post-wedding catch-up part 1: e-photos!

we're so behind... let's just take it from where we left off...
MORE engagement photos!!!






I'm glad I married this one.

Here's the whole flickr set!
(Big thanks to MicahGilmore Photography!!!)

engagement photos!

One day... when Dave and I are old and decrepit... fat and disgusting... we will look at these photos and envy our current selves... (thanks to Micah and Christie Gilmore for their extraordinary photo-taking! I don't think we'll ever look this good again...)

More to come once I get the entire set -- but for now you can check out their blog report!

Ji-20 Bridal Summit!

OMG, my bridesmaids are geniuses...

And how hilarious is this place??? http://www.royal-t.org/

**Actually it turns out that JP asked our philosophic rocker friend Stan for suggestions and after suggesting the wildly inappropriate "geisha" theme, redeemed himself with the Ji-20 Summit suggestion. Kudos to Stan the man for having good bridal shower intuitions and kudos to JP for thinking to ask Stan.

invitation factory

Ah, being friends with other font-o-philes has made me truly appreciate the value of... letterpress. But letterpress is notorious for being uber-expensive. But I found these folks up near Berkeley who were so easy to work with and my friend Joyce, a brilliant letterpress invite designer, helped me with the design... and made my letterpress invite dreams come true.

But to save money -- I went with a one-color design rather than two... which meant my bridesmaid-buddy JP and my style guru LL helped me fill in the other color with watercolors (thanks guys!). Whenever we messed up, we'd say, "Handmade is in!" Needless to say, I watched a lot of movies while doing these...

Now they're finished and ready to be sent out into the world!!

The website is also done too! Yay!!!

Celebration of Juice

KitanJi and friends love juice. And Jesus.

Much like Buster Bluth from Arrested Development.

So we will incorporate juice into our celebration of in(ter)dependence! Now the juice search may begin... So here are some possibilities.

1. LORINA

• Pro: Can order from Trader Joes for $2.99 per bottle (which I estimate as 1 bottle per 4 people, about $250-300 total); I think we can order nicer bottles with more variety from Whole Foods for $4.99 per bottle ($400-450)... We could also get other non-Lorina juices if we go the Trader Joe's route...
  

• Con: Trader Joe's only has Red and White colors... no blue except for blueberry cider which I find beastly. But I supposed we can get blue straws.

2. San Pellegrino from Amazon.com (not as cheap as 99 cents store where you can get them 3 for 99 cents!)

• Pro: Can order from Amazon.com and get credit card points... 27.64 per 24 pack, 12 cases would be around $335. We can recycle the cans. Cute blue color. TASTY!!! Dave and I really do love orange San Pellegrino.
  
• Con: We have bought them cheaper from 99 cents stores and it would be sad to pay more. Also, cans... hm...
  

3. Dry Soda

• Pro: My favorite soda ever!
• Con: Expensive. Not everyone loves it like I do... My favorite flavor (lemongrass) is not green (aka not red, white, blue)...

4. My secret wish... GOKURI!!!

• Pro: It would be the miracle of grapefruit at our wedding. Meaningful to KitanJi. Japanese representation!
• Con: Can't seem to find this in bulk unless we have a distributor's license or something. BOO...

Ah, the pitfalls of juice selection. I wish I knew someone who owned a restaurant or something!

cake wrecks...

So we're going to get our cakes from Porto's Bakery -- mostly because they have the best tasting cakes and we just want three sheet cakes with the American flag, the Korean flag, and the Japanese flag depicted -- so we're making the judgment entirely based on taste.

But this website is a great reminder of all the potential cake disasters out there...
http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com

Check out these...
Problem-with-phone-orders
Life-size-replica-of-bride

lucky bridesmaids

dang, my bridesmaids are lucky that i bought their dresses already... or else these dresses would have probably been my top choices (thanks to rosa and raina for their brilliance).

see how happy these models look! that could be you, edevers, jpark, cmin, gkitani!!!

the red, white and blue...

I'm surprised to say -- but there are some really charming red-white-and-blue-ish weddings out there!

So like everyone else, I love Snippet & Ink... I love how it is purely about inspiration boards. Not about specific details about one bride's particular bent on her wedding (like kitanji!), but a general gist of a wedding! She gives out titles that range from witty to whimsical [the titles below aren't from S&I -- I forget what they were but they were probably better!]. It's really what the details are supposed to blur into... a sort of FEEL about a wedding -- and she captures it for free with these digital collages. Cheers to you, Snippet & Ink! Here are some of S&I's best red-white-and-blue-ish boards...



a patriotic union


vive la paris!


le mariage en bleu et rouge


crimson and cowboy blue


crisp red and white


vintage


crawfish reception... delish...


strawberries and spring


spanish red and aqua

Hair today, gone tomorrow...

Ah, the Christmas season and New Year's seems to have just flown by... And the wedding/summer of change continues to march towards me. But with the help of one of my top bridesmaids, I've decided to stop worrying so much and trust God with my future. He keeps saying to trust Him and all, so I figure I'll just give in. Yay.

Concrete planning things are really so much easier and that's what this blog is actually about!! Frivolities!!! Yippee! So on that note, I present to you my ideas of hair... (most of these photos from Brides.com)

Sometimes I just wish I were a beautiful black woman...


I like bangs...


I typically wear a bobby pin to sweep my bangs away, so adding a little something like that seems very appropo...


The expression here -- a little scary -- and the general messiness is a little scary too... but sometimes I just have to relinquish control...



It's interesting but I wonder if it's a little too severe...


And I think for my bridesmaids, maybe half-up and half-down? Inspired by Julie's everyday style... I'm also thinking about just having the girls go with their own shoes... although I think cute matching shoes would be so photorrific!


(posted on StyleMePretty)

first, hope... now, change...

So this is not as fluffy of a wedding prep post as my other ones... cuz I've just been thinking about all the big changes that are going to be happening in my life as of next summer... moving in with Kitani, getting married to Kitani, starting a totally new job, having to come home at a reasonable hour, teaching classes I have never taught, setting up a home, setting up a lab, going on a honeymoon, managing tight finances, giving up my awesome UCLA gym membership... and it's just a little overwhelming.

The wedding seems like a piece of cake relative to all of this. But I realize that all of this change is also spurred on by great hope. And although I love Kitani and feel safe in his arms and all that mushiness, what I really love is that he is always praying for me and he understands better than anyone else how much God loves me.

Now to supplement that mushiness with some wedding planning-ish stuff, here are some photos of some cute couples...

White Box Weddings




Jasmine Star Photography Blog

Amelia Lyon Photography Blog

This has been one mushy blog post. Perhaps because it is our two-year anniversary celebration today (Indian food in a restaurant all to ourselves -- 4 waiters serving us! and a jaunt to Borders... one of our favorite hangout spots... haha). Here's to the past two years and hope-driven change in the future!