Fish Frenzy

We have always had a thing for fish. My fiance grows his own marine tanks complete with corals and fish. He loves to eat fish (and sometimes I cook sea bass for him!). When growing up, I learned how to fold ribbon fish so I folded a bunch for him one valentine's day. We have decided to decorate our gazebo with lots of fish due to these 4 reasons:

1) Our history of fish
2) Fish means "plentiful" (good fortune) in Chinese cultures
3) The idea of flowers on our gazebo just never fully appealed to me
4) I found a fabulous origami cranes inspiration picture that could be replaced by fish

Here is our inspiration (we would only copy the pink/purple/blue due to our wedding colors):

Here was my original sketch (please ignore the orange!):

which quickly got shot down by mom who replied to my email with 1 word: "Ugly!"

Sadness. I later learned that it was the big fish that she thought were horrendously ugly. So our latest idea is to only hang strands of small fish on 7 panels of the gazebo (basically everything but the front panel).

We bought a TON of ribbons but in the end, decided to eliminate all the dark blues and dark purples. We're going for a more pastel look. Here are some results from folding fish last weekend:

If you blow up the top picture, you'll see some *tiny* fish as well. We bought 3/8" ribbons for the *tiny* fish but then realized they would be way too small. So we went out and bought 6/8" ribbons for the slightly bigger but still *small* fish. We'll still use the *tiny* fish to hang a few on our tall centerpieces. I have my florist to thank for that idea!

Here is what 1 panel of the gazebo might look like:

The panels in our gazebo are 50" high and 53" wide. We still haven't figured out how many strands of fish to hang in each panel yet. The fish above are mostly still missing tails!

Here is a close up of a fish with a tail. :) Though...we haven't decided 100% on the type of tail we want yet either.

Overwhelmed

So much to do, so little time! Just a warning that this post may be all over the place as that is my current state of mind. After having 5 consecutive nights of wedding nightmares last week, I'm happy to report that I am temporarily free of nightmares (or at least not any that I remember after waking up). But the work and daytime stress has not subsided. This past week has been a whirlwind of projects and ideas. The following is a list of projects we need to complete (or scratch) by July 10!

1) Finish invitations. It seems like we'll never stop inviting more people! This is a major time sink...I will post about the full invitation suite later.

2) First Dance: We are planning on a Foxtrot dance routine to "Endless Love" by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross. My fiance and I are *not* dancers. We're very close to having 2 left feet. And yet we told our dance instructor to give us fancy moves please! At 4:19 long, we want lots and lots of variety to keep guests entertained. One bit that is really stressing me out though is not only are we having our band play this song, but we're also have 2 friends sing it, and none of us will be able to practice together beforehand! My fiance and I will be practicing to the original soundtrack and crossing our fingers that the band will play it to the dot, that our friends will be able to sing along, and that our feet, bodies, and mind will cooperate and not get thrown off.

3) Program Fans: Not only do I have to finish designing them, but I also need to learn how to use my crop-a-dile to connect the papers and make sure they can fan out! I received some sample eyelets and washers in the mail, and the sweet lady Ann at www.fairelady.com even included a little trial with 10 sheets of paper to show me the concept!

4) Table menus: We had wanted to go fancy with cutouts using our silhouette machine, but this might be toned down for time's sake.

5) Table pictures: We are ordering transparent crystal picture frames (you can see through the picture, how cool is that?). Going to have all the letters of the alphabet each represent something special in our relationship. 24 letters for 24 tables, and the remaining V and Y (our initials) for our sweetheart table. I've chosen most of the pictures already but need to finalize and order.

6) Table favors: We're giving away Kate Aspen mini photo albums with a cover. We'll put a picture representing the table letter in each album and place them on the napkin linens.

7) Placecard holders: We're using tinkerbells with a holder for a card. Might emboss little cow/fish/leaf to represent each person's meal choice, or might forego the embossing and just print if we run out of time.

8) Personalize my bridesmaids presents! I'm staying hush hush about this for now.

9) Ordering fiance's wedding band. We're thinking the fingerprint ring!

10) Folding a ton of ribbon fish to decorate our gazebo with strands of 3D fish! Details later.

11) I want to copy the photo album idea posted by Miss Buttons. Like this: http://www.kissthegroom.com/?p=2958

12) Finalize wedding schedule

13) Finalize mothers' gifts. This is mostly done. Also staying hush about this for now.

14) Finalize father daughter song lyrics. This is a surprise for my daddy!

15) Custom vows!!

16) 36" long sparklers for grand exit. I've already ordered these, just waiting for them to arrive. We better not forget them!

17) Plaque for table seating showing guests where the A-Z tables are

18) Plaque explaining photobooth and photo albums

19) Sample scrapbook sheets to show guests that we want their photos and messages

20) Wedding slideshow/video! (Fiance probably gets full reign of this one)

21) Table assignments

22) Facials. Went for my first one last weekend and spent $850 for a full package and some more. Need to go every 2 weeks or so.

23) I took my girls for dress alterations. Need to make sure everything works out fine.

24) Need to make jewelry for my girls using Swarovski crystal hearts that I bought. First, need to learn!

25) Dress alterations for myself. Went in for my first appointment this past weekend. Need to go back 3 more times.

26) Apply for marriage license.

I keep re-editing this post and adding more items! Is it normal to feel so overwhelmed less than 3 months before the wedding?

Sigh of relief

My lovely maid of honor came to visit this weekend and we had a blast!! But the downside to all the wedding talk and hype is that I've now had 3 consecutive nights of wedding nightmares. I can't quite recall the first 2 nights anymore, but last night was the worst.

To give you some context, I have been worrying for the past couple weeks that my cousin in Hong Kong may not fit into her dress, because 3 girls were borderline 6 and 8 and I ordered 2 8's and 1 6. The other 2 bridesmaids both tried on the 6 and did not fit in it. That, and I freaked out when comparing my cousin's measurements to the actual dress measurements that I took manually. I was originally going to mail her the dress, but decided to have a relative bring it to HK for me. I thought it would be safer and faster than USPS, but I also had a lingering fear that the baggage carrying it would get lost!

Since my relative was scheduled to fly on April 10, it had actually already arrived last night but my cousin left me a voicemail saying she'd have to try it on when she got home from work (which would be morning here). So I went to bed expecting some sort of answer this morning.

In my nightmare, I was panicking because my cousin could not fit into her dress, and she was quiet but visibly upset at me (I was probably acting like a bridezilla). I woke up in a panic with my heart racing this morning, and I quickly reached over to check my gmail on the phone. No email from her. I was really scared that my nightmare would come true and that I would have to rush order a new dress for her. Not only would it cost me more money, but we run the risk of the dress being in a different shade of lavender. Finally, at 3:34pm this afternoon (6:34am in Hong Kong!), I got the long-awaited email from my cousin. Not only does she fit in it, but it's even a bit loose!

I hope this answer breaks my string of nightmares!

edit: make that *4* consecutive nights of wedding nightmares...wonder what tonight will bring!

The generation gap

Lesson learned: Never assume your elders will just accept everything you plan.

My fiance's parents were actually the first folks who received the invitations back in mid February, about 2 months ago. I was just the slight bit disappointed that they didn't jump-on-chair rave about the invitations, but it was positive feedback nonetheless and that was fine by me.

Fastforward 1.5 months to April 2, exactly 99 days before the big day. I get a call from FMIL while at work asking if I could chitchat. I said sure, and she went from one wedding topic to another, making me wonder if she was just bored and needed company. She chatted about the invitations and how many more I had to make. I told her I had finished almost everything already. And then she asked me the oddest question: Are we going to have a red carpet for our ceremony entrance? I said no, red is not in our wedding colors which are lavender, silver, and white. She asked, will we at least have red flower petals? I said no, for the same reason. And then slowly but surely, she started explaining that my FFIL was borderline shocked when he got our lavender invitations, because the color was so weird and un-wedding. At first, I thought it was due to the white/grayish vellum wrap. But no, it was the lavender.

the offending lavender

Then he jumped on speakerphone as well and they proceeded to tell me that all their relatives in Taiwan pretty much disapproved of this unhappy color. And of course, all my dreams of having white bouquets and centerpieces? Out the window. I understand about Chinese people not liking ALL WHITE bouquets because it represents death. But since when did lavender become a criminal color?!?! They have also told me no black, no yellow. And blue lighting? Too cold and sad. Seriously?!?!

I was absolutely peeved. So peeved that at 6pm in my office, I started raising my voice in frustration, explaining to them that I don't want red, that red clashes with the lavender I've chosen, that even my qi pao (Chinese outfit for tea ceremony) is purple! They said that if not red, then at least a really really dark pink, like magenta. Don't get me wrong. I absolutely LOVE magenta/fuschia and love flowers that come in that color. But I just didn't think it would go well with the current color scheme because both lavender and magneta are strong. Not to mention we hired a ridiculously expensive photographer who is perfect with soft, romantic, pastel colors. I totally freaked and asked them whether they wanted me to change the entire color scheme and to rush order new pink bridesmaids dresses for $1000 more. And to my dismay, my FMIL actually said yes, they would happily pay for the difference.

Suffice to say my weekend absolutely sucked. Imagine trying to plan a whole new wedding 3 months out, after planning EVERYTHING around lavender and silver for 1 whole year already. Good news is that my fiance is on my side and thought his parents were out of line. My parents, also Chinese but apparently a lot more modernized, LOVE my invitations and say all their friends and relatives (including my grandfather) also love them and the color choice. Two of my bridesmaids tried to calm me down and sway me from ordering new pink dresses. The current plan is to compromise and sort of meet in the middle. We'll keep the lavender bridesmaids dresses and the purple lighting and silver/lilac linens. Instead of a white/blush bouquet, mine will be all pink. And instead of white bouquets, the bridesmaids will have white/pink. As for the aisle and reception flowers, I originally was thinking a combination of lavender and white, but since my FFIL seems to hate lavender, we're thinking maybe pink/white. I know they hate white, but I need to put my feet down somewhere.

Is this something that a lot of brides go through?

Am I not makeupable?

I don't get it. I don't think I'm ugly. I go about my daily business with no makeup (too lazy!) and I think I look fine. I'm a "go natural" girl, and with the right camera angle and lighting, I can even look cute sometimes. On the rare occasion when I do apply my own makeup, I usually look better than without.

So why is it that it took me 6.5 makeup trials (the 0.5 was a repeat to give one of them a second chance) to finally decide on a MUA? More importantly, why did I come out of a bunch of those trials feeling ugly and bloated and generally like a colorful clown? Granted, I am pickier than most about a lot of things. But makeup is one thing I thought I'd be low key about. After all, I was just going for a natural look. Is it really that hard to apply less makeup? Or maybe it's because after accepting ~$100 from a customer (for just a trial, mind you), the MUA somehow feels like she owes it to the bride to use lots of product (i.e. cake on the makeup)? I know I know, they say that for a wedding, you need more makeup than normal so that it shows up in photographs. I had one MUA tell me that I would look too pale and lifeless without a lot of blush (i.e. rosy pink cheeks). Does that mean I should go delete all the gazillions of pictures of me without ANY makeup on? Can't there be some sort of compromise between natural and just enough makeup for the camera?

At one point, I considered that maybe I'm just not makeupable. Some girls are naturally pretty or have nice features and look hot no matter what MUA you put them through. Other girls may have features that are harder to work with. And maybe I belong in that group. I started wondering which of my features were problematic for the makeup realm. Maybe it's my Asian single eyelids. They're big, but they don't have that natural fold that some lucky folks have. Or it's my hard to curl downward-pointing eyelashes. A couple trials, my eyelashes separated from the fake ones making my side profile look really funny. Or is it my pale skin? I had a couple trials where my face just looked too yellow or cakey or dark. In one trial, I looked so bloated I felt like I had gained 10 pounds. Who knows, maybe I had too much water to drink the night before.

Well the good news is, I finally found a MUA that was able to achieve my natural look. At the end of the trial, I still looked like myself--but just a prettier version. But, I still haven't figured out why it's been such a bumpy road for me, and I'm super anxious how the wedding day makeup will turn out!

I ended up picking Fu-Yi from Beauty Creator. Ignore the hair, as I probably won't be going with this style. Here a picture of how the trial turned out:

And I leave you with some pictures of my makeup trial diasters:

Bloated, cakey, and yellow

Too heavy on the eyes

One eye was darker than the other eye (I think this is after she already tried to fix it)

I finally figured it out

When I applied to be a bee, one of the questions was why I want to be a bee.

I thought about the kind of answer the committee might want to hear--that I was a very giving person and sincerely wanted to help everyone along with wedding planning. Part of that is true. When I have friends who are getting married, regardless of how close I am to them, I am very eager to share tips and advice and anything that could help them along. I've volunteered to be a DOC for several friends already! So in that sense, I do like to give. But is my main motivation for writing on weddingbee to give back to an audience full of to-be brides? The honest answer is if I could only give one answer, that wouldn't be it.

Then I thought about the intellectual answer that the committee might also like--that I am a journalist or scholarly type who loves words. But as anyone who may stumble across my blog knows, I am not even close to being a great writer. I do have a particular writing style though which is me! But in SATs, vocabulary was not my forte. I am more the geeky math type.

So then, what is it? I was really afraid to consider that maybe I'm an attention seeking whore. Maybe I just want the fame that comes with being an online weddingbee celebrity. Maybe I just love myself so much that I love everyone loving my words. Yes, a lot of that is probably true. But hey, I'm not a narcissist at heart!

Tonight, as I was driving to a Macy's wedding registry event, it finally came to me. Here I am, writing to the void because I don't want any of my wedding guests to read about my wedding, less I ruin any surprises for them. I even  created this brand new blog to avoid writing in my existing xanga blog. But, I desperately want to share my lofty ideas and dreams with friends, strangers, anyone who will listen really, even if they're not my real life everyday friends. Weddingbee.com would be the perfect outlet for that. I would have a group of friends who understand and can relate to what I'm going through, and yet I don't have to worry about ruining surprises for my wedding guests. I simply wouldn't mention that I write on there. And for the few that find out, hey, they're probably just as crazy as me and it's okay to let them in on any surprises. :)


I wonder if anyone has been in my shoes? Is there a way for me to attract an audience without exposing myself to wedding guests?

Disclaimer: I did leak this new blog site to a few close friends in the beginning, and because of that, there are some entries that I'm still afraid to write about. I'm guessing no one follows anymore though because after the 4-month hiatus, I didn't make any announcements about coming back.

Evolution of our DIY pocketfold

Warning: Details overload! Don't bother reading the last 6 paragraphs unless you really care about the history of how our DIY pocketfold came to be.

You may have recalled from a previous post that there were several elements I really wanted in our wedding invitations: 1) vellum overlay on cardstock, 2) boarding pass, 3) magnet recipe, 4) personal touch!

The reason I'm dedicating a whole post to our DIY pocketfold is because it has become the backbone of our invitation suite. Here it is:

I will dedicate another post on DIY steps on making the pocketfold above. But for those who might be interested, below are the nitty gritty details of how this pocketfold came to be!

Choosing a size:

I used Mrs. Cupcake's 3rd and 4th tips on DIY invitations as the basis ("when designing, START WITH YOUR ENVELOPES!!!!!" and "Work backwards with dimensions."). Since I really wanted boarding passes (which should be about 8" tall to look good), my invitations were going to be pretty big. A search on envelope sizes at paperandmore.com led to A9 (5.75"x8.75")as the outer envelope. From there it was easy to work backwards. The pocketfold would have to be 5.5"x8.5", which luckily is a standard 8.5"x11" folded in half.

Choosing material:

Pocketfolds don't come in that size, nor do pocketfolds have special pockets for boarding passes. I designed my own template starting with a 11"x17" sheet. I originally wanted to make the main pocketfold using the lavender metallic cardstock from paperandmore.com, but the paper didn't do so well on the multiple folds (too voluminous and slight tearing on the outer folds). Disappointed at first, I soon realized paperandmore.com also carries their #29 vellum in the 11"x17" size (score!!). So I decided to use that instead. But because it's too flimsy on its own, I had the idea of still incorporating the lavender metallic cardstock but on the inside instead. I figured any tears resulting from the single fold down the middle would be hidden by the outer vellum.

Vellum overlay:

With the translucency that comes with vellum and the lavender cardstock underneath, I knew I was one step closer to my vision of "copying" the overlay flower on pink cardstock invitation. On our preliminary wedding website, my fiance had put the words "It started with a promise" on the bottom of the page with an eiffel tower picture. I guess he was referring to the "promise" engagement ring he gave me when proposing in the Eiffel park of Paris. The webpage totally inspired me to write that poem about our engagement. Put 2 and 2 together, and I knew I wanted some sort of overlay -- either poem on Eiffel, Eiffel on poem, or Eiffel and poem on blank cardstock. Unfortunately, the cardstock I wanted was too thick to print on, so I started researching different ways to achieve my goal. I even visited a demonstrator from stampinup.com to get some ideas. The wonderful lady introduced me to the world of heat embossing! I ordered a huge eiffel tower from a1stamps.com (to fill the 5.5"x8.5" as much as possible) and decided to print the poem on the vellum overlay. Originally, I was just trying to test out which shade of purple looked nicest by printing a different shade on each line of the poem. My mom really liked the look of the rainbow colors, so with some tweaking, I used that inspiration as the basis for the final product -- a vertical gradient from light purple to blue for the poem text.

Eiffel tower:

I bought a ton of embossing powders for the eiffel tower. White was too white and some silvers were too dark. I finally decided on a mix of sparkly whites and silvers, which is actually what the eiffel tower really did look like during the white light show that took place right before the proposal. Usually at nights it basks in a soft yellow light, but apparently around 1am every night (or at least when we were there), it has a beautiful sparkly white light show that lasts a few minutes. One of the questions I had during this process was, should we glue the vellum and cardstock together? The obvious answer was NO! We want guests to know the poem overlay and the eiffel tower are separate. We WANT them to lift the vellum and enjoy the beauty of the eiffel on its own, maybe even touch that raised embossing!

Boarding pass slot:

I knew from the get go that I wanted a slit/slot somewhere in the invitation suite. My original idea was to have it on the inside of the invitation, with the boarding pass in the very back. But after showing some friends the draft, they said the boarding pass should bask in its own solo glory. Otherwise people won't even notice the hard work I put into making the slot! And so I moved it to the back of the pocketfold, so that it's the first thing guests see when opening it. As for making the slot itself, I need to thank a wonderful lady at Cranberry Hills for suggesting that I punch 2 holes and use an X-acto knife to cut parallel lines. I bought a long reach 1/8" hold punch which was perfect for my use.

ViviYian heart logo:

Early on while brainstorming wedding logos, I doodled a bunch of designs on an 8.5"x11" blank paper. My fiance and I settled on the scribble heart with a V and Y (our initials) drawn at the top and bottom. Since the initials weren't in-your-face obvious (my brother thought it was just part of the heart design), and since we had blank space on the back of the invitation, I decided to write "vivi" and "yian" on either side to reinforce the initials and remind guests of our website name. And then a flash of brilliance came across me -- this horizontal logo could fit into the invitation edge that peeks out of the envelope, so that it's the first thing guests see when they open it! (unless they use an envelope cutter boohoo).

4 NO-NO's to reach 242

If I had to choose a wedding venue all over again, I'd still pick the same one. It is the only venue out of 22 where my eyes actually teared up during the first visit. Because the mansion itself IS the reception area (as opposed to standard hotel ballroom partitions which can be expanded/shrunk), we have a numbers problem. The max we can accommodate is 242 people, and that's squeezing 10 people per 5' table (small!) with only a couple feet between each table. It also means having 3 tables with less than perfect views. In other words, it's a COZY 242. An ideal number would be closer to 200.

In trying to reach 242, we have performed several big wedding etiquete NO-NO's:

1) We polled guests early on over email to get an idea of who was definitely not coming. The way we phrased it was hey, please let us know your mailing address. But if you already know you can't come, please let us know as our venue has a strict capacity limit. I thought we were doing them a favor by giving them an out if they're for sure not coming. That way, we don't send them an invite and they don't have to feel obligated to give us a gift. Several people who weren't coming still asked for our addresses to send us a gift, but we replied politely saying thanks for the well wishes but a gift isn't necessary. In retrospect, I wonder how many of our guests felt we were rude for our preliminary RSVPs?

2) Our second no-no was polling parents with kids to see who wouldn't mind having their kids babysat in a separate room at the wedding reception (if it came down to that). While we could have made the wedding adult-only, we felt it was rude to turn away kids especially for friends traveling from afar. The answer depended on several components. Some kids are young enough to sit in parents' laps. Others are old enough to require high chair, yet too young to be left with a babysitter. Regardless of age, parents have varying degrees of attachment and trust for babysitters.

3) Early RSVP dates didn't seem to be a no-no at first, not until my parents said so anyway. They're forcing us to give their guests a later RSVP date just to be polite. Because of our tier system, lack of a save-the-date,  and the fact that each invitation is handmade with lots of time, we have decided to invite guests in waves starting with guests who live far away. The first wave had an RSVP date of 3 months before the actual wedding date. I figured for those who have to buy international or cross-country plane tickets, they should know within that timeframe whether they can make it right? But is it rude? I'm not sure if I'll ever know what our guests really thought of this.

4) The biggest no-no is giving varying answers to guests with +1. Our general lines of thinking were: we don't want guests to be alone and not know anyone at the wedding, and we want guests with husbands, fiances, and serious boyfriends/girlfriends to be able to bring their SOs. But we've broken that rule a few times along the way (mostly to decrease our count except for one case), and I've had several awkward and hard conversations with friends. I have a group of 4 childhood friends in LA. I'm not close to any of their husbands/fiances/boyfriends, all 4 are local to the wedding venue (and don't have the trouble of traveling by plane), they're all good friends with each other, and I didn't want to play favorites by inviting one of their SOs and not the rest. Because they come as a package of 4, it actually could make a difference in meeting our max. I let them know early about the space issue and that I may not be able to invite their SOs. I told them I'd send them invitations last in case we have space. I've also had awkward conversation with someone who wanted to bring a date just because their ex was bringing an SO, and another friend who wanted to bring a sibling. It was really tough to explain that I would rather have one of *my* friends attend than a stranger or acquaintance who's not even an SO. Maybe I'm not sympathetic enough to know why certain people feel the need for a support system at our wedding, but sometimes I wish they'd put themselves in my shoes and trust that I *would* let them bring a date if we have space, but just please don't force a space from me now. On the other hand, I have one friend who I couldn't make a bridesmaid due to some girl politics (she had a falling out with another bridesmaid, and I wasn't made aware of how much she really wanted to be a BM until too late). I felt bad about the whole bridesmaid thing, I know she can't really drive long distances by herself, and she doesn't have any close friends attending my wedding. So, I've decided to let her bring a +1 even though she doesn't have a boyfriend. I know it sounds like a double standard, but it's sort of like college admissions--we have general guidelines but each person needs to be considered on a case by case basis, with the overall goal that we can't accept more than 242! Or maybe it's more like college financial aid. :)

So for the past 6 months or so, and especially now that invitations are starting to roll in, I've been tweaking my excel sheet numbers to see how close we are to the maximum, at the same time trying to predict who will actually RSVP yes and no from the remainder. My hope is that we'll be able to invite my childhood friends' SOs, accommodate all kids in the same room, allow friends who want to bring that +1 that is not an SO, and maybe even fit in a few of our tier two guests (highly doubt it though). While I know we absolutely need at least 10-20 NOs, I know I'll still be really sad if/when people respond "regretfully declines".

I wonder from a guest's point of view, how serious these no-no's are?

Invitation preview - eiffel

As mentioned before, Yian proposed to me in the Eiffel park of Paris so we tried to work that into our invitation with a poem about his proposal. Imagine the following poem in a top to bottom gradient of purple to blue text centered on a semi-transparent vellum overlay:

It all started with a promise

In the Eiffel park of Paris

On bicycles, the two of us

A man on bench, a pair of ducks

Tower lit up for all to see

Then Yian Chuin got down on one knee

Took out a heart ring, words galore

"Love more, learn more, and travel more"

That's what it means, the hole in heart

Strengthens our bond, never apart

Please join us, the tenth of July

Witness our vows under the sky

Right below the poem a little to the right is a picture of this Tiffany heart ring which my fiance proposed with:

The vellum above is overlayed on top of the following lavender cardstock that has an embossed Eiffel tower:

I had ordered a custom eiffel tower rubber stamp from a1stamps.com (they are awesome!). I used my Bidex Rotary Trimmer to score the 8.5"x11" lavender cardstock and fold it in half. I then used versamark slow-drying ink and stamped on the center of the right half. Then I poured the embossing powder (which was a mix of whites and silver) all over the image and tapped the excess back into the tray. Final step is to go over the entire image with the embossing heat tool to melt the powder and make it rise. The ink actually takes a long time to dry, so to speed things up I stamped 10 cardstocks at a time and then heat embossed them back to back.

In a future post (as I am visiting Yian in LA this weekend), I'll share with you the vellum pocketfold in conjunction with this cardstock!

Invitation preview - Sticker labels

Here's a sneak peak at our personalized wedding invitations...well more like, just a sneak preview of the sticker that goes on the outside. :) First impressions count!

I stamped scrap vellum paper with either our "Handmade" or "Handmade because you're worth it!" stamps using versa mark slow-drying ink. Then I poured embossing powder, heat embossed, ran them through a Xyron 2.5" sticker machine, cut them out, and voila! Maybe not as fancy as our alternative faux wax seals, but hey, this simple sticker tells guests that our invitations are handmade! And, another hidden benefit is it saves me 20 cents per invitation at the post office because these stickers are flat (as opposed to faux wax seals).

In another post, I'll show you the faux wax seals that I made with thick embossing powder. Those were a pain to make. Each required 3 layers of embossing powder and then I had to deal with issues like a) the hot goo sticking to the stamper, b) the seals curling when cooled, c) the seals cracking when bent, the d) the sticker adhesive not binding as strongly. Mostly because of the time constraint, only the first 30 or so invitations got those seals. The rest have so far been getting these babies instead. So simple yet...still nice in my opinion!

My 2 favorite colors so far have been the black and the shimmery blue/purple/silver in the top right corner. I think the remaining invitations will get one of these 2 colors!

If you could stamp any saying or logo on the outside, what would it be?

Flowers for the dresses

I'm back now after a 4-month hiatus. :) I doubt anybody still follows my blog but it's all good. Sadly, Miss Taco has a new identity but I'm sure she has a great story to tell and I wish her all the best!

I'm happy to report that the bridesmaids' dresses as well as my dress are here! I've decided not to post my actual wedding dress since I want it to be a surprise for my fiance and any guests that may stumble onto my blog. The bridesmaid's dress is the real deal, though I've kept her anonymous. I've been thinking about flowers to go with the dresses. I'm actually quite fond of magenta/fuschia, but somehow, those colors seemed to clash with the bridesmaids dress colors. I guess I should have thought about that earlier when picking out our wedding colors! In any case, I emailed my bridesmaids about a dozen or so pictures (all like the following but with different color combinations and my actual dress), and all of them really like the following flowers:

So there you have it! We're going to have all white flowers for the bridesmaids, and a white/blush peony bouquet for myself. One of my bridesmaids thought the all white looked too 'plain', so I think we might spice it up by have a few different types of white flowers for variety and texture. But for me, I looove peonies (something I did not know before wedding planning started!) so mine will be all peony. There's something about the closed and half open ones that is just so soft, fluffy, and romantic. My mom, who was initially against white flowers because they symbolize death in Chinese culture, is now on board as well. I think she realized after seeing my combinations with other more colorful flowers that they just didn't go as well with my choice of color for bridesmaids dresses. And plus, it's not ALL white. Mine has pink in it, and the bridesmaids--well--their dresses are plenty colorful enough!

If only I could be a T&CO

If I could be a bee, I would be miss taco!

http://www.weddingbee.com/2009/10/28/brainstorming-a-new-generation-of-bees-patterns-and-crafts/

I've been checking my email every day, anxiously awaiting that one special email. So many things need to line up for my dream to come true! I'm guessing whoever is assigned to my blog (Mrs. Penguin?) has to like me, like my writing. And then the committee needs to like me. And if in the smallest chances I get accepted, I'm hoping the taco icon is still available!

Why taco? The first weekend that kyzen8 visited me after we became official, we were chilling on my green futon. He noticed I was wearing a necklace with a solid heart and reached out to look at it. When he flipped it around, he was like "Taco?" I was all confused what he meant, until I noticed it spelled T&CO (Tiffany & Co)! I would have taken a picture of the back of the necklace, but I have since lost it at a massage parlor in Shanghai which was so so sad (we even got the police involved because it had such high sentimental value for me). Here's the front of the necklace:

Tiffany Etoile heart pendant

Also, one of my favorite foods in the world is the Taco Bell chalupa! I saw this cute taco pouch at a crafts store the other day:

Oh please let me bee! What would you want to bee?

Eiffel-inspired invitation cover

I feel like a little girl in Disneyland. It's so exciting to be buying and expecting packages for my DIY invitation project. So far, I have a rotary trimmer, cutting/perforating/scoring blades, a stack of trial paper, and an unopened printer that just arrived today.

Unfortunately, I discovered that the #105 metallic cardstock was too thick as a standalone for my complicated pocketfold; the edges were peeling along the folds. Fortunately, I found that the #29 white translucent vellum paper works well as a pocketfold overlayed on metallic lavender card stock (any peeling would be hidden behind vellum). Oh how I love paperandmore.com paper and even moreso their customer service (prompt, helpful emails)!

My brain started churning. At first I wanted to print a picture of a purple daisy with yellow center (like the invitation I was previously inspired by).

But it seemed a bit lonesome on its own, yet a bit random to incorporate with text. The latest thought is to buy a big eiffel tower rubber stamp and overlay (or underlay) it with a poem. Here's a rough draft that I just came up with telling our proposal story:

It all started with a promise
In the eiffel park of paris
On bicycles, the two of us
A homeless man, a pair of ducks
Tower lit up for all to see
And kyzen got down on one knee
Took out a heart ring, words galore
"Love more, learn more, and travel more"
That's what it means, the hole in heart
Strengthens our bond, never apart
Please join us, the tenth of july
Witness our vows under the sky

Now imagine it overlayed on top of this:

Though more realistically, it will be a stamp like this (because the #105 cardstock is advertised as not compatible with home printers):

Do you have suggestions for what color ink, what color stamp, and what to print on the white (slightly gray) vellum top, vellum back, or metallic lavender card stock top?

Color palette

Growing up, I've always loved bright, screaming pinks like magenta and fuschia. Pink is such a versatile wedding color because flowers come in many different shades of it. But after wearing my 2nd pink bridesmaid dress in a wedding, I was thinking maybe I would do something different for my own wedding. And after my 4th pink bridesmaid dress, I decided no pink for sure! Although, pink would be a convenient color if I wanted to have my 4 bridesmaids each wear one of my existing dresses.

So what color was next? Purple. Specifically, lavender. It's always been up there as one of my favorite colors next to magenta and fuschia. I've always loved the look of lavender fields. Aren't these pretty?

Green looks pretty nice with the lavender. But I've never really liked green clothes nor flowers. So green was out. I do love silver though. So I knew for sure silver and lavender would be part of my wedding colors. I also added white to balance out some of the purples.

Still, in the back of my mind was my friend's warning that lavender and silver would look too prom-ish. Was lavender overwhelming my wedding? Especially with lavender linens and lighting and flowers, I did at one point feel like the room would be over-saturated with purples. So then I decided to have alternating purple and blue uplights to vary the mood. Brown was also a color I couldn't avoid because the barebone reception room is basically a brown palette with brown furniture, brown staircase, brown chiavari chairs, and dark patterned carpet. I was intially worried that brown wouldn't go well with purple, but now I'm thinking they might look okay. As for linens, the guest tables will all have silver table linens with lavender napkins. Only the sweetheart table will have lavender table linens with silver napkins. That way there would be more silver than lavender, and the lights would also reflect better. And my latest thought is to add some blue to all the flowers. Actually, part of me is thinking yellow flowers for the bridesmaid bouquets. But I have my doubts about the yellow so for now flowers will be a mix of white, lavender, and blue.

Here's my latest wedding color palette:

Does brown clash with all the other colors? What colors should my bridesmaids' bouquets be if their dresses are lavender?

Hush *mush* dilemma

(Title change -- I gave kyzen8 strict instructions not to read my blog though I send him links to individual posts sometimes. Don't want "Mushroom" to show up in the list of titles on the bottom!)

My kyzen8 is really cute sometimes. How many other guys out there would request 1-up mushroom cupcakes for a wedding cake? I had my heart set on another wedding cake (to be discussed later), but decided to surprise him with a 1up grooms cake! Prior to getting engaged, I had never even heard of a grooms cake. I actually think it's a silly idea to have a whole separate cake that takes attention away from the main wedding cake. But kyzen8 deserves to have something he can call his own!

So I discussed our options with Misty at Briarmist Cakes. She can do a 1-up mushroom cake that roughly has the following dimensions:
Base diameter: 7-8"
Mushroom cap diameter: 11-12"
Height: 9-10"

The grooms cake will sit atop a baby grand piano that is next to our sweetheart table (the wedding cake will be on a separate table flanking the other side). The dilemma is I think a singular 1up mushroom will look dinky on the ~5 foot wide piano top. So then I thought maybe I can pair it up with a red super mushroom for a boy-and-girl look, or have a bunch of mini super mushrooms surrounding it. They're both so cute that I'm having a hard time deciding!

Super mushroom (girl) and 1-up mushroom (boy):

http://www.chuchurocketeer.net/?tag=mushroom

1-up mushroom flanked by mini super mushrooms:

http://www.boardgamenews.com/dyu/Bday1.jpg

Which do you like better?

Dress B

Contrary to what you might think, this post is not about my dress (which will be secret for now!). I'm happy to announce that I will be buying Dress B (the one in which I had my "this is it!" moment) for all my girls. Dress B was by far the favorite for 2 of the bridesmaids and would have also been the favorite for the 3rd bridesmaid had it not been for the "troublesome" corset back. I think "trouble" is a small price to pay for beauty though! It turns out that Sophi Tolli used to work for Maggie Sottero (the maker of my dress), which makes sense now because they both specialize in corset backs. Too bad my 4th bridesmaid lives all the way in Hong Kong and won't be able to try it on. I even checked the Sophia Tolli site to see if they have stores there but no luck. But we already have plenty of data points to go by and I'm sure she'll look fabulous in it as well.

Here is the official website and picture of this dress:

http://www.sophiatolli.com/CollectionProductDetail.aspx?cname=special_occasions&did=0&pid=504908&year=2009&season=Fall&

Sophia Tolli BY2991T

My MOH (ironically also the tallest) pointed out that we should definitely shorten the lengths because otherwise it makes you look shorter. I'm thinking middle of knee cap (like official picture above) might be the best look. Still plenty of time to decide though.

For color, I am picking lavender. Here's another dress by Sophia Tolli just to see the lavender color:

I think we're going to just keep the neckline as is with the small scoop. Others have successfully convinced me that having a slight contrast from my dress (which has a sweetheart neckline) is not a bad idea.

Mockup invitations

Over a hearty meal of butter chicken, lamb saag, garlic naan, and basmati rice, my ex-roommate (who happens to be one of my best friends) commented "There you go again!" She was referring to wedding invites, which I previously was very "whatever" about, and which was now my latest obsession. I had decided early on to eliminate married women from my wedding party, otherwise she would be right up there with me on my wedding day. Though a bit sad, I think it's a good thing I made that decision because since then, 2 of the candidates (including her) have gotten pregnant, and 1 may very well get pregnant between now and the wedding.

So last weekend, I had a wedding invitation appointment in LA at JC Printing. I was expecting to be blown away by creativity and uniqueness. Instead, as I flipped through 3 8-inch thick sample albums of invitations, it seemed like I was mostly just seeing the same invitations over and over again, each a different variation of paper, color, text. And gosh, how the prices add up. Every single set of inserts, envelopes, etc, was yet another add-on with its own price point. Since my venue has a strict capacity limit and I am planning on sending invites in waves, having different printed RSVP dates would also cost me more (for example, 2 batches of 75 is more expensive than 1 batch of 150). A little bit disappointed, I left the store, promising to return with my parents on a future date (but knowing I probably wouldn't).

Later that afternoon, I happened upon Paper Source in Pasadena. That store is a gem for someone in my shoes. They too had albums of wedding invites, but I still felt like the invitations weren't unique or me enough. The store had rows and columns of all sorts of different papers and materials; so much eye candy everywhere! And so was born the thought of DIY (which said friend above did for her own weddings and who is a great source of inspiration for me).

For some reason, I was fixated with the idea of a booklet of tearout paper, much like a boarding pass, checkbook, or coupon book. I thought it would be fun. Upon researching it online, I was disappointed to find out that the boarding pass had already been done before (http://www.ayleebits.com/2006/06/10/diy-boarding-pass-save-the-date/). On the positive side, it meant I could use other people's existing templates instead of starting completely from scratch.


I also decided I liked vellum. To be fair, at JC Printing I did find a really cute and unique vellum invitation (but it's probably a little too small for my parents' tastes):

I'm not sure yet if and how I will incorporate vellum into my DIY invitations, but I love that see-through envelope with a picture of a flower!

The 3rd thing I really wanted to include was our original idea for save-the-dates, which we ended up not doing because we didn't want to commit to inviting everyone early on (due to capacity issue), and didn't want to only send to select people. The idea was a magnet of our favorite recipe! Instead of just taking up fridge space, we wanted the save-the-date to be useful for guests (if they want to try our recipe).

This mockup invitation includes the boarding pass and magnet save-the-dates, but due to the particular size of A9 envelopes I'm thinking of using, not sure if I'll be able to find the right colored vellum envelope. I'm thinking of using vellum for the map though, which would probably be placed right behind the magnet. In the images below, imagine the white pocketfold cover in silver, and the RSVP envelope in lavender. I would consider purchasing pocketfolds instead of creating my own especially since they're cheap to begin with, but I really want that extra slit pocket for the boarding pass which ready-made ones don't have. I'm thinking of using the small tearout portion of the boarding pass as RSVPs. There would be 1 boarding pass per invited guest (hence a couple would receive 2 boarding passes, tailored with their names).

Here is my mockup (credit for boarding pass goes to Aylee Bits):

Yes, boarding pass and recipe magnet do seem kind of random for a wedding invitation. I want to write something on there to tie them together. Note sure what I'll write yet, but a boarding pass really does represent the relationship of kyzen8 and silverbuggy, who have been together for 6.5+ years, all long distance of flying back and forth 2-3 weekends a month. Doesn't hurt that we both love to travel as well. And recipe? Well that one is easy. We love to eat!

Eat-at-home boy

After an 8am start to a long 12 hour day (6 hours driving) visiting 1 linen company, 2 dress stores, and 2 wedding cake bakeries, my MOH and I were both completely exhausted. But she decided to come in to my fiance's apartment while I showed her pictures of cake toppers and dresses online. My fiance called at 8pm after his equally exhausting 13 hour work shift and asked what we should do about dinner. Feeling slightly distracted and secretive because I was showing MOH THE dress, I hurriedly said "I don't know, just come home first." Knowing me well, fiance smelled something fishy and said "What are you hiding? Awww, you cooked dinner didn't you? You cooked for me!" with this really giddy, hopeful voice, to which I felt bad and got incredibly defensive, scolding him for not realizing that we had an extremely long day and just got home ourselves!

The next day, fiance was working another 13 hour shift. I had a couple wedding appointments, including one in which I bought THE dress! I also visited a couple wedding invitation stores and did some clothes shopping. Feeling pretty tired at 5pm, yet knowing how disappointed my fiance was the previous day, I decided to go shopping for groceries. Around 8pm, the food was almost ready when fiance called and asked what to do about dinner. He suggested going for dumplings to which I said okay. I purposely made myself sound more tired and annoyed than I actually was, and he kept asking why I sounded so tired, and my repeated response was "just come home!" (and leave me alone so I can finish cooking!). When he was close to home, he called me and exclaimed "Come on out!". Panicked, I told him I needed him to come in because I clogged the toilet (his toilet clogs pretty frequently). And when he came in--SURPRISE!

I had prepared marinated cucumber, a spare ribs + special potato + squid balls + fish tofu soup, chicken oil rice, and drunken chicken. It was my first time making my aunt's yummy recipe for drunken chicken and I thought it turned out pretty well. Unfortunately, my fiance hates anything with alcohol in it and didn't enjoy it as much at all. He wanted me to make sober chicken instead of drunken chicken in the future! He was telling me that growing up, he rejected any of his mom's dishes that contained alcohol. We joked about how our future kids would probably also hate this dish, and he broke out in a wicked laugh! Sigh. Here's the dish that I *love* and would like to perfect, but sadly I won't get to cook it too often unless I want to eat it all by myself:

The take home of this story is that my fiance loves to eat home cooked meals. And while I admit I go through lazy phases when I just want to eat out all the time, I did and do get a nice gush of lovey-dovey feelings whenever I see his reaction to my cooking. He loves when I exhibit the more domesticated side of myself. And I like that he likes me to be domestic, because that says a lot about what kind of husband and father he will be in the future too! It's moments like these that I really love my kyzen8.

Dainty bling bling

Early on in my ring search, I fell in love with the look of the Tiffany Novo:

Problem #1: For the size and quality diamond I wanted, this was out of kyzen8's budget. Problem #2: I wanted a 6-prong round brilliant cut instead of their cushion cut. Tiffany custom route? Try 6+ month wait and $$$ which we already didn't have to begin with.

I then fell in love with Blue Nile Sweetheart:

Unfortunately, our diamond was too big for this setting which can carry a max of 1.15 carats.

Next up was Blue Nile Nouveau which seemed like a pretty good copy of the Tiffany Novo:

We actually ended up ordering this ring and matching band without the center diamond being set. I was planning on sending it back with my center diamond if it was a good match. I even planned on "settling" for the 4-prong instead of the 6-prong that I wanted. The rings looked nice separately and had just the right amount of bling, but together they were too chunky on my short fingers. :( The engagement ring was 2.2mm and the wedding band was 2.3mm. This is when I started examining the Tiffany Novo closer and decided it too was a tad too thick at 2.0mm.

My next love was the Gabriel Novo which was advertised as 1.8mm wide:

Gosh, this ring looked so nice on pricescope, but I went to a local store that had it in white gold and it looked dull. The camera flash brings out the bling in the pictures above, but in person the diamonds (sized at 0.05 pointers) covered too little of the width and just didn't look good.

Next in line were various rings from Excel Diamonds and James Allen, which I paid to have samples shipped to me. Here's an example:

Maybe it's the nature of how samples are, but the quality just wasn't that good. Those were quickly crossed off the list. I was very interested in the petite cathedral from White Flash and Brian Gavin:

I wanted the head to be replaced by 6-prongs. But then I saw more closeup pictures and got turned off by how the prongs looked irrespective of how many there were. I also decided I didn't really like the cathedral look where the sides of the shank taper up and end in thin air.

At this point, I pretty much gave up hope of finding any ready-made settings. Here's when I entered the realm of custom rings: Maytal Hannah, Bridget Durnell, Mark Morrell, and Leon Mege. I interviewed Maytal Hannah in LA and she was very personable. But the work she showed me was very antique with lots of intricate details, whereas I wanted simple and elegant. She also wasn't able to pull up any 6-prongs of previous work so I wasn't confident she would be able to pull that off with the dainty look I wanted. I also met up with Bridget Durnell (also in LA) but was not that impressed by her pave settings.

The final 2 contenders were Mark Morrell and Leon Mege. Let me just say they are both highly respected on pricescope forums. I absolutely ADORE Mark's fancy torchiere:

I am still in love with it!! In fact, I'm trying to convince my mom to let me reset one of her diamonds in it. I didn't pick Mark for 2 reasons: 1) While he does do custom work and could make the ring thinner, he is not comfortable making it any thinner than 2.0mm due to his technique of making rings. 2) His schedule was fully booked through end of July when I talked to him in May, and I really didn't want to wait that much longer for the engagement ring to complete since engagement was in March!

That's how we decided to go with Leon Mege, THE God of micropave and really all things pave. Here was our inspiration from his site, though I knew I wanted the brightcut pave changed:

http://www.artofplatinum.com/4images/details.php?image_id=103

Before meeting with Leon in NYC during Memorial weekend, I studied his mushroom pave, brightcut pave, v-cut pave, millegraine, etc. The one thing that clouded my mind was he seemed offended when I asked him to "copy" the Tiffany Novo. In fact, he claimed to hate that design which scared me since it was my inspiration. It's funny how much the guy seems to dislike Tiffany's based on his description of his tulip prongs for the ring above: "For those of you who are fans of "Tiffany" style six prongs setting. The difference is - our version looks elegant and done by hand."

Leon was also quite rude and abrupt on the phone. But I decided to swallow my pride because I trusted fellow pricescopers' advice. kyzen8 and I flew to NYC and carried the diamond all over town with us and then had a 2-hour chat with Leon in person about all the details of the ring, emphasizing on the thinness and the fact that we wanted the engagement ring and wedding band to sit flush next to each other. Leon was the perfect man for thin bands as he regularly makes 1.6mm wide rings for people. We ended up with a platinum 6-prong tulip with a slightly flattened gallery (to allow flushness) on a 1.6mm-wide band with melee diamonds 3/4 down on each side set as a cross between mushroom pave and v-cut pave. We also got a matching eternity diamond band. We liked the look of mushroom pave where the diamonds go all the way to the edge. But since I plan on wearing the e-ring and w-band together, I didn't want the diamonds to scratch metal. I didn't like the side look of v-cut pave though which has more protection on the sides. So that's why Leon recommended something in between. We wanted 3/4 way for e-ring so that diamonds would show if ring spins partially but it would be resizeable. The wedding band needed to be eternity (not resizeable) because it doesn't have a diamond to stop it from spinning 360 degrees. As for the size of the melee diamonds, I kept thinking bigger was better and even considered increasing the width to 1.8mm, but Leon said with micropave the cost of labor is much higher than the cost of diamonds, and smaller is actually more labor intensive. The most important thing to him was to create a ring that looks good, and he recommended 1.6mm. For a while there we seemed to be speaking different languages because I was trying to emphasize a minimum diamond weight (i.e. 1.5 pointers) whereas Leon just cared about the width of the ring which in essence is the width of the diamond since he likes to have very little metal show.

Here is our baby, which I received from kyzen8 on July 30 (4+ months after original proposal) with another proposal. This time it was caught on video by my mommy! :)

Leon is actually a really sweet and charismatic guy in person and I would totally do business with him again. For micropave/pave work, I would go with Leon hands down. But if you like the more romantic, fluid look, I say Mark! Actually, you can't go wrong with either.

Would you rather have a say in your setting or leave the decision to your fiance?