Monica & Tuan

So in Chinese tradition, the bride is not allowed to return home to her parents house until 3 days after the wedding, at which time a celebratory dinner is held in the newlyweds honour. Not sure what the significance of this is, but that's what we'll be doing.

The Gorgeous Lobby with Glass-Blown Chandeliers.

No yucky granny-style flower prints on the bedspread!

Thanks so much :)

38 Days left!

Labels: hilton, hotel

With 40 days to go until the wedding I checked our website today and we have finally surpasses 200 hits on it! And we get so many great compliments on it too. We're glad everyone likes it as we really loved the design as well. And it was so much fun filling in our stories. Too bad no one actually votes in our polls.

Labels: Website

The last two weeks have been quite exciting in terms of attire for our bridal party.

First off, after months and months of searching the malls (in Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal) and the internet, we found pink + red ties and socks for our groomsmen! And I'm so happy with them! I think they'll be so much fun and look fabulous in the photos. I have a feeling though our groomsmen might not feel the same way about them as I do. But free (for them!) is free and I really wanted to incorporate our colours into the bridal party's outfits.

Without further ado, here they are!

Aren't they so cute? And I just received the bridesmaid dresses we ordered from Netbride last Friday and they look fabulous as well. I'm really impressed. They came in 2 weeks earlier than expected and best of all they were at least $50-$80 cheaper (even including shipping and taxes) than if we had bought them at a bridal store! And while the dresses, ties, and socks are slightly different shades of red, they look good together:

And they look good with each other too! (Excuse the picture quality. I know better than to take photos with a bright window in the background but there was no place else to hang them!)

Labels: bridesmaid dresses, socks, ties

So Tuan and I went to the City of Ottawa Client Service Centre in Orleans this morning to get our marriage license. It was relatively quick and painless, but quite expensive for a piece of legal size paper! Neverless we are now officially able to be married! A marriage license in Ottawa is valid for 3 months after its date of issue. And we need it when we meet with our officiant next month. They asked us some interesting questions such as whether or not we were related (apparently if we are related we could still get married but legally not be allowed to have children!) and if there was any reason why we would not want to be married (i.e. if it's an arranged marriage against our will). I can see why these questions are asked, but it was strange to hear them nonetheless.

Labels: Marriage Certificate

I must confess I've been avoiding blogging about the little details of the wedding because I don't want to spoil everything for the 2-3 guests that happen to read by blog regularly, lol! But Tuan and I completed our latest wedding project this past weekend and it was so much fun and we're so thrilled with them that I can't help put blog a little but about it. For our reception, in order to save money and because most of our guests are not big wine drinkers, we decided to try and make our own wine. It's actually a lot easier than it sounds. You just go to the store, select the wine you want, the store actually makes the wine, you come back in 2 months, you bottle it and then take it home to age for another couple of months. Another added bonus is you get to label it yourselves. Tuan and I designed our own personalized wine labels and we loved how they turned out! We only hope the wine tastes good, though we sampled some when we first selected our types of wines and they were very yummy (this coming from a non-wine drinker though). So here's a sneak peek of our white wine. It's in black and white with some details faded so I don't think it'll spoil too much!

Labels: wine

What an exciting weekend! So much progress to blog about, but not enough time to actually do it. But I will take a moment to write about receiving our very first wedding gift this weekend because that was very exciting and totally unexpected. We just sent our invites last week and our wedding is still a little over 2 months away. But I got a call to pick up a gift on Saturday morning. And when I went to pick it up this is what we got:

A lovely written card ...

and a shiny new bread maker!

I had actually forgotten I had put this on the registry. I'm dying to open it and try it out ... but I'll wait until I actually have my own kitchen to do so in. But it looks like a lot of fun :)

Only thing is, it made me realize I have forgotten one thing in the whole planning process so far ... I didn't plan on having to write thank you cards until after the wedding! Yikes, better get on that right away!

Labels: gift registry

Tuan and I are going to be spending 8 relaxing, sun-filled days in Bora Bora. Our first 5 nights will be spent at The Intercontinental Bora Bora Le Moana, and our last 2 nights at The Intercontinental Bora Bora Resort and Thalasso Spa. We will be staying in an OWBs similar to this one:

Labels: Bora Bora, honeymoon, Intercontinental