pixie nymph

you see, i got recently hooked into this bridezilla channel. whenever idle, you will find me in bed with the fullest concentration on the tv infront of me. and so last night was no different, i was watching an episode called platinum wedding. u guess it right!it’s called platinum because they cater to the rich, i mean the very rich people in this planet! last night’s wedding was held in Las Vegas. and no, it wasn’t a quickie wedding along the strip. it was a wedding at the famous caesar’s palace with over 650 guests. the estimated budget for the wedding was a whooping $1.3 million! Not only that, it was a 2-day affair inside the grand hotel. the groom made his entrance riding on the back of an elephant! and how did manage to put an elephant on the busy las vegas strip? i have no clue at all! it was so grand that the bride has three gowns for the same day! all her dresses were hand-made from india and she wore those jewelries i can only dream of having! i was totally awestruck with the entire wedding set-up! it was so beautiful and sooo grandiose! 

today, our wedding favors were delivered at home. i’m so glad we made the right choice of getting it from this certain supplier. they actually gave us a good deal for the number of items we ordered from them. this wedding favor is locally manufactured here in gene’s hometown. we both really like it! and in almost all special occassions, we give it as a gift to friends. of course, it was the first thing that came into our minds when we were deciding what wedding favors to give for our special day.

it is so pretty!as it came in organza boxes and in different colors. and surely, majority came in pink boxes. over and above my personal feelings about our wedding favors, i do hope all our guests will be delighted with our gift of appreciation for showing up on our wedding day…

this morning, i finally had my first glimpsed of the wedding invitation drafts. honestly, it feels good and funny to see my name over and over again on the invitation itself as well as the wedding program. our wedding invitation is more than the usual type. i personally chose it and everything else was custom made for us. i like the fact that it’s different and unique. i can’t wait to see the finished product soon!

wedding program should be something more personal for gene and me. i carefully thought of a program which will signify who we are as a couple to all our wedding guests. it can be really time-consuming but i’m not complaining because i would prefer it to be a reflection of us and at the same time, we want everyone to enjoy and have fun at the party!

after waiting for so long, finally had my final fitting today. everything went well so we purchased all other accessories that came with the wedding dress. what i particularly like about my gown is, it’s made of organza fabric (same as jenna bush’s wedding dress). it’s soft yet so elegant. don’t want a dress that looks so stiff and heavy. it’s one of oleg cassini’s creations. he was noted to design jacqueline kennedy’s state wardrobe. gene and i, searched for the ‘one’ from san francisco to fremont practically going to every bridal shop there is, here in the bay area. shoes were custom made too, i wanted it to be the same color as my dress. i’m extra blessed because my groom has been very supportive of me, no questions asked with regards to the prices. all he wanted was to get eveything that i like…thank goodness!i can’t wait for my big day to come… now that i’m all set here!

Something old, something new
Something borrowed, something blue
And a silver sixpence in her shoe.

the following will answer the beginning of this wedding custom:

A sixpence is a coin that was minted in Britain from 1551 to 1967. It was made of silver and worth six pennies. So this wedding tradition is definitely English, and many sources say that it began in the Victorian era.

Each item in this poem represents a good-luck token for the bride. If she carries all of them on her wedding day, her marriage will be happy. "Something old" symbolizes continuity with the bride’s family and the past. "Something new" means optimism and hope for the bride’s new life ahead. "Something borrowed" is usually an item from a happily married friend or family member, whose good fortune in marriage is supposed to carry over to the new bride. The borrowed item also reminds the bride that she can depend on her friends and family.

As for the colorful item, blue has been connected to weddings for centuries. In ancient Rome, brides wore blue to symbolize love, modesty, and fidelity. Christianity has long dressed the Virgin Mary in blue, so purity was associated with the color. Before the late 19th century, blue was a popular color for wedding gowns, as evidenced in proverbs like, "Marry in blue, lover be true."

And finally, a silver sixpence in the bride’s shoe represents wealth and financial security. It may date back to a Scottish custom of a groom putting a silver coin under his foot for good luck. For optimum fortune, the sixpence should be in the left shoe. These days, a dime or a copper penny is sometimes substituted, and many companies sell keepsake sixpences for weddings.

planning this event is no easy job. from the time i open my eyes in the morning ’til the time i close them to sleep, my mind is so preoccupied with the wedding preparation. people say the whole point of hiring a wedding planner is to relieve oneself of too much stress but i disagree, i still get migraines trying to organize this big day in my head! i guess just trying to figure out which is which can be major headache!it’s funny how i even dream of it in my sleep.

everyday when i wake up, i try to think of one thing i can accomplish for the wedding such as asking updates from my team and emailing people in one way or the other part of it. tiring but i’m moving forward…thank God!

don’t get me wrong, i’m also excited at this point of my life. i get to dream of what my wedding day would be. and even when i was younger, i told myself that i want to go through the phases of ‘growing up’, finding the ‘one’, getting engaged and walking down the aisle with the white dress on and so on and so forth. i didn’t even want to skip any of it! that’s why it never came to my mind to have a quickie wedding ceremony in las vegas eventhough, we have been there twice in just a few months time…i know it’s absolutely stress-free, all you have to do is find a wedding chapel along the strip, pay for the whole thing, put on your dress and then that’s it!it is amazing how they can do everything in that little chapel which takes months or even a year to prepare on a normal basis. well, that’s Vegas!everything is possible!

the good thing amidst everything is, my boss is being lenient on me lately…not too many workloads to add up on my already busy mind!thank goodness!

No, it’s not the wedding ring but it’s the engagement ring. For some who doesn’t know, the one i have on right now was just temporary. We were kinda rushing to find one last year after Gene proposed to me in Hotel Intercontinental, Hongkong. So after the trip, we went straight to Glorietta and bought me one before our scheduled dinner with some friends and relatives in Greenbelt that same night we landed from HK. As we were also excited to tell everyone the good news. So I gotta have something on my finger that night!

So after the wedding gown, now, he is kinda busy looking for the perfect engagement ring. And knowing him, I know he would want his friends to find out that he got me the best. For some reason, I’m not very particular about it, 1 carat would be great! Let’s see where his search will  lead us, I wanna be there to fit it on my finger and say this is it!

The lady at the bridal shop was right when she said "once u found your wedding dress, everything else will fall into place". Of course, other than the wedding ceremony and reception, there are dozens of other details that I/we have to look into. For instance, the wedding invitations and favors. Although, I think I already found the perfect invitation concept, I still have to make it final and give the go signal to the team. A good friend who’s been helping me with great ideas, came up with something so unique like personalized wedding invitations. I loved the thought but knowing the time constraints and my inability to be creative, I told her that it won’t work for me(thanks so much mee for everything!).

Gene has already chosen the concept and look for the reception. I left it to him as this is part of his expertise, being an event planner himself (only political though). All he wanted was simple yet elegant look of course, everything must have a touch of pink.

We are down to few more decision-making. I can’t wait until my wedding planner will say,"Edelyn, eveything is set and ready!"…

Moral lesson in looking for the perfect wedding dress?never dilly-dally!ever since Gene proposed last January 2007 on our Hongkong trip, I have been searching for the best wedding gown that I could  find. Even when I was back home, I have been talking to some designers  but nothing really caught my fancy. I must admit it took me a while to get started when I got here, we have been travelling and had the best time of my life. So after our LA trip, I told Gene that we should start going around some bridal shops in the bay area especially in San Francisco. What really makes me happy, that he’s very cooperative and more into finding one for me. He never gave me a budget, all he just said was, "find something that u like". It was stressful at first, as they wanted as much as 15-18 weeks lead time to get the gown ready. Imagine seeing a hundred and so gowns in a single shop here but I was unfazed as I already have a picture of the perfect wedding dress for me. So we shopped from one to the other, drove all over the bay area and I got calls from these people everyday as they want to make sure I purchase the dress that I’ve tried on. After searching high and low, today, I found it! Gene had been very instrumental in deciding the right one, he gave pretty good opinions on all those dresses. Thank goodness my search is over! I truly feel it’s the most perfect of them all…  and oh by the way, i’ll get to pick up the dress months from now…

where am i on my wedding prep?hmmm…let’s see, thanks to my wedding planner, we have already made reservations for both the reception and wedding rites venue. we are still on the process of choosing the officiating priest. as for the other details, we are still working on it though. i am somewhat relief that i have a wedding planner to help me do the details. he does all the canvassing and window-shopping and then he recommends what he thinks is the best for our concept. with all these preparations, comes a fervent prayer that everything will fall according to God’s plans…