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There are three months to go (91 more days to be precise) until our wedding day. Oh my goodness!

I’m happy to report that lots of details have been taken care of lately. Our wedding favors are complete, and we’ve picked out the tuxedos/vests. Luckily, we found a great vest color match to the bridesmaid dresses. I was worried about that one. Speaking of which, our bridesmaid dresses arrived and I went to pick them up. They look great! Can’t wait to pass them onto the girls!

After much thought, frustration, bouncing back and forth on ideas, and a sleepless night or two on my part (I can obsess), I think we have figured out what we will do for our centerpieces.  Thanks to Katie for affirming my ideas!  Phew!

Just today, we received our completed wedding invitations by UPS. The UPS man must’ve thought I was crazy (in a good way of course). It was so exciting to open that box! Our designer liked what we came up with so much that she asked if she could post a photo of them on the “Inspiration” section of her website! How cool! We’re thinking this one over, but it’s such a nice compliment!

We have yet to figure out lodging for Italy, but we’re working on it. Thanks to Michelle for the list of places you and Jimmy stayed at. We feel like we have some direction now!

Next up: my bridal shower and our engagement shoot! Fun fun! Can’t wait! Thanks to Diane for all your hard work on the shower so far! I loved the invitations!

On a side note, Frank and I saw our first Lexus IS F in person tonight. Boy was it beautiful! “Aggessive” looking, as Frank would say, but so beautiful. Frank spent some time walking around it and probably drooled a bit, and all I could come up with was “Baby, it’s an F!” We considered trading in the IS 350 for a moment, and then came back to reality. What on earth would I do with 100+ extra horse power anyway? Maybe in a few years, if and when the store makes us lots of moola!

There are only 4 months to go until our special day! We were so swamped with Dream Dinners stuff during February and March that I made it a point to get some serious wedding planning done over my spring break.

Diane, my matron of honor, and I started planning my bridal shower. Fun! We looked for invites, and I got to hear all about her fantastic food and decoration ideas! I’m such a lucky girl to have such an amazing best friend!

I worked for hours designing our wedding invitations, and just got the proofs back from our designer. We should be going into the ‘production’ stage tomorrow! Yea!

Wedding favors are in the works, and I FINALLY found those gold shoes!

We have a lot planned for this weekend. We hope to take a serious look at tuxedos and make it up to the Flower Market in Oakland to search for what will make the reception centerpieces I have envisioned. Oh, and we really need to find hotels in Italy for our honeymoon. Suggestions anyone?  We plan to visit Rome, Florence, and Venice.  I’ve been told to try to get to Tuscany as well…where will we stay?

There are 5 months to go until the big day!  Oh my!  We have been very busy the last month with wedding details as well as store things.  I don’t quite know how we’re surviving the hectic schedule, but somehow we’re pulling it off!

In the last month of wedding planning, we blocked off the hotel for out-of-town guests or for those who want to stay the night before, or of the wedding.  We have blocked off a group of rooms at the Holiday Inn Express in Livermore.  I also booked my makeup artist and we’ve just decided on wedding invitations.

Next up, hotel reservations for Italy, tuxes, finalizing wedding favors…the list seems to go on and on.  And I’m still searching for those gold shoes…

We’ve been so consumed with the store construction the last few weeks that it occurred to me just a little while ago that we had some catching up to do with wedding stuff. So in the in the last few days, we started searching for wedding invitations, checked out local Livermore hotels, and I got my hair and makeup trial done.

The whole makeup artist search was a HUGE headache! I was banking on one particular artist who was highly recommended by our photographer. When I first made contact with her (she will remain nameless) back in November, she informed me that she works on a 6 month business calendar and therefore wasn’t taking bookings for August 2008 weddings until February 2008. So, on my calendar, I marked Jan. 31 as the day to send my second email inquiry to her. I heard from her two days later (and honestly, those two days waiting were not fun), saying she regretted to inform me that she was unavailable on our wedding day. Huh? What happened to the six month calendar thing? I guess someone beat me to it by emailing her earlier than I did.

So the search for a different makeup artist was on. I was finding it very difficult to get someone to come out to Livermore to do only makeup–one was charging an additional $200 because I didn’t want hair services. So in the end, I decided to go with makeup and hair, which I found out saves money in the long run and also saves us time on that day (I was originally going to have my regular hair stylist take care of our hair because I love her and she knows my hair and style).

Anyway, I found someone who was available on our day and set up the trial right away. I didn’t want to book someone without getting a trial first, and I didn’t want to loose out on getting someone, so I had to do the trial right away. It was fun! I even got some pictures taken by a professional photographer that the makeup artist hired for that day, just to take complimentary “after” shots. Girls, don’t you wish you looked that pretty everyday?

Today, I went to Trudy’s to order the bridesmaid dresses for my best friend and two sisters. I can’t believe it takes 3-4 months to get them in, but can’t wait for the call!

Next up, wedding invite samples…and I’m still looking for those gold shoes for my Chinese dress.

6 months to go until the big day! We can’t believe how quickly time keeps passing by! I suppose it seems especially fast because we’re so busy with the store.

The only wedding things we’ve done lately have been veil shopping, gold shoe shopping (for the Chinese dress. That’s been unsuccessful to date.), and going to Crate and Barrel’s Wedding Party event.

We signed up after hearing about it from friends (thanks Lilia and Kerwin!) and we went to the first one they held this year. It was so much fun, but really overwhelming! I thought it was simply an informational kind of thing, so I was totally unprepared when they actually handed us a scanner to begin our registry. Frank got totally trigger happy and wanted to “beep” things left and right. I wanted to strategically go through section by section, with the most important things visited first. Needless to say, it took us awhile to figure out how to compromise. Can’t believe we actually started our registry! We’re not done with it, and I have a feeling that we’ll be changing lots of it as the wedding gets closer. But, we had a great time and everyone there was so helpful! And of course, Frank had an extra good time because they served appetizers throughout the event. It was hard getting his attention, between all the food and his happy trigger finger!

Next up, meeting with our Wente wedding coordinator, deciding on the menu (yum!), and designing invitations! Fun stuff!

Frank and I officially became a couple 3 years ago today!  Today also marks 7 months to go until our wedding day!  I just realized a few days ago how much there is left to do…lots of the little details to take care of.  The only thing I’ve done lately is book our wedding rehearsal.  Oh boy!  January is going to be busy!

December 15th is a special day for me and Frank. 3 years ago today is when Frank and I first met. And 1 year ago today is when we got engaged! What a great day!

And…Happy Anniversary to my parents! They tied the knot 31 years ago today in Hong Kong! Congrats!

Like I said, what a great day December 15th is!

On a side note, we went to get my engagement ring cleaned today and found out that Vera Wang is no longer making her jewelry line. I was kind of sad learning that, but Frank thinks of it as sort of a ‘limited edition’ kind of thing. It makes my ring a little more unique I guess. All I can say is good thing we already bought the matching wedding band!

I didn’t get a chance to write this past Sunday because we were traveling to Seattle, but it marked the 8 month countdown to our wedding! Again, we can’t believe how quickly the time passes!

We haven’t really done much wedding planning in the last month. Report cards and parent-teacher conferences were in November and store construction started up, so we’ve been busy! I actually tried to book the make-up artist, but she doesn’t take bookings that far in advance! How funny! My mom has returned from Hong Kong, so when we get back to California, I’ll have to visit to see what wedding stuff she was able to take care of there. I’m anxious to see my Chinese wedding dress fabric and my veil! Exciting stuff!

On Monday night, I worked on the scrapbook pages for the Dream Dinners book. Every owner is asked to make the pages, and they keep the books here at the Dream House. When we first arrived, we looked through some of the books (there are lots of them sitting in the living room) and we found some of the California owners that we’ve met in the last few months. It’s fun to get a glimpse of the Dream Dinners family.

We came prepared with pictures of us and Kiya and some pictures from the store. I’m not really a scrapbooker, but I had a lot of fun working on our pages. It took me FOREVER though! One of the other owners walked by and was like “You’re still working on it?!” and I was only on the first page!

The theme was “2008 is going to be Great!”–it references the two big things happening for us in 2008. When I finally finished, I felt kind of sad that I had to leave them here in Washington, so I took pictures to remember my work. Anyway, here are some pics of the pages:

The Owners Page

The Store Page

This would be a really fun hobby to start up, but I think it would take up too much time and money that I don’t really have right now. It would be great to have a scrapbook of all the events related to the wedding though…hmmm…

Today marks 9 months to go until our wedding!  How time flies!  In the last month, we booked our florist and we think we’ve decided on wedding favors!  Next steps:  invitations (Yeh!  It’s going to be so much fun!) and finding a make-up artist…

We went to our very first florist appointment last week (thanks for the reference Michelle!) and boy, did I have fun!  I had asked Frank if he wanted to go with me, and surprisingly, he did.  How great!

As soon as we arrived, the florist sat us down and we started talking about style and colors.  To be honest, I don’t really know too much about flowers–the names of them all, what’s in season, what’s cheaper or more expensive.  But I do know what I like and what I don’t like looking at.

I loved the florist!  Even though I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, she picked up on my style and my quirks right away.  She was able to show me things that narrowed the choices down and made it so easy!

By the end of our appointment, we had basically picked out everything, from my bouquet to the centerpieces, and were able to get a quote.  Frank did a great job holding in his shock at the final estimated cost.  He was able to hold it until we got to the car!  =)

So in the end, I think we’ve decided to have the florist work on my bouquet and the bridal party and ceremony flowers, but we’re going to have to go a different route on the centerpieces.  Friends have already graciously offered helping hands, and we just might be taking up those offers!  In the meantime, I’m going to continue scouring magazines and the internet for inspiration…