thailand

yay! will be leaving for our bi/tri-annual trip down to thailand in about 10 hours. can't wait! will have some work to do for my masters project, but i think i'll also try to put together a wedding scrapbook! hehehe- i've never done scrapbooking before so this will definitely be something new! so i did some googling again and found this again, on marthastewartweddings and i love it!

i think this can be my fun little project when hkgroom is out playing golf!

golf buggy

so i've decided that i'll likely arrive to the aisle by a golf buggy (unless we can afford a helicopter) =) and hkgroom and i and our photographer, will likely take the buggy again to take photos around the course and drive over to the nearby beach (literally the beach meets the course at one end) for our wedding pictures. anyhow, i wanted to get the buggy decorated with streamers and old cans on the back (more for photos than anything else!) but it'll be super cute. so i tried to google that image, but nothing really came up!!! all the 'decorated wedding golf buggy' images were not what i was really looking for- i had a set image in my mind.

so then i went back to the great martha stewart- the inspiration for our lovely save the dates, hehehehe and found this:

which i want hanging on the back of the buggy. i showed our 'art director' at work who has offered to help/do it for me! she makes the most amazing art projects at work for the kiddies and loves doing artsy things. anyhow, she has even suggested using clay (kinda like playdough that dries) which would make it amazing. must get dimensions of golf buggy to her....

still no photos yet.... =(

hmmm still waiting on the photos... and i'm holding off giving her a ring... i don't want to sound desperate! hahaha how lame am i?

maybe i'll wait till end of the week and use going off to thailand for 10 days as an excuse for her to hurry up! oh yea- we're going to thailand!!!! thailand is like, our second home. we go there two to three times a year. last year, we went twice to three different places- bangkok, phuket and hua hin. this year, we hope to go twice again... but we'll see how the finances are closer to the wedding.

we're heading to hua hin with the hkin-laws as they have a house down there. hua hin is about 2.5hrs drive from bangkok and its known as 'where the king has his summer palace'. hua hin is a huge golfing area of thailand, which is why the in-laws have a house there. anyhow, as i don't play golf, i'll be taking it easy, working on my final masters paper, getting plenty of massages and manicures, and of course, eating lots and lots of yummy thai food! can't wait to get on our little moped to do some exploring this time! all the times we've been down there, we've gone to the same places. maybe do some outlet shopping. hehe yay! can't wait!

accessorize

whenever i go travelling, i'm always on the look out for stores (boutiques or chains) which sell awesome stuff, and then think of who i can get from that country to send stuff to me. i've always had a thing for claire's, which sells accessories and that's even where my sister got her ears pierced at the age of two! i guess i've got a soft spot for claire's because it was the place to go when i was young to get everything from earrings to hair ties to house slippers. anyhow, i am super excited to announce that accessorize is now open in hong kong! festival walk to be exact! yay! this one even has clothing for sale (though not cheap- $400 for a tube dress). they've even got hairpieces that are wedding appropriate for about $500. very exciting!

waiting sucks...

la di da... waiting for our photos... she said this weekend, but we haven't heard from her yet! i can't wait!

invitations- finally!

these ones are like the traditional chinese calendars!!!

i love the bow- gorgeous

this is similar to our invite... but we're not doing the pretty envelope thing as people just throw it out! and ours are bilingual- chinese on the back

after ages of procrastinating and trying to get things right, we have finally gone to the printers and submitted our design! i get to see a sample on monday the 29th! yay! i can't wait! they're simple, and elegant, and totally personalised as we have our own monogram. we also got rsvp card things too which we didn't expect to do, but it makes sense. we decided to go with a company called good day and its lucky that i can speak cantonese otherwise we wouldn't be able to communicate! anyhow, they were fantastic and we got 20% off the invite price (minus embossing fee, chinese on the back, and rsvp cards). the invites come with lai see packets, envelopes and stickers to seal the envelopes. the total price came to just over $1500 for 130 invites. i guess that's pretty good- actually, they got some real super elaborate invites but totally not our style!

monograms

so for the longest time, we were looking into monograms and i googled diy monograms which doing monograms using word or powerpoint. i told hkmoh who freaked out- she's a designer. hahahahaha basically, using word to 'design' is the biggest no-no in the design industry. so she offered to do monograms for us. yay!

i sent her this link and she came up with something similar to r36 and r18 for us. love her!!!

photos at the end of the week??

so quick?! hurray! i can't wait!

'music! makes the people, come together!'

justin performing at a sam hui concert

heard great news tonight! my good friend justin lim has agreed to perform at our wedding! super exciting! he's really really good! he tours with his 'sifu' (master), hk pop legend sam hui (許冠傑). justin knows every elvis song there is off by heart and we're sooo lucky that he's agreed to perform. justin has done concerts with sam hui at the MGM in vegas and did one in macau at the venetian just two weeks ago. check him out at http://www.alivenotdead.com/JustLim

thank you justin!!!

qi pao

my tea ceremony qi pao

i bought a qi pao! woahoo! what a weekend- first our engagement photos and now a qi pao for our tea ceremony. yay! it has pearl buttons running down the side and going across- super pretty and was only $700 down from $1500. what a steal! might have to get it taken in a little though by a tailor... but will see closer to the date. i love it!

fab engagement photos

orange gerbera daisies

it was soooooooooo much fun! we met our photographer early, at 8am at lai king station to drive over to sai kung. at first, i had thought we were going to long ke wan- but it turns out she was totally talking about a different beach! she was actually talking about sai wan (even better because hkgroom and i know it very well)

so we drive into sai kung and then take a cab into the country park and go to 'sai wan pavillion' (sai wan ting) and then did a 20 minute hike to the beach where we set up and took photos.

the weather was not great- very misty with a bit of wind, and not really warm. i was a little bit bummed to begin with but i think it added a vintage-y feel to the pictures! so yay for the 'sea mist' (i.e. pollution!?)

i brought 4 outfits (jeans and black top and flip flops, a dressier grey dress with cute heels, a pastel green casual dress, and an arsenal top- a special photo for hkgroom)

hkgroom brought 3 outfits (jeans and black top and flip flops, a button down white/brown striped shirt with brown trousers and brown shoes, and matching arsenal top)

we took over a hundred photos- lots of candid shots and a couple of posed. i also bought some gorgeous flowers (pic above) in orange from a florist in lan kwai fong (chok kee flower shop) the night before as we wore neutral colours to really pop in the photos. love love love them!

the whole experience was really fun and was extra great for us because we didn't have to pay for it. getting dolled up and getting super high quality photos from a 'professional' of just the two of us... really really fun! will post photos as soon as we get them- can't wait!!!

7 months to go!

exactly 7 more months to go before i'm a mrs!!!!!

engagement photos

i can't remember if i posted about this... but i found someone to take free engagement photos for us! hurray! she's starting up her own business and is in need to building up her portfolio. anyhow, we're scheduled for this weekend at dai long wan in sai kung (our absolutely favourite place in hong kong). fingers crossed for the good weather!

intercontinental 'luxury' wedding fair

amazing wedding fair! sure beats the one at hk expo centre the other week! this one serves free canapes and moet champagne! yum! there were a couple of wedding planning services available- we now think we might need someone to act as our day coordinator to make sure everything goes according to plan. the last thing we need is myself or hkgroom or any of the guests stressed out about something!

they were also offering something called the HK$1 million dollar wedding at the intercontinental... get this, you need to spend HK$1 million dollars on just food and bev. serious! if you can do this, you can get the following perks for 'free':

• Two air tickets to New York City with two nights’ accommodation at the InterContinental Barclay Hotel.
• Private appointments for bridal consultations at the Vera Wang Flagship Boutique and Harry Winston Boutique in New York City.
• His & Her platinum wedding bands by Harry Winston
• One night’s bridal / honeymoon accommodation in InterContinental Hong Kong’s stunning Terrace suite
• One pair of elegant Baccarat champagne flutes
• A luxury facial for the bride by “La Mer” (normally available by invitation only)

i wonder what the food is like for 1 million dollars... caviar everything? some people obviously have waaaaayyy to much money.

meet the in-laws was a success!

woahoo! it was a success! hkdaddy brought his a-game and was totally lovely- super smiley, was making loads of conversation and laughing at jokes. hkmummy was busy talking to hkgroom's mum and they were happy. hkgroom's granny was a superstar too! she didn't get too drunk (this 81 year old can seriously drink!) and didn't say anything silly. hkgroom's dad was lovely as always. yay! it all went very well!

thank goodness!

bye bye sephora

so... sephora has just announced that they will be closing march 31st 2010... so sad! i was going to get lots of wedding make up stuff from there just before the wedding! ohwell... that just means i'll need to go on a mini-sephora shopping spree between now and the end of the month! woahoo!!! new makeup!!!