Update: Dresses, Flowers, Cake, Diet.

Dresses

The original plan was to get dresses made from scratch -- my white gown and evening dress. However, I'm thinking it might be just as possible to buy dresses for cheap and take them to a really good tailor. That way I don't have to go through the fuss of finding material, like we had to do for my high school first dance and prom dresses. Those dresses didn't turn out great at all.

So now I need to figure out just when I want to start dress shopping, and start looking for a good tailor. And if I do choose to buy dresses that I'll be trying on, that means Yubo can't come with me like I originally wanted. So I need to coordinate with Eric and Alex, since they're the only ones from my wedding party that are up here, and see when we can do this whole dress thing. Then I'll take pictures and send them to Akemi and Archie.

Flowers

Dropped the plum blossoms but sticking to cherry blossoms (sakura), especially since sakura is Yubo's family flower.

I found pictures of bouquets that use Stephanotis, I thought they were really pretty. So I sent them off to my sister to show my mom so my mom's best friend could use them as a template.

So I think the bridesmaids bouquets may turn out looking something like this, using Stephanotis and sakura. I just like how simple and clean it looks. The sakura will add a nice pink color so that it's not all one boring color. And I think it's small enough to not take away from whatever dresses they'll be wearing, but big enough that it won't be entirely pointless to carry them.

To bulk up my bouquet, my sister asked what flower I might want to add to the sakura. Since I tend to like smaller flowers (like sakura, plum blossoms, hydrangea) I had to find something bigger that would create a more prominent bouquet. Since I still want to stick to flowers that have significance in our cultures, I decided to go with peonies. Peonies were once the national flower in China back in the... Qing dynasty (thank you, Wikipedia). Also, apparently in Japan, they are considered the "King of Flowers."

Flowers for the church and reception have yet to be determined. I have some people I need to talk to about those.

Cake

Still a struggle over the cake, but I have my mom and sister working on my dad to see if he'll give in and let me have my cupcakes. My sister found this picture that's pretty much exactly what I wanted, with some modification to the actual decorations.

Diet

Haven't been doing too good. Didn't do Nutrisystem at all the whole trip of Hawaii, and when I got home we went to the Bite of Seattle (yum! alligator!). Then it was still a lot of cheating throughout the week. When I weighed myself after the trip, I gained about 2lbs. So I'm 152 instead of the 150 that I left with. Yubo thinks that's just muscle that I gained from the ridiculous amounts of walking that we did. Hmm... I'm not sure. But we'll see if I continue to get any smaller. I should start taking my measurements along with my weight each week. After another week of Nutrisystem since getting back, and I'm still 152.

I'm really interested in getting leg and arm weights (yes, kinda like Rock Lee from Naruto). Well, we'll see if that ever happens. =P

Custom dresses.

The plan was to get my gown and cocktail dress custommade to fit my body well. My mom had a person in mind, but I was concerned that the person might not know how to make a dress for someone with scoliosis. That was kind of the problem with all the other dresses I had made for school dances and such. Nothing ever fit right because those seamstresses kept trying to make things straight for my twisted body.

So my mom said that I can get it done myself, that way I don't have to worry about flying down for fittings and whatever.

Malia (a friend of ours from church that's getting married next summer) and Mrs.Crumly both suggested that I try on dresses just to see the general style that I like. Mrs.Crumly actually couldn't find a wedding dress that didn't make her look like a cake, so she just got a white evening gown that fit well and beaded it herself.

I'm actually really excited that I have control over my dresses now. And I may need to ask Sylvia, a lady that works with Mrs.Crumly at the dance studio, to alter my red dress. Probably do that in December.

I'm really sad that Archie and Akemi won't really be able to be with me to try on dresses, but I'll probably take lots of pictures and send it to them. I'll wait until I lose another 10-15lbs before I start trying on dresses though.

I think my dad missed the memo.

Everyone keeps telling me, "It's your day. It's whatever you want." My dad has no problem disagreeing. It's a little frustrating. I'm kinda torn on how to take it.

Before, I wouldn't have cared if I got married in jeans and a T-shirt in the park to save as much money as possible. Then watching all those darn bride shows on TV finally got me imagining my dream wedding. Suddenly I found myself thinking about what gown I want to wear, how to decorate things, what kind of cake I want, etc etc. All that weird stuff that most women started dreaming up as little girls. As a little girl, I just dreamt of getting married... that someone would love me enough to marry me. And I figured I would have a completely Chinese wedding anyway, so nothing for me to worry about. Now that we're having a church wedding, that's all changed. However, my dad didn't hop on the wagon with us. Actually, he stayed on the platform and waved as it left.

I'm probably being overdramatic. I mean, nothing big has happened for me to complain like this. But enough has happened that I can imagine how the rest is going to happen with him.

First thing, I did not want any bottle of alcohol already available on the tables. I am strongly against having anyone drunk at the reception, and I don't want to risk any adult giving any child a sip to taste. My dad tried to tell me that it doesn't happen with Chinese people. Well... I've seen some of my own aunts and uncles let the family kids taste alcohol, and my grandma is an alcoholic. Really, dad? Chinese people aren't like that?

Second thing, I really wanted cupcakes instead of a big regular wedding cake. For one, I really don't want some boring traditional cake that you see in most Chinese bakeries. Definitely don't want the flowers made with that gross creamy frosting that nobody eats. If there are flowers, I want sugar flowers. Also, it's easier to pawn off cupcakes for the guests to take home than messy slices of cake.

Then, I want a mix of live performances and DJ at the reception. My dad is kinda going along with it, but made it very clear in his tone that he didn't approve of something so "complicated," is how he probably sees it. He's more concerned about people that haven't seen each other in a long time to be able to talk to each other, which I do understand, but just his reactions to my ideas irritate me.

He thinks there's complete separation between our Chinese stuff in the morning and night, and the church thing is off on it's own. Even my mom thought that the reception was going to be strictly Chinese customs.

::sigh:: We have time. I don't like being frustrated so soon. I know that in the end nothing else will matter other than the fact that Yubo and I will finally be married and that the people we love will be there celebrating with us.

Church is secure!

After feeling horrible about harrassing my contact person from Evergreen Baptist L.A. (although she assures me I wasn't bugging), I finally got an e-mail back from her that she feels confident that we will have a wedding coordinator for that date and that I can tell my dad to go ahead and finalize the restaurant. Yay!!! God is so good.

*whew* I'm so glad that I don't have to worry about that (very much) anymore.

I actually finally received a call from the Chinese Evangelical Free, which was our second choice, but I never called her back because I really just wanted to wait for Evergreen. Ah... such relief.