Some lovely quotes in Hawaiian

1. A O Ko Aloha Ka`u E Hi`ipoi Mau -- With you, joy will ever be mine
2. A O `Oe Ku`u Pua -- You are my blossom
3. Aloha Au Ia'oe -- I Love You
4. Aloha Nui Loa -- All my love
5. E Hookumu Maua Ka Hale Puni Maua Ohana Me Ka Pumehana A Me Ka Oiloli Kealoha -- May we create a home that surrounds our family and friends with warmth, laughter and love.
6. E Hoomau Maua Kealoha -- May our love last forever
7. Ia Iho Ke Aloha -- To my love
8. Ko Aloha Makamae E Ipo -- Sweetheart you are so precious
9. Me Ke Aloha Pumehana -- With the warmth of my love
10. Nau ko`u aloha -- My love is yours

The above quotes were retrieved from an email I received around Valentine's day from the Hawaiian Lei Company. I liked some of the quotes above and we tried to incorporate them into our invitations but hm...it's a no go for us.

Hope someone can use one of these quotes!

Dress update

The last time I wrote on here, I was attempting to go to David's Bridal. I made the appointment for a Monday and we finally made it inside. =) So, third time of making the appointment WAS a charm. ha ha. My sister-in-law, my cousin and my mom accompanied me to DB at 8 in the evening on a Monday night. Weren't they sweet?

A few days prior to my appointment, I went on DB to look at dresses that I might possibly like. I searched for "lace" and "bead". I kept looking at one dress in particular: T9612. I read the reviews and knew how much people liked it. I also liked the simplicity of it as well. So, I knew I had to try on that one for sure. I called to make sure that the store I was going to did have the dress in the size I needed. And they did. So, on we go on our appointment.

As soon as we stepped in the door, there the dress was! T9612! I didn't know it was that dress when I saw it at first. I said, wow, it's really pretty! And then I looked at the tag and that was the dress!! So, of course that was the first dress I tried on. It was very pretty. I liked it a lot! But I couldn't settle on the first DB dress. I asked my consultant (Camie) that our wedding was going to be in Hawaii and that I'm looking for simple but elegant gown. Camie was really good because she actually listened to me!!! I tried on a few more dresses and decided that at David's Bridal, T9612 was the dress for me!! The dress that I tried on was ivory but my mom thought it was "dingy" looking cuz it wasn't white. And because I'm so indecisive, I didn't buy the dress then. I tried on two different sizes since both didn't fit me right -- size X fitted me everywhere but near the waist area, it needed to be brought up. But size XX fitted me right near the waist area but the hip area was a bit big. Camie thought I should get size XX but my mom thought it'd be better to get size X. Hm...so I told Camie, I had to think about it. I'm still not sure which size I should pick to this day.

That's me with T9612!

So, the dress was on sale that day. According to Camie, she said that if I buy the dress then, it'd be $699. That's $100 off from the original price of $799. But add tax, and alteration fees and I'm thinking it'd be at least $1100. But here's the thing: I can't imagine spending so much money on a dress that I'll just be wearing for a few hours. I still am at awe at women who spend thousands of dollars on a wedding dress. Where do you get the money? Or is it just me being a "thrifter"? I still made an appointment with Camie to go see her the following Thursday BUT I haven't been back yet.

As soon as I got home, I went to weddingbee and posted an ad to say I wanted that dress. Then this girl contacted me and said that she was looking for the same dress. I found out that girl and I are almost identical in our measurements. I was thinking...wow..score!! We can share the same dress. We emailed back and forth and decided to share the dress. So, I was really excited, thinking that I get to wear the dress I liked AND stay within my budget. I was so excited that I even told my dad and my mom about it during one of our Friday dinners. And my cousins thought I was being a cheapo. ha ha ha. But guess what happened? The plan didn't work out. That Saturday, she tried on the T9612 dress and then tried on another dress. She fell in love with another dress! Bummer! But hey..it just wasn't meant to be, right? She felt really bad but I told her that she should go for her dream dress and not to worry about me.

Another week later, on Wednesday after school, I went to Papers and Petals store in Burlingame with my lovely entourage to try on a few more dresses. Guess who else came with me that day? My lovely niece. She was so sweet. She stayed with me in the dressing room as I was trying on dresses so that she can help me zip the zippers. So sweet.

The thing I didn't like about my experience there was when their sample dresses are street size 2! Um...thanks for the compliment but I'm NO WHERE near size 2. ha ha. After trying on a few more dresses, I narrowed it down to two dresses: 1. simple and elegant with lots of silk lace in a sheath shape and 2. longer train with polyester satin but has lots of details. The prices for each dress? For dress 1: $2400! For dress 2: $1400! I couldn't decide! I told the consultant that I have to come back the following Wednesday after I make my decision. She said that because these dresses take about 4 months to order, I should make an appointment to come back very soon. She suggested to come back on Friday. I said, alright. So, i got an appointment at P&P at 2 p.m. on that Friday. I assumed that if I look at the pictures that were taken by my cousin, then I can make up my mind. Did I? NOPE! I really love that dress #1 but dress #2 was so pretty in the pictures because of the sparkles and such. I know I know. I thought you didn't want to spend more than $500 on a dress? Well, I don't! That's why I knew I wouldn't go back there to buy the dress.

dress 1 -- front and back

dress 2 -- the consultant was nice enough to turn down the lights so that I can see the sparkles!

The whole time I was trying on my dresses, I was thinking that only if I can have it made. I even went to a dressmaker near my house with the pictures of the dresses I liked. Guess what her quote was for me? $2,000!!! You read right! TWO THOUSANDS! And that doesn't even include the material fees. It's all for labor. OUCH!!

So, my alternative? JeffLiu8800 on ebay! I sent him pictures of the dress I liked, which I never tried on in any of my dress shopping trips. His price was more friendlier to my budget then any alternatives. Of course, Mr.JB didn't like that idea! He said what if the dress doesn't look good? What's your alternatives? Do you have a back up plan? What about the money? Ah...sometimes Mr. JB has too many good questions. I said, well, if it doesn't work out then it doesn't work out. But I would hate to miss out wearing a dress I liked because I didn't even try. My backup plan? Well, J-Crew, of course!

I gave my measurements to JeffLiu8800 on Friday and asked him for pictures of the lace he'll be using on my dress. Of course, the original gown has silk underlining but this one will have satin. it's okay, right? No big deal. Nobody's going to come up to me and lift my skirt to say, "oh you have satin, huh?" ha ha.

I shall keep you updated as soon as I get my dress. It's going to be about 4 weeks until I get it.

To register or not to register

Since we're having our wedding in Maui, we're thinking that we don't need to register for presents or anything like that since we'll be so greatful just to share our special day with those who we love.

Okay..that's not just some BS I came up with. I really mean it.

But of course, a girl can dream, can't she?

So, we registerd at Macy's and myregistry.com. Macy's kind of like the typical stuff -- beddings, cookwares, etc. But myregistry.com allows you to get items from other places. So cool. But .. who will get us stuff? I wonder....

On a search for a pair of pretty ones...

=) I'm talking about my shoes. I know I don't want a plain ol' ivory/white shoes just for the wedding. I want a fun and flirty shoes I can wear over and over again. So, I've been looking for something that's white/ivory with fun patterns BUT the shoes can not be overly expensive or too high. (I'm afraid of falling and twisting my right ankle as I have done this TWICE already.) Oh, another criteria is that it HAS to be comfortable. I have a bad left foot which causes a lot of trouble when walking in uncomfortable shoes. I know..that's a lot of criteria, right? =)

I found this one on zappos and liked it a lot:

Isn't that pretty? It's by Anne Klein's Christa.

And I thought I was pretty set with Christa but .... I saw these and liked it as well:

This is a pair of shoes by Casadei and it's floral beaded slingback!! WOW WHEE! Isn't that also pretty?

But guess what happened? They sold out of my size when I clicked on it at 9:31 a.m. when the shoes went on sale at 9 a.m. Uh..don't these other ladies have to work? How come my shoes sold out so quickly? UGH!

Now, I'm still on a hunt for a pair of shoes.

Have you bought it?

That's the question I get more often now from some of my classmates. They want to know if I have gotten the dress yet. No, not yet. Then of course, the next comment is usually what follows: "(gasp!), you only got xx months. You have to get the dress now!" I know I know! But there's a reason why I don't have it yet.





A bit of history for you: I wanted to get my wedding dress way in advance. Before we got engaged, I thought I would want a big poofy dress from David's Bridal. Then, when we decided on a destination wedding, I knew I wanted a form fitting dress. Well, okay. Not that form fitting. I do have chubs afterall. haha. So, a few months ago, my mom, my sister, my cousin-in-law and I went to go dress shopping. I think we went in November. I just wanted to get an idea of what would look good on me. We spent a few hours and I loved the look of Sarah Danielle dress on me. I told the lady at the store that we'll be back in a few months. She suggested that I give about 8 months to get the dress. I said, oh okay. We'll be back.

Here's a picture of me in Sarah Danielle 5348

Well, it's February. Do you think we've gone back? NOPE!! I haven't gone back because I'm very hesitant to try on the dresses. Not because I don't want to try them on but it's because I got cooties. Yeap..I got cooties on my neck, my stomach, my back, my legs and on and on. It's EVERY where!! And it's disgusting. I hate it. Okay, the technical term is not cooties. It's called "Pityriasis Rosea". It started on my stomach and then it started to spread like wild fire on my body. I have no idea what the etiology is or what triggers it to spread or anything. And I asked my dermatologist and she said they don't know much about this disease either. What's the point of being a doctor if you can't even my questions?! UGH!!





So because of my cooties, I haven't gotten a chance to try on any dresses lately. But because it's already February, I now feel more stress to get the dress.





I should also mention that because I want my mom, my sister, and my cousin-in-law to be there, I've been trying to plan my dress shopping date around their schedule. It's kind of hard since I also have to plan around my school schedule too. I cancelled on David's Bridal twice. Okay okay. They weren't even cancelled....they were simply forgotten, TWICE. =) Third time's the charm. (Let's hope so.)

flower toss? why yes!

So, we didn't know if we wanted to do petal toss or not. Actually, I should say: we didn't know if our venue would allow us to do the petal toss or not. I emailed our wedding coordinator and asked if it was okay for us to do the petal toss / petal aisle and she said it was okay, as long as someone cleans it up. She volunteered herself and her husband. Hee hee. Isn't that sweet?

That means, we can have people tossing flower petals at us as we leave. How romantic would that be? That said, I decided to make a regular cone. I didn't like the way the cone pointed out. That means, I have to make the top circular, right? So, I went to my trusty software (printing press) to work on the design. Here's what I did (I think I got the idea from Weddingbee, but forgot from who):

1. Start a new project

2. Click on the layout tab and change to custom size.

3. Then, make the width to be 7" and the height to be 8".

4. Then go to the margin tab and put .25 all around.

5. Create your design. We simply put our names with our wedding date.

6. Then insert the circular shape by right clicking on the newly created stationary, click on design and add shape.

7. You want to select "oval" in the shape session. Under line detail, put the outline color to reflect "1" for the outline portion. Because you don't want the color to be too dark, choose gray as your color. Make sure your oval is 7" in height and width.

8. Then print on a pretty cardstock paper.

I printed mine as a pdf. Here's a jpg of what it looks. Mind you, I printed the crop marks so that I have a guide to know where I'm going to cut.

Since Mr. JB didn't like the plain paper idea, I've been trying to see if there's a 8.5 x 11 paper with pretty patterns. So far, I'm thinking about scanning the paper I bought from papersource and then print that pattern on one side and print our pretty monogram on the other side.

Now I just need to figure out where I'm going to buy the flower petals. Any ideas?

Paper source = empty wallet

Well, we went to Paper Source the other day because we wanted to return the envelope liner that we bought. The envelope liner we bought from them didn't fit the envelopes we were getting from cardsandpockets. And of course, you only have 30 days to return things to papersource and we had to go last Friday since it was the last day.

Then, we bought some more of the orange paper for the liner. Each sheet can get you about 11 liner for the response envelope. And because those papers are expensive, we were thinking of using giff wrapping papers. And because we wanted to keep things orange, we were looking just at the orange papers to find this one: fish paper. But of course, we had nothing in our wedding that has fishes. So, that fish paper was a no go. We kept looking in the paper section and we saw the green paper similar tot he orange paper we had. DING DING DING!! I want it. But how many sheets do I need? The staff at papersource used the extra template they had and measured things or me. And we found out that each sheet will get you approximately 6 liner for the regular a7 envelope. The store we went to only had 3 of those sheets. So we needed 4 more sheets and we had to go to another papersource store to get the rest.

And also, we bought a giant magnolia kit. I have big hopes for this kit because if Mr. JellyBelly likes the way it comes out, then we can use it as our centerpieces. whoo hoo!

But I have to study for my test so the wedding stuff has to wait a bit.

Also....I just ordered my supplies from cardsandpockets.