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....