How's married life?

We've been married for almost two months now and without fail, everyone asks the same question: How's married life?

Married life is the same but better!!! It's great to live with someone who loves you as much as he does. I can sit around and be a waste of space and he's obligated to love me more and more everyday no matter what. It's great, awesome, unbelievable that we're really married! Two months in and it still feels like we're living in a closet because our boxes are still stacked way high and there are tons of things still left to be organized but it's still pretty wonderful. I get annoyed because of the mess and everytime I get annoyed, the mess gets cleaned up little by little. 500 more tantrums to go and this apartment will be organized and ready to go in no time! hehe... I kid. I've been reading a lot of aparmenttherapy.com lately.

Naturally, I revisited this blog a few times after our wedding and opened up this "new blog" tab to potentially begin a new topic. There's been a lot to digest and I feel like there are so many things that I could potentially write about, not only for the sake of recounting and remembering the things that happened during planning and on the wedding day... but also for the purpose that it might play in encouraging my friends who are currently planning their weddings.

With that said... beginning tonight, I'll write about random wedding related things based on my experience until I have nothing else to write. But before I write, I leave you with one teaser pic from our honeymoon (in fiji):

Aisle Runner!!!

The Aisle Runner was one thing I thought we wouldn't have to worry about, since our reception hall has one that we could use.

HOWEVER, upon reviewing of the ceremony logistics, I came to realize that it might be better to have one that 1) has handles/rope that the ushers can use to roll out after the mothers are escorted down, before me and my dad walk down the aisle. 2) personalized.. the more i think about it, the more i think this detail would make the photos a little more personal for us. i'm anticipating that there will be a ton of pics of the ceremony, so it might be nice... also, thought we could take a few pictures by the personalized/monogrammed part on the aisle runner for our thank you cards. i'll explain the concept later..

In this post, I wanted to explore the two options that I have with the aisle runner for our wedding.

1) Go all out and save time/effort and spend the money for a personalized aisle runner (easiest way... although my wallet will be hurting $300). via http://www.aisleswithstyle.com

2) DIY the aisle runner. Use a much lesser quality fabric/runner ($15) + acrylic paint and paint the name and date onto the aisle runner. Here is one example of an aisle runner that was made by hand

okay, so there's a HUGE price difference between the two.. but there is also a HUGE time/effort requirement difference too. time is something i really do NOT have. Especially after doing the invitations ourselves, I've been really really really really trying to stay away from DIY projects. The invitations were just SO much work. (I think we're doing programs DIY too, but it's not definite... the thought of DIYing paper stuff makes me a little queasy....)

What do you guys think? DIY or NO? (it'll prob take about 3 hours or so of work)

Bachelorette Trip With Bridesmaids!

Hello there!


Just got back from my bachelorette trip with my bridesmaids! It was actually supposed to be a surprise trip, but I ended up finding out about it bc my girls can't keep anything from me. hehhe..

We went to Miami for a night and then got onto a cruise boat which took us to the bahamas and back to Miami. Thanks to the terrible weather back in NY, we chose to get rerouted to Memphis on our flight back to NY. Turned out, the NY flight we were trying to make from Memphis got cancelled mid-flight... so we ended up airport bumming for five hours or so. It was a great bonding experience. What could've been a disastrous/terrible time ended up being so much fun... I really havent done anything to deserve such great girl friends... what a blessing!!

This one is one of the first pics we took once we got on the cruise. They surprised me with a decorated room.... it was hilarious and although a lot of the decorations were a little too crude to post publically, but we all had a good laugh about it.. =)





and then once we got to the Bahamas, we went on one of those booze cruises. I've never been on one and I dont really drink since I'm totally weaksauce and fall asleep after like one drink... BUT, this one ended up being soo much fun. I entered the limbo contest and ended up winning!!! I thought that the winning prize was a $100, but it turns out, it was just a bottle of rum. DOH! hehe.. I'll bring it to the bridal shower in case anyone wants some bahama mamas....

They were all super proud of me for winning the contest.... Oh, and then the winner of the limbo contest has to lead the congo line. So I ended up leading a congo line on the top deck of the boat.. while the DJ on the boat sang "follow the leader, jenny jenny, follow jenny... " and he kept saying "I love Jenny, We love Jenny, I love Jenny, We love Jenny". The entire boat was singing along.. It was seriously insane.

This last pic is from the airport in Memphis... :) Aren't they all so cute?

SO MUCHIE HAPPENING

Hi!

Okay, I am officially the worst blogger in the world. I need to update more often.. I know. SORRY! Since the last update, we've taken (and received) engagement photos, had my second dress fitting (which was great!), and made wedding favor decisions!

Engagement photos were really great. We had a one-hour photo shoot with TJ from Duet Weddings. So far, so good. He made us feel super comfortable and took full initiative without wasting a second of our time, so we're pretty confident that he'll be good at directing us on our wedding day. We'll need to iron out details of their services on the day of the rehearsal, bc we decided that we'd do the pehbehk ceremony before the rehearsal dinner. Anyway, here are some photos that I posted up on my facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2131402&l=cdb81&id=16303901

I'll write about Makeup/Hair Trials later.. but basically, Sachiko did my hair and make up for those photos above. Makeup, I think I will want to change the colors a little bit... more pearly/pink on the eyes in place of the browns. Hair, I'll explain in the next post.

THE DRESS fitting went really well! There are still a number of things that are not "right" with the dress and realistically speaking, I doubt it will be 100% fixed the way I want it... but it's pretty good for now. We were so excited when I put the dress on that we totally forgot to take pictures!!!!! I am kicking myself for that, but what can ya do...

The FAVORS! We decided that we are going to make a donation to St. Jude's Children's Hospital instead of buying cheesy little favors which will eventually end up becoming everyone's garbage/clutter that they don't want in their homes anyway. We wanted to try to make the donation in honor of James' father who passed away from cancer 10+ years ago as well as my grandmother who passed from cancer just last year. I think it will be a cool way to remember them, to incorporate their presence into our wedding day since they both played such integral parts in each of our lives. Hopefully the guests won't feel neglected... bc I know normally, when people "donate" in place for wedding favors, they formally mention "guests of so and so's wedding".

Lastly!!!! We just booked our dance lessons!!!!!!!!! I will do a separate post on these topics. I just wanted to write an update to fill everyone in on what's been going on with the planning process!

Thanks for reading!!!!

MAJOR UPDATE!

Hello, hello!! This update is going to be somewhat long since a lot of things have happened since the last time I shared. READY? FIVE TOPICS:

1)

The dress came in! I have no pictures to share since the dress was an ultra,ultra draft of what the outcome is supposed to be. I have very mixed feelings so far, so I can't say I was impressed just yet. It's a Kenneth Pool for Amsale dress which retails for over 6k. Luckily (or not), I was able to find someone who claimed that they'd be able to mimic the design into something that's EXACTLY what I want for half the price tag, so I ended up going with that option. There's not a day that goes by that I don't regret the decision, mostly because I really have no idea what it will end up looking like. Taking a HUGE risk.... sigh. Well, stay tuned! My second fitting is in two weeks. It should be nearly completed by then.. Anyway, this is basically what the dress is supposed to look like:

2) Our invitations are complete! We sent out half of them this morning and we need to order some more paper so we can send the second bunch out soon. VICTORY!! Choosing the different types of papers and envelopes took about two weeks because I'm really indecisive. I used two sources: http://www.papersandmore.com/ and http://www.paperpresentation.com/. The paper presentation store is on 18th and 6th so I made about four trips there throughout the process. I sent many many prototypes to my bridesmaids for their opinions and everyone had encouraging things to say about all of my designs but in the end we all agreed that one design was just much more fitting of our personalities. The designing of the invites took about another week and a half and the assembly took about four days. I used microsoft word and downloaded a few vector designs on http://www.istockphotos.com/, merged the designs and adjusted the colors around to fit the look we were going for. It was really grueling at certain times but in the end, James and I were so proud of the masterpiece we were able to create with just a blank piece of paper, a printer and a paper cutter!! Most of the assembly was done by my sweatshop bridesmaids. :) They really pulled through for us and we seriously couldn't have done it without my girls! Even my future sister-in-law's husband came on over to help us. :*) Yes, it is official: I have the best bunch of bridesmaids ever!!

Here is a preview of just the center part of the invitations:

***If anyone wants me to do a step by step process of how I put the invitations together, I will be more than willing to do an entry that lays it all out there. That goes for any/every part of my wedding prep process, so if you have any questions of any kind, let me know!

3) We got a puppy!!!!!! His name is Bronson and he is a puggle (pug & beagle mix). At only three-months old, he's able to do his business on the wee-wee pad most of the times and thanks to James' obsession with the Dog Whisper, Bronson knows James as the "pack-leader" already. Me on the other hand, not so much. Bronson jumps on my lap constantly and I can't seem to discipline him. Oh well, it's only been a little over a week since we got him, so maybe he'll start listening to me in time.... He is named after Charles Bronson, the actor.

I took this picture of him on his first day out in the real world. He's not allowed to go outside yet because he doesnt have all his shots, but we had to visit the vet on this day. He loves his white doggy toy.

4) I started my new job! I left Bertelsmann (BMG) and now I'm at Ogilvy. It's been pretty fun and exciting so far. Not much else to say for now! I miss my old co-workers like crazzzzy. I have no problems adjusting to new things/people and actually do enjoy new experiences, but I have a tendancy to get really attached to things/people. It's been so hectic lately that I haven't had much time to be super, super sad about it, but the last few days at work were really tough! I am definitely not good at goodbyes.

5) ENGAGEMENT PHOTOSSSSS are scheduled for this Wednesday! That's in less than 48 hours, dudes!!! James and I went to tanger yesterday to try to find bargain outfits for our photos.... I didnt find any "engagement photo worthy" dresses, so I'll probably just wear the Theory dress I got last year at a sample sale. It's my favorite bc it's nice and flowy.... It's also white and I wanted to try to wear a white dress... so I guess it will work. Our casual outfits will probably just be a white shirt/dark blue jeans or khakis for james. We're still deciding on the location... Central park? Seems to be so over-done, so we thought maybe we could do South Street Seaport since that's where our first date was. :) As for hair and make-up, Sachiko Yanese will be doing the trial for me on Wednesday for the photos. Make-up, I'm completely leaving that up to her to decide. I have no idea what looks good in pictures. I dont care what she does, as long as I am ultra hottie for the day according to the photos.

Okay, this is the part where I reallly need your help!!! Engagement photo hair: Down or Half down?

a:

b:

c:

d:

the dress is almost finished!

My dress is almost finished (for the first fitting), so I made an appointment for next Thursday! For those who don't know, I had my dress custom-made. It's supposed to be a duplicate of a kenneth pool amsale dress, but let's see how it goes...

Apparently, you are supposed to bring the shoes you intend to wear on the wedding day for your first fitting. Ummm, I don't have the shoes picked out yet.. but these caught my eye:

valentinos:










loubous:












blahniks:














More realistic shoe shopping starts now. :)

We're almost done! with invitations

Oh, how happy I am today. We're almost done with our invitations! There are still some minor tweaks left to make, but this is a pre-celebratory post! We're almost done with our invitations!! I dont want to post them yet, but once they're sent out, I'll show you the 4 different templates that I designed for the last month or so. We didn't end up saving much money, but we did end up with decent looking invitations while getting some useful gadgets (printer & paper cutter with laser guide).