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I’ve been stalking my Google reader for cabaret-style seating and a focal point. We need something to set our stage—to frame our vows, so to speak. If we don’t find something, this will be our backdrop:
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Our first round of e-pics makes me happy; we’ll get tons of use out of them because of our cherry blossom theme. We started the day off at Shinjuku Gyoen, a massive “park” in an urban area. It’s filled with cherry blossom trees, although they weren’t particularly out at this time. Nevertheless, we picked a tree that was about 80% in bloom and posed under it. I was nervous about having my picture taken professionally, but I think they turned out pretty great!
We still haven’t been able to put any action to our inspiration for our backyard wedding. It’s worrying for a type-A person like me, but it does have one advantage—I’m able to consider all aspects of the wedding from several different angles.
Our engagement photos are in! I’ll be putting them up in bits and pieces because there are a lot. We went to three places: Shinjuku Gyoen, Asakusa, and Shibuya. In Asakusa, we stopped off in front of the famed Sensoji temple. It’s been under renovation for a while now, so we couldn’t get any pictures in front of it, but we grabbed an omikuji!
Featured on Weddingbee
Unique Wedding Favors
“Add a memorable touch to your wedding with unique favors that match your theme.”
Did you know that Nordstrom does off-the-rack bridal dresses? J. Crew has been a great resource for brides who are looking to buy dresses outside of the traditional stores, but their dresses are still too pricey for me. Look at these great dresses I’ve been browsing on the Nordstrom website!
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BCBGMAXAZRIA, $298
This is something that’s been in the back of my mind for a while. In Japanese, we’d call it mendokusai—annoying, a pain in the ass. My parents’ backyard has no lighting scheme to speak of at the moment, so we’ll have to start from scratch. I’ve been researching our options in terms of how to light up our wedding.
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First up is these bad boys. Big quartz lights on poles. They’d probably do the best job for a well-lit backyard at night, but I don’t want florescent, harsh lighting. I’m looking for a soft glow, and I think these will provide too much light. Plus, a local rental company priced them at $40 a pop! No thanks. Next!
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Tiki torches. Fire would definitely give the wedding that charming glow we’re looking for. Coupled with paper lanterns and white string lights, I think these would adequately light up the backyard to safety standards. But the thought of an open flame makes me wary, and tiki torches don’t really flow with the aesthetics of our wedding. Still, the price is right at $40 for two poles (via Home Depot). I’ll have to think about them.
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I almost screamed when I found these solar-powered white string lights. As I’ve mentioned, my parents’ house doesn’t have a back door (which always freaked me out growing up—ONE fire exit?…I thought about weird things as a child), so we can’t easily run power cords into the house. We could put up wooden poles and run them overhead across our backyard a la this backyard wedding from Once Wed:
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The solar-powered lights store up energy in their panels during the day and come on after dark. We’d conserve energy and money, as these run a mere $23. Awesome, right?
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What Asian-inspired wedding wouldn’t be complete without paper lanterns? We’ll have them in our wedding colors of red, white, and pink (and black, but black lanterns=morbid?). One tiiiiiiny problem—my backyard doesn’t actually have any trees to hang them from. But we’ve got shrubs. Lots and lots of shrubs. So we’ll buy LED paper lanterns and stick ’em in and around the shrubs. This wedding is getting lit one way or another, and who knows, it might make them look pretty!
Last up, candles. Everywhere.
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How are you going to light up your wedding day?
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
I’ve been super busy with work, but I’ve still got weddings on the brain, especially our Tokyo reception! I won’t be organizing it because my Japanese is rubbish, but I’ve seen my fair share of receptions since I started living here in 2007; so I think I know how it’ll go down. First of all, there is a lot of drinking.
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Hive, on March 8th, we got married. I’ve explained to you before about why we had to get married. So, wanna know how you get hitched the Japanese way? Here’s my recap!
We went to our local ward office, met my aunty, and handed in our (numerous) documents to the ward office worker. Forty-five minutes later our number was called, and the office worker pointed out all the mistakes we had made on the documents. We corrected them, and she said that the “process” was finished. Romantic, eh? Here are some personal photos of the day:
Outside the ward office where we made it official.
…possible the most boring wedding topic, but one that must inevitably be tackled. Chairs! Also a very enthralling topic. I’ve gotta have the chiavari chairs, but being a budget bride, that means something’s gotta give! A 5K budget is about give and take. If I want to spend $500 on chairs, I’ve gotta cut costs somewhere else. So what goes? The biggest cost for a backyard wedding is rentals, and I think the least design-oriented element of this wedding will be the plates. I don’t believe we’ll be having a plated dinner; it’ll probably be serve-yourself buffet style, which means the ugly paper plates don’t have to be on the table from the get-go and can be disposed of quickly when dinner is over. Of course, I don’t want use just any old plates from the dollar store. Here are some options for those thinking of going the paper plate way.
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We’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is Mr G’s best friend from England and his wifey-to-be are saving up money to attend our ceremony! I am so happy to hear this because I was really worried Mr. G would be lonely on our special day. Dave’s BFF is a great guy—so great we are thinking about making him a part of our ceremony!
When they were little, Mr. G told his aforementioned friend that he would be best man at Mr. G’s wedding. So naturally, Dave wants BFF to be his best man in October. It would be nice for him, but this leaves me with a dilemma. While Mr. G would have one super special person around to be his best man, ALL of my friends at our ceremony are super special to me. Since we’re having a small and intimate wedding of 50, half the attendees would be up there with me if I were to have a bridal party! I’ve seen wedding parties with 10 or so groomsmen and bridesmaids on each side, but wouldn’t it look a little silly to have one best man and 5+ bridesmaids up there? And no one sitting in the seats? I love my girlfriends, but I just think it’ll be special and intimate enough with all our loved ones around us in my parent’s backyard. I am blessed to have many many caring, precious friends who would stand with me on my wedding day. I hope my girlfriends won’t be too crushed if I don’t include a bridal party in our ceremony, but if any of our friends would like to do a prepared reading, we’d be very grateful.
Mr. G really wants me to have a bridal party, but I can’t picture it. Although I love, love, LOVE the look of this:
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This was actually the FIRST wedding inspiration photo I saved. I would check out the source if I were you— this bride’s wedding was absolutely gorgeous and is my favorite, ever.
Shoes are the bane of my existence. They really are. If I had my way, we’d all be walking around barefoot. I hate socks, too, but I guess that’s really a story for another time.
I think I hate shoes so much because they’ve caused so much trouble in my life. A lot of injuries I’ve had are related to not wearing proper footwear. The most recent of these incidents was actually last December, right before Mr. Glasses and I went on our big trip to England. I was inebriated—that’s putting it gently—and in heels, dancing to a song that obviously got me too excited because I fell over and broke my foot. Since then, I’ve been cautious of high heels, and I’m not sure if I’m ready to put a pair on yet. As I’ve mentioned, I’m not really keen on any shoes in the first place. I only go shoe shopping when I’ve worn out a pair because I absolutely hate picking out, trying on, and buying shoes (I don’t know why).
Where does that leave me with my shoes the day of our ceremony? Our backyard isn’t paved—it’s all grass and dirt—so that leaves dreaded heels out of the question. I need something that can get dirty while being comfortable and cute.
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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!
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.
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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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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