No heavy bracelet for me!

In my search for the right wedding jewelry (I still haven't thought about my ears in months, oh god) I at least found the perfect wrist adornment. I didn't want a heavy weight on me, or anything that might be too eye catching - I want people to still look at my face! Then again, we are asking people to bring their psp/ds, so it might be a sea of wifi-mario kart and puzzle quest.

This is what I bought:



Please ignore the not-removed tag that is safety pinned on. This thick bracelet cuffy thingy is made by Emma Cassi, a French designer living in London. It comes packaged in the cutest sheet music with a little note from her - and obviously, her work is beautiful. The cuff feels so light and delicate, like could easily rip it into pieces.... this is why my clumsy-ass has put it away safely so I don't accidentally break it before the wedding.



A bonus is that a lot of her items are on sale on her website right now. :D Lucky kids! I bought mine before the sale started, but I bought something for my sister/matron of honor/only bridesmaid to wear and be matchy-matchy with me. Christine, if you look at this, don't worry, I have other surprises for you - possibly involving flying squirrels and micro-diet (everyone's favorite japanese diet laxative!).

Now back to agonizing over what to put in my smelly-ear-holes. Yea, I know - no one told me stretching your lobes causes ear-funk. Smells like natto - that's my REAL wedding scent, fermented soy bean! yum!

Oh photoshop...

how I wish I had illustrator instead of you. Actually, I do, somewhere, but I'm using photoshop for easy-peasy stuff like this.

Mr. GB and I are taking on the daunting task of wrapping our favors one by one. 300 macarons each individually wrapped with cello paper, tied on either ends with ribbons, and a sticker to keep them closed. I know, everyone has said this is total insanity to attempt the day before the wedding, but I think we'll survive. We have friends. We may NOT have friends after we force them into this for a full day of torture and calluses, but by then, the work will be done, so it's ok if they hate us! All for the sake of cuteness am I willing to give up many friendships!

We have cut ribbon into 6" strips, we have the cello wrap... uncut, but it will be! And now the stickers, this is the design I came up with:


Beyond being kinda cheesy and not particularly interesting, which is the best in terms of color?


And because I can, a little note about our macarons. I'm obsessed with Pierre Herme, alas, he doesn't exist here and although I was scheming to have them brought from Tokyo, we gave in and found some locally. Not to say they aren't good and adorable, and they are within the completely coincidental theme of organic goods.

Besides, how CUTE is this store?! This is their Hayes Valley location, and well worth checking out because it's ridiculously adorable.




Miette Cakes
Pâtisserie
Ferry Building Marketplace, Shop 10
San Francisco, CA 94111

Confiserie
449 Octavia Boulevard
San Francisco, CA 94102

Tasty!

Table Numbers? check!

We've finished up the designs for the table numbers (yay!) and found ourselves some cute pedestals to put the numbers in. 12 verticals and 4 horizontal... just in case! I imagine we'll need them for something, and I'd rather be better prepared than scrambling to make something out of wire hanger and spray paint the night before.


Note the photo from our friend's wedding a month ago. Mr. GB has buck-teeth in this photo, and I look very annoyed. I wasn't, it was adorable, but like I said... photos = misery. The other piece of paper is just something that came with the frame.. funny story about that. Mr. GB's best friend's brother (woo!) found out through a friend that his wedding photos are now the cheesy images that come in frames for sale at neiman marcus. I guess the photographer decided it was worth selling without telling them. Watch out!



This leaves me wondering as I wander through our house, garage, and back stairwell completely full of boxes. What AM I going to do with 16 wire frames, 100 mushroom birds, parasols and sandalwood fans... and the other billion wedding things we have lying around? Mr. GB says to box and sell it on ebay as a ready-to-go wedding. HA!



On another note, we got our first rsvp back....
uh. what happened to it? it came this way, scotch tape and all, torn asunder.

Inspiration Explooooosion!

I don't even need to say anything about Rebecca Thuss' Portfolio, it's just amazing. So many of these images have been in Martha Stewart (the seasonal wedding bible, as we call it at our house), but the nice, large collection of them all together so I can rethink my entire wedding all over again and cry about the missed ideas and opportunities is wonderful! for me, not so much for Mr. GB who is wishing the internet went done until the wedding so I'd stop mourning over what I wish we had time to do.

Here are some of my favorites!







I'm about two seconds away from buying a birdhouse and some geese just because the wedding above is so freakin' perfect. I mean, I could capture some of the geese by our house in Lake Merritt, but there is this smell...

Our final cake(s) decision. Almost.

After the previous experiences of good baker, not so good cake... and good cake, not so good baker... we ended up find a good baker and a good cake. We were so relieved to find SOMEONE who was neither mean nor dry (hoho!) that we were almost not going to go to the next interview. Almost.

Thank god we did! The cake was amazing, and we haven't figured out exactly the deal, but it seems that she makes the cake in her own home and that she just likes to make wedding cakes. That's it. She enjoys making wedding cakes - and so they are not only AMAZING but there is that kind of homemade love in it. No bakery, no staff, just someone happy to make cakes for couples. :) We love her, and her home, and had our last meeting with her last week. The best part... she's $700 LESS than the lowest quote we received. So I'm getting two flavors of the best wedding cake we tried for 1/3 the price anyone else offered us!!! I'm tempted to get a whole lot more cake to gorge myself on after the wedding.. not that I haven't been eating ice cream cake every day for the past week. My arteries are crying right now. And possibly my thighs.


We decided to go a very casual route, as the entire wedding is pretty much laid back and relaxed, and not get a tiered cake. Instead, we're taking 6 cake stands, all different, and putting a single tier cake on each. All slightly different in design, all buttercream, and hopefully very natural looking. I love looking at those gorgeous awe inspiring cakes with skill and artistry and fondant madness, but honestly, I want my own wedding cake to make people DROOL.





The only last issue is that we wanted to get an Ann Wood Cake Topper - but she's stopped making them. :( I'll just look at this image and cry for a while, as I'd happily give a toe (probably the morton's toe) to have this cake topper.



Anyone have any recommendations for something similar?

but... Japan is NOT a vacation!

Everyone wants to know where we're going on our honeymoon, but honestly, we haven't planned one! Mr. GB will be starting a new contract on a game in fall, we have the house and animals to take care of... and we can't think of anywhere we'd like to go in October or November! It gets cold, and Mr, GB and I are both bay area weather wimps. What do you MEAN it gets under 50 and over 80? What kind of madness is this!?

And I'm not sure why, but people keep suggesting or assuming it'll be Japan. I used to live there and I go regularly for work and visiting friends, I can't think of it as an exotic location to take a trip! I want to use my honeymoon as an excuse to go somewhere I haven't been and probably won't go again for a while, if ever... hopefully not because I got sick and hated it. I have a fragile stomach, I can just see myself locked in a toilet in some foreign land cursing the lack of nice toilet paper. But seriously, Japan, what's with the one-ply wax paper you use in the toilet?

Anyway, it was suggested to take a mini-moon to Japan and Korea, which I think is the perfect thing for us. We can see family and friends who couldn't make it and when Mr. GB is off this contract, we can take a spring tour in 2008 to somewhere more "vacation" for us. And really, I do miss Japan, it was just not a honeymoon location for me, so this is an excuse to go without wasting the title "honeymoon" on a trip there. :) After that, maybe we'll take a world tour or something, as Mr. GB hasn't been to any part of Europe and I need a good long stay in each country to satisfy my shopping and food consumption... and I always felt that Australia or New Zealand would be one of those countries I'd honeymoon in, but never visit otherwise.

Is anyone else postponing their honeymoon for a better time/weather/financial situation/anything?

Invitation Melt.. er.. Breakdown.

The last bit of our invitations arrived today!

Our box tags with our guests' names written on them by Bluebird Studios. Rebecca is wonderful and really responsive, not to mention fast! I absolutely love the tags, and she was so sweet when I asked her to write some names more clearly for my non-native english speaking family. They're perfect! And so nice, she put a few with our names on it!


We tied the labels onto the boxes with our twine, separated the ones that were going out of town and stuffed them into boxes with some shredded excelsior for packing material. Turns out Mr. GB is allergic to it... heehee. I made him stuff them, not for that reason, but I still find it amusing with him sniffing and sneezing. I made these address labels the night before with photoshop and some copy and pasting into word, then we put the ones that are going out of town and slapped them onto the brown paper packaging. Note the cute tape on the sides, I couldn't just let them go normally, that would be too easy and much less hassle. We all know that I love a reason to complain!




And now they're all packaged up. The 26 that we're sending out and the rest stacked, ready to be hand delivered. In fact, we're driving to Sacramento with some birch poles, a lot of pillows and fabric, and a stack of these invitations tonight. I'm more than relieved to say we're done with these!



Oh, and we did end up going the vintage stamp route on the rsvps envelopes. Which made me wonder.. how does the usps know that your stamps are real? can they identify ALL stamps from all years? I hope my rsvps come back to me... :(



For someone who can't stand being crafty and diy, I do a whole lot of things I really don't like doing under the pressing desire to have things be very personalized...

ps. thank you to the sweet woman who helped us at the lake park post office. She was so nice when we walked in with our two bags of packages, they had an assembly line for putting postage and stickers and made sure they went out with today's truck!

Taiwanese Child Labor!

Ok ok, she's not a child, but she is doing my hard work for me. After coming over and showing me how to sew, she promptly realized that if I were do this alone, I'd end up with myself sewn into a pillow and suffocated. So instead, my super awesome, helpful, crafty and pitying friend made 20 of the 105 pillows we needed, and took 5 home to do later.

Look how excited she is! We removed the handcuffs for a little while because they were slowing down productivity.... but I figure a ball and chain will work nicely for next time we have a craft day. I told her we might even feed her next time!



I'm helping! I'm pinning and cutting, see that mess in the kitchen? that's called helping. Me playing with my Nintendo DS for about an hour was also very helpful...


ohh... back flap so the pillows are removable. What clever design!

and we're finished!



I love my friends who are all far better at implementing my ideas than I am. I'm going to go drop some fabric off in Sacramento to finish up the rest of my pillows with my even-more-helpful grandmother. If I had programs, I'd write a nice long thank you to everyone who helped.... but instead, I'm hoping the small intimate nature of the wedding will make it easy for me to publicly thank everyone who helped.

So, what are you going to do with all these pillows after?
Re-furnish our orgy room, remember? gotta keep things fresh!

Morton's Foot!?

Curse that morton and his damned feet... I mean 10% of people have it, but I have always cursed that toe. I wanted to wear these, so bad, so bad I might cut my toe off... cinderella's step sisters did it, and I'm about as evil as they are, so it's only fitting, right?


so cute on the photo online

more grotesque cinderella knobby sister on me

Note my daikon ashi... and that toe! Why is my toe so long?
[mr. gb: the picture doesn't look NEARLY as weird as it does in person!]


Instead, I'm going to hide that toe that makes me so self conscious. I have other reasons, like that Mr GB isn't that much taller than I am and the grass thing. Yea... the grass. So i bought these and I'm stickin' to it:


I bought the first pair online, and now, well, I regret it. Mostly because it reminded me that my feet are the kind that those with foot fetishes would run away from, but also because the return policy is not so great. My impulse purchases will guide me to hell, or at least a sad disapproving head shake from Mr. GB. Am I insane for not wanting to keep a pair of shoes just because of my freakishly long finger-like toe?

My friend said I have problems.

He knows I'm crazy, but he really didn't expect me to use the full extent of that lack of reasonable thought towards the wedding... but when I asked him his opinion on box tops, he finally knew that I had lost it.

When Mr. GB and I had first discussed invitations, we didn't think too much about what was going to go on around it, or on it really. Once we booked Good On Paper to do our letterpressing designs, I thought "oh, this will be simple". Then I remember that I'm entirely unsatisfied with anything that is easy and live to make my life as difficult as possible. This is partially in an effort to coerce pity-back rubs out of Mr. GB, but also some kind of involuntary desire to make my brain twitch with agony.

This is how I came to want box invitations. I saw these two inspirations images online, and I had to have it.


from brides.com


by Jordan Ferney

And so Mr. GB and I went in search of candy and medication for me. We settled on some round watermelon sours that didn't look melty, some of these are going to Japan and Korea, so they're going to need to last. We cut acetate squares to put between the candy and the invitations themselves for the ones we're sending. Err... saving on postage by hand delivering to those who are local.

But I couldn't possibly be happy with plain box tops, could I? That little vein in my temple was beating and pulsing and I had to do yet another stupid DIY project despite the amount of cursing that would ensue.



We goccoed the box tops with two designs because I'm indecisive, tied them with that oh so adorable martha stewart craft baker's twine, and put on our tags. -close up-

I would have photos of all this happening, but a mosquito bit my ass, an unknown deviant bit my nose, I burned my forehead with a curling iron, and I have some weird allergic.. scratch thing on my eyebrow. I look like someone came and beat me with the ugly stick in the face, so I haven't left the house out of fear of a mob pitchforking me back to the tower a la Quasimodo. How I miss when humanity didn't think I was hideous.

Lisa must be a saint.

Because the only person I know who can put up with my zooming in and nitpicking everything until it's dead and bleeding is Mr. GB... and yet she was there, responsive and adjusting to every insane little detail that we wanted to change, or just see changed, and then change back, and then decide to weep over for a day, and then wake up and think "oh, actually, that's perfect, I just had my 50 year old Korean woman brain in and thought it was fat".

I took these photos when I was unpacking the box, so forgive the adorable ribbon that Paper Monkey Press used to tie them together. They gave us a ridiculous amount of extras, so we're happy we have some to keep for ourselves and to, you know, feed to the puppies! We meant to do that.




the uncut gift tags and our double-sided rsvps.


Good on Paper also did our STDs, so you can see just how talented she is. The Gummibears give a firm YAY! to Lisa Wong Jackson and feel very lucky that she squeezed us into her already busy schedule. Both her and Paper Monkey Press are local to Oakland/Berkeley, so you may have a chance to meet her and her Boston Terrier, the softest pup ever. And not gassy, like ours... why has the spay suddenly made you so poopy? barftastic.

Our cheap table finds a purpose!

Yesterday, we got a good 5-6 packages. I love packages, it's like Christmas, only Santa is usually wearing a brown shirt and shorts. Sometimes he comes wearing a blue suit, and is surlier these days thanks to our normal mail carrier being MIA. How I miss her...

Of the several 30lbs boxes, of which weak Mr. GB could barely carry, we received one from Paper Monkey Press! Our invites!! They even sent us free 'Thank You' cards!



As we all know I'm insane, I forced Mr. GB into yet another adventure in DIY madness. It turned out that in order to cut our tags the way we wanted, they would be delayed and we'd still have to punch the eyelets ourselves. I figured we'd save time and money and do the cutting and punching ourselves. We became a two man work line, with me cutting and marking, and him punching and inserting eyelets. We grabbed the old Ikea table from the garage as a workspace and got to work.


I'm very exact, so I measured frequently to make sure I was cutting and marking the eyelet holes properly. They look white, but they're just flipped over. I refused to fall behind, so I worked until my right arm muscles were twitching with pain. That and we wanted to make the 7:20 showing of a movie in downtown SF and needed to bust ass.


Our cheap garage Ikea table is permanently scarred with the marks of hammered eyelets. But look how cute they are!! (they're in the right hand corner)

All in all, it took us about 2 hours to finish 95 tags. Mr. GB was ready to keep going excitedly swinging his minuscule hammer around like a child.

I'll have more photos later, when we get them back from the calligrapher. That and my muscles need to stop twitching, the wedding is causing severe nerve damage.... and probably invisible mental scarring as well. It's all fine though, Mr. GB is already resigned to the fact that eventually I will cut and perm my hair, lose my ability to speak English and babble nonsensically. This is what he envisions happens to all Korean women at a certain age.

He's a sweetheart.

Agent Provocateur Sale!! drooling for you and yours.

I hadn't planned on buying any lingerie for the night of... or after... honestly, I plan on passing out and not waking up for several days. But Agent Provateur is having a sale, so for the sake of my own personal lust and the spending monster awakening in me, maybe Mr. GB will actually get treated. Or more likely he'll just catch me standing in the mirror, after which I'll promptly kick him out so I can continue to admire my lingerie in quiet solitude.

I'm absolutely in love with Agent Provocateur. They have a sweet pin-up vintage style where you can go for sweet, shy, but tempting coverage or just full on bondage style straps and pasties if you're into that. They have a few locations within the US, but if there isn't one near you... you can always browse their online store!

Items are 38%-65% off their sale selection. They also have a bridal line, which is still amazing, but not on sale. :(


And besides, where else can you get soft seamed baby pink fishnets and a sailor pin-up swimsuit? Heck, I might get a swimsuit so I can put my sailor hat to use!

Guilt Complex

All this misery about bad bakers and the demon of alterations left me with a sour taste in my mouth about those kinds of vendors who prey on brides. I was feeling angry and disgusted with the bridal industry and felt a stomping tantrum coming on when I got a call yesterday from Jin Wang. She called to give me an update on my Thomas Knoell pin and I took the chance of asking her about a bridal gown alteration place she could recommend. Even though I didn't buy a gown from her, and at that point had not even bought the pin, she expressed sympathy for my current dilemma and immediately gave me the name of the woman she recommends to all her brides that come through her salon. Jin has been nothing short of sweet and awesome, so I booked an appointment and renewed my faith in bridal salons.

Vendors affect me so much it's ridiculous. I always get a little nervous when thinking about our venue or like my anxiety is melting like ice cream when I speak with our coordinator. I really appreciate the people who are working to bring my wedding vision together, even if I AM paying them. Last time we were in Tokyo, I brought back tons of magazines for my vendors, hard to find books, and Pierre Herme macarons. I just cannot thank them enough for what they're doing for me - probably because I'm also really too shy to say anything and just poke Mr. GB in the back. Seriously, I have a notepad where I write everything I want to discuss and make him study it in the car before we get out because I never have the courage to speak. Insane? Yes. But I'm slightly less insane than Mr. GB is patient!


Just to tell some of my vendors how lucky I feel to have them share my wedding with me, I bought them presents from Japan.


Am I crazy for doing this? Does anyone else feel like they owe their souls to the good people who are helping them put this all together or am I the only one who feels guilty for asking people to do something for me... even if it's their job?



Oh, and the ML gown has been removed from the clutches of horror woman. No matter what I decide to do, I didn't want to have it altered there, so no point in leaving it at the salon of evil!

The dress... again!? Last one, I swear!

I swear I won't have another one of these. I had my side by side comparison of the two gowns I've been going back and forth on.

First, the Monique Lhuillier Scarlet. I'll say that the alterations manager was just as horrible and awful in person as on the phone and yelled at me several times, demanding I tell her if "I have a problem" with what they were doing... not asking, just snapping at me. She basically told me I was stupid for asking questions if I did, and I spent the next several hours SEETHING. I watched her immediately offend another girl when I was leaving, looking her up and down and with the look of disgust on her face "god... you look tan, what have you been doing? AND you're wearing ORANGE." Mind you, this was another bride. Mr. GB left and immediately at the door said "god, what a rude bitch." He's far more patient and friendly than I am, and he was disgusted with her.

Ignore my otherwise sour expression and lack of makeup, I was angry most of the day because of my experience with her.

-front view-
-side-

It's more form fitting, there definitely needs to be some serious alterations, but otherwise I think I look fine.


Then we hopped on over to Saks 5th Avenue, where I had a really nice time. Our representative there is very sweet, lets me do what I want and walk around and doesn't push me. She's just helpful and attentive, but not overbearing in any way. I had a wonderful experience with the service there. Anyway, this is the Claire Pettibone Laurel. The clip is holding several inches in and the dress is hanging a bit low, and the back straps would go almost straight down rather than a V shape.


-sour looking front photo-
-back straight-


I'll decide tomorrow or Friday, I promise. Really!

And another tidbit for you SF locals, I did stop by Jin Wang today to look at some Thomas Knoell Accessories. I met Jin herself up front and she was the sweetest. If I didn't already have so many dress problems, I would have made an appointment! She seems really helpful and if the service I got for looking at her accessories is any indication of how it would go for a full bridal appointment...

Besides, look how pretty and light the salon is!


Back to agonizing over my gown decision... wish me luck!