructed cake in the second picture. The third one was the only one we both liked. But it's not super exciting.
I actually had a picture in mind in terms of what I like. I want something with an uneven white icing surface texture and a big of flower decoration. So it's kind of like the third picture, but not as "ridgid? It's hard to describe. I browsed online for a long time, after looking through all 350 pictures on http://www.brides.com/, I finally found what I liked (see the picture below). Bear also liked it. So I emailed Kike this picture and told her that we would like to have the flowers in purple instead.
As for the flavours, here are the possible choices http://www.doyouwed.me/dubrovnik_wedding_cakes.html. Bear likes chocolate or cheese cake. I am leaning towards fruit fantasy. But we will make our final decision when we go to the pastry shop to try out the cake.
Yay, one more task done!
Friday, March 18, 2011
More about bouquet and bottonholes
The bouquet is finalized. Basically Kike agrees with my choice, except she suggested mix purple shades of flowers. Using that as a guideline, we moved on to decide bridesmaid's bouquet, buttonholes and corsage.
-Michael's button hole: deep purple rose to match his tie and match my bouquet.
-bridesmaid's bouquet: it should be similar to my bouquet but with only the lighter purple shade roses, since her dress is in dark purple already
-bestman's button hole: lighter purple shade rose to match bridesmaid's bouquet
-2 corsage for female family members and 2 buttonholes fro male family members: lighter purple shade roses
The reason for choosing different colours of bottonholes for Michael and Donald is that so they don't look identical.
-Michael's button hole: deep purple rose to match his tie and match my bouquet.
-bridesmaid's bouquet: it should be similar to my bouquet but with only the lighter purple shade roses, since her dress is in dark purple already
-bestman's button hole: lighter purple shade rose to match bridesmaid's bouquet
-2 corsage for female family members and 2 buttonholes fro male family members: lighter purple shade roses
The reason for choosing different colours of bottonholes for Michael and Donald is that so they don't look identical.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Wedding Veil
These days, not every bride wears a wedding veil anymore. On this aspect, I am a little tranditional, I think I want to look like a traditional bride not only with a veil but with a blusher when I am walking down the aisle. That's how I dream of myself as a bride :). (One helpful hint for figuring out what I really want is to just imagine that I can have anything I want without any concern on money or other constrains. And then work around it to make it more realistic and suitable)
One would never guess how expensive a brand new wedding veil costs. My friend, Mary-Ann told me she got a second hand veil from a consignment store, Action Liquidation. So I went there and realized that a cheapest veil they had was $49 plus tax. And they only had one in that price and it's not what I like. The others were all like $100 to $200 range. Overall, there wasn't many choices anyway. I was shocked by the price of a second hand veil, and afraid to even imagine how much a brand new veil would cost.
So I started my search on Ebay and found out a brand new veil could be as cheap as $20. The only trick is like buying anything online, you don't get to try on. And you really need to know what exactly you want in order to buy the right item. So I started my research on veils and realized that I really need to try it on with a dress to see what I like. I booked an appointment with Bryan's Bride, pretend to try on dress but really just there to put on a dress that's similar to mine in style and see which type of veil match the style of dress I have. I am so evil :P
The major things to consider when choosing a veil are:
Length, Tier, Colour, and Finish. There are a lot more details, but I personally think these four are the most critical ones.
For the length, the options are bird cage, shoulder, elbow, finger tips, ankle, and chapel train (or even cathedral train). So I applied what I said earlier close my eye and dream of what I really want. However, I couldn't conclude anything. My dress has a cathedral train, so I was thinking maybe getting a floor length one to match the fanciness of my dress. But according to what I read online, a ball gown type of dress the skirt is already full, it's probably not a good idea to cover the skirt with the veil. So my second choice was fingertips which is the most popular choice among any kind of wedding gowns. When I was in store, I tried on one with train, one to ankle, and one to finger tips. None of them really stood out, so I asked for the saleslady's opinion, and she said she personally likes the shoulder to elbow length one. I tried it, it did look much nicer, so at the end I decided to go for a shorter length. I was glad that I went to a store to try on.
A veil can be single or multi-tier. Since I want a blusher, I will have to have multi-tier. I don't want the veil to be too complicated and over-powered my dress, I decided to stick with 2-tier veil.
Colour choices are simple, ivory, off-white, and white. The lady from Bryan's Bride told me, unlike dresses, the veil colours are pretty standard. She said I should make sure the dress and veil match in colour, else whichever is darker would just look dirty. My answer was easy for this one just order something exactly match with my dress.
There are tones of different finishes for a veil. I know I don't want something plain, but at the same time not something too overwhelming, so I decided scattered beading on the edge.
I ended up ordering the veil at the same place as I ordered my dress, so they can match the colour exactly, and using the same beading on the veil finish. I ordered a 2-tier veil with 22"X25" length and it costs me $50. It is a little more expensive compared to other sellers on Ebay, but it already beats the $200 veil in store with no beading.
Here is a very useful site for veil tutorial http://www.theweddingveilshop.co.uk/id530.html
One would never guess how expensive a brand new wedding veil costs. My friend, Mary-Ann told me she got a second hand veil from a consignment store, Action Liquidation. So I went there and realized that a cheapest veil they had was $49 plus tax. And they only had one in that price and it's not what I like. The others were all like $100 to $200 range. Overall, there wasn't many choices anyway. I was shocked by the price of a second hand veil, and afraid to even imagine how much a brand new veil would cost.
So I started my search on Ebay and found out a brand new veil could be as cheap as $20. The only trick is like buying anything online, you don't get to try on. And you really need to know what exactly you want in order to buy the right item. So I started my research on veils and realized that I really need to try it on with a dress to see what I like. I booked an appointment with Bryan's Bride, pretend to try on dress but really just there to put on a dress that's similar to mine in style and see which type of veil match the style of dress I have. I am so evil :P
The major things to consider when choosing a veil are:
Length, Tier, Colour, and Finish. There are a lot more details, but I personally think these four are the most critical ones.
For the length, the options are bird cage, shoulder, elbow, finger tips, ankle, and chapel train (or even cathedral train). So I applied what I said earlier close my eye and dream of what I really want. However, I couldn't conclude anything. My dress has a cathedral train, so I was thinking maybe getting a floor length one to match the fanciness of my dress. But according to what I read online, a ball gown type of dress the skirt is already full, it's probably not a good idea to cover the skirt with the veil. So my second choice was fingertips which is the most popular choice among any kind of wedding gowns. When I was in store, I tried on one with train, one to ankle, and one to finger tips. None of them really stood out, so I asked for the saleslady's opinion, and she said she personally likes the shoulder to elbow length one. I tried it, it did look much nicer, so at the end I decided to go for a shorter length. I was glad that I went to a store to try on.
A veil can be single or multi-tier. Since I want a blusher, I will have to have multi-tier. I don't want the veil to be too complicated and over-powered my dress, I decided to stick with 2-tier veil.
Colour choices are simple, ivory, off-white, and white. The lady from Bryan's Bride told me, unlike dresses, the veil colours are pretty standard. She said I should make sure the dress and veil match in colour, else whichever is darker would just look dirty. My answer was easy for this one just order something exactly match with my dress.
There are tones of different finishes for a veil. I know I don't want something plain, but at the same time not something too overwhelming, so I decided scattered beading on the edge.
I ended up ordering the veil at the same place as I ordered my dress, so they can match the colour exactly, and using the same beading on the veil finish. I ordered a 2-tier veil with 22"X25" length and it costs me $50. It is a little more expensive compared to other sellers on Ebay, but it already beats the $200 veil in store with no beading.
Here is a very useful site for veil tutorial http://www.theweddingveilshop.co.uk/id530.html
Friday, March 11, 2011
Bouquet
I have talked about wedding flowers in one of the older post. In that post, I was mostly discussing the flowers to be used for decoration. Wedding bouquet is probably the most important part in the entire wedding flower arrangement. If you google anything wedding related, most of the articles will tell you "xxx is the one of the most important thing in your wedding". So if you really believe everything you read online, then essentially nothing will going into the "not important" category in a wedding, how overwhelming. Although, the good news is I will just never run out of wedding related things to write and keep you entertained until our wedding day!!
Ok, a little off topic here. Let's get back to the search of bouquet.
Here are a list of questions I found that would help me choose a bouquet:
-What colors do you want?
I want a bouquet contains dark purple to match our theme and white to soften the darkness of purple.
-What flowers do you want?
As some of you may be aware already, I love roses. So I would like to (I actually mean must) have roses as main flower, maybe some mini calla lilies or hydrangeas.
-What shape do you want?
There are 7 main types of bouquet shapes (see first picture), Pageant, Round, Nosegay, Cascade, Posey, Pomander, and Hand Tied. When I first started looking, I saw a classic round bouquet that I really like (see picture 2). I don't think I necessary like the shape, it's the flowers (roses and calla lilies) and colour that caught my attention. One day, I saw on magazine, a fancy huge cascade bouquet and I secretly love it, but I can't even admit that to myself. Because I know it would a big rediculous for a small wedding. So I have totally forgot about it ever since. Today, I receive an email from Kike, she thinks my princess like wedding gown would go really well with a more elaborated long form bouquet, such as cascade :). Yay, all my secret princess dreams now all lined up together. So I think I will have a cascade shape bouquet. I have posted an example of cascade (see picutre 3).
-What type of greenery do you want?
This I really have no idea!! So I will continue to bug Kike about it.
Also I want something that's not super complicated, by that I mean not too many types of different flowers and colours.
Anyway, I am looking forward to get more feedback and suggestions from Kike and hopefully decide on a bouquet soon.
Ok, a little off topic here. Let's get back to the search of bouquet.
Here are a list of questions I found that would help me choose a bouquet:
-What colors do you want?
I want a bouquet contains dark purple to match our theme and white to soften the darkness of purple.
-What flowers do you want?
As some of you may be aware already, I love roses. So I would like to (I actually mean must) have roses as main flower, maybe some mini calla lilies or hydrangeas.
-What shape do you want?
There are 7 main types of bouquet shapes (see first picture), Pageant, Round, Nosegay, Cascade, Posey, Pomander, and Hand Tied. When I first started looking, I saw a classic round bouquet that I really like (see picture 2). I don't think I necessary like the shape, it's the flowers (roses and calla lilies) and colour that caught my attention. One day, I saw on magazine, a fancy huge cascade bouquet and I secretly love it, but I can't even admit that to myself. Because I know it would a big rediculous for a small wedding. So I have totally forgot about it ever since. Today, I receive an email from Kike, she thinks my princess like wedding gown would go really well with a more elaborated long form bouquet, such as cascade :). Yay, all my secret princess dreams now all lined up together. So I think I will have a cascade shape bouquet. I have posted an example of cascade (see picutre 3).
-What size bouquet do you want?
I think cascade bouquet can go quite big, but I am very short (5'3, would be 5'6 wearing heels), so I told Kike that I don't supposed that I should have a bouquet that's too big. I will leave the professional to decide on a good size for me. Although, some website does say small bride should have a long cascade to create the illusion of height, I don't know if I would buy that though.
-What type of greenery do you want?
This I really have no idea!! So I will continue to bug Kike about it.
Also I want something that's not super complicated, by that I mean not too many types of different flowers and colours.
Anyway, I am looking forward to get more feedback and suggestions from Kike and hopefully decide on a bouquet soon.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Invitation
Most people expected that I would make my own wedding invitation, since paper craft has become my hobbies about a year ago. But I wasn't super keen on that, to be honest most of the time my handmade card cost $3 or more, so handmade invitation in my opinion is definitely not the best way to save money. However, the critical part is not really about saving money, it's I can't really deal with not cutting the paper straight :P. As much as I love all our friends and family, I still have to be realistic on how much time I can spend on this, after all I still have a job. (I know, I know, most of you understand that I surf on the net a lot at work, but I still gotta pretend I am working though :P)
To save time and money and still have a little bit of personal touch, we decided to buy a invitation kit from Michaels. We bought one with plum theme colour to match our wedding theme. The kit comes with invitation cards, RSVP cards, envelopes for both, and little ribbons to be assembled on the invitation cards. So no more worrying about not cutting straight :) yay!!!
As we were browsing through all the wedding invitations to get an idea of what to write, one of them really caught our attention (it's the one that's out sourced to India,). Bear really likes the invitation being bilingual and I really like the little map that came with the invitation. So we decided to print a Chinese version of the invitation on the reverse side of the card.
Since the back side of the card has no decoration, I thought of adding a little bit of gold colour to match the accent colour of the wedding theme. My friend Cathy also scanned her collection of wedding invitations to give me some idea on how to write a proper Chinese invitation. I think nothing is more classic than the double happiness Chinese character. So I bought a double happiness stamp on Ebay. I used the embossing tool and decorated the invitation card a bit, see first picture.
As for the map, Bear spent a lot of time drawing it. He did an amazing job!! We decided to print it on the "travel" theme scrapbook paper to match our destination wedding theme, plus map and traveling they seem to be related :). The travel theme is on the other side of map, so you can't see it from the picture.
These are our prototypes, hopefully the real thing will look better. And it should be a little different then these. So there is still a little surprise remained :)
To save time and money and still have a little bit of personal touch, we decided to buy a invitation kit from Michaels. We bought one with plum theme colour to match our wedding theme. The kit comes with invitation cards, RSVP cards, envelopes for both, and little ribbons to be assembled on the invitation cards. So no more worrying about not cutting straight :) yay!!!
As we were browsing through all the wedding invitations to get an idea of what to write, one of them really caught our attention (it's the one that's out sourced to India,). Bear really likes the invitation being bilingual and I really like the little map that came with the invitation. So we decided to print a Chinese version of the invitation on the reverse side of the card.
These are our prototypes, hopefully the real thing will look better. And it should be a little different then these. So there is still a little surprise remained :)
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