But can I be allowed one moment of melodramatic lamenting? I re-read my past posts and my expectations... - what naivety! What lofty goals!! Have the venue locked down by March? Lose the weight before indulgent Hong Kong and school finals? Oh, but if I could turn back time and shake my silly self! Thankfully, some things have been crossed off the checklist so let's start with the positives first, shall we?
1) First and foremost, we are now "officially" engaged! We've had a less than traditional route to our engagement. He "unofficially" asked me (i.e. he blurted out, "Do you want to get married?" one morning in April 2011), then he gave me the ring in August (where we then had a casual engagement party with my side of my family). But according to Mr. Journey, his family is pretty traditional and the way they process an engagement is to have an elaborate party which almost looks like a wedding reception, where the family can see the guy give the ring, and do some religious and traditional ceremonies.
We managed to fly his family out to California in April this year to meet mine and do a few pictures and my initiation into the family :) It was very lovely and I will definitely do a post with lots of pictures.
2) Dress(es): Indian wedding notwithstanding, I'll be wearing either 3 or 4 outfits for the Sacramento wedding. Insanity! I can dedicate multiple posts to dresses alone (and I will!).
For the Western ceremony in the day, I managed to buy a custom-made, simple white dress from Hong Kong. To foreshadow the trials and tribulations into getting this dress, let me just say for now the Hong Kong aesthetic for wedding dresses is vastly different from mine.
(Structure-wise, my dress looks a bit like this)
From the same dressmaker. I also commissioned a tradition cheong sam for the night-time reception. It's a beautiful red with delicately embroidered dragon and phoenix splashed across the front.
(A cheong sam or qi pao leaves nothing to the imagination, so exercise and Spanx is a must!)
Wait, so where do the other two picture in? One is known as a kwa, an even more traditional Chinese outfit that not too many brides wear nowadays. Unlike the sexy, form-fitting cheong sam, the kwa consists of two parts: the jacket and the long skirt. They're loose and modest so only a quarter of your arms (around the elbow down) is shown. I plan to wear this after the Western ceremony for the tea ceremony. The ceremony is basically the time to honor and thank your parents and elders for taking care of you (and for the bride to receive her aforementioned gold. GOLD!!). One of my aunts from my father's side has graciously offered to lend me her wedding kwa, which I'll wear with pride.
(A lot of people rent kwas because they're expensive -look at all that embroidery~)
The fourth dress is tentative, something I might change into after the night reception so I have something easier to wear during the dancing and partying. I'm thinking something cute, slightly sexy, short, and white/sparkly. But it all depends on price and if I can find anything I like.
(I would do terrible things to own this dress...)
3) VENUE! Oh blessed joy, we recently (as in, last week) finalized a location for September 2013. More details to follow, but it's an antique car museum!
4) We have our photographers! I hear getting a photographer comes after securing a venue (which makes sense) but due to good fortune, we were able to find our perfect photographers - Connection Photography. They have this gauzy, dreamy, light-filled style which I absolutely adore. Bonus: they are the nicest, cutest couple you'll ever meet. We're actually flying out to North Carolina next month for our engagement photos.
Now onto the biggest task we have to accomplish post-haste:
FIND A TORONTO VENUE!! We've decided to do two separate ceremonies (one in Toronto, one in Sacramento) in order to save a lot of headaches which seems...counter-intuitive, I grant you, but it makes the most sense, I promise. We'll be doing the Indian wedding first, on the weekend of June 29, 2013 (I just found out it's also a 3-day weekend, Canada Day, holla~). I will definitely be a lot less anxious once we lock down a reception hall. It's difficult to plan, as there's a lot of phone tag and misunderstandings and procrastination going on, but I'm fairly confident we'll find something that won't break the bank.
Whew, I apologize for the word overload, but hopefully with more frequent blogging, I can condense things a little better. There are times I envy my friends for having those all-inclusive, one religion/culture wedding venues but I know all this hard work will be worth it. See you next time~
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