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?

White Christmas

This year, our family decided to have ourselves a merry little white Christmas by taking a trip to Tahoe with some family friends and my precious fiance. This was to be the first snowboard/ski trip for both Victor and Chachu, our family friend (who also came with his parents), so we wanted it to be memorable. And memorable, it is to be.

Yesterday, we took our equipment and decided to practice a bit on a small hill that quickly became boring. Today, we actually purchased lift tickets and took a few trips down the (not so) treacherous and icy mountain. On the last run of the day, I decided to sit it out and spent the next 20 or so minutes looking for my brother and Victor to come charging down the hill. I saw John speed by and looked expectantly up the hill only to see Victor fall on his back and do a couple flips until he finally stopped. And stayed still. For awhile.

Optimistic me, I thought he was simply recuperating from a big fall. After he got up, took off his snowboard, walked the little bit of the rest of the way down, talked to my brother at the bottom of the hill, and came to where I was, I started realizing that something.. was not... quite right.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Victor had a concussion.

I know I am definitely not cut out for 50 first dates, especially since I started wanting to smack him after we had THE SAME CONVERSATION about three times. I usually knew that the conversation had restarted when Victor would ask "What happened?" or "Did I fall?" The next couple of questions would then be "Am I going to law school at Santa Clara?" followed by "Am I marrying you on August 1?"

John says that people usually ask questions about things most important to them when they're trying to remember things after a concussion, so I was a bit flattered the first time he asked that. After maybe the 3rd or 4th time, I started getting annoyed and snappy. He didn't ask anymore after that, so I think his unconscious decided to finally embed that knowledge permanently. Especially since he started saying, "I am marrying you on August 1. Right?"

On another note, my mother is going to make the next 4 or so generations of our family wear helmets when we go skiing or snowboarding due to this fall. Thanks a lot Victor.

Have Yourself

I love the blog Apartment Therapy: the Kitchen. I love how it fills my google reader with hundreds of posts every week from its plethora of authors, and I love that each of the writers give the blog a little something different.

One of their (more) recent posts is about 15 small luxuries for home cooks [which you can read HERE], and it talks about some artisan cheeses. This led to a hankering for some artisan cheeses to consume myself. I sense an upcoming trip to a local cheese shop coming up!

On Friday, I am planning to drag Victor with me here and there and around the city for a full day of fun and non-studying on Friday so that I can get my fill of the city's holiday spirit (Bryant Park holiday shops, Union Square holiday market, Rockefeller Christmas tree, etc!) before I go home, and mayhaps I shall add this little shop to the list and have ourselves a mini cheese and wine party (consisting of... one cheese and one wine). Still, I am looking forward to it. I love Christmas!

Anything you guys can't wait for as the holidays come up? Any creative ideas I can steal from you? :P

Snake!

Hello faithful followers of our blog! There are many exciting developments happening; but, it would be premature to announce them now. There is one announcement that I would like to make and hopefully, many of you will be excited to hear this announcement. If not, then I apologize for wasting your time and you can skip down to the joke posted below.

Originally, Maureen and I had hoped to be wedded on August 7th, 2010. Many things were set: vendors were booked, ceremonies were being mapped out in our heads and we were counting down the days. Then disaster struck in the form a scheduling conflict. The allHOC retreat was scheduled for that same weekend...DOOM! MAYHEM!! WHERE IS BATMAN?!?! Fortunately for us, all our vendors were available on our new date August 1, 2010. I am posting this as a claim of right. Maureen and I officially claim August 1st as our wedding day--where I will be claiming her...as my bride.

Joke time!

Two snakes were out taking a stroll when the son snake turns to the mother snake and asks: "Mommy! Are we poisonous?"

"Why, yes we are", says the second.

Again the baby snake asks, "Are you sure we're poisonous?"

"Yes, we are very poisonous."

The baby snake becomes very upset. Again, he asks, "Are we really really poisonous?"

"Yes we are really really poisonous. In fact we're the most poisonous snakes in the world. Why do you ask?"

"I just bit my lip!!!"

May I Help You to Your Seat?

Instead of working on our papers like the good students we presumably are, Victor and I have instead been working on the escort/seating cards for our reception.

ESCORT/SEATING CARDS?!?!?! You may exclaim. Why would we need to do those when our guest list has yet to be finalized?! How could we possibly be figuring out the seating arrangements when we don't even have a list of people whom we have invited, much less RSVP'd and chosen the chicken or the vegetarian (Just kidding, those will not be our dinner options)?

Well, it's really more for experimenting with images. Victor and I have decided to try something new and fun and completely us, but that (as always), requires a lot of hard work and research and figuring out. Now that we've got a pretty good idea of what we're going to actually do, I'm getting pretty excited about actually putting these things all together. Though I see myself complaining and whining to my bridesmaids after an hour of measuring, cutting, and gluing there is still a part of me that can't wait for June and July to come so I can get all crafty again!

Register me excited!

Hello everyone! I know Maureen has already posted on the registry, but the registry is an ongoing process. And unfortunately, you don't have the groom's perspective. . . yet. Registering has definitely been the most exciting part of wedding planning so far. The reason being that while we were doing the registry, I wasn't only thinking about the wedding but also the impending marriage. Registering for kitchen tools and gadgets made me think about the weekends that we would spend cooking all sorts of goodness. Oh. . . goodness. . .

Researching for quality appliances and equipment is also fun. Signing up for Cooks Illustrated one day pass, looking through consumer search and reading Amazon reviews are very helpful and exciting. It is at this time that I have to confess to my buying habits. Most of the time, it takes me a while to buy something, because I will want to have done at least some research or if it is a tangible object in a store. . . I will pick it up and play with it. This is the most difficult part of shopping for me. But with registering, life is so much easier because I don't spend 5 hours pacing debating on whether I have the money or should spend the money, because one of our guests will have that opportunity *wink*. What I can do is research the heck out of that vacuum so that when someone buys it for us, it'll be the best darn vacuum that will last forever. (FYI: whoever gets us that vacuum may become my new BFF forever).

I'm also excited about moving back to California. And like Maureen, I'm also sad. It's weird, and I'm sure Maureen feels the same way, but I already miss her and I think I will keep missing her until she graduates in May. Four months is not that long of a time, technology will help us communicate in ways we couldn't in the past, but still.

Anyway, that's it from me for now, see you in two to three months. hahah just kidding.