Archive for August, 2009

Musical Friday

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

I’ve decided that my hubby-to-be will not be getting his weekly movie night tomorrow as we need to sit down and sort through a pile of paperwork for our DJ and our videographer. Why the urgency and the sudden determination? Well, yes, the big day is still five weeks away, but our first dance lesson is on this Saturday and we’ve no song to dance to!!! And I must stress again that we are going to lessons so we don’t trip, so please don’t expect any beautiful dance moves!! I SO REGRET TALKING ABOUT THE DANCE LESSONS ON THIS BLOG!!! The presssssure! ^^

Fortunately, we do have an idea of what we want played at the wedding. Roughly, at least, we are thinking old-school romance, but then we fear an entire 4.5 hours devoted to old-school music may make some of our guests somewhat drowsy and for a night of fun, snooze bugs are certainly not very welcome.

I guess we are also quite fortunate in that most of our guests are roughly the same age as us, but we do have some young things who like their indie music and they may wonder why the hell we are all so excited when Grease Lightning starts playing and what the fuss is over Frank Sinatra - sinful I say to make those kind of comments, but saying so really just highlights our generation gap!

Wish us luck on the music selection task we’ve set ourselves for tomorrow night, and don’t worry, I will keep you posted on how our first dance lesson goes. I am sure it will be hilarious!

x

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Girls talk

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

Boys, don’t read this post! I am going to talk about you know, women stuff. Go away. Shuuuuu….

Okay, well hopefully the boys are gone and I can talk about my latest shopping expedition for lingerie. Hehee. While Zoe at Zoe Marie Bridal told me that I should just go without any undergarments for the big day, I wasn’t too sure. I mean, what if my dress falls off? The dreaded scenario in my head involves my dear husband-to-be stepping on my dress and I lunge forward, the dress falls off and I fall disgracefully on my face (and bare boobs). While my worst nightmare may be impossible to avoid, the minimum I could do, I thought, is to grace the grass that I fall on with some lovely lingerie!

So off I went and searched .. When I say ’searched’, I meant I went into ‘one’ store and did my searching. Fortunately, the ladies at Mary Holland’s at MLC were quite lovely and helpful and to be honest, there weren’t too many options of what I was after anyway (a white corset type undergarment). So I tried a couple on, and really liked one, which I ended up buying. It’s one of those that is super versatile with straps everywhere or nowhere if you so wished and the bones of the corset sat surprisingly comfortably on my ribs. According to the lady who tied me up, I’ve got a few meals to go in before I suffocate, which is good to hear (I CAN EAT AT OUR WEDDING.. Woohoo!) - that was comforting to hear! ^^

As I was changing back into my normal gear, I made a mental note to ask the sales assistant for a pair of matching panties. But guess what, I didn’t even need to ask, she read my mind! The sales assistant had selected three pairs of different styles that work well with the corset for me to choose. One of which is quite lacey, the other ‘very sexy’ and the other was a pretty thing with diamontes here and there. I ended up buying the xxxxx one (yes, the xxxxx is a deliberate privacy measure haha!)

Why?

Why?

One question before I sign off. Why is it that lingerie models always have that same pouting expression and ’suggestive’ poses? Is it working off the psychology that us women want our men to see us like that or that men will buy their women the lingerie in hope that their women will become like that?! Are we that superficial?

x

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Bridesmaids’ dresses

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

When the days get closer, the more final products I see, which is awesome. I mean I can talk about them until the cows come home but nothing is for certain till the fat lady sings, or so the saying goes.

Last week, lovely Lucy went to get her final fitting and took photos of her sporting the bridesmaid gown. I must say, I quite like it! It turns out the purple is much lighter than the royal purple we originally envisioned, but I must say I didn’t mind the lighter shade as I think it will do well to match the Spring weather. But like I said, seeing photos is one thing, and seeing it in real life is another so I was really excited to pop over to Lucy’s folks’ place on Monday night to grab the dress made for Emily.

When I showed Ben the dress, he was like “that’s a lot of purple”.. Hahah.. Err derrrr. Anyways, I eagerly tried it on with the matching shoes I bought for the girls and I must say, I really like the combination. I mean, they are not your typical bridesmaid dresses, I’d say they are more like sophisticated ladies’ dresses, which I think are quite fitting for my sophisticated bridal party! Heck, for $650HK a pop, I think the dresses are awesome.

I need to now make sure the sweet peas we’ve got for the groomsmen’s button holes are in the same shade as the bridesmaid dresses.

The perfect colour! I need to find these sweet peas!

The perfect colour! I need to find these sweet peas!

x

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Tiffany & Co

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

Hands up if you don’t like the Tiffany green box with the gorgeous white bow. One…, two……, thre ee eee. Yes, that’s what I thought: no hands!

And that is why, despite Tiffany not known for their pearls, that I ended up with a string of Tiffany pearls. While the necklace is not in my hot little hands right now, I’ve got them, thanks to Joyce and Sera in Hong Kong. Sera, when exactly in end August are you back in Sydney? ^^

Tiffany pearls with toggles

Tiffany pearls with toggles

So half of my blings have been sorted, and now we await the ‘inspired’ pearl earrings from Mr Hui. What is Jane talking about? I hear you mutter to yourself. Well, you may recall from my Blings post that I fell in love with a pair of Tiffany pearl earrings. The earrings are very petite, simple and I adore them! But I couldn’t justify the $1400 they quoted in the store for a 6.5-7mm pearl with a total of 0.1 carat diamonds. So Joyce went to Mr Hui for an “inspired” pair.

The typical Hong Kong businessmen, Mr Hui made three pairs with different size pearls and different size diamonds but none matched my original spec! We ended up being presented with a pair of 9.6mm South Sea pearls with a total of 0.17 carat diamonds (WAYYY TOO BIG!) I think the pearls would cover my entire earlobes! The other two were more acceptable, a 9mm and a 8mm pearl, but with the smallest of diamonds, a total of 0.05 carats. Joyce and Sera’s advice: may as well do without the diamonds if they are merely 0.025 carats per side. And yes, it was a struggle to see them from the photos sent real time via Sera’s iPhone.

On this note, I need to sidetrack a bit and say how much I love modern-day technology. On Saturday, while Sera and Joyce were at Mr Hui’s, they took photos of the pearls when worn, when improvised with a bigger diamond, when worn with the Tiffany necklace and sent them all via email for me to look. I almost felt like I was there!

Anyways, we decided to go with the 8mm pearls with bigger diamonds and Mr Hui promised to search for pearls that match the colour of the Tiffany necklace. Nice.

x

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You are invited

Saturday, August 15th, 2009
krafted by wing lau

krafted by wing lau

We are very fortunate to have Wing as our stationery designer. His style is very much type focused and simple, which we like. Because of his love for type, he is very thoughtful about what typeface is used, why a particular typeface is chosen and how copy is laid out on a page to allow the best flow and so forth.

Let’s start with our brief, which consisted of three words: “classic”, “romance” and “tradition”, and my wedding dress. Ah yes, Wing is one of the privileged few to see my wedding dress months ago! What we got back from Wing was an essay-long concept for our wedding invitation, which when I read it months ago, was totally touched by Wing’s thoroughness and thoughtfulness. Thank you Wing.

1. “Didot” - the typeface. After doing some research, Wing proposed that we adopt the “Didot” typeface. Didot is a type designed around the 1780s in France and it continues to carry a lot of meaning in modern type design and print.

2. Texture. To Wing, the dress, as the focal point of the wedding, should be reflected on the invitation. To him, the dress is simple but at the same time subtly showing structure, texture, layering & depth and from that, he was inspired to create something that appeals to the sense of touch, either with printing or finishing techniques as well as paper stock choices. In essence, he wants to create a ‘preview’ as well as an enhancement of the wedding dress.

3. A personal touch. Wing knows that we want a cozy wedding with only an intimate group of family and friends so he proposes the invite to have an area for personalised message. He hopes that the recipients will feel that little bit special with special messages from us.

Seriously, isn’t Wing the sweetest and the most thoughtful? To boot, the invitation works so well with the Save the date we sent out in February! Wing’s a genius!

Sadly, due to some technical issues, what we’ve originally envisioned could not be realised in its exact form, and trust me, it was absolutely gorgeous! But I think what we ended up with still adheres to these three concepts ie type, texture and personalisation. And really, only the texture aspect had the most leaps and bounds, in that the original concept to go with a flock treatment to complement the paper had to be dropped due to technical issues and the alternative sewing was also out the window due to the small volume. Fortunately I think the solution Wing came up with also does the job nicely. Upon receiving the invite, can you figure out what that may be? Yes, it’s the deliberate tearing of the paper to show off the cotton paper texture (Alfred, it’s deliberate!) Hope you like it as much as we do.

Chinese invitation

Chinese invitation

Also for those who wants to know what perfume we used, it’s the beautiful Chloe.

We want to give them out in person as much as we can and we’ve been busy meeting up with people over breakfast, lunch, coffee and dinner so if you’ve not received it already, it will reach you very soon!

RSVP for Sydney by 4 September and Taipei by 15 October.
We hope to see you on our big day.

x

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Our Taiwan schedule

Friday, August 14th, 2009

It’s getting closer and closer.. are you excited? We are! :)

As well as doing the last-minute bits and bobs for the Sydney fanfare, we’ve also been slowly organising the Taipei reception. And a couple of days ago, we booked our tickets back to Taipei; We will be in town from Tuesday evening, 10 November to 18 November - can’t wait to see you all!

On the note of Taiwan, we ask you to, please, spare a minute or so of your time to pray for our country men and women in Southern Taiwan, who are suffering from one of the worst floods in Taiwan history with many losing their family and friends. Our prays and thoughts are with them.

x

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gel vs acrylic nails

Friday, August 7th, 2009

I feel for my hubby-to-be. I mean, he is the co-owner of this blog yet I hog it with posts on dresses, shoes, and now nails! What has the poor man got to put up with next? Ummm…

Ok, it’s so close to the big day now I need to start looking after my nails. I thought about just getting a manicure and french polish a day or two before the day but knowing me, something will go horribly wrong and my nails won’t end up looking as they should on the big day.

Artificial nails….
The problem is I dislike acrylics because most of the time they are done poorly and hideous looking. In truth, I just think they look so fake, not to mention chunky and not very elegant. I was told if you go to a good technician, the effect is a lot more natural but seriously, not only does one need to go to the trouble of finding a ‘good’ technician, acrylics also take forever to grow out and harsh on natural nails (mind you, it’s not as if any other artificial alternatives wouldn’t, but I just have a thing against acrylics.. ha!)

The other alternative is gel nails. Lucy, who has tried both, suggested that gel is a more natural looking and a not-so-harmful alternative, so I did some investigation. To me, the main difference and the only difference that should matter (on the biggest day of my life so far) is the appearance of the final product and from looking at many google images after searching for ‘gel nails’ and ‘acrylic nails’, there is no question gel nails look a whole lot nicer! They are also a lot thinner. You can do some gorgeous nail art too, though I am not sure about sporting them for the big day.

Don't worry, my nails won't look like these on the big day!! ^^

Don't worry, my nails won't look like these on the big day!! ^^

There are, of course, as with everything, disadvantages with gel nails too. First, they are more costly and they aren’t as tough as the acrylics and can still peel off, taking (I read on one blog) a few layers of natural nails with it (sounds yikey!). I think the pros definitely outweigh the cons though, don’t you? The question now is, where should I get them done?

Let me know if you’ve tried artificial nails and what you think of them. And/Or if you’ve any recommendations on where I should go to get gel nails done.

x

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The after effects of gym; am I normal?

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

Just when I think I have got my gym rountine down pat (successful in attending at least two Body Pump classes each week since my first session), I have started to wonder how effective gyming really is. You see, every single time I was done with gym I get super hungry, so hungry that I could down a huge turkish sandwich filled with six ingredients (healthy though, I think, except for the carb of the bread) or a salad which, under normal circumstances I could only finish half (or at most two thirds).

I can’t help but wonder whether I have been overdoing the eating part and not enough of the exercising?!?! Am I normal? Or do you think the extra eating will offset the exercise I’ve been doing? Tell me I’m normal… please!!!

Oh and there are only 58 days to go!

x

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