Jan-chan’s Tidbits

Yesterday (May 10, 2008) was Jimmy & Cathy’s wedding. I had the pleasure to attend the ceremony and banquet with Al, Ken, WuWu, LawTam and a few others. As LawTam and myself are both getting married next year, we were snapping pictures of everything we found interesting so we can use it as a reference for our own wedding planning.

The wedding ceremony was at a church on 11th Avenue (sorry I don’t have the name since Al is hogging the invites). It’s a pretty big church with two aisles. It was beautifully decorated with pale yellow and white flowers. Here’s a photo of the groom waiting for the bride to show up and the next one shows the newly weds thanking the guests for coming.

The ceremony lasted longer than we thought (about 1.5 hours). We were all starving and thank goodness they had a small reception down stairs.

We had originally planned to go watch Iron Man after the ceremony since the banquet doesn’t start until 6pm. However we got asked to help out with moving stuff from the church to the banquet location, which is Kirin on 12th Avenue. So the movie plans got postponed to this Sunday instead.

At the restaurant, we helped set up the favors and centre pieces. I wish I was wearing flats but at least my legs were getting a workout from walking around in 2″ heels. Here are some pictures of the table settings.

[very simple but elegant centre piece]

[the favor - a silver keychain engraved with their names and date]

[table with note cards and pens for guests to leave messages for the newly wed]

The banquet was great. The only downside is that the restaurant is in a “T” shape, with the head tables situated in the intersection. There are tables to the sides that can not see anything because there were pillars blocking the view. So naturally all the closest friends were sitting around that area. We ended up partying among ourselves and it was really fun.

I’m waiting to get some of the photos back from Jimmy. Then I can post a close up picture of the newly wed and the group of us toasting.

Oh and here’s a picture of my (sorry I didn’t have a full length picture and my hair is a mess) in my dress.

[can you tell that I have makeup on?]

Last but not least, the day ended around 11:00pm. We got back to Al’s place around 12. All of us were really tired. Look what WuWu was caught doing while we were back at Al’s place.

[I wonder what he's dreaming about...]

Earlier in last month, after the silly proposal (Al won’t let me tell anyone so I can’t say anything here), Al and I were looking at possible places to hold the wedding ceremony. It might seem odd to some people that we’re already booking vendors so early when our wedding date is July 25, 2009. The thing is, if you want a wedding in the summer season, that is on a weekend and a Saturday, chances are a lot of places are already booked, usually a year in advance. We’re just a little bit a head of the game. I want to make sure we can secure the date to the ceremony and reception locations asap so then the date is pretty much set in stone and I’ll never have to worry about this part again (I hope). Continue reading »

Over the weekend Al and I went shopping for qi pao (Chinese dress/gown). Aside from the traditional designs, the have lots of different style now which I don’t really think it’s all that pretty. We went to Richmond as well as Chinatown to look for them. The ones at Richmond didn’t offer that much selection and are more expensive. Out of the two in Chinatown, the ones at K.K. Boutique has more variety and offers the custom made option, which is nice because qi pao looks very weird if it’s not fitted.

Since I’m buying one for the wedding, I have to wear one that is red.  I tried to cheat and picked one that is a darker shade of red and has black dragons on it but was told it wasn’t appropriate for weddings. The sales there made me try on ones that are in bright red and I looked like those red Chinese sausages… Continue reading »

Alright so for Valentine’s Day I made lasagna (see Lasagna Battle) which I’ve practiced before. It turned out pretty nicely with ground turkey instead of ground beef. For dessert, I attempted to make vanilla poached pears (picture above). Continue reading »

Well it’ s about 5.5 hours away from the official Chinese New Years (CNY) day but I’m afraid I’d forget to update tonight so I’ll do it now. Happy New Year everyone! I envy those who can get day(s) off for CNY as I’ll be slaving away tomorrow. What makes it even worse is that it’s snowing right now. This means…slushy streets and stinky transit rides.

A lot had happened the past few days. I’ll do an update soon after a few things are sorted out.

PS: The snow we’re getting in Vancouver is driving me nuts! /rant