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With four months to go, we’re moving full steam ahead! Here’s a post to catch you all up on what’s been happening in my neck of the woods.

{Photo from here}

After a long debate and many nights of arguments ending in “harumpf!”, we booked our tickets to Japan for our honeymoon. We plan to spend 10 days, half of them in Tokyo, half of them in Kyoto. (For anyone who is researching honeymoons, the ladies and gents of EAD suggested some fabulous locales in this post!) The honeymoon, by far, has produced the most amount of conflict in our relationship out of any other aspect in the planning process. We weren’t seeing eye to eye on many things.

Mostly I was getting stressed out about our dollar not stretching in more expensive cities that he wanted to visit, and I really did not want to stay in hostel-like conditions on our honeymoon to compensate for high airfare prices. He finally swayed me by promising no hostel-like conditions (still to be determined where we’ll stay…), sending me a ramen guide from the NY Times, and noting that I would get to 1. visit the Studio Ghibli Museum, 2. see some Hiroshige prints that I studied in college, and 3. be surrounded in kawaii. I started to get excited too, despite all the arguing and hair that was pulled. Maybe I’ll see you there Abby!

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Besides the obvious (getting married to the love of your life!) what are your top priorities for your wedding day?

I am terrified of utter and complete chaos, and many of our family members and friends will be helping with the details, which may lead to more chaos since everyone will be so busy. I’m a fan of planning ahead (not that I needed to tell you that,) and started to break out our good ‘ol pal Excel to map out where people will be, who is doing what, and when the whole shebang will begin. While I was typing, I made a mental list of things I want to do on my wedding day. Here’s what I’ve got so far.

1. Sleep in until 10.

Or at least until 9. 10 would be ideal though! I am not a morning person and they don’t call it “beauty sleep” for nothing. I also have the privilege of staying here the night before and plan to take advantage of the fact that I can have some rest and relaxation before the big day.

2. Eat.

I’m told that brides forget to eat in between the hustle and bustle, and that often times the couple doesn’t get to eat during the reception! *Cry* Our caterer assured me that they would make us lunch boxes in case we’re too busy to sit down and eat, but it would be great if I could eat it while it’s nice and hot. Mental note, drop everything and eat something so I do not faint, preferably food that tastes GOOD.

3. Have alone time. Run, blog, do something alone.

I’m a fan of alone time, and I imagine wanting at least an hour of it on that day to self-reflect and just chill. When I used to be in cities that allowed me to walk, I’d put my iPod on and just zone out. It used to be my favorite way to explore a museum.

4. Have alone time with the boy.

This might be a weird analogy, but this past Thanksgiving, the boy and I made our first turkey. We worked on it for two straight days, we bought the materials together, basted it together, and religiously watched the oven together. When it came out popping hot and juicy, we were so excited that we hugged and kissed each other and then proceeded to cuddle just admiring the turkey and being really happy that we didn’t burn it.

The wedding day is like that turkey. I know having some alone time away from the hullabaloo of everyone will be needed to sit back and reflect and admire the years we’ve been together and the ginormous party we just planned together.

5. Have FUN

I’m so excited to dance, eat cupcakes, spend time with my nearest and dearest, take a gazillion pictures with my friends and family, and stumble back to the hotel room to swap stories with my HUSBAND. No hyperventilating or crying please, we’d like to avert those at all costs.

What are your priorities for your wedding day?

We are going to have 17 dozen Sprinkles Cupcakes. 4 black and white, 4 vanilla, 4 peanut butter chocolate, 3 red velvet, and 2 coconut, for a total of 204 cupcakes. I cannot wait! Now the problem is finding a way to display them.

I just bought two red cake stands from Target for $20 each (because of Valentine’s Day, our colors are everywhere!) and am continuing the research. I’m on a cake stand roll, so I thought I would share some of my finds for anyone looking for cake stand inspiration.

{Whitney Smith makes all of these cake stands in her ceramics studio in Oakland, CA. Check out all of her pieces, she is one talented artist! Bird cupcake stand, Whitney Smith, $38}

{Oooh la la! These beauties from Clara French Ceramique are gorgeous. Rental prices range from $45-$95, and prices start at $160 to purchase.}

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This is the double happiness symbol I have been working with for our Chinese invitations. I purchased it on iStock. Invites to be revealed at a later date!

Lately I have been harping on how complicated our wedding(s) is(are) getting. To quickly recap, we have two events: a ceremony and reception in San Diego, and a big fat Chinese banquet in Sacramento. Guest count is constantly rising, with the number for the banquet running over 300 guests. And 300 is the minimum, not an overestimate. 

My head spun even more when I was trying to figure out what to do about invitations, and was the point in which I realized just how complicated “getting married” can be. I can do some graphic design, and I was planning to make my invitations with my gocco. After realizing that we would need two sets of invitations for our two events, one of them being translated into Chinese, and some people receiving both invites, my head almost popped off. I made the decision to forgo gocco, and just design both invites in InDesign and have them digitally printed. Just typing that out sounds easy enough, but the Chinese translation, getting the right double happiness symbol for the banquet invitation, and then making the invite for the San Diego event to match our save the date and website…enough to make this girl’s brain shut down, only to wake up saying “wedding? I’m sorry, what wedding?”

When I stop and think about this complicated array of festivities and celebration, I realize that it’s actually very special. The boy and I are bicultural as Asian Americans, both the children of immigrants, thus the amalgamation of a tea ceremony with Sprinkles cupcakes, a roasted pig with pasta salad, multiple dress changes, and a wedding playlist with mostly American music (and some Canadians…*wink*.) I like how we are incorporating so many aspects from both cultures, even if it means ramming my head into my scanner and yelling at my computer.

I know I’m not the only one since our readership is probably a cornucopia of different cultures, heritage, and traditions. What traditions/customs are you and your partner incorporating into your wedding?

[Tom, who made your wedding suit?]

It is so hard to find a good fitting suit for the short thin man in the States. I know, because the boy and I covered some serious ground in San Diego and the OC, only to realize that everything is way. too. big. What was even more frustrating is that salesmen tried to convince us that suits that clearly did not fit in the shoulders were perfect on him. Sorry Hugo Boss, we’re not shelling out two thousand on a suit only to have it pulled apart for alterations.

[Our mission? A blue slim-cut suit, similar to this one out of Martha Stewart Weddings. Suit from Richard James; photo from Martha Stewart Weddings]

“This is how a suit is supposed to fit,” they would tell me at each store.  Granted that I do not wear suits, and I am not a professional tailor or even know how to mend loose buttons, but even I knew that the 36S (the smallest most stores carried) didn’t fit. Nothing was proportional to the boy’s frame, it looked like he was swimming in someone else’s clothes. Finally, honest salesmen at Bloomingdale’s and theory told us the truth after seeing the boy in the smallest jacket they carried. We had two choices: get it tailored or hit up the boys department. So we began our hunt.

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My party shoes

I’m sorry, but the month of December ate me and then wouldn’t let me out of its stomach. But now I’m back, with…drum roll please… SIX MONTHS left until July 3rd!! Woohoo!! Summer 2010, here we come. :)

Since I’ve been M.I.A., here are some updates.

* I ate my first slice of yule log over the holidays. It had this cute snowman on top!

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[The inside of the tent with yellow and white lanterns, lanterns are 24 inches]

We have decided to have about 30-50 paper lanterns in the tent to fill the space and add lighting. This was a slightly tough decision, because our venue won’t let us put the lanterns up ourselves. Someone who is licensed and insured needs to do the dirty work for $350. Ouch.  So although paper lanterns sound like a cheap option for decorating, they are in fact not going to be cheap for us at all. I feel as though we had few choices, because we can’t hang any lighting up there ourselves, so it was either pay the fee, or go without any pretty lighting in the tent.

Since we have now committed ourselves to this extra invoice fee, I need your help. These are the colors I am thinking about for the tent:

[Paper lanterns from Luna Bazaar]

Those are the colors that match our color scheme, but I was thinking maybe even more colors would be fun, like in this amazing inspiration board (look in row 3). (Keep in mind, this is our inspiration, and this is our website.)

Here’s where you can help! Which option do you like?

A. To h%^& with a color scheme! Go with more color, it will look perdy.
B. Keep to the three colors, it will make the decor look more unified.
C. There are too many colors, I would only do one of those colors or two.

A few years ago, I took a letterpress class at the San Francisco Center for the Book (lovely center, I recommend it to anyone in the SF Bay Area!) and that’s when I fully realized why letterpress costs the ka-ching! amount that it does. It took me nine hours on one Saturday to make one thank you card design, one envelope design with my address, and print over two hundred copies. And this wasn’t some complicated design, it had a bird and “Thank You” written on it. My eyes were basically cross-eyed by the time I got out of there, and my hands and clothes were totally filthy from playing with ink. Letterpress is labor intensive and crazy detail-oriented, and I bow down to all the masters of it!

So you can imagine my skepticism over this brand new product from QuicKutz. The examples are gorgeous, and the price is pretty decent at $150, but can something this small and affordable churn out the same quality as a Vandercook press? I don’t know myself, but I’d love to get my hands on one and play with it!

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Dessert. I LOVE dessert. I grew up in a sweets loving family, and to this day my sisters and Mom will scout out the best baked goods, ice cream, and candy. If it has sugar, we love it. Growing up, my Mom would bake chocolate chunk cookies, banana bread, peanut butter sandwich cookies, brownies, cheesecake, raspberry crumble bars…and for my going away party when I moved with the boy to San Diego, she baked my favorite: banana cream pie.

This might be why I am having such a hard time finding a bakery to supply goods for a dessert table. Something always managed to be wrong, because of course, no one can live up to my Mother’s baking. The service was bad, the cupcakes tasted like muffins, the tasting was $100, the cake melted after 20 minutes, the baker(s) never replied after two email convos (this is a tangent, but I’ve had maybe 10 vendors just never reply to me after the first initial chit-chat. Sure, our wedding isn’t going to be millions of dollars in some Italian villa, and I am not some fantabulous movie star willing to plunk down $10 for each chocolate chip cookie, but please, reply to my email! It’s courtesy! It also solidifies that I will never recommend you to anyone getting married in the future!)

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Does anyone ever really wear a bridesmaid dress again? {Crickets chirp}

I thought so. Please feel free to prove me wrong in the comments. :)

I hope that even if my sisters don’t wear their dresses again, that their photos don’t end up in a book like You Can Wear It Again by Meg Mateo Ilasco. (Despite how loud these dresses are, you really can’t deny that there’s something incredibly festive about them all! I think this book would make a great addition to a thank you gift for the maids.)

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