Fi and I have been together for eight years before we tied the knot. He was my first real boyfriend and I'm his first girlfriend. Throughout highschool I've dated a few random guys but nothing over 3 weeks long. I remember the first time I spoke to Fi I told him I would never date him. hahhaha He was so patient, persistent, and sweet that I had to give him a chance after talking on the phone and chatting with him for over three months. I am just so glad that we found each other. After five wonderful years and Fi waiting patiently for me to finish up nursing school, he finally proposed.

The proposal was so weird. FI took me to a dinner cruise in SD on a random day after I had finished finals. We ate delicious food and he wanted to walk outside to the deck where it was freezing cold to watch the fireworks. I admit I sort of protested because I was wearing a dress and freezing. I would rather be inside and warm because we were still able to watch the fireworks from where we were sitting. FI begged me to go outside, so I finllay agreed to go outside. We were watching fireworks and then next thing you know FI started telling me about how wonderful I make him feel and the whole speech thing. I don't remember much from it. hahahha. I wasn't crying, like most brides on PW. I was very calm and collected. I was in shock. I reacted almost as if nothing had happened. It felt almost as if it was only a normal conversation that we usually have. I didn't get all excited until I got home to tell my family that I got engaged.

Oh.. and the ring that FI used to propose to me doesn't fit me. It was about ten sizes too big. It literally was too big for my big toe! So... I couldn't wear my ring until 3 months later. But its ok. I'll still marry him even if he didn't have a ring for me.

I am the first child in my family to get married. FI is also the first chid in his family to get married, so our parents are really happy that we are finally getting married. My family has super unrealistic (high) expectations for my engagement and wedding. FYI: I'm poor because I just graduated in May 2009 and I feel bad if FI or my parents have to pay for everything. To top it off, I didn't have much time to plan it because I was in the middle of my last semester of school, which meant loads of research papers and exams. Our engagement is meant to be only for close elderly relatives but the guest list ended up being over 100. It was supposed to be meant for about 30 guests. My house was so super cramped; it was a disaster. Here are the pictures from my engagement party. 

My mom insisted that I had to wear that ugly bright red dress. ARGHH!!!! Its traditional to wear a gown like that for the engagement but not red. I dislike that color A LOT!! I protested, mother lectured, I bargained, I did the whole nine yards. I ended up wearing that ugly red dress. What I learned from this: mother overrules all. That red dress made me look like a red lucky packet/envelope from Chinese New Years.

I'm thinking of buying this dress. I like it the most out of all the gowns I've tried on this far. I didn't expect to like this gown before I tried it on. I always thought I wanted a tight mermaid style lace gown, but I randomly tried this gown on and walah!! I like it.. :) I've tried on tight lace gowns with millions of crystals but it just didn't look right on me. After trial and error I have figured out that I need a dress with straps because I'm flat. LOL. This gown was a size 6 so it was way too big. I'm closer to a size 2, so if I end up purchasing this gown it would look a lot better in my size. I would also like to make some major alterations to it. First I would need to make the deep V neckline in front higher. I usually don't mind showing a little cleavage but my wedding is not the time to do that. Second, I would make the back lower :P to compensate for the lack of cleavage in front.

                                                          This is the dress on the model.

       I almost forgot to document my journey with Millybridal. I loved the test dress that they sent me.

I finally got my two dresses from Milly. I took forever to get them altered because I felt that I still had a lot of time left. As December is approaching, I'm starting to feel overwhelmed with having to take engagement pictures, selecting a makeup artist, hair styles, shoes, and accessories. Here is a sneak peak at the Mori Lee dress that I wanted replicated and custom made by Milly. Keep in mind, these pictures were taken without the proper bra, no crinoline, and no shoes. I have already purchased my mermaid crinoline from David's Bridal, so I will be getting it soon. Once I do, I promise to update with better pictures because these pictures really do not do my dresses justice. The details on the dresses are amazing and so difficult to capture with my cheap old camera. :(

                   Below is my pathetic attempt to try to capture the details of my dress. :(   

Here is the back of the dress. The original dress had a regular back, so I requested that Milly make the back dip lower. :) I also should have worn some heels to take pictures because the dress made me look so short.

Edit: Yay.. I finally got my crinoline from Davids Bridal. Boy.. did it make such a big difference... My dress looks 10x better with a crinoline. And at one point I considered not getting a crinoline...what was I thinking... Without further ado.. here is my new and improved dress. 

Here is a better example of the before and after. My dress looks like the first picture after walking around for a few minutes, but adding a crinoline prevents the bottom of my dress from bunching up and looking unstructured.

              My wedding dress on our wedding day: pictures from KLV photography

That was dress number one. I will be wearing that dress for the church ceremony and taking thank you card pictures. My second dress will be mainly for the cake cutting and first dance. Many moons ago, I was stalking a photog's blog and discovered a picture of another bride that i absolutely fell in love with. The back of her engagement picture dress was so gorgeous. I found the picture through Thaovu.

Actual Wedding day I decided last minute to wear another dress in honor of my mom. I've always loved fall/winter wedding themes so I naturally wanted white and light blue as my main colors. My mother was so sad when she found out that I wanted to wear an all white ao dai for my wedding. She was so mad that she didn't even want to look at my custom made ao dai even though she knew I loved it so much. For the tea ceremony in the morning, I decided to wear a red ao dai to make my mom happy. Here are some teasers from my wonderful photographers Le photography and Megan Julia photography (from Kevin Le Vu photography).

My last dress was a white ao dai with lots of bling to go with my bling shoes. :P I was so sad because I forgot the hat that goes with the dress. :( Oh wells... I'll be taking an after wedding photoshoot with Le Photography to make up for the forgotten hat. Heres a picture of the ao dai from my friends camera. I hope my photogrpher got a good picture of it. As for now.. this teaser will do.

Edit: I didn't really get any good pictures of my white ao dai. :( oh wells.. I guess thats what my next photoshoot will be.

                         Finally, here is a picture of my white ao dai. Photo by Le photography.

I bought my final bridesmaid dress. LOL. My theme colors are brown, light blue, and ivory. I initially wanted ivory dresses but things didn't come out how I expected. I then decided on light blue dresses but they are just so hard to find now. Then I finally came across a brighter teal lookind dress from Macys. I pondered about it for so long that it stressed me out. But at the end having my bridesmaid wear dresses with more color will make them stand out nicely. This is finally the dress that I settled on.

I got inspired by this wedding: http://www.carolinetran.net/blog/2010/08/westlake-village-inn-wedding-photography-selly-joon/

The bridesmaid dresses were a different blue tone compared to her overall wedding and her bridesmaids stood out very nicely. Her colors are also very similar to mines. Her cake is light blue with brown. I tend to make everything match exactly and was afraid my wedding would look too plain but adding extra tones of blue will add more dimension to the wedding colors.

Each bridesmaid will also be wearing a pink ao dai. I will be wearing a bright red and gold ao dai so I figured a light pink ao dai for them would match me. I will be providing them with a pink lacy ao dai and they will be wearing it for a short period. I haven't decided when they will be wearing each dress but I eventually will get there. Below are some pictures of me in the bm's pink ao dai. The ao dai was way too big on me so it kinda looked odd. You can tell in the last picture that the back did not fit me. It is about 3 inches too big for me. I always seem to forget to wear shoes when I take pictures with dresses. The dress made me look so short too.

     I got my younger niece to try on the BM's ao dai. She's bigger in size so it acutally looks better on her. 

Edit: I decided to buy shoes for my bridesmaids too. I initially wanted white/ivory shoes but decided against it. I feel that black shoes would look best with the teal dress.

Here are the shoes that I decided on:

Actual wedding day:

Picking a venue was so hard. I hated most of the traditional Vietnamese venues because of all the dragons, red and gold colors. I made a list of must haves for my wedding venue and searched all of OC and 626 area. 

Must have list: Venue- chiavari chairs, clean/new, no red and gold designs, specialty lighting, and floor length specialty linen (not a must but great if possible).

I love the look of chiavari chairs. They just look so clean and organized to me. I hate the look of regular banquet chairs with the chair covers and a sash. They just make the table seem so crowded and messy. Chiavari chairs are fairly new in the Vietnamese community so I was left with not many choices in venues that offered them unless I wanted to spend extra and order them from outside but I must have them for my wedding.

I also really wanted to splurged on floor length specialty linen. They generally cost about $7-10 each table just to rent and I'm too cheap to spend extra on them so I have to look for a venue that offers it for free. LOL. I know... good luck with that right? I wanted brown linen and it was such a hard color to find in Vietnamese venues. They always offer the normal length poly table linens in white/ivory, pink, and a few other random colors.

I finally found our venue thanks to mscin. Here is a sneak peek at our venue. Our venue is brand new and are still under construction so I will be having updates periodically. It has chiavari chairs and the gorgeous brown floor length linen that I've been drooling over.

Here is a recent update of my venue stolen from mscin's bio. I hope she doesn't mind. :P

Another update of venue: 8/6/2010 with light blue uplighting. Please ignore the red and gold table decorations.  I will be having brown floor length table linens instead.

Inspirational lighting colors: light blue

Actual Wedding day: The lighting was off but truthfully.. I really didn't care. LOL. During that day, I didn't care for anything. I just wanted to get married and be with my husband. My venue came out very nice in pictures. I loved that they were soooo easy to work with. The day before the wedding, I was suppose to drop off everything at my venue. I thought I had planned everything out but I still left quite a few things out. I forgot all the menus at home and we had menus for each seat. I also was in between renting satin napkins because they look so pretty in pictures but I have heard quite a few complaints about them not being very practical since they are so slippery. Last minute, I decided to use regular poly napkins in ivory. Kudoos to my venue because I emailed them at 4am saturday, the day of my wedding to tell them to change my napkins. I wanted my napkins to be folded a certain way and when I stepped into my venue.. it was exactly the way I wanted it. I wanted the napkins to be folded lenthwise and hanging on the table and underneath the plates so it would be easier to place the menus on them the day of the wedding. My adorable flowergirl, Kaitlyn was so helpful. I can't believe that she is such a cute little angel. She volunteered to put all the menus on each plate for me.

Here is a teaser of my venue from Le photography. I will update with more when I get my official wedding pictures from KLV photography.

I loved the way the napkins are and how I had alternating chair covers. This was a picture of the venue before I placed votive candles on the table. I had brown floor length tableclothes with ivory napkins, chair covers over the chiavari chairs, and light blue menus on each plate.

I love Kohler's veil picture. Ever since I joined PW, her veil has been haunting me. I knew from the beginning that I had to have a veil like hers. 

I love lacy veils, veils with rhinestones, pearls, and all sorts of bling but my dress is already busy so I didn't want to distract too much from my dress. Below are some pictures I found on PW pictures that I love.

Of course I have to include our beautiful mscin's veil. Isn't this such a beautiful picture? So dreamy and perfect.

                   credit: jjpeng's bio (http://www.projectwedding.com/biography/list/jjpeng)

   My actual veil during my engagement photoshoot with KLV.

Originally, I wanted to save money and reuse my centerpiece flowers for the ceremony decor but I have recently had a change of heart. I'm starting to fall in love with pomander balls lining the aisle. I love that look with a customized aisle runner. Below are inspirational pictures.

                 credit: pw bride jbl04d's bio

                                     Our church at OLA in Claremont

Actual wedding day:

I love Par228's dancefloor. I never thought the dancefloor would make such a big difference but after seeing her dancefloor... wow.. is all I can say. It was diffinately worth the spurge for her. My venue has a deep brown/black dancefloor (I think), so my monogram will have to be in a white/light color. I certainly hope my dancefloor will come out half as nice as parr228's dancefloor. I also love her blue uplighting.

 Isn't that gorgous? I love love the blue uplighting. Here is another peek at her wedding.

                                    Here is a sneak peek at my dancefloor at mscin's wedding.

I can't wait to see actual pictures of my dancefloor from my photog. I know he took some really good pictures. Here is a teaser I found on Megan Julia Photography's blog. I wanted a simple one and I loved the way it looked on my dancefloor.

                       I want mscin's cake. I will be ordering her cake soon. :P

I have ordered my cake but suddently I am having second thoughts. I now want a round cake. I'm not sure yet. I came across this picture and I love the cake stand and cake topper.

Actual Wedding day: the cake came out perfect.. in my eyes.... LOL. I loved how it looked and it tasted great even after being in my fridge for three days. :) I ended up with Mscin's cake because it was my love at first sight. I admit I had wandering eyes.. but I still decided on my Mscin's cake at the end. :P

* I had a bling cake topper but I loved how my cake was so much that I didn't even care for the bling cake topper. I was completely happy with how it looked without a cake topper.

Thank you pictures that I enjoy looking at. Hopefully I will get motivated one day and make some for our thank you cards.

                  credit: clightner's bio

       I love this bouquet but in all white. credit goes to mscin for finding it on Linda Vuong Floral Events

My wedding day bouquet came out pretty good. I was a little disappointed because it didn't have enough bling but overall I am happy with how it looks. I had feathers and was all white with orchids on it. 

                                     St Denis Catholic Church in Diamond Bar

                                              credit: lupper77's bio

                                                  Pasadena City Hall

                                     credit: jasminealaine

My acutal invitations:They took forever to finish. Everything is on metallic cardstock with embossed printing. I tried to capture the embossed printing but my camera sucks. At first I was going to order custom stamps for the RSVP also but after looking at the polar bear stamp for a while, I thought he was kinda cute and he so happens to match the color of my invites. I ended up only ordering custom stamps for the actual outer envelope. My invtes are actually light/baby blue with brown lining and ivory pocketfolds. I took this at night with very poor lighting so the color didn't com out quite right.

It was hard to design my invitations because our parents wanted so much irrelevant information on the invitation. If you look at any traditional Vietnamese invitation, it would contain both the parents names, addresses, our saint names, our status among our siblings, and it contains both english and vietnamese. Because we had traditional invitations, we were kinda stuck with a certain format for the design. Both our parental names had to appear on top/first and parallel to each other. As I started to design my invites, I slowly deleted all the extra swirls, unnnecessary wording, and removed all ribbon designs. I was aiming for plain and simple invitations but in the end they still came out pretty busy looking.

Tips for designing your invitations:

-Make the rsvp into a post card so you only need to pay $0.28c for the stamps as opposed to $0.44c. Not much money overall in savings for most people but I had over 200 invitations.... so it kinda added up in the end.

-Be careful with the weight of the invitations. Since I had heavy cardstock and lined the envelopes, my invites were exactly at 2 ounces.

On our wedding day at 4 am, I couldn't sleep so I decided to make room signs. LOL. They were very easy to make and didn't take long at all. I made a total of 5 signs. Two bridal suites, one groom's room, and two reserved room. Since we had to do the tea ceremony in my red ao dai, I had to bring my actual white wedding dress to my husbands house so I can change there. I had a bridal suite sign at his house also. The reserved signs were for the designated rooms to put personal belongings and were to be kept locked/door closed so nothing would go missing.

Table numbers were also done one day before the wedding day. I totally forgot about them. Lucky they were super easy to make and I had lots of help from my family.

           I labored over these dinner menus. I made over 430 menus for each guest.

I have to have a pearl bracelet for my wedding.

I was having such a hard time finding a brooch that would fit my tiny wrist, so I ended up going to Davids Bridal to see brooches for myself. I found one that I like and would fit nicely with my tiny wrist. Here is the brooch and the completed bracelet. 

Edit: At first I thought by DIY it would mean I would save money on my bracelet. I've been looking aruond and the haute bride or DS bracelet runs for at least $150. By the time I came out of the Bead store.. I wasted 2.5 hours of labor and $75 (not including the brooch). My recommendation.. just buy the bracelet. I enjoyed making the bracelet a lot and had lots of fun but for someone who just wants to save money and stress.. I say.. just buy it. LOL. I could have made the bracelet for really cheap (i.e $20) but I had to have the sterling silver triple loop clasps which added another $10 automatically. The regular clasps was only about $1-2. And of course between each pearl I had to have the super sparkly blingy looking balls (excuse my terminology). Overall, I love my bracelet and had fun making it.

Pictures from KLV photography.

After admiring so many sweet pearl necklaces, I have decided to get a pearl necklace to go with my pearl bracelet. I guess back to the International Glass and Beads store to spend more money.

My actual necklace that my sister made for me.

                                      A closer look at the details of my necklace below:

I remember prior to getting engaged I would always pass by the Swarovski store at the mall and admire their $400 toasting flutes. I absoulutely love them but no way in hell I would spend that much on toasting flutes. I have searched high and low for cheaper alternatives but nothing seemed as good as the crystal stems. Then I discovered the discontinued Jubilee toasting flutes with the crystal stems (which got sued by Swarovski) and knew I had to have those flutes. As of 8/11/10 I officially own them. :) I will be recieving them in the mail soon. I can't wait to see them. As for now images that I found on Google will do.

Update: I am so mad and upset! When I recieved the flutes they were literally shattered into pieces. :( The person who sent me the flutes mailed them without making sure its identified as glass/fragile. I am so sad now. I guess the flutes and I are not meant to be...

As for now I think I have a change of heart. I am now keeping a close eye on the Things Remembered Park Ave toasting flute and cake server. I think overall they will make a bigger statement then the swarvoski flutes. Their design is much more flattering from far away and I like the fact that I can buy the whole set for about $150 vs $400 alone for the swarvoski flutes.

Here are real pictures of my gorgous toasting flutes..

I finally decided to order custom stamps from Stamps.com. They came out perfect. I highly recommend them. When my fi and dad heard about the idea of custom stamps they brushed it off and said no body would notice. But now that I have ordered them and they have seen how cute they are, both men think its a great idea and people will surely notice them. Don't you just love how men can change their minds so quickly. It took me forever to convince them about my ideas but they just couldn't picture it until they saw it in real life. Here are the outer stamps (0.61c stamps). I haven't ordered the rsvp stamps yet. Still waiting on my engagment pictures with my photog on the 8/19..

Location: Balboa Park in San Diego

As of today, I am <80 days away from my wedding. I have to decide on all the little details such as the unity candle. It is hard to decide because I think they all look so ugly. LOL. I haven't really searched for unity candles but so far.. nothing has impressed me. I found a few that I might consider making. It will be a quick, (hopefully) easy, and cheap project. Guess I'll be heading to the dollartree tomorrow morning.

I'm considering doing something similar to this but in my wedding colors.. which are brown and light blue. I tried to look for something that was simple since our ceremony is in a church.

My version in my wedding colors

Our ring pillow on our wedding day:

My bridesmaid actually gave me a guest book at my bridal shower. It was very thoughtful of her. I've been keeping a close eye on things remembered wedding accessories but that they were overpriced so I marked their guestbook off my list. But lucky me.. my wonderful bridesmaid read my mind.. and got what I wanted. It was a perfect gift. One less thing for me to worry about now. :P

My parents insist that we must have the "Le Vu Quy" and "Thanh Hon" sign in front of the bride and grooms house. Just in case you've never noticed how horrendous those signs look like... just a reminder, they are in my favorite colors (...sarcasm) of bright red and gold with chinese letters or sometimes dragons and the phoenix. I figured since I can't bypass this long and engrained tradition... why not make it into something that I will enjoy and if it comes out ugly I can officially say that I put it upon myself. LOL Just in case you haven't figured out by now... I intend to make that sign myself. How? I dont really know yet. LOL... wish me luck.. Meanwhile, here are some pictures of those signs for er... inspiration?

Instructions on how to get the template: http://www.weddingchicks.com/freebies/custom-goodies/photo-booth-sign/

Actual Wedding day: As the day came closer, I got busier and didn't have time to make the signs. Our parents ended up renting one. Here are some images from my house.

The front of my husbands house:

I finally decided for the 243246546x today to make my alcohol purchase. I was really debating if I should go with the cheaper alcohol or splurge on alcohol. After a long discussion with FI, he decided that if we were going to spend a lot on alcohol might as well splurge on the good stuff. I initially wanted Martell Cordon Bleu but FI decided against it to get Remy Martin XO. I can finally mark alcohol off my list of things to do..

Splurging on the alcohol was worth it. Everyone was raving about the alcohol at our wedding. It was sad to see that people were actually fighting over who gets the bottle. At the end of the night, we didn't even see a single empty bottle left at our venue. I guess our guests even wanted to keep the empty bottles. LOL

I usually am not a big fan of expensive shoes. I generally would buy shoes that are under $100, which I think is a pretty fair price for some decent peep toes or maybe even running shoes. As my journey with wedding planning continues, I have been keeping a close eye on a few shoes that I would love to wear. I am not really sure if I would make the purchase because 1. I can't find those shoes locally anywhere to try 2. pictures lie. I have been actively looking for cute shoes and have found quite a few but so far nothing is in my size. :'( I wear a 5.5 in shoes and most pretty shoes start at size 6. I contemplated custom ordering my wedding shoes from Ninas but those would really be my last resort since I'm extremely undecisive and won't be able to try them on beforehand. Nina carries some really cute shoes but most of them are too high. I would like the heels to be < 3 inches. I want ivory satin fabric and it has to be very comfortable so that I can wear all day. So far I have narrowed it down to Hey Lady Shoes called Twinkletoes which has a pricetag that almost triples what I'm willing to pay. As for now.. I can only drool over these until I can find another alternative. Who knows.. I might decide to purchase them on one of my bipolar days. :P

I bought my wedding shoes and they are nothing like I had expected. I ended up with something super blingy.  I bought Enzo shoes called Merryann for <$100. It was sooooo hard to find shoes in size 5. I searched all of California.. through Macys. LOL. I actually had a very nice shoe salesman search for white shoes in size 5 for me on Black Friday. Poor guy went above and beyond and found me my wedding shoes for only $80 including shipping from New York. The heel is slightly higher then what I was looking for but with less then two weeks until my wedding.... I really don't care what kind of shoes now.. LOL. I need shoes and I need them now before my wedding.

It was a journey for my FI to pick his GM. It took him pretty much over 1.75 years to pick them out (our engagment was almost 2 years). With less then 60 days away from our wedding, FI finally decided on his GM. 

Just for the record.. Kudoos to me for being so patient with him. If it was another bride, she would probably have given her fi capital punishment by now. :P

Well back to the GM's story. After much debate and driving around to the men's warehouse, friars tux, hollywood outlet, JCP, Kohls, and every place you can imagine to look for suits to either rent or purchase, we have decided to just purchase a nicer suit for the GM as a gift. We figured that if we were going to rent a tux for them and had to buy them a gift, why not just combine those two and get them a nicer suit that they can reuse again.

Here are the reviews for each place that we explored.

a. hollywood suit outlet: good styles, large selection of common suits/tux, and wonderful prices (3 suits with everything for $300). Cons- cheap quality fabric. :(

b. some random store in LA near hollywood suit outlet: same review as Hollywood suit outlet.

c. friars tux- (rental only). We got a good deal at a bridal exp for $60 for the tux rental with shoes, no tax, no this and no that with a few free things. The price was great but when we actually saw the suits/tuxs .. they weren't. :( I wanted a two button tux with a notch lapel and in either black or gray. They had none in that selection under $100 a set for rent.

d. Men's warehouse- (rental only) We also got a deal on the same day as friars tux at the same bridal expo. Rentals start at about $80 with shoes. They also didn't really have a great selection of suits for the cheaper price. We came across the same problem as Friars tux... all the suits that "I" wanted were over $100 to rent. :(

e. Kohls- NOTHING. :'( maybe for my dad... but not GM.

f. JCP- They had a great selection of men's suits that I like. Prices were comparable to renting suits. We used the $15 off $75 coupon for the suit/jacket and combined two pants together to use the $10 off $50 coupon. we spent about $100 per a GM's suit and they get to keep their suit. I searched the internet for better deals online for giftcards at JCP and found a deal on their giftcard. On top of that, I made sure I went to make the purchse during their early bird sale (usually have once or twice a month from 9-1) and I saved another $10-15 per a suit. Price breakdown: $65 jacket (price on website $90, early bird sale $80 and $15 off $75), pants $30 (price on website $40, early bird sale $35, combine two pants to use $10 off $50 coupon) and then I purchased a giftcard on ebay for a discount (paid $325 for a $475 gift card). Shirt and ties will be puchased at suit outlet for $17 each set.

Here are the GM's suits: http://www3.jcpenney.com/jcp/X6E.aspx?GrpTyp=ENS&ItemID=188c741&DeptID=70673&CatID=71053&SO=0&Ne=4294957900+5+1031+29+8+3+10+1066+15+12+18+904+833+949&shopperType=G&N=4294950691&Nao=0&PSO=0&CmCatId=70673|71053

Actual Wedding day:

I've recently started looking into escort tables and have fallen in love with manzanita branches with orchids on them.

Inspiration:

http://www.greenleafdesigns.com/site/Finishing_Touches.html#12

                                                          Our escort flowers:

I love the base in this picture. I hope a light blue and brown ribbon would as good.

Below are my depressing mock ups of my centerpiece. I initially wanted a big ball of flowers and hanging crystals. So the first picture is of a tall centerpiece about 16 inches tall with 5 stems of white hydrangeas and half a dozen of pink freedom roses. After much debate I have decided to use manzanita branches instead. So the second picture is of the manzanita branches. At first I only wanted to use manzanita branches for the church ceremony but after my dad offered to help make the box/vases I changed my mind. My dad was soo excited to be able to help with the containers that I decided to let him make all 40 containers for our centerpieces. The mock was not painted but was covered in satin cloth and the hanging crystals were acrylic not glass. All the flowers/orchids on the manananita centerpiece are silk. Our actual centerpiece will be painted a light blue for the container and we will be using real glass crystals and flowers. I am also debating if I want to use phalaenopsis orchids vs cymbidium orchids. As of right now, I'm hoping to get white orchids.

My dad and father in law did a wonderful job on our centerpieces. Without them, I would have spent at least $45 on each centerpiece. I was quoted way more by local florists. My dad converted his truck so that we could transport all 40 centerpieces safely to my venue.

After much debate, I am considering having chocolate dipped fortune cookies as favors. I knew from the very beginning that I wanted something edible for wedding favors. I have been to many weddings and have never really cared for many of the favors. I've gotten collections of candles, soaps, candy, little ornaments, mints, etc. In my opinion the best favor is something edible. I thought about doing hot chocolate cones as favors but have changed my mind since my table will be so crowded. We are having a 10 course meal so we have the centerpiece, alcohol, soda, ice, bowls, and who knows what else on the table at the beginning so adding a larger wedding favor on the table will only crowd it even more. I then came across the fortune cookie favor on a website.

My sister in law wanted to give us a gift for our wedding so she volunteered to make bride and groom fortune cookies for us. She volunteered herself, her friends from school, and her cousins. She told them there was a "party" Here is a picture of what was going on after 20 hours of labor by about 20 factory workers ... er.. I mean.... cousins and friends. LOL

I don't have a complete picture of our favorsyet. We had bride and groom fortune cookies wrapped in clear bags. I guess someone ate the bride and the groom was the only one left. LOL.

On my wedding day I had Elaine Chou come to my house to do my makeup and bridesmaids makeup. My makeup came out very pretty and stayed on all day. She made my eyes look so big. If you look closely at the pictures, you can see that she put tape on my eyelids. All of my bridesmaids had tape on their eyelids too. I guess she put tape so our eyes won't be so chinky. LOL... She did a very good job at putting on fake lashes for me. I wear contacts so every little thing will irritate my eyes. She is the only person that have ever put fake lashes on me and I was able to wear them for most of the day until night time. I have never been able to wear fake lashes for more then four hours before without getting a major migraine. Elaine's assistant did my hair and I can't complain because we were running out of time and I wasn't planning on getting my hair done with Elaine's group. Five stars for them for making me feel beautiful on my wedding day and able to accomodate my requests last minute.

Below are pictures of my mother and I (picture #1) and my sister and her boyfriend (picture #2)

My wonderful sister ran out and got me a gorgeous sexy little bride underwear from Victoria's Secret a few days before the wedding. It was a totally unexpected gift and I loved it. If only I wasn't so shy I would take pictures of myself with it on. Too bad all my photogs that day were men, except Meagan from KLV but I forgot about it when I had put it on to change into my white wedding dress.

I was terrified when I had to change into my white ao dai at night because the pants were so white that you can see through to my underwear!!! I had nothing else to wear so I sucked it up and hoped that nobody saw. :) I don't think anybody saw because it was at night and they were probably too drunk.

All Vietnamese wedding must have a limo according to our parents. I personally think they are a total waste of money but what do I know right? Our parents know everything so off to look at limos we go. I settled on a white chrysler 300. I really wanted a hummer but they cost too much. I knew I didnt want the regular old black limos so I had to spend a little more for something slightly nicer.

Below is our wedding day limo..