Jan-chan’s Tidbits

As the title suggests, it’s now time for round 2 of my wedding planning.

It’s been more than a year since I last opened my wedding planning folder, I’m a bit excited to get back into it. Over the course of the last 6 months we’ve actually came up with some interesting ideas for the wedding. Such as having a masquerade at a heritage building or a BBQ wedding at the beach. However, our wedding guests list grew so large that I was not able to find a nice heritage location that would fit all of us for the masquerade, and Al thinks that with the rain we get in Vancouver, having a beach wedding is almost a 100% fail.

So with the wedding planning switch being turned “on”, I’ll probably update my wedding blog more often. If you have any ideas or suggests, feel free to throw them my way.

So I was lucky enough to be invited to two weddings that happened on the same day. Before I continue further I want to congratulates the two couples, Mr. & Mrs. Tam and Mr. & Mrs. Lee.

Anyways, the best part of these weddings is that the location is very unique. I attended a ceremony in the UBC Boathouse and a banquet at the Vancouver Art Gallery. I’ve wrote about the two venues on the wedding notebook so if you’re interested in how the venues look like head over to view the pictures.

I didn’t get a chance to take too many photos at the weddings but for my dear Kaya here are some photos of the triplets.

This is at the dock at the UBC Boathouse.

I love this picture!

Cheese!...with the Kan couple.

At the Vancouver Art Gallery (outside).

For Richter...with ♥~ lol

Two more weddings coming up in the Fall. I haven’t been to fall weddings yet. Hopefully it won’t be too cold.

Alright I know some of you are dying to look at how they turned out so without further delay (or some of you might hunt me down), here’re some of the photos Al and I’ve picked for our album (click to enlarge):

[That's Ah Bu, the photographers dog. He's so cute!]

[Taken at Hycroft Mansion. I really love that house.]

[Fixing my hair, or at least pretending to anyway.]

[Why hello there! That'd be my thought bubble for this picture. Taken in Gastown.]

Ok more pictures to come later. You’ll also find some posted at my wedding planning blog. Let me know what you guys think of these.

Last weekend went by so quickly! It’s probably because it was a lot of fun and time flies when you’re having a good time. First off, I didn’t get to see Ernie because his schedule was too packed at night. He was helping out with a production so wasn’t available to meet up for drinks after I get off work. No worries, I’m sure I’ll catch him when I visit HK.

Friday

I had a day off and went to have lunch with MH out in Richmond before heading over to HN Wedding to review the 2nd draft of the wedding album layout. There are still more changes to be made but I think we’re close to finalizing it. I also got a chance to get copies of my photos which I had upload a few for people to see. I thought they turned out pretty well, although there are ones where Al liked that I didn’t. Pictures will be posted in the next post.

Saturday

There was a sale at Making Memories with Scrapbooking so I went there with MH to look for something specific but they didn’t have it. (Can’t say what it is because it’s a gift =p) After a light lunch at Crystal Mall I met up with WuWu to go to the Taiwan Fest. There were more people there than I thought, especially at the food location. We went pass all the food vendors first to get a glimps of what’s available before deciding to start off with this huge meat dumpling with shredded bamboo shoots. It had this special sauce which is a little like sour and spicy which made the dumpling wrapping taste really good.

Next up we got this combo of 2 skewers of bbq lamb, 1 skewer of “stinky” tofu (it’s actually like fried tofu) and 1 skewer of bbq squid. The tofu is actually not even stinky compared to the one you can get in Asia. The squid was good and so were the lamb. I tried a bit even though I usually don’t eat lamb. For dessert we got shaved ice with taro dumplings, red/green beans and peanuts. Instead of condensed milk they use a simple syrup. It was very refreshing.

[click to enlarge]

We took a walk around the vendor section where I found these cute handmade cellphone accessories made with clay. They were so adorable. I got a peach baby and a crab baby.

The was also an arts and culture exhibition. Some of the items were really fasinating. Like the “pillow” made with wood and the thinking chair. I actually learned a lot about the Taiwanese culture when we visited the history/cultural section where they had information about the country as well as the different tribes living on the island. Thanks WuWu for history lesson! More photos from the Taiwan Fest are posted on my Picasa Album.

Sunday

Since the twins got asked to go pick up the bride with Alvin, I ended up having to wake up earlier to shower and get my hair done. Usually it doesn’t take this long when I’m at my own house but the twin’s bathroom is still a bit foreign to me. Plus curling all of your hair by yourself with a curling iron takes a long time. But since weddings are the only time I’d actually get to take my curling iron out for some action, I don’t really mind it that much.

Before heading to Minoru Chapel in Richmond, I went over to Alvin’s for lunch as well as the tea ceremony. There were so many people there and thank god I didn’t need to take off my heels (yay for hardwood floor!) since the strap wraps around my ankle twice which makes it a hassle to take the shoes off. I finally get to meet Ryan and Andrew, both which I had met online before in World of Warcraft. Acutally, I think about 1/4 of my guildies were at the wedding!

I was very excited to find out how the wedding ceremony was like at Minoru Chapel since I’m having my wedding there next year. The only thing I didn’t like was the crackling of the floor/chair as people stood up/sit down because it’s a pretty old chapel. Aside from that I don’t exactly mind the short aise because that means I can get to the alter faster, which leads to a faster ceremony! After taking pictures, the twins and I headed back home to rest before going to the dinner reception at Shun Feng Restaurant. Since it’s the standard Chinese banquet, I’ll just tell you the highlight of the night, which is when MH caught the garter! Those who were there will know what I mean. LOL

Here are some of the photos that LawLi took of us at the reception:

[I think Al looks too cute in that one...almost like my little brother...]

Monday

I had to do work on Labour Day because our CEO wanted the entire website to be updated by end of Tuesday. So in order to make sure I meet the deadling I took a head start. I can’t believe summer is over. Oh and only 11 months to go before the big day. Starting to feel a bit pressured now since I haven’t worked on the invites yet. I’ll get around to it…

The much anticipated pre-wedding photoshoot took place yesterday with HN Wedding. I didn’t quite believe Vivian when she said it takes two hours for hair and makeup but it’s true! It was fun to watch (another) Vivian, the makeup artist, use a special trick with tape to make my eyes look bigger. After she’s finished with my face and hair, Sandy helped me in the red “Moulin Rouge” dress. I still don’t feel all too comfortable in it because it shows my legs. But both Al and Sandy said it looked good so hopefully they were right.

The first shoot was the evening gown in the studio. It was very difficult because both Al and I were very stiff since we’re not sure what to do. I think Jackson (the photographer) and the others mush had told us to “straighten up and stick out your chest” like 500 times through out the day. I think the first shoot was the hardest because I know my eyes were darting everywhere, so it looked like they were out of focus. I also don’t know how to do the faint smile so the photos must look very weird. Maybe I should’ve practice how to smile before going to the shoot.

Anyways, we rushed to Hycroft Mansion after the evening gown shots. We were about 30 minutes late because I had to change in to a wedding gown and redo my hair. The staff there was nice enough to let us still till closing time. We took a lot of photos in main living room, it’s very bright there with all the natural lighting. Both Sandy and Vivian loved the place. We also took pictures on the big stair case. It’s a bit dim there but it’s very nice. I think the only other staircase that look as nice is the one in Hotel Vancouver. After taking photos inside the house, we went outside to take some more shots in the back and the garden.

After changing quickly and setting a new hairstyle, we made our way to Gastown for the final outdoor shoot location. It’s already 5 when we found parking near the edge of Gastown. The location we wanted, Blood Alley, had been closed because of construction so we ended up taking some building/street shots. There were a lot of people starring as we walked down the street. We head back to the studio about an hour later.

Back at the studio, we did a make up retouch and a new hairstyle for the wedding gown studio shots. Taking pictures became easier and easier as the we know what we’re supposed to do. We ended the photoshoot session with a few pictures taken with Jackson’s dog Ah Bu. They even put a black bow tie on him and he looked adorable.

The funniest thing about the photoshoot is that all through the day Al had to carry phone books with him as “vertical enhancements”. During the first shoot in the evening gown, I was wearing my 2.5″ heels and so he needed about 4 phone books to look slightly taller than me. Even when I’m wearing my flip flops for the outdoor shoots, he still need about 2-3 phone books. So today, he went to measure my height and it turned out I’m close to 5′8″ instead of 5′7″, which was my height since highschool. It’d be pretty funny on the day of the wedding because he won’t have any “vertical enhancements” to help him. But I’ll be nice and just walk around in flip flops all day, except when I’m wearing the qi pao.

I can’t wait to see how the photos turn out.  Hopefully some of them will turnout alright. If they didn’t I can only blame my “smiling problem”. I managed to take a picture of me with makeup on at the end of the night and also with the HN Wedding staff. For the pictures and more information about the photoshoot, visit Jan’s Wedding Notebook: Pre-Wedding Photoshoot with HN Wedding.