Weddingbee Blog

There are so many creative people out there who have helped me along the way in my planning, and I’m sure yours, too! I started to think, what could I give back to the wedding community that has given me so much? I’m a crafty person when I’ve got the right inspiration, but I’m not much of an artist myself. And I like to look at hair and makeup tutorials, but I’m no expert. Can’t do anything tricky on the computer, can’t bake, can’t sew, can’t give out tips on exercising ’cause I can’t lose weight(!).

So what can I do? I can drink, yo.

Now I don’t mean to sound like an alcoholic, but I do know my way around a bar. Been drinking for a while with no end in sight. I drink it all, but when it comes down to it, I’ve got specifics in mind for a wedding.

I’ve created a cocktail list that I think is classic. This would be perfect for a budget—it reuses the same mixers and types of alcohol so you don’t have to run out and buy a million bottles if you are providing your own bar. Smart thinking, eh?

Ahhh, the Bellini. Classic in celebrations for it’s use of champagne. Prosecco to be exact. But that’s tricky and expensive to get, so throw some champagne or sparkling white wine in with some peaches and have yourself a good time!

• Peeled white peach, or any peach on hand, pureed or blended, or use peach schnapps
• 4-6 ounces of Prosecco, sparkling white wine, or champagne

Pour peach puree or peach schnapps in a glass. Add sparkling alcohol and stir gently. Garnish with a peach slice.

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I can’t imagine a more perfect place to take engagement photos. I know there are lots of great places out there in the U.S. of A., but Tokyo really is an awesome place. Let’s take a look at some of the areas we hope to be shooting at and some inspiration!

If it’s a clear day, a perfect view of the Tokyo skyline can be seen from the Odaiba islands.

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It’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty. Let’s talk about the actual ceremony portion of our wedding. I think this is the most wide-open detail of the day so I’ve really dreaded putting pen to paper, so to speak, and writing out what will go down. It’s also touchy for me because I know Mr. G’s parents won’t be there to celebrate with us which makes me want to cry! It would be really nice to have both of our parents there but Mr. G’s parents will be with us in spirit; I’ll leave it at that.

We won’t be having a religious ceremony as Mr. G is atheist and I’m Buddhist, but want to keep it as neutral as possible. And oh yeah, we’ll already be married! See what I mean by wide-open? All the traditional things that usually happen at a ceremony don’t need to happen at ours!

We need to pick an “officiant” of sorts who can at least MC what’s going to happen. We want our ceremony to be silly and fun and emotional and meaningful. Just how will we accomplish this?
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Looking for an interesting and unique way for your guests to wish you well in your new life as husband and wife? Try a tanabata tree!

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This is a bamboo tree that displays peoples’ wishes on strips of paper (called tanzuku) once a year during the Tanabata Star Festival, on July 7th.

The story of this tree is a love story!
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Mr. Glasses and I are an unconventional couple in many ways. The way our relationship started and carried on is different than most. Likewise, the story of our engagement is rather… interesting. I don’t have an engagement ring, and I won’t have one, ever. While some might say that’s sad, it was my decision.

One night a couple weeks after my birthday in September of ’08, Mr. G had taken me to meet his coworkers. He was a little tipsy and kept telling them I was the girl he was going to marry as soon as he had a ring for me. I told him I didn’t need one over and over again. On the train ride back, he told me he would propose to me once he had a ring, and again, I told him I didn’t need one.

So he proposed. Right there in that empty train car heading home at 12:30 AM on a Saturday night. While I was eating a McDonald’s french fry.

Of course I said yes! I called my parents and told them we were getting hitched and cried happy tears all the way back (it was a pretty long train journey). I think, inevitably, if he hadn’t proposed that night, we would have decided to get married sooner or later. I had thought it out in my head even before he proposed—we were already living together, we weren’t going to be living in Japan forever, and if we wanted to stay together we’d have to get married to live in either of our home countries. And why not? It was basically love at first sight with us, we were inseparable after the first night we met, we never fought, and everything has always been happy.
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Today over lunch Mr. Glasses and I talked about flowers. He had fun.

We talked about how there wouldn’t be a whole lot of room for flowers and decided what we’d use them for. A few centerpieces, and a bridal bouquet. That’s all! Furthermore, since we’re running with a cherry blossom theme, quite a lot of our flowers will be fake!

I’m trying hard to make sure our wedding isn’t super pink for Mr. G’s sake, but I definitely want my bouquet to be pink! Pink is my favorite color.

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I am going to take a break from the inspiration posts to talk about something a bit controversial. I actually had a dream about this last night, so I need to get this off my chest.

I think we’ve all heard the phrase “relationships are about sacrifice.” While relationships are all also about love, trust, loyalty, forgiveness, I believe there is a certain amount we must sacrifice for our darlings. Mr. Glasses is the ultimate example. He is making a HUGE sacrifice to be with me. He is giving up his home country and all the familiarity and comfort that comes with it to move to big, terrifying America (my words, not his). He can only see his family once in a while. That would be a big one for me because I’m very close to my mother and father.

Mr. G’s sacrifice is so big, I thought, what about me? What kind of sacrifices am I making?

Well, I’m young, see. At the tender age of 24, I’ve got a lot of options. When I first left for Japan, I thought it would be a one-year stint. I wanted to learn more about my culture, have some fun, improve my Japanese, live in a different country for a while, and earn some valuable and rewarding work experience. After Japan I thought I’d take that experience and go on to teach in Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, etc. Teach a year everywhere and really experience what the world was like. In the end, I’d go on a massive backpacking trip for a couple of months, end up in India or Russia, and then come home a well-traveled and worldly woman.

Oh Miss Glasses…remember the time you backpacked through Europe and destroyed your liver?

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That beauty right there is the wedding gown trend in Japan. Usually, a Japanese bride will wear a kimono for the ceremony and change into a dress (or two) for the reception. Not just any dress, a big poofy honking princess of a dress! Complete with tiara, of course. Now, who DOESN’T wanna be a princess on her wedding day? Japanese wedding gowns are the stuff little-girl-dreams are made of. They also come with a price tag that gives the little girl’s daddy a heart attack. And they are a little impractical for a backyard wedding. Can you see why I haven’t been dress shopping in this country?
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Or, I thought of it on the train. I was riding one of these babies to work today,

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when suddenly, crammed between a high school girl wearing her skirt too short and a salary man who smelled of last night’s booze, I had a brilliant idea!
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I don’t think we’ll flip flop on our backyard wedding, so it is time to get some concrete ideas going. WE, yes WE, have been discussing colors, feel, and components. Of course, I’d be nothing without the lovely ladies who have come before me in the blogosphere of backyard weddings.

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Before we started planning a wedding, Mr. G and I needed to have a serious discussion about where we’d like to move to after we’re done with Japan in September. We wrote out a pros (”jobbertunities”) and cons list for each country and talked about all the points. I thought once we’d done this a decision would become clear, but I was just as undecided as ever! I knew I could be happy in either country, but we had to think of things in the long run, which is usually my favorite thing to do. But so many things depend on other things: the economy, health care plans, etc. How can we determine how the economy will be for the rest of the year?

It was a very difficult decision, but Mr. G said he was leaning towards the United States. I asked him to please think about it because it’s a very big decision on his part. We left it at that and maybe and said we’d discuss it more later.

Since we had a better grasp on things, we could start thinking about wedding plans a little more seriously. So exciting!

I really liked the idea of having a Vegas wedding because people get married in Vegas all the time, so the venues out there really know how to make things as easy and stress-free as possible. Planning from all the way over here would be major stress, so the best thing to do is basically pay and show up. And where better to do that than in Vegas! The only real decision was where to hold it, and since we wouldn’t be putting a lot into the decor, we should pick somewhere that we already liked the look of.
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In my last post I talked about how Mr. Glasses and I have been discussing where we are moving to in October.

Well, we’ve decided. We are heading to the United States! I am so thankful to Mr. G. He is sacrificing a lot for me. I let him know that the U.S. isn’t a prison sentence, that we can visit England as often as possible, and if he was unhappy in the U.S. we could move to his home country.

So now that we have that settled, we can really start thinking about a wedding ceremony (along with a billion other things!). But we’ve had a BIG change of plans and we are going to do something a little crazy.
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Konnichiwa hive! Hajimemashite!

Or, in English, hello hive! It’s nice to meet you! I’m so happy to see you all. I’m Miss Glasses, coming at you from the Land of the Rising Sun - Japan!

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What is this L.A. girl doing on this side of the world, you ask?

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