V loves B - Wedding Invitations

Ahh! I can’t believe it’s only 2½ months until the wedding! To add onto the mounting chaos, B. and I are also thisclose to purchasing a new home!

We finally sent out our last wedding invitation last week, so I thought it would be a good time to share them with you, and some of our lessons learned in trying to get them out!

The Concept

From the get-go, it was important for me to have bilingual English-Chinese invitations. Brian wanted something contemporary, simple and unique, and we both wanted to somehow incorporate our wedding colour (fuchsia) inspiration - what-we-thought-were-cherry-but-may-actually-be-crabapple blossoms. We didn’t want to do RSVP cards, instead opting to have people RSVP on our wedding website.

Original Wedding Colour Inspiration

Finding the Right Invitation

There are several websites online where you can order bilingual wedding invitations, with most of them based in Hong Kong. KamShing/Kamdo is a popular one, as is H2Cards. The cards were inexpensive, but not really to our taste. Also, you have to order at least 100 at a time, so not a good fit if you’re having a smaller wedding. (Remember, even if you are inviting more than 100 guests, you may need only 50 or so invitations if they are all couples.)

Another invitation site based in Hong Kong, 983 Wedding, had invitations that were closer to our taste. We also found one we liked on Etsy, but it was more than we wanted to spend.

Finally, B. remembered that his cousin Shannon was a graphic designer, with experience designing wedding invitations in the past, so we decided to give it a go!

How to Partially Design Your Own Invitation

We created a Pinterest board with some design ideas that caught our eye - I mostly pinned some colours and invitations that I liked, while B. drew more from design concepts he liked - clean Japanese design and some lasercut patterns.

The Chinese text was probably the hardest part, without an expert on hand. I really had to rely on the wording guides from H2Cards and 983 Wedding. (Latter in Chinese) My mom helped, of course, but I had to correct some of her suggestions based on what was written online!

In the end, B. and I were super-thrilled with our invitations and their unique design!

How Many Invitations?

We went through our guest list and counted out how many couples/families we were planning to invite, then added 20 and rounded up to the nearest 10 just in case. We invited about 175 people, which worked out to about 75-80 individual invitations, so we printed 100.

Delivering the Invitations

My initial plan was to hand-deliver most of the invitations to save money on postage. This was effective for when I was visiting relatives last month in Hong Kong, but mostly ineffective when it came to tracking down my friends. To make matters worse, we had set the RSVP deadline probably earlier than necessary, so I felt rushed to get the invitations out as soon as I returned from Asia, and we prematurely printed a lot of envelopes with no addresses. In the end, I had to go around and track down a lot of addresses and get a lot of envelopes reprinted, and we sent the last of the invitations on the RSVP deadline - May 1.

Lesson learned: No matter how close you are to your friends or how often you think you see them, get their mailing address as it will save you time with invitations, and with thank-you cards later on!

Vincci Tsui is a food writer/lover/eater by day, and a raging bridezilla by night. She is marrying B. on July 25, 2015.

V Loves B - DIY Project #1: Wedding Website

I can’t believe it’s just over five months until the wedding! At this point in time my bridesmaids have been warned that my Bridezilla game is going to be strong and they should be prepared to restrain me at any moment. B. and I were sort of coasting for a while because we got the big details for our wedding done early on - date, venue, photographer, etc., but we realize now is the time to deal with the *ugh* nitty-gritty.

During the Christmas break we had some time to put together our wedding website! I will only share some screenshots with you so I don’t get flooded with fake RSVPs, but I’m sure it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to guess what the URL is.

Technical Jargon

There are tons of websites where you can put together some easy-peasy wedding websites, like mywedding or The Knot, but we decided to complicate things a little bit and build our own site using Wordpress. I hosted it on the same site that hosts my business website and my blog. The custom domain name cost us $15 USD.

I was originally thinking of splurging on a wedding theme, as many of them include all the “typical” wedding website elements - RSVP form, relationship story timeline, wedding countdown, etc. A nice one can cost up to $50 USD. B. thought we should just get a free theme, so after some searching, I finally settled on this one.

Homepage

We are foregoing RSVP cards in our invitations and just having everyone RSVP online, so we wanted to make it as easy as possible. When you hit the homepage, you see our smiling faces, confirming that it is indeed, our wedding that you are attending. Then, you scroll down and see a Google Map to our wedding venue…

How to do it - in Google Maps, search for your wedding venue. Once it’s centred in a way that you like it, click on the tiny gear symbol near the bottom right corner (didn’t know that was there, did you?) Click on “Share or embed map” in the little menu that pops up. If you are building a website that allows HTML code, you can just copy-and-paste the code into your website, or you can share the link so people can click on it and see it in Google Maps. If you have more than one venue (i.e. ceremony and reception), I will tell you how to make a map that shows both later in this post.

The RSVP form, which I made using Google Forms, is right under our map.

What’s awesome about Google Forms is that it keeps all of the responses on a spreadsheet, so no risk of cards getting lost in the mail or having to sort through 100+ emails!

Our Story

An abridged version of this blog post, with more photos.

Out of Town Guests

There’s an “Accommodations” section with info about a hotel room block, plus links to other hotels nearby. Also a (likely futile) call for in-town guests who are willing to let one or two people crash for a couple of nights.

We also made a “Fun Things to do in Calgary” map, which is really mostly places we like to eat. You can make your own in My Maps. If you have more than one wedding venue, this is how you can create a map that shows all of the locations.

Blog

Currently just a link to this blog, but closer to the date we’re hoping to include things like a weather update, unforeseen disasters, and possibly a wedding hashtag.

We are still a few months away from sending our wedding invitations (and thus sharing our wedding website with the masses) so we have time to keep building this page. Let us know in the comments if you think we’re missing anything!

V Loves B - A Tale of Two Bridal Expos

Back in September, I attended two bridal expos on back-to-back weekends. This was a little out of character for me, but I was really there for the dress sales! (Spoiler alert: I eventually found my dream dress at Wishahmon, obviously.)

 The first weekend, I attended the Bliss Bridal Show at the Carriage House Inn with two of my bridesmaids. Immediately we were greeted by some hefty swag bags! I know I razzed on bridal magazines in my previous post, but in the end I must admit I did flip through them for some inspiration, so perhaps they're not so bad after all. Anyway, Bliss Bridal Show is actually quite small compared to other bridal expos in the city. There didn't seem to be many brides there, so I was able to easily wander from booth to booth without elbowing anybody. Despite its small size, there seemed to be a good variety of vendors there, from florists and limos to photographers, personal trainers, and travel agents (for the honeymoon!).

The Bay was on hand with some makeup artists as well as their gift registry people, so you could kill two birds with one stone. There were also a few smaller outfits, like Bee Vintage Theme Rentals, which rents out vintage decor and furniture for weddings and other events, and Lollipop Girl Accessories,which makes custom bridal headpieces and hip flasks for a fairly reasonable price.

The dress sale at Bliss Bridal was run by Tafetta and Tulle Bridal from Airdrie. Brides signed up for appointment times that were set 30 minutes apart, with three brides per slot. As I mentioned, the show itself was quite small so we had lots of time to kill between hitting the booths (though admittedly I did not linger as much as I could have) and my appointment time. We sat out in the lobby, looted through our loot bags and flipped through our bridal magazines until my appointment time, but were still waiting outside for another 30 minutes before we were let in.

I was hoping that since we had set appointment times that we would be assigned a specific salesperson, but unfortunately that was not the case. My bridesmaids and I were left to sift through the racks on our own and pull out dresses to try. I tried on a few but none of them were for me, which was OK because I knew I would be looking at more dresses the next week!

Trying dresses on at Bliss Bridal Fair

The next weekend was the big Bridal Expo at the BMO Centre, which I attended with my sister (one of my bridesmaids) and my mom. I was forewarned that it would be a little chaotic, but we got there in the morning/early afternoon so the crowds weren't too bad at that point. Unlike the Bliss Bridal Fair, where the dress sale was separate, the bridal shops at the Bridal Expo were out in the open, so you could wander in, look through the racks, and hop in a change room if you found something to try on. I tried on one dress that I liked, but just didn't feel like "the one".

Not “the one”

The Bridal Expo was definitely huge - the expo hall at the BMO Centre was filled with vendors and elaborate displays, and there was a separate hall where fashion shows were held twice a day. There were stations set up near the entrance for brides to print a sheet of labels for $7 with their name, contact information and wedding date, for ease in entering draws. You could pretty much find anything wedding-related there, from venues (there are some golf courses out there with really delicious food) down to your flower girl’s shoes!

Impressive display by Lynn Fletcher Weddings

At the end of the day, I would say I didn’t find the bridal shows to be particularly helpful for me. Thanks to the internet, I went in already knowing where/when I was having my wedding, who my photographer was, and where I was going to get my accessories and décor. However, if you’re recently engaged and have no idea to start, going to a bridal show can definitely provide inspiration (and maybe you can snag a deal or win a draw!) It was also a good reminder of some things I hadn’t thought a lot about, like AV rentals and transportation.

The winter/spring bridal show season is just around the corner! If you’re looking for some wedding inspo (or just want a fun day out with the girls), here are the upcoming dates:

Bridal Fantasy Calgary

January 11, 2015

www.bridalfantasy.com

The Wedding Fair

January 18, 2015

www.theweddingfair.ca

Bliss Bridal Show

February 22, 2015

www.blissweddingfair.ca

V loves B - 6 Resources that Make Wedding Planning Easier

Monica is a wonderful wedding planner (and will be a wonderful day-of coordinator for us, we hope!), but we decided to plan our wedding ourselves because we’re cheap and we like adventures. This list of resources is by no means exhaustive - in fact, I find exhaustive pretty overwhelming - but are just some of the things we’re using to make the process easier!

Online Resources

Google Drive

B. and I are both fans of lists and spreadsheets (him more so than me - I still have nightmares of that one time when he wanted to buy a TV), and we like Google Drive because it’s easy, free and gives us the ability to collaborate. We already plan our weekly meals and shopping list on Google Drive, so it was natural that one of the first things we did after getting engaged was start a wedding spreadsheet. Not sure where to start? Google actually has a wedding planning page that includes a spreadsheet that you can download and fill in. I also like the ones from A Practical Wedding. To avoid feeling overwhelmed, what we’ve done is started our own spreadsheet and just copied in the individual sheets from the pre-made ones that we found most useful.

Aside from spreadsheets, what we’ve also been doing is saving all PDF contracts we get from vendors (ugggh look at all this wedding lingo) right into our Google Drive.

Pinterest

I’d prided myself on resisting the pressure to join Pinterest for a long time, but finally caved when it came to wedding planning, because it is very visual. At first, I just shyly pinned a few blog posts from wedding planning blogs and wedding photographer blogs, but now it’s gone through phases of pinning random photos of food that match my wedding colours, feeding my obsession with DIYing the flowers (at least the bouquets), and other random ideas, plus I now have all these non-wedding, food-related boards as well (naturally). If you’re into it, you can invite your fiancé, bridesmaids, and/or mom to pin on your board, but I thought that would get overwhelming.

Honourable Mention - Facebook, Blogs

This is not a tool that I’ve actively sought out, but apparently once you start putting wedding-related words in your status updates, Facebook will start giving you wedding-related ads! Those jerks! Through the ads I did find a brand new company based out of Vancouver called The Borrowed Collection, which rents out snazzy bridal jewellery. (Pinned.)

I’ve tried to stay away from blogs like The Knot (not hyperlinked so you can save yourself from clicking on it) because they feature weddings that are way out of my budget and way overwhelming. I do like the occasional A Practical Wedding blog post though, and I also wanted to give a shoutout to WTF We’re Engaged! The writing is not the best, and the blog itself has not been updated for a few years, but she does have a few helpful posts for people planning a Chinese wedding (or at least quasi-Chinese) to help navigate through some of the customs.

Books

Apparently B. has had a hand in helping some of his buddies planning their weddings in the past, and he found buying wedding planning books helpful. So, one day he went to the bookstore and came back with two books. At first I could barely get past the first few pages - What is this “wedding vision” bullshit?!? How can an essay-style book help me plan my wedding??? Eventually I calmed down and must admit that I have been actively using both books in the wedding planning process.

A Practical Wedding by Meg Keene

OK, OK, I know I have already mentioned A Practical Wedding twice in this blog post, but just bear with me for a little bit. This book is the pep talk that I think every bride needs. The premise behind the book is that the people who are going to attend your wedding are there for you, so it doesn’t matter wtf the wedding looks like or what food you serve or how much it costs - do what feels right for you! From the book (paraphrase): “No one will remember what your wedding will look like, they will just remember what it felt like.”

The book still takes you through some of the major steps of planning a wedding, including a “You’re engaged!” section that takes you through some serious pre-wedding questions that you should talk through with your spouse, like religion and goals and kids (B. learned that I believe in fate.), as well as chapters that talk about some rarely broached topics, like planning a wedding when there’s death or illness in the family, or tips on if you think you want to DIY the flowers, music or even the food! While I found that the “picking a venue” chapter made me feel a little guilty that I chose a very mainstream summer-wedding-on-a-Saturday-night-in-a-hotel, I found that all the chapters are like, “Here’s some stuff that works for some people, but… if that’s not you, don’t feel like you have to do it!” I wouldn’t say this book is a must-buy, but if in your wedding planning process you are feeling overwhelmed or stressed, run to the bookstore and read the intro to this book to calm you down a bit.

The Knot Ultimate Wedding Planner by Carley Roney & the Editors of TheKnot.com

I’m still not sure I can say I like this book. Already on the first page, it instructs me to “envision your wedding day style” and “create a vision for each and every detail”. I cannot think of a phrase that does not include bodily fluids or vermin as vomit-inducing as “wedding vision”. Books like this are probably what cause brides to pull their hair out and decide to elope - by dedicating a whole worksheet to every minute detail in a wedding, it makes it seem like everything is high priority, which we know is not true. Apparently there is a binder version of this book that includes colour swatches so you can pick your wedding colours *puke*

While I’ve had fun crossing out and writing “NO” next to things that I don’t want to be in my wedding (I haven’t quite reached the point where I’m ripping out entire sections of the book just yet), the book has been good for a couple of things, like helping me come up with some questions for potential vendors, and the checklist makes me look WAY ahead of the game on some fronts.

Plus, we came up with a wedding vision after all.

Vincci Tsui is a food writer/lover/eater by day, and a raging bridezilla by night. She is marrying B. on July 25, 2015.

V loves B - {A One-Sided Telling of} Our Love Story and Engagement

B. and I met on September 28, 2009 over an OK meal at the Highwood. One of B.’s friends, who at the time, was a food blogger, was trying to get together a monthly supper club with some of his personal friends and some food bloggers. I was the only food blogger who showed up at this first gathering. B. and I happened to be sitting next to each other, so we decided to try the Chateaubriand, to see what this “at-the-table” French service was all about.

The next day, I wrote an email to my friend, Chelsea, whom I’d been exchanging dating exploits with.

“[...] So anyway, the CUTEST guy was sitting next to me, of course I don't know if he's into me or if even he has a girlfriend but the feeling was like, ‘Yes! This is what it's like to have a crush on someone.’ lol.”

5 minutes later, another email:

“Successful Facebook stalkage! He is single. And 10 years older than me :(“

In the end, he added me on Facebook, and removing the year from my birthdate before I accepted the friend request was completely ineffective in concealing my age. Still, after months of Facebook messaging, Google chatting, music swapping, another group outing, talking obsessively about him to my girlfriends and coworkers and a failed attempt at me asking him out on a date, we went on our first date on November 7, 2009.

Our Engagement

I didn’t see the engagement coming. We both knew that we eventually wanted to get married, but I was always afraid that talking about marriage and weddings would imply that I wanted to get married right NOW, and I didn’t want that, nor did I want B. to feel pressured, so we never talked about it seriously.

In May/June of this year, we left on a three-and-a-half week trip to Asia. Our itinerary included six days in Seoul, 15 days in Japan and four days in Hong Kong.

While in Japan, we stayed in a popular onsen (hot springs) resort town called Hakone. B. managed to snag a room in this baller ryokan called Hakone Ginyu, which is usually booked up six months in advance, but fortunately for us, there was a last minute cancellation.

The ryokan was very beautiful - they were all done up in a traditional style, with tatami mats, a private dining room and a private onsen at the back. The service was professional but friendly; every single detail was accounted for.

B. and I were hanging out in our “backyard” when he started to say, “I love you.” Note that this is only the second time he has said “I love you” and not “I love you too”, so I knew something was up. He went on to say that while he knew things hadn’t been the greatest, he wanted me to be in his life. Then, he pulled out the ring from underneath a towel and asked him if I would marry him! I instantly burst into tears.

Unlike the movies or the YouTube engagement videos, I didn’t say “Yes” right away, because I was shocked and unprepared, but I also managed to not blurt out “I don’t know” either. The next two or three minutes - which probably felt like an eternity for B. - he just kissed me and hugged me while I cried my eyes out. Finally, I decided to abandon my life goal of marrying rich and whispered “Yes” twice very quietly, and he clearly did not hear me because finally he held me in front of him and asked, “So what are you thinking?”

“I already said yes twice!”

“Well say it again, cuz I didn’t hear you.”

“Yes, I will marry you, B!”

I still remember that huge smile he had on his face. He was so excited.

After our engagement, the first thing I did was WhatsApp my parents, who live in Hong Kong. After congratulating me, my mom says, “Oh, today is May 20 and 520 sounds like ‘I love you’ in Mandarin.”

I almost puked in my mouth.

Vincci Tsui is a food writer/lover/eater by day, and a raging bridezilla by night. She is marrying B. on July 25, 2015.