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 :)

Pressure de la mother

Yea...already feeling the pressure from the FMIL (Future Mother In Law) A little over a month and she is already asking if I have the following done:

-Flowers
-Cake
-Dance Floor
-Dress
-Tables/Chairs
-Linens
-Veil
-Shoes
-Ring bearer/ Flower Girl
-Wedding Favors
-Photographer
-Colors

Lordy all I have done are the colors and maybe the photographer! After saying "no we haven't gotten that far yet" to all of the items she listed she looked at me with horror as if I should have all of this DONE already. Oh boy... what to do? Just keep on chipping away at the BIG LONG list that I have I suppose :)

On a brighter side...I ordered a wedding hair piece for ebay last night. I couldn't help it!! IT WAS SO PRETTY! :) I hope it is as good as the picture showed it.

Save the Dates...

So yea...I have been kinda doing this wedding thing by ear for now since it is still very early however I somehow find myself with a head start on my Save The Dates. Seeing as I didn't want to be stuck in traffic on the 405 during rush hour on the way home I decided to stop by South Coast plaza to wonder around for about an hour. I wander into the Paper Source seeing the big red letters for SALE. I go in and lo and behold almost all the card stock was on sale for 50% off. This must be a sign from the wedding gods... but did they have my wedding colors?? So after poking around the store...TA DA they had all my colors and they were all on sale...well this really IS a sign from the wedding gods. So I buy $50.00 worth of card stock (estimated about 200 save the dates) and there we have it. I am stuck with my colors now because all sale items are not refundable. So our official wedding colors are......red, orange and blue :)

Yay for buying non-refundable card stock :P

900 dollars for POLYESTER?!?!?!?!

So I know it is a bit early to start looking for a wedding gown but hey...thats the BEST PART!!! Besides getting married to the love of my life of course :)

So I have been doing research online on what type of style of dress I would like and what would fit my strict budget of under $500.00. Why not spend more? Well like any other girl of course I want to look absolutely fabulous on the big day in my deam gown...BUT I am not willing to spend that much moolah on a dress I am going to wear for a total of maybe 12 hours of my life. So being the budget bride I start my search at the usual budget bride bridal gown stores: Alfred Angelo, Jessica McClintock, David's Bridal, and a myriad of other budget gown stores. Nothing has caught my eye quite yet but a few has perked my interest.
So yesterday being a day off for me I decided to go shopping at the Brea Mall and on the way there I spotted an Alfred Angelo so I thought, why not? So I stop in and started browsing the gowns and picked out one that I was interested in trying on, of course me and my eye for expensive things I picked a $2500.00 dress made of pure silk -_- So I tried on the darn poofy thing and it looked like I "crawled out of a giant cupcake" as one on-looker in the store commented on my appearance and I totally agreed. After trying on 3 other different dresses I was starting to get the idea of what is going to look good on me and what isn't. So the last dress I selected was put on me and I actually liked what I saw. It was elegant, simple, classic, BUT I wasn't in love with it. So I asked how much it was, in case the price may MAKE me love the dress, the price tag? $899.00 for a POLYESTER gown. That's right... $900.00 for a freaking pile of Polyester, two PS3's, a flat screen HD TV, a new laptop, a whole lot of dinners out (you get the idea) for a giant pile of Polyester.
So being grateful for the nice sales lady's help I kept a straight face, smiled, thanked her, put on my clothes, thanked her again and walked out of the store all the time thinking how EXPENSIVE a pile of synthetic cloth could be :)

Not in the wedding planning mood...

I don't know what is wrong with me...this is odd..this is disturbing...this is almost...frightening for a bride to not really be in the wedding planning mood. Considering that 2 weeks after my engagement I had already planned the ceremony, reception, colors and picked out a wedding date I seem to have run into a wedding planning slump. I guess its because we had moved the date further back so now I feel like I have nothing to plan for now. I don't want to start looking for a dress yet because I'm fat and I want to lose weight, I don't want to start looking for flowers because you book those like 4 months before the wedding and I just don't feel like staring at over 20 different photographer's portfolios because I don't want to scruntinize so many photographers at one time. *sigh* I guess once the 1 year countdown begins I will be more in the wedding-y mood.

On the bright side...Daniel and I get to enjoy our engagement without the stresses of crazy wedding planning :)

When has planning early become a bad thing?

So lately I have been trying to get a head start on this wedding planning thing but whenever I contact a vendor the question arises of "when is the big day?" Of course that is a logical question to ask so I tell them my intended May 2010 date but the response I usually get is a stare...a long pause and a response somwhere along the lines of "oh...wow you are looking very early aren't you? Maybe you should wait a few months before deciding on *insert of what vendor does*"
I am not saying ALL vendors give me that reponse but whether it be looking at dresses, looking at lighting vendors, djs, photographers or flowers I usually get "advice" about when I SHOULD be looking into these vendors. Whats wrong with a little research? Whats wrong with getting a head start? Does this mean that a vendor would rather have a rampaging bride come in 3 months before their wedding asking for samples and price quotes? I suppose that may be what they are looking for because that gives them liscense to charge more due to short notice but I don't see the harm in helping a bride that actually wants to take her time to plan her wedding. Oh well I guess thats just how the crazy wedding industry works...

On a side note we now have our completed wedding party!! Yay!! That is one checkbox I can check :)

Date change...AGAIN

So yea...we have decided to have the wedding in May 2010. Previously we were going to have it November 2009 but we didn't have enough time to plan...so we decided to switch the date to March 2010, but me being semi-superstitious March is not a good month to get married according to the Chinese Auspicious Day Calendar... so since it is going to be an outdoor wedding we decided to have it in May for 3 reasons:

1. May has a very nice auspicious day for us to have the wedding

2. Since it is an outdoor wedding the weather will be nicer and warmer and does not have as high of a chance of raining

3. Because we changed the date so many times Daniel said that this change is IT!! No more date changes!! >:|

Hehehe. So that means let the 17 month countdown BEGIN!!

I am so indecisive....

So yea...since our venue already has a bit of an..eclectic style I decided to forgo the theme and go with colors :) Now the problem is that whenever someone asks me "Lynette, what is your favorite color?" I usually respond with "I don't know...I like all the colors!" so when it comes to selecting a color palette for the wedding I can't seem to decide...

Originally we were going to go with a navy or dark-ish blue with accents of red and orange...however after looking at magazines and online for ideas I was drawn to all of these different color combinations! Which should I choose???

Since our wedding is in spring this pink and green combo is so...right for the season, however Daniel is not too happy with this option because its so girly.

This is closer to our original color combination however I would want more red and less green than in this bouquet but I love the textures in this combination.

Daniel likes this color combination better, more of a deeper red and a lighter orange. This is a centerpiece though so it is hard to see but we are probably going with that color palette.

Well we will be heading to Borders and browsing the bridal magazines for more color schemes.

More to come :)

Wedding Planning...BLAAAAAHHH

Yes the stress has already begun! Can you believe it?? 2 weeks after I get engaged the stress and drama has already started...but its okay it will be all worth it in the end :)

So for being engaged for just 2 weeks I am doing pretty well in the planning process! I have my maid of honor and a bridesmaid, I have the reception and ceremony venue and I am in the works for a photographer. Not bad for a wedding date that is more than a year away. Funny thing is though that whenever I walk into a bridal shop the ladies at the store ask "why are you starting so early?" Huh??!! I thought vendors liked it when you start early not late? Oh well I guess it just depends on the vendor I guess.

But yea!! More to come :)

We're Engaged!!

Yes indeed! We are happy to report that we are now ENGAGED!!!!! OMG how weird is that? BTW this will mostly be me (Lynette) blogging on this blog :) Daniel is very lazy when it comes to these things :) But anyway... we are very happy to begin our lives together and though it has been a long road with a few bumps along the way we are finally getting married :) Well I shouldn't say "finally" for reality is that we are getting married pretty young but hey we know we are going to be together and that is the important part :)

Here is the story of how Daniel asked me to marry him:

Christmas morning we were sleeping in bed and Daniel woke me up and whispered in my ear that Santa had left a gift for me downstairs under the tree. Me being half asleep I rolled over and mumbled "five more minutes." I then got up to use the bathroom and went back to bed and was about to climb back into the warm blankets and Daniel sat up and said "No!! We have to go downstairs and see what Santa got you!" So we headed downstairs and sitting on top of another gift was a ring box. I rushed over and grabbed the box and asked him if the box was what I though it was and he said yes. He then hugged me and asked me to marry him and I said yes!

Ta da! Thats the story :)