anyone still read this thing?

Hi. I've moved to wordpress. Over here:
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Paper Goods

I did not want to title this "The Invitations," even though that is what i will be discussing. This is more about the frustrations of semi-diy invitations and the importance of doing things in a timely manner. (I am talking about myself. Remember my previous post about being a procrastinator?) I'm going to hit the rewind button for a bit, okay?

Way back in the early planning stages, I had an idea of what I wanted my invitations to be like. They say that the invitations are the first glimpse your guests will get to see of the type of wedding you will be having. Well, I knew I wanted to convey the city-chic, multi-cultural vibe we were going for. The problem was, I didn't exactly know how to get there. Oh, I Googled like a maniac and stalked designers' sites and invitation sites. Everything looked really pretty, but led to a lot of confusion. I can't help it, but I have very ecclectic tastes and can easily fall in love with a myriad of selections from one second to the next. Needless to say, I was overwhelmed and did what I do best...



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YUP! I procrastinated. The thought of them just kind of sat in the back of my mind, popping up here and there reminding me that time was tick.tick.ticking away. Ever the consummate optimist, I just reasoned with myself that things would go well (mind you, I didn't have any ACTUAL reasons HOW and WHY) and reassured my fiance (as he was constantly berating me about them) that they would be done on schedule.

Well then. Here I am, one week after the scheduled due date and I am still doing revisions for my designer. Whaaaaaa??? I am not going to panic. I am not going to panic. I am not going to panic. I swear! I'm sooooo behind. I know.



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The plus side is, I love how my invitations are turning out. They have truly been a labor of love...I just haven't decided if they have been worth it:) It's one thing to see them in a file, but it will be something else when I get them back from the actual printer and packaged up into pretty things. I am excited to see them all come together and cannot wait for everyone's reactions.

I will be talking more about how I came upon them and how the ideas came together. I have a ton of email correspondences between me and my collaborator. I don't really want to call her my designer (although she is a graphic design artist) because I provided the concepts to her and she just put my ideas onto paper.

They turned out differently than what i had originally imagined, but I love them so much more. I was able to implement all of "our colors" and things that we love about life. I used to wonder why people would write post after post about their invitations (it's just paper, right??:), but now I totally get it. I will discuss later on my original inspiration for the invitations and how the process came together. It was a lot of work, but I learned a lot along the way and so that itself made it worthwhile.

I am curious to see how many of you spent countless hours pouring over invitations on the internet and in stores. Did anyone else DIY or semi-DIY? How did you come to your decision on the final product and was it an easy /hard choice?

On finishing...

anything, that is! It's a well-known fact I am a procrastinator...so much so that I procrastinated on writing this post. I had every intention of being a good blogger and putting great content with awesome pictures...yada, yada, yada. Soooooo....what happened?? Life sure, but doesn't everyone have one and are still able to maintain a blog?



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Despite my procrastinating ways (and affinity for making up words/terms/nuances), I also consider myself a fiercely organized person. I guess you could call it organized chaos. However, a lot of the organization and planning usually goes on in my head and pen and paper. I have an iPhone with every app you could imagine to help me with my organization and I love Google docs, but I still can't let go of the paper and pen. I love to doodle in my notebooks, but can't seem to translate my thoughts on paper onto the interwebz. *Sigh*

What am I trying to say?? I just want to apologize to anyone who has visited my site only to find half-finished content and thank everyone who was considerate enough to leave a comment so far.

I really do love to write and want to share my wedding journey; just because I want to, but also because I hope it helps someone else along the way. I am so grateful for the content others have provided during their planning. I don't know how people survived wedding planning prior to the internet.

I am going to go through my archives and finish the posts I started and didn't finish and continue to blog with some (hopefully) helpful content. Thank you for sharing my journey! Your feedback and comments are much appreciated!!

11 Weeks aka 77 Days

So, we're eleven weeks or seventy seven days out. I can't decide right now if that's a good or bad thing. Here's a list of things I still need to get done:
1. send out STDs - "Seriously?" you must be thinking as you're rolling your eyes. Yup. Totally serious. Why am I even bothering? Because I paid for them and I need to buy ti since it looks like I won't be

#6 The Dress

I didn't do the whole bridal shopping experience and I don't really feel bad about it. You see, when my sister got married three years ago, I went through a horrible experience with the bridal salon where we purchased our bridesmaids' dresses. It left a bad taste in my mouth and I vowed to boycott bridal salons since then.

Lucky for me, there are so many alternatives to finding a wedding dress nowadays. First of all, my approach was pretty simple. I would just browse the interwebz and bridal magazines to get ideas. Unlucky for me, I seem to be attracted to the most.expensive.dresses. EVER! It's not like I even seek out designers, my taste just seems to gravitate toward higher priced items.

What's a girl to do? I decided that I would not spend more than a certain amount for my dress. Now, this amount fluctuated depending on how I was feeling, but it was more or less in the five hundred to one thousand dollars range. In (my) wedding dress land, that's pretty modest. (I understand that term is relative, but seeing how all the dresses that caught my eye were five thousand dollars and upward, you can see how I thought my budget was modest. Or at least pretend you understand me. kthxmucho.)


Here were my top contenders:



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My top choice, above, was a Monique (do I really need to spell her last name?). I love it in all its frivolous glory. The price...not so much. I had considered having something similar made, but time escaped me and decided to just let it go...



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Ahhh....Vera. You never fail to disappoint me. Unfortunately, your prices (for a gown like this, anyway) do. At last, it wasn't meant to be.

There you have them...my top two choices. I had considered wearing something more sleek, but I found that I really deflected towards the more impractical and whimsical. Go figure.

Since these dresses were not in my budget, I considered other options. One was paying a (not so local) Chinese dress maker. The other was to choose something else. I went with the latter. I haven't decided if I want to "reveal" the dress yet or not, so I will leave you with this: My dress is every bit as impractical and whimsical as the Monique and Vera, but with a price tag to match my heart's desire. I found it online. The picture of the dress online wasn't even the color I wanted (white or ivory), but decided to order it anyway. I love it to pieces and cannot wait to wear it. The universe really worked it's magic on me.

Anyone else decide to live life on the edge and find their dress(es) or "wedding outfits" under not-so-traditional circumstances?

#5 The Reception Venue

During our search for the venue, I knew I wanted something unique (to us, anyway). I did not want to have it in a ballroom or a banquet hall. While I have been to many lovely and fun weddings in ballrooms and banquet halls, I wanted something different. J would have preferred a ballroom and banquet hall, but he already had his choice for the ceremony venue, so it was only fair for me to pick a reception venue. I was really looking for a blank space that we could personalize. With this in mind, I considered the following venues:
1. Lofts
2. Art Galleries
3. Warehouses

I also had some other considerations when choosing the venue. Such as,
1. price
2. availability
3. flexibilty (with time, outside vendors, decor, etc.)
4. location (it had to be in the city)
5. parking


With this information in mind, my internet search led me to these five contenders:
1. Ravenswood Event Center
2. Westgrand Loft
3. The Newberry Library
4. St. Ignatius College Prep
5. The Society for Arts

I'll share which one we chose in another post. How about you? What type of venue(s) did you consider? How did you make your final decision?

#4 The Church

Ahhhh....religion and politics...best topics ever, no? Ummm, no, definitely. Before I go on, please note that I do not mean to demoralize anyone's beliefs or non-beliefs and these words and opinions are strictly my own.

That said, I was raised a Catholic. Baptized, communionized, confirmationized.......the whole enchilada. Non of which was by choice. Dear friends, my parents come from different religious backgrounds (my Mom being a (non-practicing) Muslim and my dad a (devout) Roman Catholic). My parents wanted to raise my sisters and I with some form of a religious background, and being that my mom is non-practicing, Roman Catholicism was the default. Sometime in high school, I started questioning my faith (in Catholicism, not God) and stopped practicing. While I like to consider myself a child of all religions, J, who was also raised a Catholic, is very adamant about marrying in a Catholic church.

I am ok with this because it is more important for J to marry in a Catholic church than it is for me not to. Make sense? So, that being resolved, it was time for us to find a church to marry in. (Yes, even though J wants to get married in a church he no longer belongs to a particular one.)

Chicago is ripe with Catholic churches, but the decision came down to four.

1. St. Viator: This is the church my Dad has been a parishioner at for the last couple of decades.

2. Holy Name Cathedral: This is the church my younger sister, C, got married in three years ago.

3. St. Mary of the Angels: This is close to our reception venue. J has attended some masses there as a youngster.

4. Holy Trinity: This is also close to the reception venue and has also been attended by J as a youngster.

So what was our first choice? St. Mary of the Angels. When considering a church, we were looking for some particulars, such as:

- Aesthetics. I wanted to marry in a church that was beautiful and needed little decoration. (What? Don't judge me.)
- Availability. It needed to work with the date we had picked out.
- Distance in relation to the reception venue. We wanted it to be as close as possible.

So, while St. Mary of the Angels had us at aesthetics and distance, our date was not available. Moving forward, we had decided against St. Viator because of the distance and against Holy Name Cathedral because of recent events (fires and whatnot). So, we are getting married at Holy Trinity. I called and spoke with the priest who informed me that he would hold the date and time and we would just need to come in to speak with him and put down a deposit. Which we've already done.

What type of venue are you having your ceremony at and how did you come that decision?

#3 The Plan

Since I am roughly four months away from "The Day," you can pretty much guess most of the planning is underway. As of now, we have the following:

- a ceremony venue (a Catholic Church)
- a reception venue (an art gallery)
- a caterer
- an officiant (see ceremony venue)
- a DJ (almost)
- a photographer
- an idea for the invitations (um...what do I mean by idea?? I'll explain later:)
- save the dates
- music selections
- the dress
- decorating ideas
- (most of) our wedding entourage (I promise, I'm not being facetious, that's just what we call it)
- the guest list
- a budget

Let me just put it out there: This is not going to be one of those DIY weddings. And, if you promise not to laugh (which you would if you knew me), I'll let you know that I originally had grand plans for a DIY wedding. From invitations to centerpieces to sewing dresses (when I don't even know how to sew---but, that's besides the point!). What was that saying, "The best laid plans...yada...yada...yada..." Yeah, so much for the DIY wedding. As things progressed, I realized that DIY'ing this wedding was not in the cards (for the most parts). I don't want to make excuses because, as many of you know, there have been many brides (and grooms) before us who have DIY'ed weddings both large and small. Big budget or no budget. Etc. Etc. Etc.

I'm not the craftiest beaver out there, but I used to love to craft (in grade school------what? That totally counts!) While I love to learn new things and am not afraid to get dirty, I came to the conclusion that...a wedding was not the time to do it. *Insert huge sigh* So, after tons of research and vendor searching, I've decided to do what I can, pay for what I can't, let go of what I can't do nor pay for, and (hope to) have the wisdom to know the difference.

To all you crafty brides and grooms, bless you for all the things you are able to accomplish. To those on the other side, bless you for providing work for those you are entrusting with your wedding. Whichever side you are on, at the end of the day, we all have the same goal (I think): To have a really awesome day surrounded by our loved ones!

So, I will not be providing you with much DIY tutorials, but I can share with you my trials and tribulations of finding the most suitable vendors and learning when to let go and/or sacrifice. First, let me share with you how our plan came to be.

I started perusing the internet some moons ago without a clear vision. You know, just wanted to get some ideas and inspirations. Okay, scratch that. There were certain elements that I, I mean we, wanted. We wanted the wedding to be in the city. We've both spent a majority of our lives in Chicago, and what better way to say goodbye than to have our wedding in our beloved city before the big move out west? J wanted a Catholic ceremony (I'll explain more about this choice in a later post). I did not want a ballroom or banquet hall (for the record, I've been to many amazing weddings in both places). Our venue had to accomodate our guest list (which we were thinking to be roughly around two hundred people). Aside from having a wonderful ceremony, we really wanted to find a place that we could really show our guests an amazing time.

With these thoughts in mind, I ferociously started to google anything wedding. Which has led me on an incredibly wild journey into wedding la la land (who knew you could have such adventures at the touch of your fingertips and without EVER leaving your home??). I came across awesome websites such as Weddingbee, Style Me Pretty, Once Wed, Rock and Roll Bride, etc., etc., etc. At first, it was a bit of an information overload, but I kept coming back to certain styles and ideas; which really helped me to piece together the ever-popular "inspiration board" (or two or ten) to show J my findings and help him get a sense of what our day would look like. I guess you could say it was sort of like a puzzle. What helped to tie everything in was the big B word: BUDGET. Yes, you've heard of it; and whether it's tall, grande, venti or somewhere in between, a budget is what we (inevitably) succumb to when making choices.

Soon enough, the ideas and budget became more concrete and allowed us to select the locations and vendors that seemed appropriate for what we had in mind and on our (my) inspiration boards. It all seems pretty easy, doesn't it? Yeah, right. All of these plans deserve their own posts. So, you'll see how everything eventually came (or is coming) together.

How about you? What was navigating the wedding jungle world like for you? Care to share any tips or tricks on executing your plans and ideas?

#2 The Proposal

This is not about the movie starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. No, this is the story of our proposal. After reading about it, you may want to check out the movie because our story is kind of just vanilla, and the movie is probably more entertaining. Vanilla's not bad. It is what it is.

J and I had discussed marriage before. I think? (I know, that's horrible that I don't remember.) But, we never "officially" made any direct comments about getting married, or engaged for that matter. No, not.at.all. So, the proposal was definitely a surprise.

Let me rewind a little bit. A few months before J proposed, a good friend of mine had recently gotten engaged. Her then-fiance, now-husband, had gone about it the traditional route via asking her father for her hand in marriage. Well, traditional is relative, but that's traditional for her culture as well as mine. I'm not really a traditional girl, but I did mention to J that asking for my hand in marriage would be important to my Dad. Well, that was that.

Fast forward to just before the proposal. J had purchased the ring with the help of a gemologist friend of his. I have to give him a lot of credit because, for one, J was completely broke and in school at the time. He spent every dime he had on this ring. We never discussed rings, but he picked out a beautiful one. (For the record, I would have NEVER expected nor wanted him to spend everything he had on the ring.) BTW, this was completely out of his element since he is so much more practical and cautious than this.

Fast forward again to the proposal. J decided to take me to the restaurant we had our first official date. We had dinner. Then dessert. Then he asked me to marry him. I was shocked at first because I totally was not expecting it. Of course, I said yes. We finished dessert and walked back to the car. I asked him if my parents knew and he said no. He said he consulted with his mother and she told him it was not necessary to ask my Dad. Hmmmm...

We went to my parents' house and we told them. It was quite a shocker. They were stunned. Don't get me wrong. My parents love J. They just were not expecting it at the time. Fast forward to the present. All's well in the land of parents and everything. Our friends and family are excited for us (my mom even announced our wedding date on her Facebook status, like, OMG!).

So, here we are, on our way to wedded bliss...or something like it. And that, my friends, is our proposal story. No, really, that's all there is to it. But, stay tuned because the wedding is definitely going to be greasy-butter-movie-popcorn worthy. We're talking a parade, an impersonator of sorts (more on that later), a New Orleans style jazz band, a multi-lingual DJ with a phenomenal international music collection, food galore, libations, samba dancers, a photo booth, a Chinese lion dance troupe, lots of dancing and more!

What flavor do you consider your proposal? Vanilla? Chocolate? Rocky Road (my favorite!)? Or something else?

#1 The Introduction

Hellooooooooo World!! Welcome to my little blog! I've started this blog so you can join me on my journey into the world of wedding planning. Ummm...that is, if you'd like to:) Shall we then...

My name is L and my fiance, J, and I are planning a multi-cultural affair for two hundred of our closest family and friends in the great city of...dun...dun...dunnnnn......CHICAGO!

We were both born in different countries and our families emigrated to the United States (Chicago) when we were young. (Separately, that is.) We met at work and have been together since (with the occasional bumps in the road). While we no longer work together professionally, we are trying to navigate our way into this multi-dimensional world of wedding planning and having as much fun as we can along the way!

So, here's a little about me: I am a woman of many diverse interests. (Gee, that sounded arrogant.) I'm going through what I call a "career renaissance" right now. You see, I have always loved the entertainment/media industry. I really, really, really (no, really) wanted to pursue a career in it since I was a little girl, but was sidetracked by fear. Well, I decided that I either pursue it now or never. So, here I go. This is going to be a huge year for me and it's already half way through (well, one third of the way through if you really want to follow the Chinese calendar). You see, it's the year of the Tiger in the Chinese zodiac. ROARRRRRR!! And, I'm a Tiger!!

Ok. Sidetracked much? Story of my life...sigh. Anyway, I have decided in order to follow my passion, I need to be in the best possible place for that, which to me, is LA. LA = Entertainment Industry, no? So, I'm following my passion, moving to the west coast, and marrying my partner in crime...er, life...all within the next several months. I'm so excited about all of these changes and scared at the same time! Eeeekk!!

I also love to travel, dine out, bake, cook (a recent hobby), work out (TBDL or, to be discussed later), read, music, art, water, trying new things, adventuring (that's a word, I swear!), hanging out with J, our dog, friends and family, blogs, blogging/writing, movies, theater. Well, you get the point...I love a lot of things:)

J could not be more opposite of me. (Although, we do share a love of travel and food.) He's got his feet planted firmly on the ground, while my head's above the clouds. He's the pessimist to my optimist. He's the conformist to my free spirit. He walks the straight and narrow, always there to make sure I don't fall (completely) off the edge. You get the picture. But, somehow, we make it work. And, making it work takes work. But, we try to laugh along the way, or, I try to make him laugh along the way.

We're super excited to be planning the party...er...wedding of our lifetime and being surrounded by our dear family and friends. After scouring the interwebz for ideas and inspiration, I've (i mean, we've) finally got a plan and we're sticking with it. There will be lots of food. Lots of entertainment. Lots of cultural tie-ins. Lots of fun. And, most importantly, lots of love!

I hope you enjoy the ride as I share the details of our upcoming wedding! (Which, BTW, is this coming October!) (One more thing, I also really love parentheses! And, exclamation points!)

xoxo,
L