nothing weddingy for so long and then all of a sudden...

haven't done anything weddingy in a while... seriously. nothing new at all since the last post... november 11th, till today! picked out maid of honour dress and chose my wedding bands!!! yay! super duper excited. the maid of honour dress is beautiful, though minor adjustments are needed, i'm super happy that she's happy with it too. maid of honour looks amazing in it and the colour is just perfect. the dress is totally her style and she says she's really comfortable in it and its a gorgeous dress that she could wear again and again after. woahoo!!!

as for the wedding bands, i have decided not to go rose gold, as the jeweler said it would make the diamonds look darker. my gorgeous d diamonds need to be showed off! so yes, white gold band sandwich with my ring. i'm really sad that i had to leave my ering behind for them to make the band though =( it'll be off my finger until the 9th of january or so. then i'll have to leave the bands to hkmummy to lock up in her safe! can't wait to put on my wedding set!

11 months to the date!!!

woahoooo!!! exactly 11 months to the date!

meeting mr.photog tomorrow night! hopefully we'll have found the photographer...

photographer... getting closer

so after numerous emails to various photographers, we have finally set up a meeting with a bloke named steffan, who took nice photos of our 'style' and who was in our price range. we get to meet him on thursday! yay! hopefully this will work out and then it'll be another thing off our minds.

found a flat!

hkgroom and i have finally found a flat. again. we always seem to be looking at flats and buying, and renting. gosh. we have been living apart for a while because we rented ours out for more income. then a few months later, hkgroom decides to rent out his other flat for more income too. with that, we have been living apart the past few months. sucky. but its all okay now! we move into a serviced apartment on november 28th. yay serviced apartment! its awesome because it includes all the bills (except electricity and internet), all the furniture is there (we might away when hkgroom's flat becomes free again- cheaper that way), its much bigger than hkgroom's flat now and it's a stone throw away from hkgroom's office!

very very exciting! it also means i can drag hkgroom into more and more wedding stuff (i.e. our home-made invitations!!!)

Many congratulations to Kristen!

just got the email updates from my good friend kristen... sigh... ryan is so romantic! super happy for them and their special day will be august 21st of next year! awesome ring too!!! i want more updates on the dress and bridesmaid dresses and all that kris!!!! i know you will read this!

miss you x.

The save the dates are officially DONE!

hkgroom and i spent 4 hours putting magnets on the back of our beautiful save the dates and omg they are stunning! my fingers hurt from peeling the magnet paper backing off though. some of the stupid magnet paper didn't have the sticky stuff and so i then i had to use double-sided sticky tape! hkgroom cut the magnets up and wrote all the names and addresses on the envelopes. what a long process.... he was such a superstar for doing it though!!! football was on and i thought he would have stopped, but he didn't. =)

anyhoo, they look fantastic and they're ready to be sent. still waiting on some people's addresses, but will go to the post office on sunday and so people in hk should get them sometime early next week, and hopefully people overseas will get them 10 days later.

printed save the date!

yay! the ever-fantastic MOH managed to make our save the date even more fabulous with her amazing designer eye =) so we got them printed! they look absolutely fantastic in matte and i'm so excited to put the magnet backing on them.

fotomax was excellent. i had the save the date on my usb and got 80 printed all in matte. each cost $1.6 and took a total of two hours. apparently not all fotomax stores can do matte print, so need to check beforehand. i did find out that the ones in shatin new town plaza and mong kok bute street can. but no idea about other places. also, only size 4R was available if done in matte. omg! just found out from the website that if you order online, a 4R photo only costs $1.1!!! what a steal!

hehehe, i'm slowly sending people emails asking for their address to send out. very excited!

halloween

awesome inspiration board i found on the web!

halloween is coming up and it got me thinking, a halloween-themed wedding!!!

how super fun would that be??? okay, i guess it would feel more like a party, but i reckon it would totally rock for guests! dressing up in costumes for a wedding!?

party favours

just thought of an awesome party favour idea! a candy buffet! so each person gets a plastic bag and gets to fill up the bag with different types of sweets on a table. i'm a real sweet tooth and love candies so my picks would probably be jelly beans, peach rings, and skittles. hkgroom on the other hand, is a real chocolate/cookies type person, so he's thinking of mini-chocolate chip cookies, maltesers, and hershey's cookies and cream kisses... something along those lines! yum yum yum! going to try to get hkgroom to see if he can get a source for the mini tongs that you can get from the mong kok candy stores where you scoop your own candies. hopefully we can get the mini tongs engraved with our names and wedding date or something like that. sooooooooooooooo excited!

off camping...

will be camping for a few days in beautiful dai long wan (sai kung). its my all time favourite place in hong kong. taking a break from all this wedding stuff!

day at shek o

save the date 1

save the date 2

aren't our save the dates lovely?!?! wouldn't they look absolutely fab on someone's fridge?(i've got magnet paper and will turn the one we choose into an awesome magnet!!!) photoshop is amazing! i'm sooooooo proud of my work!! hmmm i think i'm liking the first one. will see what hkgroom thinks =)

today was an awesome day! hkgroom took half a day off work and so we went up to shek o golf club to take a look at the place, take some photos for my save the date cards, and also have a nice bbq dinner at night with hkgroom's family.

so it was my first time ever today walking around the golf course (hkgroom played some golf) and got some lovely pics of shek o, the green, the background and everything. soooo pretty there! i couldn't believe how much i was sweating considering i wasn't hitting the ball or carrying anything! gosh, can't believe how some golfers are so fat... with all that walking, they should be super trim!

corset thing

(sorry for the not so great picture! i can't find a hanger with clips!)

bought myself a lovely corset (aka girdle) today for my dress hunting fun!!! quite expensive they are... gosh my one cost over $500HKD! apparently it was already 30% off!

got it from exclusivelymine the lady in the shop was really nice and helpful. i bought the first style i tried on! luckily i tried it on again after i left the shop though because it turned out she gave me the wrong 'new' one. in that, she gave me a size smaller than the one i originally tried. drama continues in that it turns out the sample one is the last in its size and its dirty (make-up marks on the inside) and they're unlikely to get new stock. so i looked at her and asked if i should come back when they had new stock in my size and if they should just give me store credit (i had already paid). she then said she actually had one that would fit me (not the same size as the one i tried on- one cup size higher, but underbust size smaller... i.e. the same thing) but she didn't bring it out originally because someone else had 'reserved it' without paying and its already been two weeks and that customer had still not picked it up.

so i tried on this other one and it too, fit. so took that one instead. gosh... i like the store and kinda like the woman because she was nice. but can't help but question if she deliberately gave me one in the wrong size hoping i would find out too soon because she never even apologized!

ohwell. i wasn't in the mood to kick up a fuss. in the end i got what i want and it was something that fit. i'm happy.

DJ!!!

so my good friend is a dj. dj tai pan dan in fact. he's a fantastic dj and a great friend. born and raised in london (with an awesome londoner's accent), tai pan dan is making a name for himself in the world of house music in hk. he plays in hong kong's top venues: beijing club, finds, W hotel, armani bar... he's also part of the soul heaven team in hk! yay dan!

anyhow, he's going to play at our wedding! yay! bring on the cheesy music!
love you dan!

wedding set continued...

i love the symbolism behind a hand written inscription on the band!

more thinking about my wedding set and our wedding bands! i've always really liked the idea of having our date/names/a phrase inscribed as it gives more meaning to the band. also, if its a time to go 'all out' its now!

i'm not too worried about mine and hkgroom's bands matching as he's quite picky and doesn't really want to draw too much attention to his hands with a ring anyway...

wedding set

YAY!!! went with hkgroom to visit our awesome jeweler again to discuss getting our wedding rings made! because my setting is quite low (there's not enough room for a band to sit nicely underneath my engagement ring) i'm thinking of getting two thin rings (curved pave half band in rose gold) to 'sandwich' my engagement ring. by making the two bands curved, it will allow the rings to 'sit' together nicely without any gaps in between.

the effect would make it look kinda like a halo ring. sort of the picture above =) my only concern is that this 'set' will not really look like a wedding set at all because unlike in the pic above, my ring's band is really really delicate. hmmmm not sure... still thinking...

ring for him

wouldn't this be an awesome ring for hkgroom??? its different and interesting yet simple at the same time! (i think its actually a woman's ring!)

its called 'walk with me' from artisan impact. this particular ring is made out of oxidised silver, yellow gold and rose gold. such an awesome effect! they have another cool ring called 'zero hour' which i think hkgroom might be interested in.

celebrity brides

an awesome place to get wedding inspirations is definitely celebritybrideguide.com they have great photos of celebrity couples, the wedding day, dresses, bridesmaid dresses, rings and the lot! i particularly like the 'love stories' of the celebrity couples!

photographer

OMG photographers cost soooooooooooooo much!!!!

i definitely want amazing photography of the day. of the wedding, this is the one thing that we will have forever. the cake gets eaten and then comes back out, the dress gets worn once (ok, i say this but this is another area i am willing to splurge a bit more on) and flowers simply die! photographs last forever and ever.

just surfing the internet and having a look around for photographers and their online portfolios... and my goodness people charge a lot! just checked out Simon.the.blog who takes absolutely exquisite photos, but he charges over $30k for the day. its a bit out of our budget. Simon would really be my dream photographer, but hkgroom would surely not agree $30,000 for photography.

hmmmm ANN CHOI looks great too! will email her to see what quote i can get.

healthy eating

wow i've been relatively good this week! today i had no breakfast, lunch and a small bowl of chinese soup for dinner. i've totally cut out mcdonalds and all my snacking! yay me! hehehe kinda hungry now... need to keep busy and stop thinking of food!

one year to the day!!!

eeeeek!!! it is exactly one year to the day!!! i'm so excited! rolled over to hkgroom and said 'happy one year pre-wedding day!'

yay yay yay! was going to eat terrible today so i can start eating a bit more sensibly (see previous post) after today. but didn't end up going for my all-time fav, poutine! =( poutine is basically thick chips with gravy and cheese curds (heart attack in a cup) but soooooo delicious.

there is only one place in hk that does poutine, new york fries located in harbour city tst.

no more super unhealthy eating for me... maybe poutine once every few months???

dress browsing and kicking myself for forgetting my camera

am on a high! went dress browsing with mummy and daddy!!! wow, you wouldn't believe how exhausting it is trying dresses on! it was very fun, even though we only tried dresses on in two shops.

i am kicking myself for forgetting my camera though!!! i had every intention of sneaking photos when i was trying on the dresses in the change room to send to hkmaidofhonor but i forgot my camera!

i tried on 7 dresses or so all together, all different styles and materials. i definitely like the lace ones!

found a gorgeous gorgeous dress that looked stunning. *sigh* must go back with hkmaidofhonor when she gets here in december.

congratulations mare!!!

a huge congratulations to my friend marianne and her new hubby adam!!! love you mare and wish you a lifetime of happiness! wish i could be there and will be thinking of you today! xxx

weight loss plan

i've got a brilliant plan. i reckon i need to lose 10 pounds by october 11, 2010 and the way to do that- slowly and steady by losing one pound per month! totally doable!

step one: definitely to stop eating mcdonalds!!!

its terrible, our taxi-pool departs from admiralty station every morning and mcdonalds is right there. seriously. need to stop. i just loooooveee a hamburger and large orange juice in the morning! terrible, i know. hkgroom would freak if he read this! should probably cut out those egg and roasted tomato breakfast baguettes from pret a manger too.

crap... just googled it, there are 250 calories in a normal hamburger!!! gosh, makes you wonder how many calories are in the quarter pounder!

another pic of shek o!

woahoo! i've finally got another picture of shek o club from hkgroom. its a picture of the clubhouse from the green... i think... not as clear as i would like, but its awesome seeing such a gorgeous blue sky and the green grass in the foreground. seriously, where else in hk would we see such a view??? we're heading over next thursday to check the place out again, and take more photos. only after i get some decent shots of our ceremony location, i can make our save-the-dates. i'm so excited! i also got the magnetic paper stuff ($15 bucks per A-4 sheet from the local stationary store... and by local, i mean local!)

hkgroom will likely play golf with there while i get to sit in the buggy and snap away! must remember to charge my camera for then!

wedding planning is the perfect procrastination tool

seriously. i've got a presentation for next monday and haven't even started on the powerpoint. just did the readings and will need to do them again because i've been so distracted its all jibberish.

top wedding procrastination sites:

weddingbee

theknot

instyle weddings

ringenvy

"why exercise won't make you thin"

yes! research suggesting that exercise may not necessarily lead to weight loss!!!! just came across this on time.com.

it talks about the idea that exercise may keep one from losing weight as after exercise, it stimulates hunger! therefore, after exercising, you eat more. also, it goes on about after having vigorously exercised, people tend to 'relax' more at home as they have already done the hard work. this vigorous exercise + relaxing does not mean burning more calories than someone who is moderately active the whole day as they are not 'compensating'. interesting article!

i catch myself doing this actually... i'll happily order a big hamburger with fries after a workout to 'reward' myself. eating this is waaayy more calories than i burned during my work out! hahahaha can't wait to send this article to hkgroom.

guest list

finally hkmum has given me a list of people! and holy cow, 45 people who are 'just family'. gosh! seems like a whole lot for a wedding of 120-ish (conservative number) people... hkmotherinlaw has already given us a list from her side. basically hkgroom's side is looking at around 45 family invites with a 90% turn out. with my side however, as the majority of family are overseas, i've counted 10 people off the bat who are unlikely to come.

anyway, just subscribed to the knot where they have a guest list manager tool. pretty cool as i can keep track of my 'A' (just family) and 'B' list, guests and their guests, whose side of the family the guest is from, how many invited, how many and who has RSPVed etc. not bad. scarily, my list says 212 people will be invited (hkgroom will have a heart attack!) with 86 people on the 'A' list.

this website also has lots of information and pics on dresses, hairstyles, rings, colour schemes, honeymoons, real weddings, and even a place for people to host their own wedding website! very very cool. great way to keep guests informed about the wedding.

speaking of wedding websites, hkgroom and i will buy our own wedding website domain on our wedding date so we only have to pay for a year's subscription. i need to get more info from hkgroom as to which company's service we will use....

music

"if music be the food of love play on"

-twelfth night, william shakespeare

music, music, music- hkgroom and i are soooooooo different when it comes to our taste in music. i'm all about mainstream stuff- i like songs with lyrics and stuff that is catchy. hkgroom on the other hand, is completely different. so when i asked him if there are any particular songs he'd like at our wedding, he said it was hard because his type of music is totally inappropriate for a wedding. anyhow, we spent a good two hours on youtube looking up songs. and we may have found the song for our first dance!!!!

on the same note, hmv now has a service where you can buy single tracks! each track is $8 and up and whole albums are $40 and up! fantastic! with no itunes in hk, i have been listening to the same stuff over and over again. i'm very very excited to make a list of new songs i want to put on my ipod. basically, you go to this little machine and search for the songs you want (you can even test the song by listening to a sample of the track). a receipt prints out which you take to the counter and the people burn it onto a cd for you, or put it directly onto your music player. not sure how they would put it directly onto the ipod though, as i thought the technology only allowed music from one itunes onto the one ipod to prevent sharing.... not sure. anyhow, super cool of hmv to have this service! and no doubt we will be using this to look up songs for our wedding!

centrepieces

been looking at lots and lots of flowers and their arrangements online and am considering simple flower centrepieces, using calla lilies as well as it would tie in with my bouquet. we already have one florist in mind for the lilies, and so i checked out ikea for vases. rather than this oval-y shaped one in this picture, i'm thinking a tall rectangular shape. super typical of ikea not to have this type of vase in their hk store... so i checked their us store and ta-da! i'm perhaps thinking of the 8 1/4 inch rektangel vase for only $1.99USD! only downside is that 8 1/4 inches isn't actually that big of a vase and may look 'silly' as such a small centrepiece... might have to get something bigger to add a bit of grandeur to the look. hmmmmmmm......

happy china day!

wheeee! one of the great things about hong kong is that there are loads of public holidays! going to the government's website, i counted 17 public holidays this year. woahooo!

wedding wise, today was great as hkgroom and i walked around tst and found calla lilies in the market going for $30 per flower! granted, they were 'left overs' from the end of the day and so they looked a bit droopy and not too nice, but seriously, $30 rather than the $120 from armani. needless to say, hkgroom was sold and announced i could have a massive bouquet if i wanted! =) didn't get their name card or phone number as hkgroom was confident he would remember where the shop was (along haipong road, in the wet market, first stall on the right). will definitely keep them in mind!

uber expensive flowers

i have always known i wanted calla lillies as my bouquet. they're gorgeous and super simple. they've got that simple elegance to them. love love love them. randomly walked into armani fiori and oh my gosh! they're beauuuutiful but holy cow they were charging $120 per flower!!!! apparently they're flown in from the netherlands.... i told hkgroom and his jaw just dropped and told me he hoped that i would be sensible. all i could say was 'yes honey'.

armani fiori is located at charter house in central.

women who do it all!

my co-worker, ms.ng is seriously, a wonder woman! she works full time, studies part time (3 nights per week), goes to the gym 5x per week, eats nothing but salads (fine- she's a vegetarian) and still manages to plan her wedding! oh my goodness she's amazing! i was having a bit of an arghhhhh moment and i think of her... how does she do it?

the thought of my master's paper and the proposed outline that's due in january makes me feel sick... in fact, i haven't even looked at my development paper based on a foreigner's experience in the slums from shantaram by gregory david roberts which is due on the 20th. yay. fun coming my way.... not.

wedding/symbolic tattoo!

i'm thinking of getting a tattoo of my wedding date (yes, i know that not all relationships last!) or a symbol/phrase that would be representative of our relationship, but if things went sour, i could at least try to convince myself that it represents something else! however, hkgroom doesn't really think much of tattoos and my parents will probably kill me!

if i get a tat of my wedding date, it would be X.XI.X on my wrist for oct 11, (20)10.... i googled roman numeral tattoos and eva longeria popped up!

another idea i have is the phrase 'i am my beloved's and my beloved is mine' in Hebrew, from the song of solomon. i love it and think it is so beautiful! maybe i could have it on my side starting just under the breast and going down... it's quite a well hidden place and so no one would have to know!

just a thought... actually doing it is another thing....

more dress browsing

mummy and i are going dress browsing!!! we've arranged a 'date'- october 10th, i.e. 12 months and 1 day to my wedding day! very exciting! i wish my MOH could be here though.... ohwell, i will send her lots of photos from my phone =)

my first dress store!

waiting for hkgroom in the middle of tst (granville rd.), i decided that i'm going to be brave and walk into a dress store all by myself! first thought is, wow, everyone is sooooo nice to me. as soon as i sat down, the woman asked me how i found the place as they only just moved from hung hom. i told her they had evening gowns in the shop windows, so i went upstairs to have a look. she went on about how it was 'fate' that brought me up. blahblahblah. as they were still getting sorted, they only had pictures of dresses on their laptops to show me. i don't know if it was a good or bad thing that i wasn't too interested as it was the first shop i'd been in! also, it was very local, with the lady claiming that all their dresses are from taiwan (materials from europe). 15 minutes later, hkgroom calls and we meet.

fast forward after dinner and hkgroom wants to get a haircut. he goes to his regular and i notice that right above his hairdressers is another bridal store! yay! so i went upstairs and had a look. this lady, was very nice and immediately asked if i wanted to look at the dresses, or have a look at the pictures first. i said pictures, so i could sit down and see the whole dress in front of me. i found a gorgeous white strapless lace mermaid dress with a small train (similar to right).

it was made of very light material too! perfect for hk outdoors. i asked the price and she said $3xxx =) yes, $3xxx to buy and she said only a few hundred more for alterations to make it more 'custom'. i'm thinking of getting some sleeves a la jenna bush...

bubbles???

bubbles bubbles bubbles- a preschool teacher's best friend. bubbles make any crying child stop and it works every time.

relevance to this post? well, as we're thinking of having our ceremony at the same place as our reception, it would be a little silly to have our guests throw flower petals at us as we walk down the aisle. too much mess that has to be cleaned up for dinner. so i was thinking... maybe have our guests blow bubbles at us! wouldn't that make really cute photos??? and the bubbles could make really nice wedding favours too- the label could have all of our wedding information and with hkgroom's contacts, i'm sure he can get those little bubble bottles with sticks pretty cheap. and a large bottle of bubble liquid from toys r us would totally do the trick!

yay me! i feel like i'm totally on a roll =)

cakes vs cupcakes

image from babycakes

a mum brought in a ton of cupcakes today to share with the kids and staff to celebrate her son's birthday, a perk to being a preschool teacher =)

this sparked a thought about cakes vs cupcakes....

hkgroom and i have always joked about having cheese cakes as our wedding cakes... and not just one, but three. the first, chocolate marble cheesecake from the delicatessen at the holiday inn golden mile, the second, blueberry cheesecake from ali oli, and the third, mars bar cheesecake from cru. mmmmmmmmmmm, those have always been our favourite desserts. this however, has not stopped me from browsing for cakes.

we're totally not into any five tier cakes or anything like that, the more unconventional, the better! traditional wedding cakes (at all the weddings that i've been to) are all sponge cake + cream... blah. completely not us. we like rich cakes (hence the cheesecake choices that are thick and not japanese).

anyhow, looking online for some interesting places that do cakes:

cakealicious- they do a range of different types of cakes, not just wedding cakes, but super cute cupcakes too! wedding cakes start at $300 per lb, and special cupcakes are $30 per cupcake with a minimum order of 12. the great thing about cakealicious is that they do delivery (at the charge)- charge or not, the last thing anyone needs is a ruined cake en route to the location!

cova- very yummy cakes, and some gorgeous (very grand) looking designs. you can even get a 'dummy' cake here for photos! fresh cakes range from 9" to 27" per tier with a choice of butter cream, dark fruit or sacher. of course, you can also get a specially designed cake.

alioli- a lovely little bakery/cafe in sai kung that does a killer blueberry cheesecake and scottish baps =) hkgroom insists every time we are in the area that we buy 12 baps to make sandwiches for the week. lovely lovely lovely!

babycakes- yummy cupcakes currently located in ap lei chau (recently closed down in causeway bay's delay no mall). they have 12 original flavours and are nut and transfat free =)

more inspiration board fun

green on the green

ahhhh nothing like googling wedding colour schemes and ideas... here is a green inspiration board. maybe green + brown? hmmmm would having the wedding on a golf course plus our green colour be too 'green'?

inspiration boards

my first inspiration board using mosaic maker! i've chosen tiffany blue + chocolate brown. my maid of honor really likes this combo. need to ask hkgroom to see what he thinks. will post other inspiration boards as i make them. i'm thinking brown + pale green for my next one... and brown + champagne for the one after that... hmmmm i wonder if brown + champagne will be too formal...

we asked shek o what colour their linens are so we can take that into consideration when coming up with our colour schemes. they said something about white, red, and blue but not sure if that means its a white, red, and blue pattern, or those are the colours we can choose from. hopefully it will be white, so we can choose pretty much any colour scheme.

first task for both sets of parents

task #1 for both sets of parents... to come up with a list of people who must be invited and their full contact details.

i'm hoping to get working on some save-the-date cards.

at the moment, i'm really loving an idea i found on marthastewartweddings.com for some diy cards. its basically a black & white or sepia photograph (i'm thinking of shek o club), our names at the top, the date, venue and 'invitations to follow' or something like that. and to make it super cute, i'm hoping to add a magnet on the back, so people can stick it up on their fridge forever! cute memento for those who don't come too.

hmmm, or should i make it a postcard (save on envelope and magnet money)... will see.

rings rings rings

first off, i love my engagement ring. it is stunning and it is very me. i'll admit though, i still enjoy looking at real people's rings... one of my favourite sites to browse through is ringenvy. its a great procrastination tool and gives you such fab ideas for how i can design my wedding band to match my engagement ring.

its also got a section of celebrity engagement rings... let me just say WOW to katie holmes' (see right). it is a 5 carat, oval in platinum and rose gold with a split shank pave setting. inspired by her ring, i'm considering getting two micro pave rose gold rings to 'sandwich' my engagement ring which is in white gold... will see what hkgroom thinks.

'registering' the marriage

wow, who knew that registering a marriage is so much work! just on the hk immigration website now which deals with marriage registration. apparently, 'a notice of intended marriage' is needed to given either at the registry, or through the civil celebrant.

OMG! an english speaking civil celebrant can cost up to $5000! this is the dude (not a priest, but a lawyer) who says 'i now pronounce you husband and wife'. goodness, a bit pricey isn't it? no wonder lots of couples just get their papers signed at city hall! a marriage at the registrar is only $715 during normal office hours and $1935 outside normal office hours (i.e. sat or sun)... mental note to must ask family if we know any civil celebrants who can officiate our ceremony!

for a list of civil celebrants in hk, click here.

and here for a list of licensed places of worship to have a wedding.

amazing website... but in chinese

if anyone can read chinese and is planning their wedding, ESDlife is the perfect place to go. serious. shame i can't read that much chinese. instead, i've been looking at all their pictures.

here is the ESDlife page in english (practical stuff but boring)

and here is the ESDlife page in chinese, very very comprehensive. it has everything from gowns to banquet halls to slimming centres!

no wedding planner for me

after sleeping on the whole wedding planner/no wedding planner debate, i've decided to go with no wedding planner for now. i do have 13 months to plan... and i reckon that with the wedding planner fee that i save, i can get myself a nicer dress =)

goooooooo me!

wedding planners?

to wedding planning or no wedding planner, that is the question...

i've been thinking a lot of the to-be-wedding today and am feeling a little anxious over all the little details! photographers, cakes, flowers, centre pieces, music, budget, colour schemes, invitations, wedding bands, honeymoon, food, ceremony, guest transportation (to and from shek o), seating arrangements, and it goes on and on and on.

here are some wedding planners that i've googled:

marriage maestros- they describe themselves as 'a luxury wedding planning company' which will probably be waaayyyy beyond our budget. some stunning photos in their gallery though!

pink wedding- unsure of their professionalism, as they have plenty of grammatical errors on their website and their '8 questions to figure out if you need a wedding planner' part seems a little pushy.

bliss creations- they specialise in destination weddings. their website says that hong kong is on their destination list, but i wonder if it would be better for someone who lives in hk to find a company that does more work in hk.

mister and missus- a company that seems professional yet down to earth. in fact, so down to earth that they donate 2% of their fees to unicef hk. brownie points there!

should i just hire a wedding planner who would take care of 50% of the above? or because it is a once in a lifetime thing, i should just embrace the craziness and do it myself. hkgroom has expressed that he will take the backseat (except for food, honeymoon, wedding bands, and the cake) as long as i'm not 'silly' with the expenses. bagh- i'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing! of course i'd like hkgroom to enjoy wedding planning as it is important to me that the day is special to him too. i guess he's just a typical male and it really isn't 'his thing'.

she said yes!

my maid of honor said yes!

woahooooo!

bridal parrrty

the bridal party- how many people should be in one and who should one choose?

i was recently at a friend's wedding who had a five person bridal party (not including bride and groom). she had one maid of honor, and a bridesmaid. the groom on the other hand, had one best man, and two groomsmen. i had always thought that aesthetically, numbers look nicer even, so the same number of bridesmaids as groomsmen. so i decided from that day on, that i'd wanted an even number of attendants.

bridalguide.com suggests 12 bridesmaids is the maximum. goodness, 12 bridesmaids?!? how difficult would that be trying to dress shop with 12 bridesmaids, a maid of honor and a mother...

as hkgroom and i are hoping to dress our bridal party (as a thank you to them), naturally we're thinking of having a tiny bridal party. simply a maid of honor and a best man. who we would ask was surprisingly easy as we both asked our closest friends. me, a girlfriend since high school and him, a friend he has known since he was born. fingers crossed they'll say yes!

family planning

so my mum bought me my first wedding magazine today! however, it was all in chinese and so i can only get the gist of the articles. anyhow, there are lots of pretty pictures and it gives me a sense of weddings in hk and the names of bridal stores around. there was an article about going to the family planning clinic to get each partner 'tested'... how romantic!

goodness, just googled the family planning association in hk. their pre-marital packages cost $550-$750 and then extra for other things such as STD screening ($250-$550), anaemia profile ($600), cervical swab ($100-$250) and more. For a full list of services, go to the family planning association.

better safe then sorry, huh!

weddingbee

i am addicted.

www.weddingbee.com

lots of information in the form of discussion boards. dresses, shoes, rings, invitations, bridesmaids, ceremony, EVERYTHING.

auspicious dates?

according to hkmother-in-law, october 11, 2010 is a 'very very lucky day' for hkgroom and i.

hkmother-in-law is really into her fung shui stuff and so took both mine and hkgroom's details and calculated that oct 11, 2010 is actually the best day to marry in the month of october.

excellent!

it's perfect...

so i just realised that i have yet to post pictures up of my gorgeous new ring =) here it is!!!!

goodness, it is just perfect. i can't stop looking at it! it's an oval solitaire with a micro pave band totally at about 1.2 carats... sooooooo beautiful! hkgroom did such a good job choosing it. i knew i wanted either an oval, emerald, princess or cushion and because my fingers are so thin, the micro pave band looks perfectly dainty.

happy happy happy =)

and the winner is... Shek O Country Club!

so we knew from the beginning the sort of environment we wanted.

it had to be:
-private
-not a hotel
-not a chinese banquet hall
-not too expensive
-by the water (ideal)
-120-150 guests
-october 10, 2010 (10.10.10) <-- october because of the lack of rain and humidity in hk, cheap airfares

i really really really didn't want to have our ceremony/reception at a hotel because i didn't want our 'wedding portrait' to be displayed in the foyer of some hotel, with hotel guests peering into such an intimate and private moment of our lives.

with hkgroom's family being members of the HK Golf Club, we originally thought we'd have it there. hkgroom was such a sweetheart that he even booked the venue for us for october 8th 2010 (they didn't allow us to do it on the weekends, as it is a member's club and so during the busy times, must be kept open for members). so six out of the seven criteria....

talking about it with hkgroom some more, we thought about having it at Shek O Country Club (hkgroom's uncle is a member). however, doing it there would require pulling some strings and we weren't sure if it would be okay. perhaps we'd be able to do it on 10.10.10... we needed to ask QUICK before someone else booked that date. so we did, but again, can't do it on a weekend (see above... same reason). hmmm again, six out of seven criteria....

other places we looked into that would meet some (but not all) of our requirements included:

*The Peak Lookout- toooooooo expensive for us ($189,000 + 10% for 120 guests)

*Helena May- no water but was very reasonable ($300-400 per head dinner)!

*The Pawn- no water and didn't end up looking into price per head for a dinner reception, but a fantastic venue!

*The Bounty- lots and lots of water but not sure if the grandparents would be able to handle it!

*The Peninsula helicopter wedding- only $68,000 but only two witnesses and 28 people cocktail reception

so after much deliberation, we decided that we couldn't let the opportunity to have our wedding (ceremony + reception) at the Shek O Country Club go by. as one of the most exclusive clubs in hk, we are super lucky to know someone who is a member there. therefore, sucking it up, we set our date as october 11, 2010. even though we can't get 10.10.10, we are extremely fortunate to be able to celebrate our special day at such an amazing location =)

thank you hkgroom's uncle for making this happen!!!!

engaged!

i'm engaged! after 5 years and 3 months of being together, hkgroom and i are now engaged! yay!

our engagement story:

September 5th, 2009

i have to admit, because i was impatient, i had seen the gorgeous sparkler a week and a half before and even tried it on =P. good thing i did too as it was two times too big! so it took another 10 days for the ring to be resized. as soon as it was ready, we went to pick it up. wheeeee!

anyhow, hkgroom and i had planned an 'engagement dinner' at Osteria Ristorante Italiano. we had been before a few months back and were very impressed with the service, atmosphere, great food and in particular how they got the pasta perfect (al dente)... very very tasty! needless to say, we were once again impressed and the night started off wonderfully.

after dinner we went back to hkgroom's parent's house to drop some stuff off and found out that hkmother-in-law had got a new puppy! gorgeous little black toy poodle! very playful and cute. *sigh* can't wait to get a puppy of our own!

dinner, puppy, then up to Fei Ngor Shan aka Kowloon Peak (飛鵝山) for the proposal! hkgroom and i used to head up there during the early years of our relationship as it is truly stunning up there (see pic). i'd say even more beautiful than The Peak as you can see the lights from Kowloon side. anyhow, we found a nice, quiet place and hkgroom pulled the ring out of his pocket and said the magic words! bawling my eyes out, of course i said yes! it was perfect!

woahooo!!! i'm in love with my man and my beauuutiful sparkler!