Updates!

1. We did get caught with the cat, feigned ignorance and paid the $100. We were even asked to see our receipt while boarding our connecting flight. Oh well! The monster is very content right now.
2. We booked our ceremony musician. She is awesome. Ralph is the best for encouraging me to keep looking and not settle for muscians I really didn't want and obviously didn't need the work. I think she will be worth the wait.
3. My mom rocks for being my DIY helper extraordinaire. She surprised me with some stuff and helped me out a ton today with more craftiness. M-LEE, she loves the runners and your handiwork!
4. Our venue... ah our venue. Yes, they managed to throw some more curve balls my way. They have 3 events booked on our wedding date with one event (of over 1000 people!) practically colliding into ours in not just one but two occasions. It took over two hours, but Ralph and I worked well together and compromised with them. In the end, we will actually be benefiting from this, but I will never again trust anything they say that isn't in a contract (not that they could read one anyway). It is all about $ and our measly 85 person wedding that booked first, means nothing to them in comparison to the 1000 person corporate retreat or whatever.
5. That crazy woman was a b$&ch again to my mom over the phone - she better not be to me. I am ready for that throwdown.
6. Yes, I know that in the end all will be great, but they are certainly making us work for it!

T-minus 16 hours...

until we leave for the airport. Yes, I should be finishing up writing my own recommendation letter right now (gosh I really hate that BTW), but I am going to relieve some stress online. Here are a list of my random thoughts...

1. I tried on my dress last night after I took a shower. I still need to buy some Hollywood tape so my bustier doesn't show - I forgot to pick that up at the bridal salon. I can SO not lose anymore boobs. I also can't gain any pouch (just say no to the cabbage). Makes me wish I didn't go for such a form fitting dress.
2. I can sit in my dress. Yes, I was stupid and didn't try that. It is probably one of the first things my mom taught me about shopping for clothes.
3. I am chancing it at the airport tomorrow and am not paying the $100 to reserve my cat a spot underneath the seat in front of me. American Airlines has NEVER checked for my receipt (but United has). If they do, I will feign ignorance. I am hoping that the big white bag that Ralph is carrying on will be my diversion.
4. Still don't have a contract for ceremony music. I have a tentative meeting date, but that is it. Apparently musicians are doing just fine in this economy and don't need gigs.
5. Our venue cracks me up with their lack of detail orientation. It makes me feel like I am crazy picky. For instance, don't tell me what my appetizers are - in our contract it is written that WE get to choose 10 out of the 30 appetizers - not you. WTF? If I was crazy picky about this stuff, I would have a ceremony musician by now.
6. If that crazy woman from the venue that raised her voice at me is anywhere near me on my next set of visits, I swear she will regret it.
7. I forgot to mention that I can't wait to be married (FINALLY) and go on our honeymoon.

Off to Miami (er Fort Lauderdale)!

I got me some talented friends

I can't believe that I am blogging right now, since we leave in 24 hours and I still have lots of work to do. But I had to share so more awesome-ness that my friends have helped me with. Dear Emily (which Ralph and I pronounce M-LEE), kindly sewed us some table runners for our extra banquet tables. Oddly enough, it was her that gave me the 10 yrds of lime green fabric about 2.5 years ago. The blue fabric was salvaged from curtains that I picked up at Ikea in the clearance section when we first got engaged. Here is what she did with them....

And here is what they look like in contrast with our table overlays.

M-LEEEE you rock! Thanks a ton! The rest of the Thunder Snow Ho's think so too...

OMFG!

There is really no classy way of putting it - sorry. I am addressing this to my venue catering manager - for the umptenth time, can you PLEASE read my contract and get the time of our wedding right? Pretty please!!!!! No she doesn't read this blog, but I just had to vent this out.

Leaving to Miami in T-minus 50 hours. Zillions of work-related things to do in between now and then. Must remember to eat or dress will not fit. Ralph tells me I should try to load up on calories now. He he, I love this man!

I am officially a bride...

now that I have my dress. Yes, today I went in for my third and final fitting at Amy Kuschel's flagship store in San Francisco. She is so beautiful, but was actually a tad imperfect when I tried her on. The only embellishment on it was put in the wrong spot. However, since they make all their dresses on the floor above their showroom, it was just a short 10 minute wait for me to have my dress to take home.

Fifth floor showroom and sixth floor design studio
(credit Uplift Photography)

I cannot stress how pleasant this whole process has been. The staff there are just impeccable. I felt like I was special (without having my butt kissed) throughout the whole process... trying on, buying, and all the fittings. I have found that it is super common for wedding people to treat you great right up until after you sign your contract and then all bets are off. Not here.

This was by far my biggest wedding splurge thanks to my wonderful parents. And in the end, I think I got a deal of a lifetime. Honestly, the price can't be beat considering the dress is made in San Fransisco with wonderful natural materials, and fits my shorty self to a "T".

So now, she is hanging in my closet, which is now off limits to the Gaia Monster. Check her out...

how do you like that name?

This is all you get of the final product until D-day

Thanks mom and dad!!!!!

Unsettled thoughts

Most of our friends are still struggling graduate students or at the beginning of their careers. And as the majority of them live in other states and even other countries, we anticipated that making such a trip to our wedding would be difficult in terms of their time commitments and monetary restrictions. However, what I did not expect (and I say I because dear Ralph is not surprised in the least) was that several of my family members are choosing not to come. Some hurt more than others. It probably bothers me so much because the biggest reason Ralph and I are even doing this whole thing is to formally celebrate our happiness with our families.

What I am conflicted most with is how to convey how distraught I am at what I perceive as my (yes, they are all from mine) family members' lack of caring. I honestly don't know how to let them know other than being formal with my thank you note... "thank you...... we wish you could have been there... yada yada yada..." Very unsettled indeed.

However, be rest assured that I am looking on the bright side of things.

I gave in to the DIY world of weddings

I told myself that I would try to keep things simple, but man, I got sucked in. I told myself that I did not have to print on a piece of paper what was going on during our ceremony (aka The Ceremony Programs), that it was a waste of paper. I mean, certainly people have been to a wedding before and generally know what is going on. But then, I thought, hmmmm... there are an awful lot of women here, people are going to wonder who is who, and for that matter, who is that girl reading that poetry, and what is she reading? And I thought, that some of those moms might want a keepsake from the wedding. And then I thought, well it is just one more thing, it won't take long to make. Hmph!

I also told myself that a decorated aisle runner was totally unnecessary. I mean, what do you do with it when you are done? Then I met our DOC a few weeks ago and I broke the news to her.... (a) we are using basic banquet chairs without chair covers (shutter), (b) we are not having an arch, (c) we are not decorating anything for the ceremony, and finally (d) that includes the aisle runner.

See, look how pretty our ceremony site is without decorations and stuff.

It was only D that made her slightly downtrodden. So, since I had already made an emergency flight back to Miami to take care of wedding business, I decided to decorate that damn aisle runner the morning of my flight home back to CA.

And so, here are my instructions for other brides that don't feel like shelling out $80+ on one...

(1) Make your design. I used powerpoint to make this...

(2) Measure the width of your aisle runner to determine the size of your finished monogram. At first, I thought it should be 1/2 the width of the aisle runner - WRONG. That was way too small. I would say about 2/3 the width is good.

(3) Resize your design in your program. For Powerpoint, go to File --> Page Setup and enter your correct dimensions. It should automatically resize everything to scale. I then saved the file as a PNG file (I really don't know why, but I did)

(4) Get it to a printer friendly program. For me, that was Excel. I went to Insert --> Picture and inserted that PNG file into there. Then I printed in grayscale. It will print in mulitple pages (I couldn't get Powerpoint to do this).

(5) Cut the pages, align, and tape them together

This is the smaller version that I ended up scrapping

(6) Place the taped pages under the runner and secure well with tape that you have predetermined to be removedable without damaging the runner.

(7) Using a toothpick, outline the runner with your paint. I used craft paint from Michael's. This is kinda nessesary to have a nice finished edge.

(8) Fill in with a brush, if you have a steady hand. Otherwise fill in with the toothpick. I luckily have a steady hand.

The finished product

(9) DO NOT SPILL IT ON THE RUNNER! If so, we found that blotting with concetrated all purpose cleaner (Mrs. Meyers) and then LIGHTLY painting over it with Whiteout worked ok.

We fixed it pretty well

(10) Remove the paper from underneath the runner. The question really should be when should you do this. We waited until the paint was dry to the soft touch, however, the paper stuck to the aisle runner and was a pain to remove. If you remove it while it was wet, I am afraid that the paint will stain anything else that is left underneath it while it dries.

(11) If you are like me... thank you mom profusely. Between the two of us it took us a good 4.5 hours to outline, paint, and then figure out how to fix our boo boos.

Total cost was $16....~$11 for the runner, $2.25 for paint (which I already owned but was in CA), $2.00 for a thin brush, and, of course, the bonding time with mom was priceless. I also got all these supplies at Michael's when they had 40% off coupons (the trick is that you print out multiple ones and make your family come with you).

So what will do with this thing? Well I decided that we will have a little decor in there. How about a few rose petals down the sides of the aisle. Sorta like this.....

Yes, I am a total sucker!