Weddingbee

As I mentioned in a previous post, I definitely had a tough time choosing photographers. I had a gazillion photography blogs on my Google Reader, and I’d scroll through them, making half-legible notations on a piece of scrap paper about the ones I “liked.” And heaven forbid if I had to actually express why I liked what I liked! I would have been as inarticulate as a 4-year-old (”pweeety pictures”) or Rachel Zoe (”I die.”).

I think a lot of the difficulty I was having came from seeing each photographer’s photos in isolation. It’s hard to articulate what you like and don’t like when brides, weddings, locations, etc. are so different; there’s just no baseline for comparison. Recently, though, I discovered that a lot of the photographers I was blog-stalking attend the same photography workshops and — here’s the useful part — since all the photographers at a particular workshop work with the same model/environment, if you get a hold of those pictures, you can actually compare the styles and techniques of the photographers. No more comparing apples with oranges.

For example, the Southern California photographer Jose Villa leads a number of workshops each year. Here are three photographers’ work from one of the workshops:

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(left to right) Girlfriend Pillow, Bouquet of Roses Caftan, Super Kegel
Big Game Telephone, Skiing snowball, Gopher 3-deluxe pick up tool

Why is a girlfriend pillow the perfect gift to put on a registry? Ms. Mango complains that I’m oblivious to the rules, regulations, and technique of cuddling. Apparently, you should sit still during the complete duration of cuddling, which can last over an hour. That means no asking to get a drink, no grabbing of any other body parts, and no mentioning of how much time has already passed. Also, sometimes we males need cuddling and are too proud to ask for it. Talk about a way to quench your cuddling appetite.

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“Yo, que me figuraba el Paraíso bajo la especie de una biblioteca . . . .”

- Jorge Luis Borges

[A picture of one of my bookshelves (and probably the inside of my brain): wedding books and mags on the top shelf,

critical theory texts on the bottom shelves.]

When I first emigrated from Hong Kong at the age of 8, I was a shy kid with limited English skills and a bowl cut. So when normal kids were out on the playground, I was hanging out in the Bookmobile or the library, getting acquainted with my fictional friends like The Babysitters Club or Nancy Drew. To this day, I’m still a bookworm — um, I mean bookbee. In fact, I’ve managed to make my awkward phase into a profession; now that I’m a doctoral student in English, I get to read books for a living.
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With all this recent talk about wedding registries (Espresso, Champagne), I cannot help but to think of what I would have chose, if I had the power to create my own registry… which I didn’t. However, I provide you with: the Mango registry that never was.

My first stop would have been KB Toys. I know people would contend that Toys “R” Us is a better store for wedding toy registries (as if there was such a thing), but I feel that Toys “R” Us is a bit “bourgie”. I kind of like the fact that almost everything in KB is “buy 1, get 1 free”. Secondly, I’m a little scared of Geoffrey the Giraffe.

Source

Anyhow, I think the following would be floating somewhere on my registry:
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Who really remembers cards and invitations? Well, ever since Mr. Caramel and I have started to pack for our NYC move, we realized that we have to trash a lot of sentimental things that we don’t want to forget.  One of the things we had to throw away were our wedding cards and extra invitations.  Since so much thought went into picking our cards and invitations, I couldn’t bear to just throw them away without some type of documentation, especially the really beautiful ones!

So… I took pictures of them!

How adorable are these??
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Pt. I: Make Me Pretty!
Pt. II: Time to Get Bridal!
Pt. III: On the Other Side

Seeing Mr. D for the first time was a moment that will always stay with me. It was the first of many moments that day that everything felt just too perfect, too wonderful, yet so real… and so completely right.
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First off, hello hive!! I’ve missed you! I know it’s been a long time since I last posted, but I’m back…

I thought I’d kick it off with a post about our guest book. To remind you, we got married in Palm Springs last December. While neither Mr. Peppermint nor I are from there, it had long been a special getaway for us. We had family coming from all parts of California as well as Virginia, Minnesota, Wisconsin and New York. We wanted our guest book to reflect this travel theme, so we settled on postcards! Basically, the week before the wedding when we were out in Palm Springs getting ready, we went to tourist gift shops, antique stores and anywhere we could find postcards (new and vintage) of Palm Springs and the outlying areas. During the reception, we had guests fill them out and drop them off in a caddy that also doubled as a pen holder. Originally, I was going to find a mailbox, but couldn’t find one that was just the right size.

Here is how it was set up at the reception:

After we got back from our honeymoon, Mr. Peppermint and I assembled an album with the postcards. It was such a nice treat to revisit all of the wishes and kind notes that guests had written…
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A little joke for you from Anita Diamant’s The New Jewish Wedding: “The tongue-in-cheek Yiddish-English ’translation’ for R.S.V.P. is Remember to Send Vedding Presents.”Hahaha. Call me a dork (or a 95-year-old Jewish man), but it’s a knee slapper! Snort. Snort.

As you might remember, I’m in the process of converting to Judaism, and Mr. Hot Cocoa and I are looking forward to setting up a Chinese-Jewish household once we’re married. But one can’t possibly be expected to be a balabusta (that’s yiddish for quality female homemaker) or balabusto (that’s cocoa-yiddish — coquidish — for quality male homemaker) without the proper accoutrements, right? So even though we haven’t given any thought to where we’d register for our everyday items, I have already come up with a list of judaica stores with online registry services. And since my Judaism homework this week involves studying the rituals associated with celebrating the sabbath — in particular the tradition of shabbat dinner — I thought I’d also list a few of the shabbat-related items that might go in a vedding registry.
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From September 24th through October 5th, Macy’s is offering a $25 cash rebate on $200 tabletop purchases from one of 26 participating vendors like Lenox, Waterford, Wedgewood, Kate Spade, and even the new Martha Stewart Collection with Wedgewood.

oooh la Lenox!

This is a great opportunity to ease the sting of buying a special couple a wedding gift, or simply to fill out your dinnerware service after the wedding is over!
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Our programs were a labor of love. All in all they took us literally weeks to complete! The reason it took us so long was because I didn’t plan out the supplies very well, and since we started with only a few weeks from the wedding, I was just over it. That said, I’m SO glad we put so much effort into making them because they were a huge hit at the wedding.

Here’s the result of our weeks of work (excuse the bad quality picture - my camera is on the fritz):

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