Weddingbee Blog

After the first look and family portraits, we were whisked away on a golf cart (woohoo! speedsters!) courtesy of the hotel for some portraits with our very own personal paparazzo, CK Hwang. I swear I heard him mutter something about being our biggest fan and following us until we loved him, but I can’t be sure.

So there we were, with our big fan base (population: 1, our hired photographer), striking a pose on a bridge…

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So after all that excitement…

The wedding day, as well as the weekend, was wonderful. It’s difficult to say that it met or exceeded my expectations, because truthfully it’s difficult to form expectations of the warmth, love and laughter that will surround you on your wedding day.

We can plan certain details, like who will give the second toast, and determine whether things went according to plan, like did that toast happen at 7:45 PM or 8:02 PM but as cliche as it sounds, there were more important things afoot.

While the details and logistics certainly contributed to the wedding, what stands out to me the most about our wedding weekend was the feel of it—that very loving, happy feeling intertwined with the smiling faces of our family and friends.

I was pleasantly taken off guard by how much of the happy momentum of the wedding came from our guests—not from whether I had left out enough ceremony programs or picked the right hors d’oeuvres, but rather from the sincere joy, love and good wishes that truly made the weekend what it was.

I am so thrilled that we have the lovely images below, taken by our photographer CK Hwang of 39 East Photography (talented and genuinely kind, to boot) unless otherwise noted, to help capture and remember the feel of that day.
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I came across some pictures that were taken in the few days leading up to the wedding that, as a montage, I  title, “No Really Honey, I’m So Excited to Marry You.”

As I mentioned, we went to San Francisco City Hall the Thursday before the wedding. It’s a gorgeous building.

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The Pug family (me, Mr. Pug and two pugs) flew from NYC to San Francisco on the Tuesday night before the wedding to finish preparations and spend quality time with the families.

My awesome sister and her husband had taken care of making many of the paper details (i.e. programs and menus, which I will post about later), but we had to make the OOT bags and take care of the crapload of other stuff that pops up before a wedding.

Like getting our marriage license on Thursday from San Francisco City Hall…

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After selecting the goodies for our out of town bags (OOT bags), we had to package them. This happened in overwhelming part due to my sister, brother in law, mom and dad. Where me and Mr. Pug were, I have no idea. Useless.

We placed the homemade spiced peanuts and granola in clear cello bags (*premium*, no less) in the 2.5 x 2 x 6 size. The bags were not long enough on top to tie with a ribbon (planning doh!), so we folded them down, punched in a few staples, and hot glued some hand-tied ribbons made with purdy gold ribbon.

Turgid, roly poly granola bags pre-ribbon

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Before I share pics from the wedding, I wanted to go back and share some details that I didn’t get to blog about before the wedding.

While out-of-town (OOT) guest bags are totally unnecessary, it’s a nice surprise for guests to receive this little goodie bag of welcome treats. It’s yet one more unnecessary wedding detail to which I was fully committed. Because I am Pug the Magnanimous. Or because I was looking for ways to use up my time instead of doing real work.

Here’s what I chose for the bags:

Kettle Chips, New York Cheddar Flavor, 2 oz bag

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After the wedding, we took off for our honeymoon in Bali. Our first stop was Jimbaran Bay, a beach resort area in the southwest of Bali. The first night, we had the luxury of relaxing at the beachfront cafe/bar at our hotel in Jimbaran Bay, sipping a drink and watching the sunset.

In my post-wedding, jet-lagged state of amazement of actually being anywhere mentally and physically that didn’t require planning a wedding, I found it necessary to comment on every little thing to fully revel in the ability to just think about and be in the present.

Unfortunately the post-wedding brain had not yet caught up to normal functioning speed, and my chattiness had the unintended side consequence of demonstrating to Mr. Pug serious gaps existing in my brain.
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As I’m waiting to start my recaps, I just wanted to share a few things…

Chances are at some point you will create a day-of timeline for the wedding, which may expand into a larger timeline for the overall weekend, and include important information like important cellphone numbers that will be distributed to key people.

So not mine but isn’t this pretty?

But I’m talking about something more hardcore than the above, with minute timing and tons of details, like that of Mrs. Daffodil.
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We’re married now.

Preview pic posted by our awesome photographer CK Hwang of 39 East Photography

And to give a little taste of what married life is like…

1. Scene: Walking the dogs in Central Park

Me: So, does it feel any different being married now?
Mr. Pug: Hm. No.
Me: Yeah, me neither.
Mr. Pug: [putting his arm around me and smirking] Oh, honey, it feels *just* as not special as it did before.

The nerve.
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When I was considering venues and forming our initial guest list (wow that was a long long long time ago), I was always interested in any information regarding how many of the invited guests actually come to the wedding. The numbers of course differ based on many factors, such as the size/location/time/etc. of the wedding, but I wanted to quickly share our numbers.

Our venue capacity is 60 people. We invited about 65 people, 61 of whom could realistically make it (we were 99.99% sure that a few older relatives would not be able to make the cross-country/international trip). About 17 invited guests are from the Bay Area (i.e. close to the venue), and the rest were from out of town, so we considered it a semi-destination wedding.

Of the 65, 48 have RSVPed as “yes”. That is around 70%, or 75% of the 61 guests we felt could realistically make it. This seems like a reasonable percentage to me.
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Having read countless posts from fellow bees regarding their amazing weddings and looking at photos from other weddings on the internet, I kinda feel like I could be putting more effort into my wedding, like DIY-ing more stuff and doing my own flowers. But I can’t complain, because to a certain extent, it’s all my fault! And I own it! It’s all due to my modus operandi: Laziness (and DIY inability). Folks, I won’t lie—excited as I have been about planning this wedding, I am a lazy ass.

If I could do this for a living, I would:

I am so pretty.

There are several components from this wedding that I decided from the get-go not to include, or dropped along the way.
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As you may remember (okay, you don’t) from my previous post about shopping for wedding dresses, my original vision and most of the dresses that captured my heart were non-strapless. There were v-necks, cowl necks, bateau necklines, and so on (actually that’s about it), like this:

Source

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So, weather.com has finally started to post the forecast for our wedding day (I say “finally” as if I wasn’t sure when it would be posted, but I guess I knew it was pretty much going to be 10 days out).

Half Moon Bay is not your stereotypical California weather—it’s coastal, can be a bit blustery, and is no stranger to rain and clouds (go me for picking a great location!). However, last year when I visited in March, it was mid 60s and gorgeous. Naturally I was crossing my fingers for the same this year.

Source

(not our forecast, I’d die and go to heaven if it were going to be above 70)

I checked late last night. High 60 degrees, sunny, with 0% chance of rain. Yippee!

I checked this morning. High 59 degrees, partly cloudy, with 0% chance of rain. Still yippee!

I checked right now.
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