Updates

Hello hello!

Yes it is time for another update :)

So I am sad to say that we had to cancel our services with our original photographer. We had taken our engagements pictures and we just weren't happy with them. But

he is a very nice man and there was no hard feelings.

I had my hair and makeup trial and it was FABULOUS. Christina Yi is so sweet! She was so nice and kept chatting with me during the whole process. I hope I didn't annoy her with my endless chatter. Here are a few pics of the results:

And here is a picture of our completed save the dates!!

THANK YOU to everyone that helped me cut, paste, tie, stuff and overall make our Save The Date building party great fun.

And here is a picture of a hair flower I made. It ended up being too big but its so pretty!

More updates to come!

Engagement Shoot

So we had our engagement photo shoot yesterday and I hope it went well.

I have discovered that I am NOT a natural model in any way or form.

We ended up having our photo shoot at the Mark Taper Forum and Ahmanson theater in Downtown LA. It was a nice space to take our photos however our photographer wanted to hop over to the Walt Disney concert hall to take a few shots there. It ended up comming out very well even though I wasn't too keen on the idea of taking pictures there due to the idea that from afar it is a very majestic building but up close it was just silver to me.

I had trouble loosening up and getting over my embaressment but once I got comfortable I was having a Top Model moment. Hehehe.

We tried taking pictures at Union Station but we couldn't find a good place to take them. Not to mention it was hot, crowded and the staff there was not very helpful at all. Oh well.

Once I get the pictures I will post a few to share.

Till the next post!

Engagement Session Location

Okay so we are now trying to figure out a good engagement session location for our upcoming photoshoot in September. Why are we doing our engagement session so soon you ask? Well since our wedding is in April the prior months to that are a bit too cold and cloudy so our photographer suggested that September would be the best time. So now comes the task of finding a good location. I am open to all suggestions so please let me know :)

Here are a few options:

- Los Angeles Farmer's Market
- Orange county performing arts center
- Chinatown in downtown Los Angeles
- LA Zoo
- Aquarium of the Pacific

Which do you think is best?

Cake Catastrophe!!!!!

Yes...did you like my play of words here for the title?





Well anyway. I received some very sad and bad news today.....Kelley's Bakery in both Monterey Park and Chino Hills has discontinued their Aloe Vera Mousse Cake.





This is a very sad day for me because I LOVE that cake. It was everything I would ever want out of a cake..... light and airy sponge cake with fluffy as a cloud aloe vera mousse, with its subtle sweetness that is reminiscent of a warm day with a nice cool breeze. With its utterly delicious whipped cream frosting and jelly(note: I HATE JELLO but not in this case...yes it was that good) topping it was HEAVEN.





So my brother's friend had ordered this cake for his birthday a few years back and it was SO GOOD. When it came time for Daniel's mother's birthday I had also ordered one for her last year. While researching wedding cake options I suggested the aloe vera cake, however after a quick census of a sample group from our guest list we concluded that aloe vera cake does not appeal to everyone. So since I couldn't have aloe vera cake for our wedding i decided I am going to order one and eat it for myself hehehe. So I call up Kelley's bakery in Monterey Park and they told me....that they don't make it anymore....DUN DUN DUN!!!! UTTER SHOCK AND SADNESS.





So being resourceful me I called the Chino Hills location and they told me that they would be able to make it but it would take a few days. I didn't care, I just wanted my cake. So I called back today to place my order and DUN DUN DUN they said that they won't be able to make it anymore due to the lack of people ordering this cake. From my understanding, the baker is unwilling to put in the effort to make just 1 aloe vera cake (I guess it's complicated to make) so unless he had more orders he wouldn't do it. The only way they would do it is if I ordered say 3 cakes...or a really large sheet cake, or have my wedding cake with aloe vera mousse filling.





This is a very sad day for me. So unless someone out there wants to share 3 aloe vera cakes with me it looks like I won't be able to taste its sweet sweet goodness anymore.





RIP aloe vera cake :*(

Yay!! FINALLY AN UPDATE

Alright. I know I know you all thought that this blog was long dead but I have resurrected it and IT'S ALIVE!!!

Okay so I am guilty for not updating this thing for the what? 5 months? Yeah I know but in my defense I didn't get THAT MUCH more wedding stuff done in the time between. SO BAD! I was looking back at my old posts and seeing things like "17 months till the wedding date" and "still a year away" and I sounded so relaxed while writing those posts. Well those days are long gone. The countdown to the wedding date is 7 and a half months. Thats right 7 months to plan the rest of my wedding. OMG this is what I get for procrastinating and being indecisive. GAH!

MAJOR UPDATE though was that we basically changed our ceremony and reception site.

I KNOW! SO BAD! But here is the story of how that all came about:

As the wedding date was beginning to loom nearer we decided to visit Daniel's aunt's home up in Beverly Hills to scope the property out and to see where we would be placing everything.

After touring the property and REALLY looking at the place we decided that it was WAY TOO SMALL. Even for about 120 people it would be a REAL tight squeeze. People would have had to been shoved into a corner of the yard somewhere and we had no place to put a dance floor. We had originally wanted to construct a stage/dance floor above the pool but after calling around and getting quotes it ended up being around $3000 which is waaaaaay too expensive.

If we had continued with the original plan to have it at Daniel's aunt's home it would be a lot of trouble to keep particular areas restricted for fear of damage, theft, etc. and we would have had to draft a lot of family and family friends to help out and make sure things ran smoothly, which isn't right because we want all of our guests to relax and enjoy the party.

So after scrambling to find another place to have the wedding we came up with a better alternative.

The ceremony site will be held at the JACCC Japanese Garden in Little Tokyo (James Irvine Japanese Garden). This is a great space to hold our ceemony because the area in which we will be exchanging vows is elevated so everyone can see us. We also got a GREAT DEAL for the site because the threw in the Garden Room and the Garden Room B into our package at no extra cost. Score 1 for super budgeter Lynette :)

The reception will be held at Empress Harbor Seafood in Monterey Park. Now I know there are a ton of Chinese restaurants in the Monterey Park/Alhambra/San Gabriel area so why did we decide to have it here? Well partly it was because Daniel's dad (who used to be in the restaurant business) is good friends with the managers here as well as the owner. You can find him there having dim sum a lot. So we got a lot of comps thrown into our package such as no cake cutting fee, no corkage fee, free dance floor, free wine and soda, free use of the lcd tv's, free use of linens and chair covers, etc. Plus the food is good here.

We had a little bit of drama when it came to finally deciding on Empress Harbor because the owner apparently sold the business to someone so we weren't sure if they were going to honor the package we had gotten quoted for so it was all in limbo for a while and we just kinda left it at that for about a good 2 months. We got a phone call later on saying that a couple came in asking if April 17, 2010 was still available so we had to jump at it and put in our deposit so there we have it. Our reception place is booked.

Well along with re-deciding and booking our venues here are few more things that I have and have not gotten done.

Brace yourselves.
Done:
-Hired my Day of Coordinator.
-Picked up wedding gown from boutique and paid the rest of the deposit
-Bought petticoat for said gown
-Found shoes, jewelry and hair piece for gown.
-Booked florist for wedding and put down deposit (Creative Floral Designs.) We had looked at several florists but Bernie from CFD gave us the best price for quality blooms.
- Finished Save The Dates but are in process of correcting the location due to the changes.
- Booked makeup trial with a makeup artist that I got referred to by a friend.

In Process:

-Decide on lighting vendor.
-Find a baker to do our cake.
-Working with getting a tasting with a caterer for our cocktail hour.
-Finding a place that will do the bustle on my gown.
-Setup a date to go bridesmaid dress shopping.
-Figure out a string quartet for the ceremony and find a DJ for our reception.
-Let our photographer know about our changes.
-Setup an engagement picture session.
-Decide on menu for reception
-Decide on rental company for cocktail tables

OH GOSH! So much to do....

Sorry for the lack of updates

I have been fighting off a bad cold and bronchitis :(

BUT an update on this wedding stuff :)

We have booked our photographer!!!! Yay!! I was kind of stressing about this part because photots are one of the most important if not the most important part of the wedding but all of the wedding photographers out there were either too expensive or didn't offer a good package for what they were charging...but on the off chance I found our photographer, Kevin Le, online and he had just cut his prices due to the slow economy and we really like his work and his packages and pricing can't be beat :)

He is more into the "classic" wedding poses and he has just started getting into the "online" side of wedding photography so his website isn't so fancy but you can see some of his work here:

http://www.kevinlestudio.com/

I have also found my dress!! AHHHHH!! I know I ordered it really early considering our wedding is over a year away but the boutique that I ordered my gown from was having a trunk show for the Maggie Sottero gown that I fell in love with so they had a discount and it turns out that it takes 6 months for the dress to be ordered and made anyway so I guess its a good thing I ordered it now :) An extra plus is that the gown is corset back so I don't have to do any alterations and I am tall enough to not have to get it hemmed so all I need to do is add a bustle! Yay!!!! Saving the $$$$$.

Another update is that we had to move out wedding date up by 2 months. This is okay considering that the weather may be better but I was a little upset because of all the trouble we went through to decide on a wedding date to begin with. But it has now been moved to April 17 2010. The reason why he had to move the wedding date was because Daniel's Aunt has to make a trip across seas in May of 2010 so yea... we didn't want to push it to June because that is when we wanted to take our honeymoon and it might be too hot and we didn't want to push it up to March for fear of rain...so we decided on the happy medium of April.

Wooo hooo... next on my list is the actual construction of the Save the Dates and deciding when to take our engagement photos. WOoooooo wedding planning.

Engagement Ring

So I am finally posting up pictures of my engagement ring. I just haven't had time to upload them until now :) Here it is...my bling!

Yea..I am being a camera whore right here :)

BAM....blingy :)

Hehehhe I do love my ring :)