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 :)
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
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 :)
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Suit Shopping
We went for suit shopping again on Saturday. Back in January, we have looked a few suits for Michael, nothing really stood out, except a Simon Carter Suit that we found at TipTop. Because we are looking for a light colour summer suit, most salesmen told us to come back again in March, so there are likely to be more selections of lighter colour suits.
On Saturday our first stop was TipTop, as it is the closest one to the Waterfront Skytrain station. Unfortunately, they didn't really have anything new lighter colour suit. The second stop was Harry Rosen. Bear tried a very nice tan colour Canali suit there. The salesman went as far as getting him a pair of matching shoes to put the whole outfit together, see first picture. Due to bear's (un)fortunate height, the suit jacket he had on was a bit too short for him and they didn't have that colour in 42T in stock. The suit is about $1800 before tax, very pricy, but according to Bear very comfortable to wear. Hary Rosen also provides lifetime alteration for free which makes its price seems not as bad.
Second Stop was Banana Republic, their suits are a bit too casual for a wedding. Plus their price is about $1000 dollar range and the quality doesn't seem as good. Bear tried on one, the jacket was just way too short, it didn't look good enough for me to take any pictures :P
We had very disappointing experience with Moores in January. Nothing really suits the tall and skinny Bear. But we decided that we should at least go check if they have more colour options now, since sizing issue could be fixed by alteration. Again, nothing really fits nicely, but there was a light grey suit that interested us a bit, see the second picture. The price is not too bad, $525 for one suit, but it's buy one get one free until March 13th. It seems like a good deal, that way it means we can buy a suit for Donald (bestman and Bear's brother) as a gift. They always said it's limited time sale, but it seems everytime we are in the store they always have the promotion. Since the suit is not absolutely amazing (it's only the right colour, nothing else is exciting about it), we are not in a hurry to just buy it.
After the first three stores, Bear was totally in love with the Canali suit and the exclusive service from Harry Rosen, despite I kept on reminding him that how much he liked the Simon Carter suits from TipTop back in January. At the end, he finally agreed to go try on the Simon Carter suit one more time. The suit is $525. Nice slim cut, good for our weirdly shaped Bear, but in that particular location they were out of 34/34 pants and 42T jacket. Hence the picture might not look great, but I really like the cut and all the little details on this suit. And the quality is good, although not as good as the Canali suit. But as Bear says, the Canali suit is definitely not $1500 better than this Simon Carter Suit. For some reason, the tie looks very bright on the picture, not as nice as it seemed in the store. It was a very nice looking dark purple tie with a little bit of pattern that's not too over powering but at the same time added a little bit of funkiness to the whole outfit. We were almost going to buy the ties (need to buy one for Donald too), but now we might need to reconsider it as it looks too bright in the picture.
Second Stop was Banana Republic, their suits are a bit too casual for a wedding. Plus their price is about $1000 dollar range and the quality doesn't seem as good. Bear tried on one, the jacket was just way too short, it didn't look good enough for me to take any pictures :P
Friday, March 04, 2011
Customer Service
Today, I am going to talk about DHL customers service, how is it related to the wedding preparation??!! Come on, I do have a life besides wedding planning?? ok, maybe not, in fact this posting is still related to the wedding. DHL is delivering my wedding gown!! I will have a separating posting explaining why that's the case, but now I will just focus the discussion on DHL customer service.
So I have been anxiously waiting for my dress to be shipped for a few days. Finally I got the tracking number and realized that it will be delivered to our home on Friday.....I mean who knows what time they are coming Friday. I am sure a lot of people have experience like this - always missing the package delivery. Anyway, since I am in such a hurry (not like our wedding is tomorrow) to see the dress, I called DHL and asked them what I can do if I am not home to receive the package. The agent told me that I will get a note indicating when they will try to deliver again and it will definitely be Monday (oh my god, 3 more days to see my dress....) but I will be at work again on Monday anyway. So I asked if I can get it redirected, and he told me it will take very long so I will not likely to see the dress until Tuesday (oh my god, even longer wait). Then I asked if I can just pick it up at the depot, and he said the package won't be back to the depot for pick up until Monday even if I put in a pick up request. The conclusion was, I will see my dress soonest Monday. I figured I will just go pick up after their second delivery attempt fails. But after thinking about it for a bit, I called again and rephrased my question as "I am expecting a package today, but I am not home now, what is the fastest way I can get the package?" The second agent gave me more or less the same answer as the first agent. I hopelessly ended the conversation with her without asking them to do anything to the package. 10 minutes later, I finally got over the obsessing thought of getting the dress today, I decided to be realistic, ask them to redirect the package to work. So I called again to ask DHL to redirect my package. The agent asked me, if I really want to do that since it would take up to Tuesday to receive the package. I was like "hmm......is there any faster way? maybe I can pick it up??" And surprisingly she said that she could page the driver and have him take the package back to the depot TODAY!!!! And I just have to pick it up before 6pm today!!! Yay!!! I am super excited now.
Anyway, I often heard a lot of complaint about courier services. Most of time, I do think ahead and have them deliver to my work address instead. But this time I was kind of thinking I don't want a wedding dress to show up at work and be super anxious to open it. Apparently, I am still anxious either way. Back to the topic, the moral of the story is.....if you can't get what you want from the customer support, just call again and again...finally you will speak with someone nice and not stupid who will help you get something sorted out especially when you are asking for something that is not even remotely complicated.
So I have been anxiously waiting for my dress to be shipped for a few days. Finally I got the tracking number and realized that it will be delivered to our home on Friday.....I mean who knows what time they are coming Friday. I am sure a lot of people have experience like this - always missing the package delivery. Anyway, since I am in such a hurry (not like our wedding is tomorrow) to see the dress, I called DHL and asked them what I can do if I am not home to receive the package. The agent told me that I will get a note indicating when they will try to deliver again and it will definitely be Monday (oh my god, 3 more days to see my dress....) but I will be at work again on Monday anyway. So I asked if I can get it redirected, and he told me it will take very long so I will not likely to see the dress until Tuesday (oh my god, even longer wait). Then I asked if I can just pick it up at the depot, and he said the package won't be back to the depot for pick up until Monday even if I put in a pick up request. The conclusion was, I will see my dress soonest Monday. I figured I will just go pick up after their second delivery attempt fails. But after thinking about it for a bit, I called again and rephrased my question as "I am expecting a package today, but I am not home now, what is the fastest way I can get the package?" The second agent gave me more or less the same answer as the first agent. I hopelessly ended the conversation with her without asking them to do anything to the package. 10 minutes later, I finally got over the obsessing thought of getting the dress today, I decided to be realistic, ask them to redirect the package to work. So I called again to ask DHL to redirect my package. The agent asked me, if I really want to do that since it would take up to Tuesday to receive the package. I was like "hmm......is there any faster way? maybe I can pick it up??" And surprisingly she said that she could page the driver and have him take the package back to the depot TODAY!!!! And I just have to pick it up before 6pm today!!! Yay!!! I am super excited now.
Anyway, I often heard a lot of complaint about courier services. Most of time, I do think ahead and have them deliver to my work address instead. But this time I was kind of thinking I don't want a wedding dress to show up at work and be super anxious to open it. Apparently, I am still anxious either way. Back to the topic, the moral of the story is.....if you can't get what you want from the customer support, just call again and again...finally you will speak with someone nice and not stupid who will help you get something sorted out especially when you are asking for something that is not even remotely complicated.
Thursday, March 03, 2011
More details on Ceremony decoration
I have started the discussion with Kike about the flower arrangement for the ceremony hall, Sponza Palace. I figure it is better to take care of the things that's not time dependent first.
According to what Kike told me, the decoration in Sponza Palace is usually two flowers stands, one at each side of the registrar's table. There will be a small arrangement on the registrar's table and four decorated chairs. The table and chairs will be covered in white clothes. It would look similar to the pictures. I really liked the pillar decoration in second picture. However it requires 8 meters of green garlands and ribbons for each pillar which would be 50 euro x 6 = 300 euro in total. I mean it's nice, but I gotta be realistic here, 300 euro it's more expensive than my wedding gown!! So I gave up on that idea, without even discussing it with Bear. But we decided to have some fresh flower petals on the aisle. It will be a mix of white and dark purple flower petals which will cost 20 euro, much better compared to the 300 euro. I have also asked Kike to prepare our guest some paper confetti to throw at us as we are leaving the ceremony hall.
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Reception Dinner Entertainment
We have decided to cancel the dance floor and DJ due to the small number of guests and lack of interests in dancing among the guests. I hope this is a okay decision. We figure it is rediculous to spend $1200 if no one is going to use the dance floor, plus it would look a bit sad to see an empty dance floor on the photo.
We have decided that we might use the money we saved on dance floor and DJ to hire a videographer to record the whole wedding. We were originally not planning on having the wedding filmed. But after considering that fact some people can't really make to the wedding due to health reason, we have decided we should record the entire wedding and share it with them.
So right now we need to figure out who would be the MC at the reception dinner. We have a suitable person in mind, hopefully he won't reject. Bear and I had a brief discussion last night about what sort of things we can do at the reception as entertainment. Here is the current list:
toasts, cutting cake, bouquet tossing, garter tossing, chinese tea ceremony....
I think we should also play a few games....but I don't have any idea yet. Since we are not going to have a DJ, we also need to research on what songs are appropriate to play at dinner. I love Beattles....other than that I don't have any idea yet :P
We have decided that we might use the money we saved on dance floor and DJ to hire a videographer to record the whole wedding. We were originally not planning on having the wedding filmed. But after considering that fact some people can't really make to the wedding due to health reason, we have decided we should record the entire wedding and share it with them.
So right now we need to figure out who would be the MC at the reception dinner. We have a suitable person in mind, hopefully he won't reject. Bear and I had a brief discussion last night about what sort of things we can do at the reception as entertainment. Here is the current list:
toasts, cutting cake, bouquet tossing, garter tossing, chinese tea ceremony....
I think we should also play a few games....but I don't have any idea yet. Since we are not going to have a DJ, we also need to research on what songs are appropriate to play at dinner. I love Beattles....other than that I don't have any idea yet :P
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Wedding flowers
So wedding flowers....to be honest, as much as I love flowers, I am totally clueless in this area. All I know is that I really like roses. Cliche, but I have no problem admitting that I am sometimes as typical as it can ever get.
Anyway, I understand that I would be the one to know what flowers are for our wedding at the beginning of our planning process (it is not likely Bear will be the one choosing flowers) . For that reason, we picked Kike as our wedding planner, since she is originally a florist. We figure she would be very helpful when it comes to bouquets and decorations.
So recently I have been talking to her about flowers and decorations. At the same time I have been doing a lot of research online, trying to figure out what I really like. There are just too much information online, super overwhelming. At the end, I told Kike our theme colours are dark purple and gold and asked her to give us some suggestions in terms of flowers. She sent back a few pictures for me to look (see the above pictures). I like them all (or I am still clueless), the only idea I have is that I want a tall and semi-sphered top center piece.
As for the bouquet, I "think" I already found something I like but I am not posting the picture so it would be a surprise for everyone. But who knows I might change my mind.
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