Our wedding was on December 29th, 2007 in South Orange County.

The ceremony was held at Grace Hills Church, a lovely church in Aliso Viejo, while our reception was a mere 1.5 miles up the street at Pacific Hills Banquet.

My wedding dress was one of the most inexpensive items I purchased for the wedding, but I absolutely adored it. It is a Moonlight Bridal Tango TG9297, and was a mere $100 more than my bridesmaids dresses. I ordered it via Netbride.com and was happily pleased with their service.

The length needed to be altered, and a bustle needed to be put in, and I entrusted the alterations to the wonderful Mahtab of Lake Forest. She made my dress fit me like a glove, and I happily received compliments on the dress all night.

As per Korean tradition, my parents gifted Andy with a lovely new suit. It fit him like a glove and when we decided to do all-suits-no-tuxes for the bridal party, it was understood that Andy would wear this suit.

He wore the Hugo Boss 'Pasolini Movie' suit in black - purchased from Nordstrom. He looked incredibly handsome.

I was not into the every-bridesmaid-has-to-wear-the-same-dress look, but still wanted my ladies to look coordinated together. The dresses were all Bill Levkoff, in the same color, but different styles.

Bill Levkoff / Color Sable
(l to r) Style #555, Style #466, Style #557

#555 has straps w/ tulle in the skirt for some extra oomph.
#466 is very slimming and gathers on the left side of the dress.
#557 has a coordinating sash that hangs down the back like a train.

I bought each of the dresses on Netbride.com for ~$100 less for each dress than was being sold at the salons. As you can see, each of the girls looked absolutely gorgeous.

Rather than renting tuxes, Andy and I purchased a new black suit for each of our groomsmen from a suit store in downtown Los Angeles. We thought it'd be a nicer gift for them to wear, instead of a rented tuxedo. The ties + socks were purchased at Banana Republic, and the groomsmen each looked positively refined & chic.

Each member of our bridal party were friends that are near and dear to our hearts. We couldn't have imagined anyone else standing there with us on our special day.

All hair & make-up were done by Design Visage. They have two locations - one in Manhattan Beach, and one in Newport Beach. I requested Nicole Thompson (of the Newport Beach location) for my bridal hair & make-up, after seeing work she did for other brides.

Nicole and another lovely gal showed up at our hotel bright and early at 6 on the morning of the wedding. They immediately got to work doing the H+MU of my 3 bridesmaids, as well as my mother. Nicole did my H+MU last, so that it'd coincide with when the photographer arrived.

The total for the bride was $450, which includes a preview/trial and wedding-day hair+makeup. All bridesmaid's & mother's H+MU were $140. Application of individual lashes are available for both the bride & bridesmaids at no extra cost, and extra wedding-day goodies (lipstick, etc.) are provided for the bride for touch-ups later in the day.

(Please take note that Nicole did an excellent job making me look punchy, but natural enough for the wedding day, especially important since I'm not a make-up wearer. And the hair lasted throughout the entire day, and was simply amazing!)

Kenneth Cole - Wicked Rich
D'orsay, 3" heel, satin, with rhinestone ornament
My most favorite piece of wedding attire of the day!

In fact, it wasn't a charm at all - it was the promise ring that Andy bought for my birthday a year before he proposed, promising that we'd get married sometime in the future. I had Flower Allie attach it to my bouquet - it was a symbol of a promise fulfilled.

Since Andy is an enormously HUGE baseball fan, and me absolutely loving my SF Giants, I went ahead and purchased a Giants garter set on eBay from seller "kristis_charmed_life."

Shown above is the toss garter that received lots of hoots during the garter toss. Lots of fun.

After booking our reception venue *first*, we needed to find ourselves a church to get married in. Thankfully, there were quite a few churches in the Laguna Hills area, and when we came across Grace Hills Church, we found it to be a perfect fit for what we were looking for in a church - small, cozy, and homely. Our 400 guests fit cozily inside the church for the ceremony, and it felt like one big family.

Our pastor from our home church officiated our wedding, and tailored his sermon to our personal situation. Andy & I were having difficulties with his parents in regards to the wedding, and our pastor's message was specifically about the importance of man & wife loving one another, and man & wife loving their families. It was very touching.

While Andy was a complete hoot during the ceremony (he waved at everyone while making his entrance with his groomsmen), I cried during the vows. :/ And kept tearing up all throughout the special prayer of blessing, the lighting of the unity candle, and the honoring of the parents. (And I'm usually not a sap like that.)

We "hired" Andy's cousin & colleague to play the violin & cello for us, and I had a good college friend play the piano. They were a wonderful sounding trio. During the unity candle lighting, one of my good married couple friends from college sang a lovely song for us: Unfailing Love by Chris Tomlin.

All DIY:
-cover page: name / date / church / city, state
-page 2: order of the ceremony, complete with korean translation
-page 3: words to special praise song that was sung before ceremony began
-page 4: words to hymn sung during ceremony - english + korean translation
-page 5: wedding party - parents / officiant / bridesmaids / groomsmen
-page 6: special thanks - pianist / strings / special praise / song of dedication / gift attendants / ushers / slideshow / coordinator
-back page: photo from bridal session in SF + words of gratitude

It's a good thing that I'm a teacher and was on winter vacation the two weeks prior to the wedding, because painting this aisle runner took me almost an entire day hunched over on my living room floor. :/

I printed out the letters from my inkjet printer and simply traced each letter onto the runner (white muslin) and started painting. A pain-staking DIY project that I'm so glad I did.

The worst thing was when I went to unfurl the entire runner to iron, and found out that the muslin was cut in half right in the middle - I had two completely separate pieces of fabric! Here's a hint, when you buy fabric for your runner (or anything else for that matter), make sure they unfurl the ENTIRE thing to make sure it's all in one piece. In my case, I needed 18 yards, so what the lady did was unfurl off 7 yards of a new 25-yard bolt of muslin, and give the entire remaining bolt, which is why I didn't know it was cut in the middle until it was too late.

But it's nothing a little Stitch Witchery couldn't handle.

Our reception was held at the lovely Pacific Hills Banquet in Laguna Hills - a mere 1.5 miles down the street from our ceremony venue. Pacific Hills offers catering on site, provides the chair linens, and even includes the wedding cake in your package. We were very pleased with the service we received, and still get compliments about this gorgeous venue.

While it's true that your wedding day goes by in a blur, I do remember just how lovely our reception was decorated for our guests. Cascading lights, chivari chairs, coordinating lights along the walls - everything was beautiful. Our day-of coordinator took us through the hall while our guests were enjoying their cocktails, and we're thankful that she did so, because it was only time we saw it in the capacity that we imagined.

We had a served buffet, and to choose which table would go first, second, etc., Andy and I came up with trivia questions for tables to answer. Questions such as, "What was the name of the fraternity that Andy was in?" and "What two subjects does Jennifer teach at school?" allowed guests to eat their lunch first.

A complete pain in the a** that I was still working on 2 nights before the wedding, but it turned out beautifully. Shown above was our printed seating chart, complete with all guests in alpha order, seated in tables named after baseball teams.

We conveniently left out the LA Dodgers, because I'm a Giants fan who was taught to hate the Dodgers, and Andy is an Angels fan who just learned to hate the Dodgers.

Our centerpieces were white orchids + curly willow, with white orchid blooms strewn around the base.

Centerpiece flowers + curly willow + vase provided by Flower Allie.
Loose orchid blooms were bought from an orchid grower in Hawaii and shipped the day before the wedding.

Set to "You and I" by Michael Buble. Much too late to get dancing lessons, we practiced in my living room the week before the wedding. I think we did good.

Our wedding cake was provided in our venue contract via Cinderella Cakes in Costa Mesa, CA. We simply took a visit to their cake shop, chose a style from a set number of styles, tasted a few samples, chose which flavors we wanted for each tier, and we were on our merry way. So simple.

The cake + silver cake stand were provided by Cinderella Cakes.
The cake cutter + server were bought at The Bombay Company during their going-out-of-business sale.
The toasting flutes were bought at Crate & Barrel.
The flowers + decorations were provided by Flower Allie.
The candles + vases were DIY.

And the most lovely thing was that we didn't need to save the top layer of the cake - Cinderella Cakes will gift us with a complimentary top tier on our 1 year wedding anniversary!

Take me out to the ballgame~

We had a fun baseball-themed reception due to Andy's love affair with all things baseball. Our favors were both salted peanuts & old time Cracker Jack boxes, packaged up in a cello bag complete with the printed lyrics to "Take me out to the Ballgame." Our guests loved them.

We took pre-wedding bridal photos a month before the actual wedding in my hometown of San Francisco with Perspecta Photography. I couldn't imagine not having any photos taken in the beautiful city of SF. We delightfully enjoyed taking these photos, running around the city in full wedding garb, and we even received a few congratulatory honks from passerbys!

Taken at Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica with our sweet little pup, Kona.

Her - BCBG dress + Franco Sarto shoes
Him - Banana Republic + Puma shoes
Kona - 100% naturally adorable