i survived my wedding

Right... wedding posts, wedding blog, wedding pictures... i totally failed on that one. i did however, succeed in getting married so no worries myself 30 years from now. the wedding happened, even though you did not blog diddly squat about it. the wedding planning was both hard and easy. it was possibly harder than it should've been because we procrastinated like hell. Basically, we booked the venue and bought the dress and then for months and months we didn't do anything until July. HAHHHH...

Anyway, I've read wedding blogs like weddingbee for a long time, way before i was even engaged. ALL the brides looked like they had fun planning, with the pictures! and the pictures! and the research! and the stories! Wheeeeee! I have no idea how they do it. I failed at being able to "picture" my wedding. If there are ANY brides to be out there reading this and feel like they are at a total lost of knowing what you want for your wedding you are NOT alone. Here are a list of things that annoyed the crap out of me when i was planning my wedding:

What is your wedding color? - one of the two things people ask me. really? were colors that important? what if i wanted every color in the world? i've seen pictures, it would've been pretty. anything is pretty! what if i told you my color, what would you do for me besides say "ooOoo..."

Did you find your dress yet? ick, worse shopping.experience.ever

not rsvping. damn you asians

rsvping for more than was allowed. damn you asians

telling me (not asking) that you are bringing more people. damn you asians

complaining to me (the night before the wedding) on why i didn't invite your whole family. damn you asians

planning and purchasing and not seeing a single thing come together. ever max out your credit card in one single swipe?

things you "should" do for your wedding, this type of advice comes from everybody and anyone. It's worse when it comes from the og parents, because wow, people are all about customs and how the things are suppose to be and honestly get upset that things aren't the "norm" and take it as a personal insult.

ALL past brides will tell you that it is "your day, do what you want" but you know what happens when you do what you want? you're "bridezilla". so pick and choose people.

Oh. And you won't get what you want...

but you can get pretty damn close

Bottom line, our wedding was still pretty, my pictures that i've seen so far turned out great. i had FUN. the ceremony was sweet, short and remembering (because we winged it and so many things went "wrong"). our food was actually pretty damn good and it seemed like everyone else had fun. only complaint? they ran out of alcohol!

i'll leave you with the best worst quote you will hear after you get engaged..

"it's just one day..."

Bloom

Cherry blossoms were short this year due to crappy weather :(

the Venue!

Happy March everybody! Do you know what that means? It means winter is almost over and allergies have already begun. Fun times. Well, it's been a month, but we do have our venue and the contract has been signed as of February. I just never got around on updating this blog... work has been busy and now a days work > blogging. Do you remember back in the day when blogging > work? That's why i make the big bucks now... wait.. that didn't make any sense... okay i'm rambling.. and am "writing" in long run-on sentences. BUT the point is we have the venue! AND it's already MARCH! That means only 5, i repeat 5 more months until i get married. eeek. i don't think it actually hit me until my friend said "after your married" because usually we talk about when you have your wedding.. and talk has been about the wedding.. but marriage wasn't really brought up. I know, it should be one of the same.. but somehow, "wedding" just became a huge expensive event that i am dragging my feet on planning and marriage is like EEEK, holy crap.

So that's where i am... next post, wedding dress! or should i say.. marriage dress!

On Lists & Details

While I'm awaiting for the revision of the contract for the venue, let's move on to other things shall we...??

First of all - I'm thinking that mayyyyyyyybe.. i should have some sort of check list somewhere so that I know what I want to concentrate on next. Right now, everything is jumbled in my head... colorscheme.decore.ceremony.music.dress.invites.placecards.addresses.weddingwebsite.bridesmaids??.etc.etc

I want to dwell in the pretty details... but then I feel like I will lose the big picture! Someone get me a checklist. Stat!

the Venue Part Deux

Or Part DUH!

So, can I vent a little bit? The last post I was all like, "I got a venue!!!!!!!". Today, I'm like uhh i don't really have a venue, do i have a venue? ::bangs head::

It came down to receiving our quote from our caterer. Remember the budget of fifteen thousand dollars. Well the caterer came out to be fifteen thousand dollars.. so what the?!? I had to rethink... and then all of suddenly i was searching for venues again, i found parks and someone offered up her sister's HUGE 3 acre backyard, and bbq caterers and more restaurants and and and

i thought i was done with this part!

So now I think we're back to the three original choices from before. I am going to talk to my caterer to see what we can knock off the list to lower our costs. I.E. no open bar, not having the ceremony on the pier, etc. etc. I have to decide, really really decide, what type of wedding I want to have. Can a wedding be fun if there's no dancing involved? Is it kind of lame if you just come, eat and mingle, but eat really good food and then just go home? Having a wedding is ultimately about throwing a huge party isn't it? You want your guests to enjoy themselves but you also want to have fun fun fun! Can i eat at a buffet in my wedding dress and enjoy it?! Will i have good pictures?

People always tell the bride to make sure she does what SHE wants on the wedding day. But what happens when she has no idea what she wants?!?

the Venue

Ok. So we got a venue. Writing that down made it sound sooooo easy. But it wasn't. It was hours of surfing the internet, reading reviews, emailing people, searching for photos, typing numbers into excel, opening up calendars, searching, viewing, pulling out hair, quitting and then deciding.

Originally - I wanted a destination wedding. Get married and vacation all at once? hollerz! Also, we loved Mexico the last time we were there... so i started searching and reading forums and then i finally settled on a place. It was a Dreams Resort Cancun Riviera. And I was all like yes! That's it! 3 thousand for the trip, 2.7 thousand for the wedding there, 5 thousand 7 hundred dollars. cheapest wedding ever?

No..... then we had to think about who we probably had to pay for - for them to come too, what we were putting our guests through and who would probably be left out. So we kind of scratched it off the list.

Next we started looking locally. I want to tell you that the best thing i liked out of the whole Mexico thing was that everything was all inclusive and then you buy a wedding package and BAM you're done. In the U.S., you seldom get wedding packages. You find a venue, then you find a caterer and between those two you have to calculate with your fingers that you're not spending way too much on just a room and food and alcohol, because how can my wedding NOT have alcohol??

So when I started searching I wanted to look at venues that already had a food package along with it. I found the Ceresville Mansion which had a good package AND it had discounted prices for December dates. It was an option. Then, we found a place in Manassas, which was weird, because it was part of a plaza.. and the feel of the whole thing was just weird, so i was like ehh...

Then I got kind of depressed because I didn't want the "normal" hotel/venue wedding thing. We looked into restaurants that we could book for a wedding. Maggiano's has awesome wedding packages, Chima's was willing to accommodate but then I was like do i really want a wedding in a restaurant??

Chima was actually going to be awesome. I thought $50 a person for all you can eat Brazilian Steakhouse?! But then I got the package, and yes, it is $50 a person, but add gratuity and tax and drinks on top of that, it was like $90 a person and that doesn't even include a dance floor.. so I had to think if i wanted a dance floor and of COURSE I HAD TO HAVE A DANCE FLOOR!

Okay- do you see where I'm going with this? Every time I kind of thought i had a place. I didn't. Every time i thought i might be getting a real good deal? it all came out to be about the same price... which brings it back to my previous post. Fifteen Thousand Dollars PLUS. I even considered having it at a chinese restaurant --Hello GOOD FOOD =]!! But bad decor =(

I'm not going to bore you with what my little brain went through every time i thought i had THE VENUE. so i will just show you THE VENUE that we've finally decided on the Sunset Room @ the National Harbor.

great.. now i'm craving to eat at a Brazilian Steakhouse AND chinese food.

2011 Say wikiwikiwhaaat

Okay, so i totally didn't post before the new year. OOPS.

This blog is about to get heavy duty on everything wedding. I need a place to put down all my ideas and my brain just isn't doing it for me.

After the new year, our good friend was like, YOU GUYS HAVE TO BOOK A VENUE. It's true, we had less than a year to plan this day that will cost us more than fifteen thousand dollars. You see how I made that seem like such a big important number? Because it is, because if i said 15k, people would be like oh 15k, but if i said fifteen thousand dollars that's a damn car, that's a down payment on a house, that's maybe half of a semester of college. ALL. ON. ONE. DAY.

Fifteen THOUSAND Dollars PLUS.

I'm hoping we keep at that range, but it looks like with the venue & food alone, that is what we will spend. So that doesn't even count, rings, clothes, decor, etc. etc.

The wedding industry (as pretty as it all is) is totally ridiculous!

Oh well - I should try to enjoy it.

Make it rain ya'll

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Speaking of ka-ching ba-ling. Check out this website i just found. Asians love giving and receiving dollar dollar bills - this calculates how much. How accurate do you think it is?

http://www.theweddingenvelope.com/calculator.php