One day, after eight years of dating and many silly adventures, comic book artist Josh took his knitting girlfriend Rosann out on top of a rock in the ocean and asked her to marry him. And she said yes!

Welcome to my bio. Here, I, Rosann, try to document one of the best days of my life!

Our Vendors:

Ceremony venue: The Woman's Club of Palo Alto
Reception venue: Ming's
Photographer: Jerry Yoon Photography
Flowers: Floral Design Studio
Cake: Sugar Butter Flour Sunnyvale
DJ/Coordinator: One Final Touch

All photography by Jerry Yoon Photography.

All photography by Jerry Yoon Photography.

At this point, I arrived, and everyone was all, "JOSH MUST NOT SEE THE BRIDE!" and the groomsmen shoved him into the corner, LOL!

All photography by Jerry Yoon Photography.

All photography by Jerry Yoon Photography.

All photography by Jerry Yoon Photography.

Jerry spotted a firetruck nearby the ceremony site and asked us if we'd like to take some shots with it and we said sure! The firefighters came out and congratulated us too. :D People on the streets honked their car and rolled down their windows to give their congrats!

All photography by Jerry Yoon Photography.

I woke up the day of with three hours of sleep. The makeup lady and her assistant daughter arrived at 7 am. Sometime around 11 AM, Jerry and Ingrid, our photographers, arrived, and started snapping away. I was already done with hair/makeup by the time they arrived, but it was cool. My dad ran out and bought some take-out dim sum so we all munched on that for lunch. Jerry left around noon for the Woman's Club to go shoot Josh, but Ingrid stuck around as the BMs helped me put on my dress. Some relatives and my sisters's BF arrived, and then we were off to the Woman's Club!

We got there around 1:20 PM, and my DoC immediately came out and rushed me inside past all the guests to the dressing room to hide from the groom (haha I felt like I was escaping the paparazzi). The BMs helped put my veil on in the dressing room. I kept having to remind myself, BREATHE, BREAAAAATHE because of my nerves! :D It was so weird, because I was so calm leading up to the wedding, and only a few minutes before the ceremony did I start getting nerves. I could hear all the chatter and laughter outside the door and knew somewhere out there was my groom. His stepmom is in the background of this pic hanging up a jacket, and she came into the dressing room to tell me that Mr. Calm-cool-groom-Josh was actually getting nervous too! I thought that was cute.

Picture of the bouquets~ the BMs' had orange roses, green hydrangeas, and orange mokara orchids. Mine had gardenias (which smelled UNBELIEVABLY GOOD for days after), white hydrangeas, and bouvardias.

Our cute little cousin! She was a little too young to be a FG. :) MOH is letting her hold her bouquet. Plus set up...

...and then the processional began! My heart was pounding.

My entrance from the stage. Our officiant and coordinator came up with this idea on the spot during rehearsal when they saw the stage opposite the room! The rest of the bridal party entered from the side so you could hear audible gasps when the curtains parted!

At this point, my dad took my hand and guided me down the stairs.

The officiant suggested my dad and Josh shake hands, but they decided to hug instead - aww!!

My dad was supposed to take my hand and place it in Josh's, but after their hug, I jumped the gun and took Josh's hand myself on impulse!

Our officiant, Kathy of Heartfelt Weddings, was so wonderful. People came up to me afterward and told me what a great job they think she did.

We're both such softies - cried so much when we exchanged our personalized vows!

Josh's vows:

Rosann, we met as artists, then as friends, and finally as bride and groom.

When I first met you I couldn't have imagined that a silly girl holding a sketchbook would become so much to me.

You taught me how to become a more loving person in many ways.

When I had no food, you took me to the grocery store and fed me.

When I was sick, you cared for me - even when I had pinkeye!!!

When I am stupid, you show me patience, which is probably more often than I would like to admit.

And when I dream, you believe in my dreams.

You've always been there for me, and I promise to always love and support you in all the ways you have taught me, and more, through whereever our adventure may take us.

I'll even clean the house and cook...sometimes.

You will always be my best friend (no offense to my groomsmen!)

My vows:

Josh, you are my home, the reason I smile, the wurbly feeling in my heart.

I will rub your shoulders when you're tired after a long day of work hunched over your drawing tablet.

I will knit you hats so you won't catch cold.

I will celebrate with you when you succeed, and dry your eyes when you fail.

I will stay by your side when times are good and we can go out to a nice dinner and when times are bad and we can only afford Taco Bell - not that you'd have any problem with that!

But there are some things I won't do.

I won't always wash the dishes so we'll have to compromise on chores.

I won't try to change you because I respect you as your own person.

I won't ever let you abandon your dreams and aspirations as I know you won't let me abandon mine.

And most of all, I won't stop loving you.

With our family and friends here before us, I vow to you to love you as best as I know how, and even beyond that knowing, and to grow our love as our lives change in the countless ways they will.

You are my first love and I will be forever happy to have you as my last.

YEAAAAHHHH WE'RE MARRIED!!

After the recessional, we walked back into the dressing room, then backstage, hugged, and boy did we cry!! Haha, I think we were really trying to contain ourselves during the actual ceremony. All our bridal party and new parents hugged us too.

We then took our formals. We did some in front of the arch, but our photog Jerry was captivated by the stage and made us all go up there too.

He took some silly shots of us on stage afterward - mafia and can can!

While the guests enjoyed little hor d'ouvres and refreshments...

...the photographers whisked the two of us off around Palo Alto for photos. Then it was time for our reception!

Our photographers whisked us off and and around Palo Alto for couple pics after the ceremony and then we arrived at Ming's.

So happy for our reception!

My MOH sister did a great job of photodocumenting the set up. Here are our mini skateboard favors and other random shots.

Menu, favors, and program on each place setting

Helpers setting up! You can even see our DIY photobooth in the background. It was around this time that one of our good friends from work walked in with a bag of TACO BELL for us! Josh's fav restaurant is Taco Bell so this was really funny. We had us some Crunchwrap Supremes that night!

MOH and friend DIYed the origami flowers and table numbers! Since many of our guests are artists/designers like DH and me, we laid out blank pieces of paper on each table with the mini colored pencils so that they could doodle while waiting. It's kinda hard to make out from these photos, but they're the best I got. The right photo is our sweetheart table setup.

Josh made our cake toppers out of paper and paint :D They're little us! I SQUEEEED when I saw our cake! White cake with peach filling, red velvet with cream cheese filling, and chocolate hazelnut ganache. You better believe I got to eat all three flavors at my wedding!

I got my groom and all the groomsmen orange stripey socks :D Here they are hiking up their pant legs to show 'em off.

We're here! We made our grand entrance to Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'".

Let's dance! We were really awkward for our first dance and we both said while dancing, "Man, we should have rehearsed this part!"

Then the 10-course banquet began! Peking duck was on the menu and people doodled on the paper we left out for them with the mini colored pencil favors.

LOL some of these drawings had to have been done under the influence! I scanned some of our favorites. There's so many drawings of Josh and me!

Of course we took tons of photos with relatives and friends!

Then the lion dancers performed! They were a big hit with our guests. 4 lions! The beating of drums!

I changed into my cheongsam and we cut the cake. Next came the bouquet and garter toss. The ceiling was low so the bouquet hit the ceiling and crashed to the floor pretty fast. XD;;

We ended the night with open dancing! :) There was some crazy stuff that happened on that floor...!

It was all so fun! People loved our DIY photobooth too! My friend Matt found this script for Apple Macbook Pros that uses the built-in camera and Photobooth application to take three photos and print them onto 4x6 photo paper. For the backdrop, we got three different fabrics from IKEA and DH put together a stand with telescoping painters poles and dowels so that people could switch backgrounds by rolling it over the top dowel. We saved over a thousand bucks with this techy solution! I highly recommend it if you have the laptop laying around and a little photo printer!

Lastly, here's one of us using it!

What a memorable day it was for us! <3 It truly was one of the best days of my life. I was so happy to have all my friends and family to share it with!

Josh and I feel so fortunate to have been able to book Jerry Yoon Photography for our wedding. When we first researched potential photographers, we weren't really excited about all the ones we came across; it's not that they had bad work, we just wanted someone who put the art first and the subject second, if that makes any sense. Maybe it's because Josh and I are both artists that we're so critical. Anyway, we didn't think we'd ever find that photographer, so we about to throw in the towel and settle for someone more standard, until I stumbled across Jerry Yoon's page on Martha Stewart Weddings. After scrolling through his images in his blog, I dropped everything I was doing, showed Jerry's work to Josh, and e-mailed him immediately to see if he was available. The gods must have been smiling on me that day, because it turns out Jerry was indeed available for our wedding date. I think we're his last shoot of the year, actually. We met with him and signed him and his team on the spot.

For our engagement session, Jerry helped Josh and I develop a Little Red Riding Hood concept. We shot around San Francisco. For my red hood, I wore my Sylvi sweater coat that I knit last winter. Josh wore a furry hat he bought at Maker Faire. Jerry posted the photos in his blog (you can see them here) and I flipped out when I saw them. I couldn't be happier! Him and his partner are going to be spectacular at the wedding!

Jerry Yoon Photography - http://www.blogjerry.com

The Proposal

“After years of dating, ups and downs (mostly ups)… I took Rosann to the beach at Carmel, where the cliffs meet the ocean. We came to a spot where there is a rock out in the water, about 30 feet out and I asked her to come with me onto the rock. She said no way! So I picked her up and carried her out to hit and lifted her onto the rock. I got up on the rock with her, got on one knee, and took out a diamond ring. I recited the words that I had been repeating in my head all day and asked her to marry me.” – Josh

“My first reaction was laughter because I finally got why he was so insistent I get on that rock! I said ‘yes’ between laughs.” – Rosann

The Engagement Ring

Round diamond solitaire flanked by celtic knot designs. From Brilliant Earth.

Here's a photo I took of it next to wedding band. We picked out a simple platinum comfort band with a tiny diamond in the middle so as to not compete with the engagement ring's elaborate design.

Perhaps the third time truly is the charm, as I found the one at Elegant Lace Bridal the third bridal shop I visited. It's Watters WTOO in Style Alberta. So light, so airy, so...me!

Here's some photos we took back at the house affter the final fitting. 

And some shots at night:

The dress is ivory with a fawn grosgain band around the middle. I just love, love, love the flower detailing; the photos I found just don't do it justice. I knew when I started dress hunting that a) I wanted something light and b) I wanted delicate flowers. It turned out a lot of dresses with flower detailing seemed to be out of the budget I had allotted for my dress (Melissa Sweet gowns starting at $3,000 for instance). Thankfully, the manager at Elegant Lace Bridal pulled out this lovely for me and when I put it on, I knew I didn't want to take it off. It didn't break the bank either: $700, with the rush delivery fee waived because my bridesmaids got their dresses there too. I'm having cups and a slip put in, and the bottom hemmed for my shortness.

The Second Dress

And because our wedding will have a Chinese banquet reception, I decided to honor my family's culture by getting a qipao (cheongsam) to wear later in the evening. Here are some photos of it. I need to get it altered in the bust some...my bosom just doesn't fill it out!

My MOH and I spent a lot of time surfing the web and saving pics to our computers of images we found inspiring. As we gathered them, we started seeing a recurring theme of whimsy and bright yet vintage palettes, paper and organic shapes. I apologize for not being sure where all of these come from, but I do know a good number of these come from the Oh Joy! blog. (If you know where we got these from, please feel free to inform me and I'll credit them right away!)

Serious Business

Since my sister and I are graphic designers, AND my future husband Josh is an art director, anything having to do with art and design in this wedding has been meticulously mulled over. This includes our save the dates and invitations. I decided to cut costs and go green for the save the dates by designing them in Photoshop and just e-mailing them out to our guests. Our wedding color palette consists of orange, light blue/green, and ivory. Josh did the cute illustration of us in the bottom left corner and the other whimsical ones.

Letterpress

For the invitations, I just knew that I HAD to have letterpress. A MUST. I salivate thinking of the texture, the indentations of each letter applied with loving force into the paper. ... Don't look at me like I'm crazy!! As you may know, letterpress is pretty pricey, but my fellow designer sister (and maid of honor) did some research and found an affordable company called Accucolor Plus in Chicago that does it with 10% off for wedding jobs. (I highly recommend them, by the way, if you want to design your invites and have them letterpressed. Gary was a breeze to work with and takes payment by PayPal.) So we fiddled about in Photoshop and Illustrator until we came up with something we liked and ended up ordering 125 invitations and reply cards. The invitations are 2 color and the reply cards are 1 color, which came up to just under $500 total.

Here's a photo of my slave labor crew that helped assemble invites: Tiffany, bridesmaid; Amy, maid of honor; and Josh, my fiance.

So many invitations! We had a little fun with the reply cards and asked our guests to recommend a song we can all dance to at the reception.

Colored Pencils

We had a lot of fun with this part of the wedding planning. Originally, since Josh and I are both artists, we wanted to give everyone mini colored pencils as favors, but they were out of budget (200 guests and all). We did however, fall in love with the mini wood pencils from Beau-Coup and decided to buy a set per reception table (20 tables). Maybe the guests at each table will divide up the colors amongst themselves, or they'll just give it one person who really wants them.

Skateboards

We wanted to do more, and my MOH said that since Josh is an avid skateboarder, we'd like to share that side of him and I was able to find mini finger skateboards sold in bulk amounts at Joissu! Two of my brides, my mom, and I tied DIY tags I made with yarn around each skateboard. They read "Thanks for sharing this special day with us!" on the front, and "R + J 11.7.09" on the back!

Tea Bags

To represent me a little more, it's pretty well-known that I love tea, so I found some cute customizable tea bags off Beau-Coup. "Falling in Love" is appropriate for our fall wedding, don't you think? :D I went looking for orange ribbons to tie around them and only found them after going to three different stores!

Because we're doing this thing in November, and we don't want to be in a church, through some research we found a gem of building in Palo Alto: The Woman's Club.

The florist is going to make an archway out of the three center, lower windows by tying kiwi vine and flowers around them. We plan on hanging tulle from light to light.

I did some mockups of how we're thinking of hanging the tulle. Not sure which we'll go with yet!

For the reception, we'll be having a Chinese banquet at Ming's. Here's a photo that my sister's friend took at another wedding held there. Our chair covers will be ivory paired with ivory organza sashes.

I had my hair and makeup trial with Thuy Loan a few weeks ago.

I was pretty happy with the result! The only thing I didn't like was that she went a little heavier defining my crease (or lack thereof), so I'm going to ask her to do something softer instead.

I'm going to see if she can do something similar to these, like a soft smokey eye:

My flower hairpiece is Willamina by Twigs & Honey. My necklace and earrings are by Poési. The necklace is shown here in gold, but I ordered it in sterling silver.

Shawl

Since the wedding is in November, and I just plain like to knit, I decided to knit a shawl to go with my wedding dress to keep me warm. This is actually the second shawl I knit for my wedding! My first one, Ishbel, came out a little too small, so when I saw how beautiful Pax*knits's Purity came out for her friend’s wedding, I knew I had to make one for myself. I left off the second edging from the pattern.

Pattern: Purity from Rowan 43
Yarn: 2 balls Kidsilk Haze in Cream
Needles: US 9

Garter

I also knit my garter. It's knit from the same yarn I used for my shawl. Since it's a teensy bit on the itchy side for my thigh, I may only wear it right before the garter toss. The pattern came from here.

Cake Stand

My fiance is so wonderful! He took it all upon himself to build our cake stand, from concept to product! He used 2 16 in styrofoam wreaths as the base, glued them together, draped satin over, and pinned silk flowers and lace all around. It turned out so awesome!

And we he was done, he used our cat Skuz to help weight test it:

SUCCESS!

Seating Chart

Since we have so many guests, it just wasn't practical for us to do escort cards. Instead, I designed a 20"x16" seating chart. We're gonna get this printed out at FedEx/Kinkos and place it on an easel by the reception table.

Reception Programs

Josh draws comics, so we thought it'd be neat if he did one for the wedding. On the insides of our reception program, there's a two page comic about the story of us! I designed the cover and layout.

Card Box

We bought a photobox from The Container Store, cut a slot in the top, and modded it out with ribbons and silk flowers.

Ceremony Programs

My MOH designed this one. They are accordion-folded. We got them printed at Kinkos, fitting two on one 11x17 doublesided 80 lb. paper. I'm really happy with how they came out! The backside has a quote from Josh: "That one time we were under the trees and the breeze blew around us like we were one person, we called it a perfect moment."

Table Numbers

MOH also designed these. Each number has a custom design and will rest on an unfinished easel. These origami flowers will be tied around each easel.

Pomanders

I purchased 500 silk roses off eBay, clipped off the stems, and stuck them into styrofoam balls. I made 10 of them. These will hang every other chair row at the ceremony. :D I am getting many messages about these, so here's some details:

To yield 1 pomander at about 8" in diameter

Materials:

• 35 open silk roses (I bought mine from eBay: http://myworld.ebay.com/clairsflowers1/)
• 1 4" styrofoam balls (green ones work better if your roses aren't white, more camouflage) Wirecutter (or some tool that can cut through wire)
• Ribbon of some sort
  
• Styrofoam Glue or hot glue gun (the latter will probably work a bit better)

Wrap the ribbon around the styrofoam ball. Knot one side with a loop long enough so you can place it on a chair or pew. Clip the roses off the stems, leaving about 1/4" of stem left (enough to stick into the styrofoam). Open up the roses if they were flattened in transit, such as rubbing the flower on flat surface. Squeeze some glue onto the 1/4" of stem and stick the rose into the styrofoam ball. Repeat with additional roses spaced out about 1" from each stem. Enjoy your pretty pomander!

Manzanita Flower Tree

We got the manzanita branches from Ikebana Arts in San Jose, the pitcher from Marshalls, the silk flowers from eBay, and everything else from Jo-Ann. The talented Miss Cindy helped me make this a reality! That girl works black magic with a hot glue gun! Instead of using plaster of paris to secure the branches, we used styrofoam. This will be on the front table in the foyer at the ceremony and on the reception table.

A couple months ago, we finished making our monthly payments on a wedding album from our photographer. On the eve of our one year anniversary, Josh and I picked up our Leather Craftsmen wedding album from our photographers, Jerry Yoon Photography. The cover is Japanese book cloth. The binding is so crazy! It's like something you'd see in a museum. This is definitely going to become a family heirloom someday. This was definitely very pricey, to the point where I'm not even comfortable disclosing how much it cost, but I think it was worth it. Here are some photos I took of it:

It came in a thick sleeve and our names are letterpressed on the spine *_*

Here are some shots of the interior:

We got this first photo here as a canvas print too :D

We are getting a photo album of our wedding photos from our photographers, but I also wanted to make some for my family in the meantime. I used the layout proof provided by them as a guide for my own layout. Because Blurb seems like a very popular service that people on PW use to make their photobooks, I used Blurb. Ugh, boy was I disappointed! So disappointed, that I was glad I only ordered one, and then I went back to A&I to make the rest of them. As with my engagement photobook, they did a fantastic job. Check out my comparison below. A caveat however: I used 4"x6" photos and got the 13"x11" from Blurb while I got 11"x8.5" from A&I, which had an effect on the print quality.

Look at how many more shades of blue printed on A&I's than Blurb's.

Blurb:

• Large Landscape - 13"x11"
• I ordered their premium paper (100 lb. text silk-finish paper) but it still feels so thin!
• No creative control on the design of the spine (only allows your book title)
• Copyright page required with credit to Blurb (you can't get rid of it)
• I found the book creator application a little more cumbersome to use, but it's probably a little easier for people unfamiliar with similar applications
• Does not lay flat so some parts of the photos get lost in gutter
• Cropped off some photos
  
• Glossy dust jacket (leaves fingerprints easily)
• Less image saturation/color density
• Printing is outsourced to a 3rd party
  
• Total cost = $97.17

A&I

• Large book - 11"x8.5"
• Standard paper for all books: heavy 80 lb. cover stock Semi-Gloss paper - and boy, DOES THIS MAKE A DIFFERENCE! You really feel the quality difference. THIS really feels pro.
• You can design the spine
  
• The only place A&I places its logo is on the last page. Every other page is yours completely.
• Book Creator is easy to use immediately if you are mildly familiar with Photoshop controls, otherwise, it's easy to learn by following the tutorials on their site.
• LAYS FLAT! Like a wonderful coffee table book.
• No cropping. What you designed is what you get!
  
• Semi-gloss dust jacket
  
• Great image saturation/color density. The colors are way richer than Blurb's.
• Printed in-house at their Hollywood location
  
• Total cost = $92.16

It's a no brainer to me if I had to choose to print another photobook ever again. Check out some of the beautiful pages!

A&I page lays flat                                                                      ;          Blurb's doesn't

I got a photobook of our engagement photos printed from A and I Books. I had planned to use Blurb or Shutterfly as many brides have here on PW, but there was a Groupon for $20 for $60 worth in photobooks for A and I and I said, eh, why not? My Chinese mother would be so proud of me for using a coupon to get a photobook for twenty bucks. Their book creator was pretty easy to use to layout the photos and I'm very, very happy with what we got! I ordered an 8.5x11" landscape hardcover with 20 pages and it came out beautifully.

We're getting our cake from Sugar Butter Flour. I wanted the cake to be a little similar the flowers on my dress, so when I saw these pictures, I decided I that's how I want the cake to look. It will be round, three layers, with the bottom-most layer 12 inches in diameter. The outer fondant will be ivory and there will be white fondant flowers distributed everywhere. Some of the flowers will have orange centers. And to save money, the cake is on the smaller side and we'll have extra sheet cakes to feed everyone. Oh yeah, and Josh is making our caketopper. :) It's going to be little versions of us made out of paper!

Our florist is Floral Design Studio. When it came to bouquets, I wasn't sure what I wanted, only that I wanted something to go with my dress and be kinda whimsical and romantic at the same time. Our florist, Nona, suggested a bouquet of gardenias, white hydrangeas, and bouvardias; she wanted to keep it white so it wouldn't overpower my dress, which is already pretty detailed around the bottom. For the bridesmaids, because they're wearing orange dresses, their bouquets will be orange mokara orchids with some green here and there.

Two days after the wedding, Josh and I left for our honeymoon in Maui! We spent six nights at the Westin Maui Resort & Spa and it was fantastic! We spent a ton of time lounging and doing absolutely nothing in cabanas on Ka'anapali Beach. We also got heavenly massages from their spa and drove around the entire island (here's a tip: drive a truck or jeep, not a sedan like us)! I would love to go back someday.

Yay! In October 2010, my pumpkin that I carved won "Cutest Pumpkin" on Project Wedding! Thanks everyone!