Things we don't want at our wedding...

Since we've gotten engaged, I've added a whole new category of RSS feeds to my Google Reader - Weddings. I'm included wedding site blogs, invitation blogs, design blogs, wedding planner blogs, cake blogs, and photographer blogs.

I read them everyday for inspiration, how-tos, ideas, commiseration, do-it-yourself projects. They're great fun to look at. While most of them are all great about wedding planning and ideas, there are a few snarky ones out there that are a great laugh.

One of the ones that I enjoy reading just for the snarky commentary is Stupid Wedding Crap. This woman is planning her wedding and kept finding really weird and unnecessary wedding stuff. So she decided to write about it. The stuff she finds mainly falls into 2 categories - 1) nice things that end up not being used because they are personalized with wedding decorations and the couple's names and 2) weird stuff that no one wants to take home with them (like a bale of hay or a champagne bottle egg timer).

Favors are a big discussion point. We're trying to figure out what to do for ours. We've been going back and forth between doing donations, doing a treat (mints, cookies, chocolates), or doing something practical. We still have time to decide, and once we do, we'll have to figure out how to personalize them, DIY of course!

Too beautiful to eat...

FI's mom's cousin's friend (was that complicated enough?) makes cookies for FI's mom's cousin's open houses (she's a realtor). She made some beautiful wedding cookie samples for FI and I.

Here's a double-hearted one with the couple's names on them. It's super-cute with the 2 background colors and the edge decorations.

This is the same double-heart shape but with a tux and wedding dress design. This is so intricate! You can't really see it clearly, but there are extra black piping on the tux for the lapels. The dress even has piping that looks like lace and a string of pearls.

Here's a wedding dress cookie. The piping on the skirt gives it a nice ballgowny feel.

This wedding cake has a cute heart caketopper. I love the piping work that makes it look like fondant stripes or icing designs.
The cookies were suprisingly soft and chewy, even though it was a few days before we ate them. They were really tasty!

My attempt at being crafty....

When we got engaged, I started perusing wedding blogs for ideas and one of the coolest DIY things I discovered was Gocco! Gocco is a self-printing press that was invented in Japan. It's small and self-contained so it's good for small spaces (like our apartment). What's cool about it is that you can create your own designs and then make multiple prints by putting ink on the design and pressing it onto the paper.

Here are some pretty examples...
(Image courtesy of Lizzy Stewart)

(Image courtesy of kelicatalano)

There are some great FAQs and How-tos online. I read about how to make invitations, thank you cards, and even customized napkins!

I decided to splurge and buy a Gocco. This came all the way from Japan!

The seller did a great job packaging everything up.

Here's the box of supplies (Surprise!) all opened up. See the tubes and pots of ink. Those are screens on top.

Here's everything laid out. The yellow boxes on the side contain the lightbulbs that you need to flash your image onto the printing screens.

Thank goodness there are instructions. And they come in English too!

I'm excited to use the Gocco for wedding stuff - like thank you cards, programs, place cards, and even maybe the invitations (if I feel especially ambitious).

Amateur Bartending...

Last night, I volunteered at Plate by Plate, a food and wine tasting event put on by Project by Project.

PBP (as they call themselves) is a volunteer organization that does fundraising and outreach events for a different non-profit every year (hence the focus of "project by project"). Their main fundraising event is a giant tasting event where they have 30 restaurant chefs prepare tastings of signature dishes.

I volunteered to be on the marketing committee prior to the event. We helped with publicity and PR. We first updated the PBP contact list of food and Asian-American publications and general NYC event websites. Then we were each assigned a list of publications to reach out to and get our event submitted. I got the food publications and managed to get a few postings on blogs. I also used some stealthy email skills by trying to email different food journalists with different variations of their email addresses to see if I could reach them (e.g. FirstInitialLastName@newspaper, com, FirstNameLastName@newspaper.com, etc.).

For the day of, I was a volunteer and we were assigned to first man the VIP section and then I was assigned to "Zone 3", where there were a few chef tables and the drink tables.

Prior to the start of the event, I wandered around and took some photos.


Here are the chefs setting up. The space is Skylight in Tribeca, which is a nice airy open warehouse.
In the aisles between the chef tables, there were tall club tables that were decorated with dark blue tableclothes. The centerpieces were clear vases filled with little paper fans that were taped together so they looked like silver flowers and little blue tealights.

More shots of chefs setting up...

This the back table of Morimoto's station. The dish they presented was a foie gras custard, which was super yummy and decadent (I got to taste some during my break later). They had laid out all of the custards, little garnishes, and little dabs of wasabi all ready to assemble.

There was a VIP area where I had my first shift. A snack company called Lesser Evil donated snacks and Obama/McCain posters as centerpieces for the VIP area.


During the VIP reception, we were in charge of pouring champagne and serving drinks to everyone.

During the regular event, I was stationed in Zone 3, helping clean up used plates and utensils and also covering the drink volunteers when they needed to take a break. I also was moving crates of clean glasses out and dirty glasses back in.

I got pretty good at mixing little vodka shots with juice. We had little teeny plastic clear cups that I'd fill with a couple of ice cubes and put in a third of vodka and fill the rest with juice. People loved the vodka and would come back to get shots for all of their friends.

We were right around the corner from Cake Man Raven, who made the most delicious red velvet cupcakes.

Here we are enjoying the cupcakes!
All in all, a fun and delicious evening, even though it was super tiring being a volunteer. Next year I may come as a paying guest instead. :P

My head is much lighter now!

Last week I went and got about 6 inches of hair chopped off. I got lots of layers and short chunky pieces all around my face.It's barely past my shoulders now. And see how it's chunky in the back? There was a lot of layering going on. I have really thick hair so the hairdresser had to layer my hair 3 times - once while cutting it wet, 2nd after it had been blown dry and 3rd after the flatiron had straightened my hair.

He also shortened the pieces in front so they frame my face. See the difference in length?

My hair is really light now. When I washed it for the first time after the cut, it almost felt like no hair at all. It's also really easy to wear down and doesn't get in my eyes.

The best part is that FI really likes it and thinks it's cute!

This will probably be my last haircut before the wedding. I'll have to grow my hair out and all to the same length to be able to put it all in an updo.

Giant fortune cookies!

At the beginning of August, FI and I traveled to NoVA to attend the wedding of Sean and Lai-fan. They held their ceremony and reception at The Tower Club which is at the top of what we NoVAns affectionally call "The Shopping Bag" building. It's also the building that Stephen works in, so we just let him lead us all upstairs.

The ceremony was in the late afternoon and the sunlight made the whole space look so beautiful.
Caroline and Fleix brought Cady along. She was super well-behaved throughout the whole ceremony. And during the rest of the reception as well, as EVERYONE (like everyone, not just the girls, but all the guys too) wanted to hold her.

What a cute couple!

Here is the wedding cake. I think Lai-Fan's colors were red and orange. The bridesmaids wore muted orange dresses and flowers were red and orange. The cake had the red roses.

The centerpieces were thin branches arranged in a glass vase and they hung all these cute little red lanterns. The vase was on a mirrored plate and they had scattered Chinese candies all around the tables. The candies were a big hit as those were the first things everyone grabbed for as we sat down.

Our favors were giant homemade fortune cookies that the wedding party (and a few friends) made the last few nights.
For the table names, they used Chinese characters with good meanings - prosperity (fu), love (ai), family (jia), etc.

It was a really great party. Even though it was small, about 100 people, we kept it going pretty late. We danced until the DJs packed up and then we didn't leave even as the clubhouse people started setting up the original furniture.

Resourcefulness

Yesterday at work, FI and I were trying to figure out what to do for dinner. We finally decided on a fried rice with all of the leftovers in our fridge.

The fried rice dish consisted of:
- leftover brown rice from a dinner last week
- zucchini from our Saturday night dinner
- scrambled eggs
- the raw veggies (from the veggie platter from our Monday Night TV Party)
- 4 mini crab cakes (the only meat that was left from our Monday Night Costco binge-out)
- soy sauce (to taste)
- oyster sauce (a dash)

FI cooked everything. He scrambled the eggs and removed them from the wok. Then he threw in all of the raw vegetables and then the zucchini. Then he added mini crab cakes and mushed them up a bit so they separated into little crabby meat bits. Then he threw on the days-old brown rice (old rice is always best for making fried rice - the rice is drier so it stir-fries better). Finally he added the eggs back in and added soy sauce and oyster sauce to taste.


Yummy! I love all of the colors in this dish! The greens, reds, and oranges of the veggies just pop with the yellow of the eggs. Simple, easy, not wasteful, and SUPER DELICIOUS!