Making a List and Checking it Twice

1. Living arrangements - need to put finishing touches to Rob's house so that he can sell it and get another house with Ronit.


2. Pick a date - March or April? We realized that it's more complicated than just pick a date, so we made a mental "list".

• We should give us enough time to prepare for the wedding and time to sell Rob's house and buy another house.
• It needs to be on a Sat.
• My daughters need to be with me, their dad is flexible but I don't want to cause too much trouble for everybody, though the selfish child inside me says, "You should have your way, you are getting married." But I really don't want to incur bad Karma.
• Preferrably around the opening day of baseball so family can go to a baseball game together (Rob's wish list). 
• Rob mentioned that there was some game sometime during the week of the April 4th, he prefers to watch it but if 2nd is the right date, he can record it. I give him credit because he says it's not a must, though I gave him the "you wanna schedule our wedding around a game" look adoringly.

Initially, we came up with April 2nd but we decided to move it to April 9th. So you have it, we are getting married on April 9th. 


3. Size of our wedding

So far, we decided on a medium size wedding.. Took us two different days and about 30 minutes each time, we have the "list", Rob seems to know exactly who he wants to invite on his side. But poor Rob had to suffer through my going back and forth with who to invite without losing patience, what a swell guy. I know that we might end up adding more people.

4. Who's going to marry us?
My old madam priest, Rev. Whitney DeVine is going to marry us.


5. Where should we get marry? 
We'll get marry the same place as the reception. Rob said that he hadn't been to church since he was 12 or 13, he didn't want disasters happen when he walked into a church, like lightening strike him down or the entire church fell down on his head, etc. But I made him go to church with me a few weeks ago, my church didn't fall down on him, and it became sunny during the service. All jokes aside, this way, our guests don't have to travel from church to the reception. 

Rob noticed that he's been sort of Asianized. He craves for noodles and Asian food more when compares to the past. OK, I'm turning him Asian, so he said anyway. He even threathened to grow a FuManChu beard thing for our wedding. I killed that thought of his very quickly. We figured that we waited 40 some odd years to finally meet and be together, saving the best for last and all, we might as well have a party, so Chinese wedding banquet is in order. This one is easy, there aren't many choices in Seattle for restaurants that host Chinese wedding banquet and good location, there is one.


Last Sunday, we went on an under cover mission to check the place and the food out. It's under renovation. Good! By the time we get marry, it will look brand new. I decided that the food is good. After dinner, we asked for the manager who's in charge of banquet reservation. She showed us the room that would accomodate our estimated party size. It's a corner room with view of south Lake Union. And the manager told me that for sodas, she would charge me $1 per can, it's usually $2.5 per can. I'm Chinese enough to know that she tells everybody the same thing. I smiled and thanked her. We signed the contract and paid the deposit.


While signing the contract, I was a bit nervous, I think I was actually having some kind of a rush. I was 23 the first time I got married. My ex-mother-in-law kindly took care of all the wedding arrangements which until this day, I was very thankful for. I only remembered showing up at the wedding. However, it sort of made the entire experience not real, the planning and working with your other half is actually a great bonding experience. We haven't fought about anything yet, I'm sure we'll at least disagree at some point but I think the collaboration really pull us closer together.


We still need to go back and determine which menu we are going to go with but that's minor details. I consider getting a venue done.

6. When do we let our guests know?
Done, I sent the Evite for Save the Date out on Monday night.

7. Where do we get our cake?
I don't think Rob cares, I mentioned it to him that I have my sight is set on Regent Bakery, and he's ok with it. They charge $4.75 per person, with minimum of 70 people, which fits our plans but I might change my mind if the Russian competition comes in with a cheaper price and comparable quality.

8. How about flowers?
The restaurant manager told us about this Russian florist they use who are cheap and good. Chances are, we'll just go with that.

9. Wedding gown and Rob's tux
I'll let Rob worry about his tux. I made an appointment with JCrew bridal and a little bridal place in downtown Redmond this weekend, I'll see what I find. My wedding dress shopping crew includes my daughters and Katie, who's my BFF Stephanie's daughter. She's been friends with my girls since they were like 4. She's more like my niece than anything else.

I stumbled onto JCrew's bridal boutique online awhile back. Their collection is simple and is sort of earthy, kind of right up my alley. However, the photos they have online, all their model slouch, I can't really tell if the dresses indeed look good or not. I just can't bring myself to order online and take that kind of leap of faith on a wedding dress. On the website, it says that they have bridal boutiques in some of their stores where you can go in and try the gowns on before ordering. So I thought, sure, they'll have them in New York, LA, Las Vegas, or San Francisco, I'm in sleepy Seattle... Then I looked at the list, there is one right here at the U-Village. I thought it's meant to be. But it took a whole week for them to call me back, and I can only find an appointment for Firday late afternoon. But we are going for it. Then Sat afternoon at Redmond, we should be all good.

10. Honeymoon :-) - Bora Bora
Have any of you seen the movie Couples' Retreat? I personally think it's funny, and it's filmed at the St. Regis on Bora Bora. Rob saw it and had his heart set on it. I think it's a good choice as well. My friend June and Henry went there on their honey moon and loved it. Henry sent me a bunch of info from their travel agent, it's going to be great. I know it's going to be expansive but as Henry said, we just need to look at it as a once in a life time sort of thing. Yes, it's my second time around but I know it's going to be the last. I don't think I was ever as sure about anything in my life before.

11. Invitations
We'll send it out when we have the details, hopefully in Jan. If we don't have most of the stuff ready by Jan, I might have a nervous breakdown. I'm the kind of person who usually get things done early. In college, I'll have my paper done 3 days before it's due so that I could take it to the TA to have him/her review it.

12. Musicians
Vidas from my church is going to play the guitar, or maybe a bit of piano for us. I'm going to have some kind of surprise for entertainment. All rated G though.

13. Photographer
I've sent out a mail asking for recommendation at work to a women chat alias.

14. Maid(s) of honor and best man
Checked. That would be my daughters and Rob's best friend Bill.

Are we missing anything?