The weather was perfect and there was a slight breeze. The sun set right after we were pronounced husband and wife. Minus the wedding crashers (seriously) everything went perfectly and exactly how we imagined it. We only wish we could have spent more time with everyone else, but anyone who’s had a wedding knows it’s often more fun to be a guest than to be the bride and groom. People have been raving about the food, the music, the venue, the beauty of the ceremony–and we’re very happy for it. People literally flew from all over the world to be with us for this weekend and it meant so much to us that people took the time, energy, and money to be with us.

But there’s three things Hugh and I are truly pleased about: first, that people seemed to truly appreciate the hard work we put into the wedding. We spent almost every single day of the past year planning every aspect of the wedding. It makes me so happy when grown men tell me they cried tears of happiness.

Secondly, we were so happy that so many people enjoyed New York City. I loved reading the facebook status messages of friends who were running all over the city, eating great food, and having fun. We only wish we could have been with everyone running around and having fun.

Finally, we love that so many people met one another and have befriended one another. We choose our friends very carefully, and it was a very small intimate wedding with only our closest friends and family. It makes me so happy to see my friends becoming friends with one another.

Thank you all to everyone who helped us–our families, our wonderful bridal party who did so much for us, and our guests who flew over from everywhere just to be with us.

Photos are coming soon!

After contemplating lemonade diets, cleanses, even liposuction–I decided to have the dress taken out a bit. Thank god I did that, it needed another 1.5-2 inches! I don’t think it would have been possible to lose that kind of weight while remaining happy and non-stressed.

Since taking it to the tailor, a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

Now just worrying about everything else…

So, we apologize for the lack of posts and the fairly boring ones. We have been very busy with the planning, but we just don’t consider it that interesting to share. =P

However, we DO consider some of our latest photos to be worthy of comment.

Hugh and Janelle!

First, our Engagement Photos which were taken by the very talented David Kim of DK Collection. Without sounding egotistical, they’re nothing short of amazing and that’s mostly due to our photographer, and Jon, who acted as lighting guy. However, I will say that you can’t take photos like these without subjects willing to dress up and ham it up in public.

Also, in July we had our Indianapolis Wedding Shower thrown by Gabi and my mother. It was a typical Filipino affair with excess amounts of food. Gabi planned a lot of traditional bridal shower games which were a lot of fun, and we very much enjoyed the “advice cards” that she had people write for us.

And on August 1st, Jon and Justin threw us a Mad Hatter Tea Party Wedding Shower, which was wonderful. Jon went to a lot of trouble to make it a very special day for us, and we’re very thankful. He gave all the guests little gifts of tea, miniature tea pots, and tea mugs that we decorated ourselves. Cute!

Anyways, I promise to write dedicated back-dated entries for both of the showers, and the engagement shoot. For our own memories, and also for our families. =P

There’s a huge industry around weddings these days, which is certainly why so many people opt to elope or have more simple DIY affairs. I understand why so many ladies (and men) get sucked into this massive spinning vortex of blowing money on things that NO ONE will remember, but I’m not even talking about that. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to be a crazy b on your wedding, nor will you be one because you had a blow-out.

After reading these boards I’ve compiled a mental list of things I don’t think bride’s really have the right to ask…

- You do not have the right to dictate how your bridal party cuts or dyes their hair. If you had a friend who had pink hair before, you can’t expect her to go “natural” for “you.” That’s insane.

- You cannot ask your bridal party to get fatter, paler, thinner, or in any other way “uglier” than you. This is also insane.

- Unless you are extremely wealthy or this is part of a theme, considering an entrance in a PRIVATE JET or a HELICOPTER is not only semi-insane, but a logistical nightmare. No, you cannot land a private jet anywhere you want.

Now, I’m a great lover of fashion and dearly appreciate excellent tailoring and fine fabric. I understand why *some* dresses cost thousands of dollars, and for that reason, I understand why *many* are not worth that price.

There’s lots of suggestions on how to get cheaper dresses on the web–vintage, second-hand, rentals, and lastly buying  a prom/evening dress that just happens to be white.

I love the first three ideas, especially if you want something designer. However, for the first two, I’ve found that the sizes are never anywhere similar to my size. I think rentals are a really good idea in theory, but I’ve yet to find one that rents actual designer-label dresses. So here’s where my suggestion comes in…

I’m a member of several shopping websites where designer brands are released in limited quantity every day at either 11am or 12pm EST. So far I’ve bought a DKNY suit for H for 60% off  that was brand new, fit perfectly, and was returnable.  Anyways, so while sitting here looking at this stuff for weeks, I’ve seen many dresses that could be perfect bridesmaids dresses–and cheaper and better quality (and more stylish) than the ones I picked for my girls. Unfortunately, since this is limited quantity I can’t call both girls up in time to check if they like the dress before it sells out. However, I have discovered this is a PERFECT place to get my reception dress as I cannot actually walk in my real wedding dress, let alone dance.

I saw today that Sue Wong (the designer who’s selling the dress I want) is going to be on sale tomorrow at ruelala.com and had dresses for sale on ideeli.com (but not the one I wanted) so I realized: this is the perfect way for girls who want designers gowns to have a Vera Wang dress (but not necessarily a Vera Wang wedding dress), or for girls who care nothing about designer names and just want a shot at something cheaper, but well-made, and potentially wearable.  I’ve seen lots of beautiful white evening gowns from big designers (if you’re into that) for as cheap as $100. Or maybe it’d work for your bridesmaids? Or you could buy a suit for your fiance instead of blowing money on rentals (and then you get to own a suit, which is extremely useful for attending future weddings, funerals, and formal functions.)

I’m hoping to get my reception dress and also I’ve been scouring the site for wedding day jewelry as I’ve found I can have something with real diamonds for the price that people charge for crystals (if I’m lucky and fast enough.)

Disclaimer: These links give me a credit if you sign up AND buy something, but signing up is free. If you thought that my suggestions were good, or like this blog, I’d appreciate it very much if you signed up through those links.

Gilt Groupe - This one is the most high end among the listed, and also my favorite. There’s not a lot of cheaper brands here. For example, Alexander McQueen was 70% off last week, but everything was still over $1000. I’ve only bought a set of teacups here as I can’t really afford to buy some of the clothing offerings, but I love browsing and I think their gift selection is excellent. They also have one of the best ways to view the clothing, since buying sight unseen can be a bit annoying.

Ideeli – I’ve never bought anything here yet, but I’m on a waiting list for a dress. They have a weird system where you have to pay to get first choice. I’m not really a fan of that, but oh well. The selection has a more varied range of designers than Gilt Groupe.

HauteLook – This is my second favorite one. I bought a suit for H here, the delivery was super fast. I’ve found that the selection of designers is consistently interesting and appealing.

RueLaLa – I’ve also never bought from here, but they have my Sue Wong dresses tomorrow so if I buy I’ll tell you what I think about the ordering process if I go through with it. =P

Good luck on the dress hunt!

This was a mistake.

Not because they have bad taste, or they wanted to do crazy things… but because they were also pretty easy-going as well. Unfortunately, having a bunch of easy-going people means things don’t ever get decided. I started to narrow it down–here’s our color palette. Then even more, here’s the fabric and length I want. And then even more, here’s the exact shade I want… at this point, I really should have just picked whatever damn dress I thought they’d look good and fit their budget, because honestly this was causing me more stress than I ever wanted to have over this.

In the end, I made an executive decision and picked the dress for them (after soliciting their opinions, of course.) They seemed quite relieved. Remember, you may think you’re being awesome and nice… but if there’s no direction AND you actually secretly DO care what they wear, then you’re just stressing them out.

If you are planning on going that “every girl in a non-matching dress” route, remember that there still needs to be some kind of theme or else they’re going to look like random people picked out of your guest list.

Unless you’re cool with that, then of course, it’s cool…

For the guestbook, the bride got some Library Card kits and polaroid  cameras. They had their guests write messages and also take a photo which  they then slipped into the pocket.

Very cute idea for anyone having a literary themed wedding…

Now I have to think about how to do something similar, but appropriate to  our theme, at our wedding.

LINK

For a months, we had been hemming and hawing over invitations. A year ago or so I read about a couple that had a map showing where they met, where they lived, etc. for their wedding invitation. As a nomadic couple who met 1000 miles away from our respective birthplaces, we really loved that idea and wanted to incorporate it somewhere in our wedding stationary.

I found out a c couple weeks ago, Zazzle has a pretty ridiculous post-Christmas sale on invitations and other paper goods. How ridiculous? 75% off ridiculous!

Unfortunately, my computer broke….and the sale was going to end in 8 hours. Worst. Bride. Ever.

My Man of Honor, Jon, and I (read: Jon) went to work and several hours later we submitted our design. There’s a couple of flaws that I honestly don’t think anyone will notice so I won’t bother to mention them. They came into today and they look fine. They’re personal, and we designed them ourselves… without having to source paper or use our printer.

We got 150 cards for under $80 dollars. The cards also came with matching white/cream envelopes, which we didn’t like–so we ordered the purple #10 envelopes in the photo. The envelopes we didn’t use? They’re white envelopes. They’ll be used for normal non-wedding things like rent checks.

Here’s an inspiration board I made on PolyVore.com with some ideas for a peacock-tastic good time.

I closed my personal blog to the public in 2007 after blogging since 1999 (back then I called it an “internet diary”). In the meantime, my fiance and I started a travel blog which went on hiatus in early 2009 (when we stopped traveling) and an abandoned life-in-New York blog.

In the past year I stopped blogging, however, actual interesting things have happened in my life than I wanted to share with my former readership and potential new audiences, namely, my wedding.

Instead of just doing a normal wedding blog detailing my trials and tribulations that I thought was kind of boring (even to myself), I decided that to expand on that topic and write about the specific kind of wedding we’re having: modern, yet traditional; lavish, yet on a very tight budget.

So we hope it helps or inspires someone, but at the very least, we hope you don’t hate us.