Weddingbee Blog

Lame title, I know. I just have no creative juice left in my body after the wedding…

It is no small understatement to say that I LOVE paper. Have I mentioned my childhood habit of smelling paper (especially Sanrio paper)? I have no idea why that stuff smells so good to me, but it does! I can’t resist smelling that stuff when it’s near me. Helloooooooooo Kitty!

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One of my fave paper resources is Kelly Paper - they have a ton of different paper in different weights, textures, and colors. You can purchase paper by the sheet or by the ream, which is super handy if you need a ton of paper for a large wedding, or if you just need to see (and smell) the paper in person before purchasing.

Mr. Ramen and I headed over one of the Kelly Paper branches in Phoenix to pick up some paper for our programs, escort cards, and other paper miscellania.
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While I wait for my pro pictures, I decided that I needed to finish blogging about my wedding planning, since life had gotten a bit crazy in the past couple of months… so here I go!

Some girls dream of their wedding gowns their whole lives. Most women search until they find THE wedding gown of their dreams and want to wear it as long as they can. I am not one of those girls. OK, I have dreamed about the big white gown, but my style has changed over the years and… to this very day, while I love my dress, I would also have been happy with almost any other dress that fit me well and looked good.

My ideas of wedding colors, theme, style have all changed (even considerably since I’ve been ENGAGED). But there is ONE thing that I’ve always known I was going to wear…

And that would be a Cheongsam/QiPao. This is a traditional Chinese dress that most brides usually wear during the reception, as you walk around and greet each table. Traditionally, it is a mandarin-collared, red and gold (colors that represent happiness and prosperity, and also are classic wedding colors in Chinese culture) form-fitting dress, typically with a Dragon and Phoenix, which symbolize a male and female counterpart that represents the bride and groom. I know there’s a lot more history and symbolism in these dresses, but… that’s what I know off the top of my head.

At any rate, growing up going to tons of Chinese weddings and looking at my parents’ wedding pictures, I always knew I wanted to wear a RED Cheongsam (red is my favorite color!). My grandma actually made my mom and my aunts’ gowns, but as my sweet grandma is now 98, that is no longer feasible. So I set about on an adventure to find a store in California where I could get a custom-made Cheongsam.

Here are some real-life inspiration pictures, for those of you interested in seeing a few different styles/designs.
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I made it through my torturous week of school, survived the last minute insanity of wedding prep, got prettified, got some new bling, danced my little heart out - and am now basking in the after-glow of the Ramen wedding. When I saw all of the decorations being put up at the Phoenix Art Museum, all I could think about was that it was ALL worth it - the stress, craziness, breakouts, emotional roller coasters, tears, sweat, worry… every last second of wedding planning in the past 11 months was well worth it.
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Miss me? I swear I’m the worst bee… I didn’t mean for this to happen, but I now COMPLETELY understand why some bees disappear ~ 2 weeks prior to their weddings… I am exactly at that point (just under 2 weeks), and I’m a weeeeeee bit stressed.

So, let me make some excuses, like:

• Mr. Ramen and I just moved into our *new* apartment!!! This will be our first time living together, so we are suuuuuuuuuuper excited, and I can’t wait to play house with all of our new kitchen stuff. Since Mr. R is finishing up his internship/job in AZ, I am left to setup our new nest alone. It is a bit intimidating to weed out all of the old household hand-me-downs from my mom that I (and my sister) have used throughout college, to make room for all of our new registry toys! I’ve been packing up/moving/unpacking over the past week, in between classes and labs. Phew!
• I have 3 exams and 3 proficiencies to take by next Tuesday. It actually wouldn’t be so hectic IF I didn’t have to reschedule my exams and proficiencies for next week so I can try to RELAX before the wedding. Needless to say… school is keeping me a bit busy. Yes, I think my school is determined to kill me. They are currently winning.
• I had my Phoenix shower and my second bachelorette. Call it old age, or maybe I have no stamina, but all of these parties (which I loved and appreciated very much!) exhausted me. I can’t hang anymore.
• Wedding “crap”. This is the stuff that needs to get done, but keeps slipping through the cracks. I usually remember them while doing something else, which makes me go, “Crap! I still need to pay the florist!” etc.
• The usual “can’t do it until last minute” wedding stuff, e.g. reception seating, programs, gifts, last minute arrangements/rentals/payments, etc…

I actually hate giving excuses but I kinda just wanted to vent. And hopefully you won’t think I’m that huge of a slacker, still.

Anyways… this post is actually about, duh duh duhhhhhhhhhh…
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So, I ordered 2 photo guestbooks; one from MyPublisher and one from Blurb. I was able to get a really great deal from Blurb with a 20% off coupon and free shipping code, while I was completely ridiculous and forgot to use the Costco 20% discount for the MyPublisher book. OOPS.

Aside from my slightly costly oversight, I’m here to report back!

To level the playing field, I got the premium paper in both and did the photo dust jackets. There is obviously a discrepancy in size, as well as in price. In the end, I spent about $35/book (I didn’t add any additional pages).

First, we will start with the MyPublisher book.
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Woo hoo!!!

I am happy to say that we will NOT go over our max capacity of 350 - it actually looks like we’re going to be UNDER! It makes me so happy!

This may seem like a(nother) small feat, but let me recap the statistics for you: we sent out ~210 invitations. We invited a whopping 444 people, which means we would be BARELY safe if 20% said no. And we were getting a TON of yesses from our OOTowners. So, I was definitely getting the Guest List Sweats.

So now we’re contemplating: do we try to fill it up a bit? Boost up the appetizers? Or just pocket the extra savings? Hmm.

Did you get the number of yesses and nos that you needed/wanted? If you came in under your goal number, what did you do with the extra $$$?

I know it’s a bit pathetic to post about something so miniscule, but it was a huge relief to start checking things off of my list!

A few weeks ago, I was back home, escaping school. So we decided to go get our marriage license!
You can’t bring cameras into any of the AZ courthouses, so we just took a picture of ourselves at my house. When we first arrived at the North Phoenix facility, there was no wait! We just had to fill out some paperwork and give them our driver’s licenses… yeah, except for the fact that I LEFT MINE AT HOME. So we drove all the way back to my house and then back to get our license. I think Mr. Ramen was a wee bit frustrated, but he quickly got over it.

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So I’ve got to warn you - this post contains some pretty downright frightening picture of me. Now, I’m not saying that I’m some kind of beauty queen, because I’m not - but I look very much not like myself in these pictures. Really. So… uhhhhh, don’t judge me? I could be the poster child for what NOT to do for your wedding makeup in the following pictures. And don’t any of you lie to me and tell me I look good - because I don’t!!! At any rate, let’s just look back on these pictures and laugh at the fact that this could possibly only happen to Miss Ramen. I still need someone to make this bowl of Ramen look delish!

From this…

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Because that’s how I roll. You know - wet T-shirts, body shots, throwing dolla-billz at half-nekkid men, not to mention all of the swinging around poles and dancing on bars while sipping on some boozy cocktails.

Uhm, except that I AM A TOTAL GRANDMA. My “wild and crazy” bachelorette actually consisted of dinner and some dessert with 3 of my cousins and a friend in SF. And then to end my night of wild insanity, we watched one of my fave girlie flicks - 13 going on 30. I know, calm down Ramen! You so crazy!

I had planned on hitting up SF prior to getting married, to spend some time with my grandma and cousins, run a few errands (hello, Daiso!) and eat my body weight in good food (and I did). So, once finals were over (I passed all of them, which is reason enough to celebrate!), I threw my stuff in the car, and headed up north! 8 hours, 1 order of chicken nuggets and an iced vanilla coffee later… I was finally in SF!

Saturday was spent with Cousin Fishcake, running errands, aka spending almost 3 hours at Daiso. If you have not experienced the joy and satisfaction and cuteness that is this $1.50 Japanese store, get thee to one ASAP. I could spend days there. Literally. Looooove it! They have the most random things - and lots of cute stuff that you could totally use as favors, decorations, or gifts. Sister Ramen and Cousin Fishcake actually bought most of my shower stuff from here - the heart shaped rice paddles, wooden forks, pink straws, and the jars for the jam favors!
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We had our second engagement shoot while we were in San Francisco for Cousin Ramen’s August wedding. Sister Ramen has a natural eye for photography, so we borrowed our uncle’s SLR and took some photos around the Academy of Science and the DeYoung Museum. It was a super cold August day, but we braved the frigid San Franciscan weather and got some amazing shots! Cousin Fishcake and little Cousin mini-BM came along to help direct poses and hold purses/coats. It was actually really fun, even if my freshly-shaved leg hairs ended up growing 2 inches in the cold.

We stopped by the Ferry building beforehand and spontaneously picked up a couple bunches of dahlias from some street vendors and made a little bouquet to use as a prop. This little impromptu bouquet actually came in handy as one of the buttons on my dress popped off (too much good food in SF, I guess!), and I was able to use it to prevent any over-exposure! Either way, I was glad I got to have pictures with some pretty dahlias since we won’t be using them in the wedding.

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AKA, the envelope details…

Here are what our pretty light blue envelopes look like all nekkid. So… this story is about my first epic fail, which could have been disastrous, but ended well.
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With ~ 210 invitations going out, you can imagine the importance of keeping track of RSVP cards!

To do so, I invested in the coolest little pen ever - the blacklight/secret agent pen!!! I wanted to keep the RSVP cards looking nice. I also wanted to avoid guests feeling like they were “ranked lower” just because of their #. So, I went with the spy pen. Plus, it’s so fun to use!!!

I had numbered our guest list according to each address, and set about writing each invitation’s # with the corresponding RSVP card—this is to eliminate any confusion if the cards are illegible, or if anyone forgets to fill out the name portion (and yes, this does happen!). You can see a little line under the “Joyfully Accepts” line which says “____ of ____ will attend”.

Older Asian guests (maybe Asian guests in general…) are NOTORIOUS for bringing uninvited friends and family along with them to receptions… I wanted to eliminate any and ALL confusion about how many were included in each party.
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So, since I’m starting to get RSVPs back… this means I can finally reveal our invitations to the hive!!! Hooray! Yes, our babies have all left home…

To start with, we HAD to have letterpress. We made sure we budgeted enough for this - and when our budget looked a little tight, Mr. Ramen told me to just go for it, since it’s the one paper thing I’ve been dying to have since - well, forever. I am quite obsessed with paper. I have saved every single wedding invitation that I’ve received, even if I don’t like it. HAH! I like the look of paper, the touch of it, the smell of it. Letterpress ink has this mechanical smell which I LOOOOVE. And I’m totally keeping a set of our invites just for touching. MMM! Delicious texture - and that Crane Lettra paper?!?!? To die for!
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Eh. That was my last attempt at a funny title. So this post will be about the Ramen engagement shoot numero uno. That’s right, we’ve had more than 1. Let me explain.

Remember our photographers? The globe-trotting ones who are insanely busy? Well, since we had this whole long-distance relationship with them, we decided to opt for a day-after shoot instead of an engagement session. This works out perfectly - I’ve always dreamed of a sexy desert-scenery photo shoot with my soon-to-be husband. I think. Eh.

At any rate, I desperately wanted to have a photo book guestbook filled with cute shots of my beloved and me. Why? I dunno. It sort of makes a nice use of your e-pics, right? Call it Wedding-Trend-Syndrome. I have that, bad.

So, Mr. Ramen and I decided to just ask 2 of our good friends to take some shots of us around Phoenix. Then later on, we would have Sister Ramen take some shots in and around SF. All of them armed with fancy-schmancy digital SLRs.

So we chose an altogether too-hot of a day in August to shoot around some places in Mesa and Tempe Town Lake.
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I know, I know, I’ve been a bad bee. I put off blogging to focus on my last couple of exams/projects for school… and then my laptop DIED. It was terrible - but one of my AWESOME classmates was able to save allllllll of my files/photos/wedding stuff! Whew! I was thisclose to losing EVERYTHING. But now I’m back - on my new baby netbook (my early wedding/Christmas present from the ever-amazing Mr. Ramen).

To make up for my lack of posts, be prepared for LOTS of pictures from my shower!!! Remember those adorable blue+red shower invites I received a while back? My bridesmaids, especially Sister Ramen (my MOH) and Cousin Fishcake put TONS and TONS of work (staying up until 5AM the morning of!) into making my shower the BEST SHOWER EVAR! No really. It was that amazing… need proof?

my super cute and super awesome BMs (L to R: BM Dancing Queen, BM/Cousin Fishcake, MOH/Sister Ramen, moi, BM Crazy Giggles, and BM Cooking Mama)

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