Little Mister Rotund

As per my last post, I am continuing my mini-saga about my mini bridal party members! If you are an avid follower of this blog, then I have no doubt that you will recognize the youngest member who was officially added the latest:


Look at those gorgeous eyes. And nose. And mouth. So hard to resist. When I videochat with this guy, I want to reach into the screen and steal him from my sister. Fortunately, even Steve Jobs has yet to come up with a way to do that, otherwise I would find a grouchy 4-month-old in my hands. Aside from the obvious fact that I don't know how to take care of a baby 24 hours a day, I would also have no source of food for him, and BOY DOES HE LOVE HIS FOOD. Even when he is chilling 5 minutes after a feeding, he will stare at anything resembling something that could be safely consumed, particularly if someone is in the middle of consumption. I hope he doesn't eat his way out of the wagon. No, I'm serious, I hope he doesn't eat so much he gets too big for it.

Little Miss Sassy

While invitation-sending time is coming up quickly, I still have a weddingless week left in New York to deal with, so I decided that I would do a series of quick and adorable little quips about my three mini attendants. I still have yet to find the perfect photo of one of them for the website, but I am planning to catch her in an enrapturing and natural gleeful expression come VBS week. For today, however, I will spend a bit to talk about her sister.

Dear everybody, meet Chloe:


She is one of those blessed souls who can't help but be brutally authentic. Her mother tells me stories of when, in a fit of anger, she will convincingly proclaim, "I no love you!" only to turn around minutes later, roll her eyes and confess, "Okay mommy, I love you." She is such a bundle of attitude and energy packed into a 28 pound body, and I'm told that a shy hug from her means she loves you times a million. When her ridiculously cute face gives a big smile, my heart just melts. Yes, even when it's a mischievous one. While I am a fan of a smooth wedding procession, a secret part of me hopes she will display one of her playful antics as she tromps down the aisle to add a little spice to the whole day.

Transportation

As many of you know, my sister and brother-in-law have a new baby! Well, he's about 11-weeks-old at this point, so by the standards of anyone less than seven-years-old, he's not really "new" anymore. In fact, he's quite old and we probably would have already finished playing with him and moved on to a new fad were he a toy. But he's not, and I am older than seven, so I am still completely in love and enthralled with him.

As another group of you know and almost all of you can probably infer, Victor and I have assigned him the honorable task of ring-bearer for our wedding! Since he will be little more than six and some months old, we aren't quite expecting him to bound down the aisle of the sanctuary in a tux walking on his own two feet, so the issue of transportation down that path has raised a few questions. Victor and I have fallen in love with this little wagon down here below:


Isn't it adorable? I personally really love it. It's kind of tiny, but provided the baby does not grow to be bigger than a one-year-old by the time the wedding rolls around (although rumor has it, we have some serious threat of that disaster), I think it would be fabulous to use. And wouldn't Maci look so cute toting this down the aisle with Micah sitting in there with something to cushion his already cushioned booty?

Now, when Victor brought this home and my family saw this, my mother immediately said that it would not do, and if Micah was traveling down the lane with any kind of vehicle, it would be the carriage that she recently purchased. Actually, she said stroller, but when THIS shows up at your house...


...it's a little difficult to still categorize it as anything other than a carriage. Granted it's cute, but not exactly what I had imagined carrying my ring boy down the aisle to prelude my own entrance. How would anybody even see him??

Anyway, we all know my obvious bias of affection towards the original wagon, but what thinks you all?

I can has musik?

In the beginning, Maureen and I thought that we would have our faithful iPod be our DJ. I mean, iPod knew all the music we liked, iPod is very good at taking directions, iPod had even begun working with us to make playlists and most importantly, iPod was free. But after hearing how iPod had betrayed a bride and groom at another wedding, we decided to reconsider.

Sorry Steve Jobs, your iPod can't do everything. So we got a professional DJ! Very detailed oriented, friendly and he will not be playing any songs by Lady GaGa, sorry but I hate her songs.

Action!

So after a tidbit of advice, a couple of hours of internal debate, and a few days of active discussion, Victor and I have decided to hire a videographer! And we got a discount for having a Sunday wedding! (Beginner's hint to all wedding planners: all days other than Saturday pretty much always gets discounts of some kind.)

Looking back, I've never attended a wedding that had a videographer, so I'm not quite sure just how intrusive or awkward it will be. And to be honest, I never even thought about recording our wedding until my sister and her Victor brought up the fact that they had a couple of camcorders set up on a tripod, but no one ever got to splicing and dicing the parts, so now no one can really have fun watching anything. (Anybody up for a little video splicing and dicing on behalf of my sister and her nuptials?)

So after hearing that, I am definitely much excited about the prospect of having something from our wedding that Victor and I (and our hopefully coming offspring) can re-watch and listen to for years to come. And to laugh at and moan about when we are both fat and balding.

Just kidding about the balding part. And kind of the fat part. Yeah, I really hope neither of us ever reach that point.

In any case, if, at the wedding, you find yourself face-to-face with our videographer and his video camera (although this guy says that he does journalistic/fly-on-the-wall style, so he won't actually TALK to you or ask you questions), just act natural. I mean it! Natural! I know half of my friends are divas dying from lack of fame and fortune, but try to hold back, mkay? kthanks.

Preserved Goods

Someone needs to think of a way to bottle baby cuteness to reserve for miserable days. But mayhaps that is what pictures and memorabilia are supposed to be for.


My nephew is the coolest.

Spidey Sense

Hello friends! Sorry for a month of sparse updates, but really nothing has been happening, I promise. BUT! a mere two days ago, Miss Stephanie Awesome Pan has finished coding bits and pieces of our website! The URL is as follows:

http://maureenandvictor.com/

I know, our address is SO original. Right now, it's just the home page that has information of any sort, but as time goes on, more and more will be completed! So yes, in case you are that bored at work or class or whatever, and since, apparently, this blog will be getting fewer updates from now on (I mean come on, most of the big things have been covered, right?) you can all amuse yourselves there and stare at our wonderful website.

She hasn't told me this outright, but I'm sure Stephanie Awesome Pan is up for some freelance work in case you are interested :P

181

Only six months until the big day! Leslie and I have been pretty regularly corresponding about graphics and images for our wedding stationary, and it's made me notice how ridiculously quickly time passes. Not only have invitations been ordered, but I have been hectically collecting emails so that we can get the save-the-dates out quickly and promptly. I've also been making sparse plans for my trip home in March so that I can have sufficient time to address those envelopes. And can you believe it's been ten months since Victor proposed to me??

Now that I'm back on the East Coast, wedding crazy-ness isn't as present in my life, but once in awhile I will get into a panic when I think of all I have to do. Just today, I had a panic attack because I owed Stephanie some information that was due YESTERDAY, and I just remembered to email the company ordering the invitations the approval for their proofs a few days ago even though I got the email a week ago.

As the number of email threads tagged "Wedding" increases in my Gmail inbox, I'm starting to look more critically at the ideas that I have and how it relates to what this day and this relationship is all about. A few of my previously strongly-held ideas have been thrown out the window as too extravagant and as something that really misses the point of this event anyway. I'm happy to say that I am concentrating more on the meanings of everything that we have, and I am also talking with Victor more and more about each of my crazy ideas. He, of course, contributes more willingly now that the day is closer :)

Request the Honour

My, what a productive break this has been! Today, my mom and I headed to DirectBuy and purchased an order for 200 beautiful wedding invitations. The process was a bit longer than I expected, but thanks to the lovely staff at the store and the 50% discount I get from my parents' membership, I enjoyed every minute of it.

Previously, I had thought that I would be DIY-ing my invitations due to the enormous costs of your typical invitation. With an average price of $5-$9 per set (including the invitation, blank outer envelope, reception card, and reply card), I was more than ready to roll up my sleeves and get down to printing, reprinting (because I am bound to make mistakes), cutting, folding, and stuffing some 150 to 200 invitations.

But my mother, the anti-DIYer of the household, tried to dissuade me from this decision by always stopping by the wedding stationary section of any store that happened to have it, always highlighting how beautiful it was to have thermography or embossed print, features by which a homemade invitation would be hard to come. At first, her pleading could sway me no more than a tree trunk moves by a slight breeze. Then, I found the perfect invitation at a highly discounted price and she might as well have bulldozed me over.

So, while our electronic save-the-dates are still in the works, I am expecting an emailed proof of my invi - I mean, VICTOR AND MY invitations and the whole batch to arrive within the next month or so!

By the way, do you personally prefer honOr or honOUr?

Thank you Agnes

I would like to say that I am truly appreciative for my maid of honor, Agnes. After a number of emails back and forth between the other maids, Agnes and I have finally gotten down a couple of designs for the bridesmaid dresses (the above is just a simple and quickly drawn example)! I decided from the beginning to follow after my sister's footprints by allowing my maids to have options in deciding what they wanted their dresses to look like. No, I wasn't volunteering for the monstrosity of having 5 opinions deciding on one thing, but instead gave them the color, the material, and a basic shape. They could then alter the details as much as they felt was necessary (neckline, straps, bodice patterns, etc). I'm excited to send the order off and to see them in a few months!

We'll be ordering the dresses from the same company from which I'm ordering my bridal dress. The whole process reminded me that I still needed to think and browse more for my reception dress, since I'm not too much of a fan of walking around with a giant bustle on my butt for an evening during which I should be having fun. So after a satisfying dinner of lamb chops (yum!), my mom and I sat down with a pile of bridal magazines and flipped through a couple of them, and I think we've got a pattern down for that as well. Now it's just waiting for Agnes to come back from her trip to sunny San Diego so I can figure out what that material is... Oh Agony, what would I do without you?