Engagement pictures!

We finally got them, six days later! I am sooooo excited about these photos, and a huge thanks to Keani Andrade Kauai Photography for her excellent work, instructions, and turn-around time!

My hands look like they're about to do something important.

I am holding myself away from this dirty tree!

Jeeze that dress is short!

Mmmmmmmm your ear smells good.

Could that dress get any shorter!?

I might be blinking. Almost.

Your ear feels funny.

Can you find the waterfall?

Tell me how beautiful I am again...

Believe it or not, this is a crossing for trucks, and we were holding up lots of traffic.

Watch your hands, Mister.

I might be about to fall over in this one.

Check out those muscles.

He's so cute when he cheeses!

This is probably my favorite shot of all.

Videography.

GREAT NEWS! My fiance's cousin's classmate (connections through several degrees are so common here in Hawaii) contacted me via Facebook to ask if he could film our wedding for a steal. We had completely crossed videography off of the list because a filming a five hour wedding typically starts at the $2,500 range and skyrockets from there for the really good companies. In addition, I don't think I would ever pull out our wedding DVD and spend an hour watching it. Ever. (That's something my mom would do, though... she still watches the eight minute DVD of my brother skydiving like once every few months.)

Then I discovered Highlight Videos. A Highlight Video is like a short, music-video version of your wedding. It has all the best parts, set to music, and edited just like a short film. They are awesome. I can't tell you how many hours I've wasted spent crying watching these little videos. They're all so romantic and they're the perfect length to make watching one often more realistic. I wanted one, but usually these were $500 added to a standard videography package. Check out some amazing highlight videos here: http://ariastudios.com/index.php?option=com_zoo&task=tag&tag=aria%20studios&app_id=1&Itemid=47

So that's what I told him. I said, there's absolutely no way we can afford videography, but I really appreciate your offer. Then he asked what our budget was. I had no budget for videography, but I told him what I wanted and what I was willing to spend. I wanted someone to film our five hour wedding, I wanted a highlight video, and I didn't want to spend more than $500. Boom. He said it was a deal.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!

Of course, this does not include an edited DVD of the entire day, which is fine because I don't want to watch a DVD of the entire day. I just want a highlight video. AND my mom said she would pay for half.

Score!

Now I just need to find a semi-romantic, upbeat song that is over four minutes long.

Engagement Shots

Never in a million years did I think that we would take engagement photos. I'm not even sure what the purpose for these are, but after reading Weddingbee, it seems as if most people use the photos for their save the dates, invitations, or to display around their wedding. Most engagement photos I've seen online look incredibly romantic and physically close... but those words would probably not be used to describe our relationship.

We love each other very much, but we're not really physically romantic. My fiance is not the type of guy who wants to hug all the time or would put his arm over my shoulder (partly because we're almost the same height, so it's uncomfortable for him). We rarely ever display PDA. As a teacher in a small community, I've completely shunned PDA because these kids and their families are everywhere! And the last thing I need is for some kid to show up to school and talk about how they saw me kissing! Ew! How awkward. Needless to say, we keep our affection very private.

 Thinking of engagement photos just seemed awkward because for him it would be an enforced display of affection in front of someone else, and for me because I'm out of practice. We never thought we would do this. We also thought it was an unnecessary expense.

Then we went to the Break-Up Barbecue.

My fiance was working at a fire station on the north shore, but the five firefighters there were being split up and sent to different stations, thus the Break-Up Barbecue. We met at one guy's house and at and talked and whiled the night away with them and their significant others. In the process we found out that one of the wives was a photographer. We really hit it off and a few days later she offered to take engagement photos of us... for free!

Well, living in Hawaii means living in a multi-ethnic society, most of whom are Asian, and it is very shameful to accept anything for free without giving something in return. So yesterday we allowed her to take our photos and paid her half the amount of what she normally charges.

It was surprisingly fun. I thought Chad wasn't going to go for it at all, but he was asking me about different shirt and pant combinations, what shoes he should wear, should he cut his hair today? It was refreshing. I'm not going to lie, being posed in a various romantic positions was a little uncomfortable at first, but we loosened up after the first half hour and began to enjoy it a little more. Some of the poses felt awkward and probably looked crazy to a random passerby, but I'm sure they'll look great in the photo. I'm so glad we did this, because I think it will make things smoother when we do our wedding photos. I can't wait to see what the pictures look like!

On Not Registering

I can't speak for all couples, but most people in Hawaii don't register for gifts when they get married. The number one gift people give and receive here is cash (dollar dollar bills ya'll)! People here give cash for every occasion. First birthdays, graduations, weddings, and funerals are the largest social events here, and at every event there is a card box. Depending on how generous your family and friends are, you may end up paying off the party and then some! Gatherings here tend to be huge--I mean, invite everyone AND their moms huge. Hundreds of people huge. Everyone you've ever met huge. Not always, of course, there are always smaller and more private events. However, for those four events, people usually go big. A lot of it is because families here are huge! They are intermixed and mingled. It is not uncommon for relatives to all live in the same neighborhood, and sometimes the same street or house! Either way, the most common gift for most events is cash. I haven't even been asked by anyone if we're registering because not registering is the norm here, and I love it!

I personally don't need bakeware or a stand mixer or a vase or anything really. The only thing I really need is money. I need to recoup my wedding expenses. I need to pay off monies towards our home construction. I'd like to go on vacation. While I realize there are registries that are specific towards those things, not registering is so much easier. I hate the idea of telling people what the appropriate amount of money is to give as a gift. I would rather just be surprised.

It's me (and you)

Sometimes being in a relationship with someone who is completely opposite of you can become very frustrating. For example, I am a person who likes to have everything organized and planned out. I like to research information about issues months, and sometimes even years before I need the actual information (I have been listening to Pregtastic Pregnancy Podcasts for over three years but haven't actually thought about getting pregnant until this year; you never know when you need to know about the bloody show, or having a water birth). My partner, however, is more of a go-with-the-flow type of guy. He hates planning. He would prefer to show up and see what happens. In my opinion, I don't know how anything gets done in his life. Oh wait, yes I do... because of me. I'm the one who seems to push him towards making big decisions. I'm not saying he wouldn't eventually make big decisions on his own, but it has become obvious to me over the last six years together that a lot of the time he needs some outside motivation.

Anyways, if you haven't guessed already, I'm basically the one planning out the wedding. Just me. All by myself. Technically the coordinator is doing a large chunk of work by gathering all of the vendors that we need, but I'm making many of the smaller decisions like invitation design and wording, music choices, decor, cake flavors, types of alcohol, etc. Things that I'd like his input on, but he could care less about. He would rather forget having a wedding and go on a month-long vacation/elopement instead (which, 14 months after engagement, sounds like a pretty good idea). It actually sucks having to make all of the decisions by myself. I don't mind doing the work, I don't find decision making very difficult. I'm not one of those girls who has to have everything exactly the same shade of mauve or have a tiny tiny tiny bird emblazoned upon every piece of decor at the event.

However, his lack of interest is kind of getting me down.

Because he is so unwilling to make a decision about anything, it kind of brainwashes me into thinking that perhaps he really just isn't that interested in getting married (which is true and false). I mean, I know he could do without the wedding, but I can't. I need to have a wedding. I'm pretty much the only grandchild in my family who is doing things the "right" way, and I love the idea of having a beautiful celebration. When he tells me that he could care less if we Kona Brewing or Heineken, all I hear is, "This is your trip, not mine." And that hurts my feelings. I feel that if he isn't as involved in the decision making process, he isn't creating ownership in the event. I just want him to feel as excited as I do about our upcoming nuptials.

Then, three weeks ago, he finally did it. He asked for something wedding related. In the islands, there is a beverage called kava that tastes like mud, but has some small effects on the body such as a numb mouth and some light headedness. For some odd reason, he has taken a liking to this particular beverage, and would like to have it served alongside our beer and wine options. Amazing. One request. One spark of hope in the darkness. Maybe he does want to get married after all!

Reception Dress

My dress is so heavy (the only downside to wearing kimono) that I think for sure I'll want to change into something a little more slinky during the dance portion of the reception. I've been looking for dresses here and there and these are the candidates:


Charlotte Russe, but without the peplum


Urban Outfitters, but in White


Bebe Isis, but is currently out of stock EVERYWHERE!

I love to dance so having a dress that moves well would be extremely helpful. Decisions, decisions!

Buying Second Hand

I've always known that if we ever got married, it would have to be on the cheap. I couldn't afford to have a champagne taste on a Budweiser budget. I also knew that if I ever got married, I would be wearing an Anne Namba gown.

I love the fact that the gowns are created from vintage kimono, so the dress has history. I also love that it acts as a nod to my formative years growing up overseas.

Unfortunately a gown like that can cost upwards to $3,000.

Enter Craigslist!

Some people might think that wearing a secondhand gown is a definite no-go for the most important day of my life, but I don't think that my wedding day is the most important day of my life. I think that it is one special day of a multitude of many important days. Also, I have other things to blow my savings on, like a foundation for our new house, or that amazing three-piece sectional I saw at Costco.

Needless to say, my gown is important to me, but not $3,000 important. Luckily I found a Namba on Craigslist. This is next to impossible! I found one on Oahu for $500. I flew up and checked out the gown. 

I'm not going to lie, it was a piece of work. It was too wide, a little too short, had a neckline I wasn't in love with, and was kept in a damp place so had mold growing on it. But a dream is a dream so I tried to make it work. 

The first step was to take it to get alterations, to bring it in a LOT. Also, I had the neckline altered from straight across to a sweetheart. Next, I took it to the cleaners, who spot cleaned every single minuscule spot of mildew on the dress. The dress came back 100000% better, but there is some damage that no amount of cleaning can ever erase. Fortunately, that damage is not very visible to anyone but me. Now, I'm dealing with the length of the gown. I have a seamstress making an undergown to attach to the dress to make sure it goes down to the floor in the front.

Here is a picture of the back as it currently looks (I made the bow myself, obi-ish style!):

It's definitely a work in progress. I want someone to make the back part at the top to come down in a small V to loosen up the top so I have a little less skin folding over the dress. Am I in love with it? Mostly... Some days I wish I had just bought a brand new dress because I've sunk almost $1,400 into this gown total after cleanings and alterations, but at the same time I know it's a one of a kind that you can't just buy from a bridal boutique and I got it for about half off what it would normally cost.

We'll see.

Hybrid Wedding Traditions

I've mentioned before that I am of mixed ethnicity. I am Filipino and White. My fiance is Japanese. I grew up in Japan on military bases and moved to Hawaii during my senior year of high school. I now teach seniors in high school. My fiance was born and raised on Kauai. When talking about what kinds of things we'd like to include in our ceremony and reception, a blend of customs come up.

We are having a non-denominational ceremony. We aren't writing our own vows or having any special readings. My fiance hates to be the center of attention, so the plan is to get up and get down as fast as possible. We are incorporating mostly Western wedding traditions, including a sit-down meal, a first dance, the garter/bouquet toss, dancing with a DJ.

We are also incorporating some Japanese (or Hawaiian-Japanese) elements into the wedding as well. For example, my dress is made by designer Anne Namba. She creates wedding gowns out of vintage wedding kimono.

In addition, I've folded and had arranged 1,001 gold cranes to give our marriage good fortune.

For my Filipino side, we're incorporating the dollar dance. Basically, the bride and groom have to dance, and all of the wedding guests place money all over them using safety pins or just tucking it in. In some cases the bride or the groom have to remove the money from each other's bodies with their mouths, and then deposit the money into collecting baskets.

My fiance will be wearing a maile lei during the event. It is tradition in Hawaii that lei is given for all important life events, especially birthdays, graduations, weddings, and funerals. Our parents will likely wear leis throughout the day, as well. Typically at local weddings, people don't usually give gifts; it is expected that everyone will give money in a card. 

The types of food served are slightly cultural as well. A lot of people serve ahi (tuna) or sushi because ahi symbolizes good fortune (and apparently is delicious!). There will probably be a Bonzai! toast as well. My FFIL is really good at this toast, and gives it at other events as well, even though it's meant for weddings. Banzai means 10,000 years. Here is what the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii says about it:

The word banzai literally means “10,000 years” and is associated with long life. Banzai cheers are given at joyous occasions, banquets and gatherings, to express congratulations, encouragement, or celebration. Traditionally, the participants shout the word “banzai” three times in unison, raising their hands in the air each time.

It is customary to deliver two separate banzai cheers at weddings. The first, “Shinro shimpu, banzai!” means “long life and happiness to the bride and groom.” The second banzai is: “Raihin shoku, banzai!” or, more politely, “Raihin no minasama, banzai!” This banzai cheer means “Long life and happiness to all the guests!” In Hawaii, these wedding banzai cheers are often given as a special toast, with participants raising their glasses with each shout of “banzai!”

I'm sure there are other things that are going to crop up as well that I don't realize is outside of the norm, but if I think of anything I'll keep you posted.

Pre-Wedding Honeymoon

Is a honeymoon really a honeymoon if it doesn't take place after the wedding?

Due to budget restrictions and a giant spring break opportunity, we are having a pre-wedding honeymoon.

What does this mean for us? It means that instead of going on a sick vacation after the wedding, we'll be doing it three months beforehand. This makes me wonder if it is taking away from all of the wedding festivities, but after looking at other wedding blog posts, I don't think so. Some people don't even take their honeymoon for months after the wedding, so oh well. I'm also wondering if we're jinxing ourselves for the wedding, but we've been together for almost six years already (he's making an honest woman out of me!), I can't imagine one vacation breaking us apart.

Why did we make this decision? Because New Zealand's seasons are opposite of ours, if we went after the wedding it would be the dead of winter there (did I mention it snows there?). Also, we are building our first home this year so we will be pretty strapped for cash. In addition, a big gap in my school year opened up: a little over two weeks.

What are we going to do? AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE! Because we're in Hawaii, the time difference is very minimal, it's about one hour behind tomorrow so I don't forsee us being jetlagged at all. We are landing in Auckland, grabbing a campervan, and touring both the North and South Islands. We will be spending five days up north and about nine days down south. I know you're super interested in our itinerary, so I will give you the quick run down:

Day 1: Land in Auckland, pick up campervan, go to Waitomo Glow Worm Caves

Day 2: Check out Rotorua (geothermal area plus Zorbing)

Day 3: Hike the Tongariro Crossing, weather permitting

Day 4: Bike ride to a bunch of vineyards in Hawke's Bay

Day 5: Cruise in Wellington, check out the Te Papa museum

Day 6: Take the inter-island ferry from Wellington to Picton and begin heading south to Christchurch so we can catch a rugby match that begins at 7:35 PM

Day 7: Head across Arthur's Pass towards the glaciers

Day 8: Spend the day checking out the glaciers, then drive to Queenstown

Day 9-10: Head over to Te Anau and the Milford Sound areas

Day 11: Head back to Queenstown

Day 12: Check out Lake Tekapo and Mount Cook

Day 13: Head back to Christchurch to return the campervan and fly back to Auckland
Day 14: Fly out of Auckland back home!

My mission when I travel is to come home exhausted. Do I think we'll see everything there is to see? No, absolutely not. There's no way you can experience an entire country in two weeks. However, we'll be able to have one last big trip before we finally become grown ups.

Race Relations

Growing up overseas on military bases and living in Hawaii have really affected the way I see interracial couples. In the military lifestyle. I saw a ton of interracial couples (usually, but not always, a white father with an Asian mother [I know Asia is not an ethnicity, but neither is white, so hah!]). Most of my friends, including myself, were half-and-half. I thought we were a very progressive community. Then we moved to Hawaii.

In Hawaii, many people are more than two ethnicities. In fact, some people are five or more ethnicities combined. It comes from the plantation history of the islands, in which people from many other countries (mostly Asian) were brought to the islands to work in the sugar fields. The town I currently live in is famous for having the first sugar plantation on the island. I was blown away when I found out that you could be more than two ethnicities. Who had ever heard of such a thing? How many generations back would ethnic groups have to begin mixing to have children who were six different ethnicities? Crazy! And there is another phenomenon that happens here, too, which is the opposite end of the spectrum: People who keep the "bloodline strong." Essentially people who are ethnically pure. My fiance is ethnically pure. He is a fourth-generation plantation Japanese.

I, myself, am not. I have half white (maybe French/German, but I have no idea), and half Filipino (mostly Spanish due to the Spanish occupation, but possibly some indigenous as well). I have come to dilute the bloodline! Our children will be of three ethnicities! Of course in this day and age, especially in Hawaii, people don't really care about that kind of stuff... or do they? There are bumper stickers throughout the islands claiming "Bloodline," and people have made comments to us about the dilution of his bloodline. It's almost like we're dog breeds. The thought of diluting Chad's bloodline makes me a little sad, because one day, in the far future, a completely pure bloodline will be very hard to find. However, the thought of our future, super-cute kids makes me feel happier.

Using a coordinator

As stated in a previous post. I am a super planner. I am a high school English teacher, and planning and organization are essential to my sanity in the classroom. I have 160 seniors and juniors who literally pop in and out of class every day during recess and lunch in order to bombard me with requests to make up work, get missing work, tell me about their lives, etc. etc. If I am not able to keep up with their very distinct personalities and needs, my career would be in serious jeopardy.

I love planning things. Three weeks ago, I found out that the week after spring break we only had a two day work week due to two furlough days (thanks a lot, state budget cuts) and Good Friday, so essentially this March I will have kind of a two week spring break! I decided as soon as I found out that we would go to New Zealand as a pre-wedding honeymoon (we will have absolutely no money later this year due to the wedding and building our first home, and this is a great time of year to visit NZ). I had our entire fifteen day itinerary with flights and transportation planned in two days. TWO DAYS! BECAUSE I AM CRAZY! And also because I like to plan things out.

What does this have to do with using a coordinator? Well, we live on a separate island from our wedding venue. We live on Kauai, and our venue is on Oahu. I lived on Oahu for several years before following Chad moving to Kauai so I feel as if I'm pretty familiar with the island and what it has to offer. However, when planning a wedding there are a lot of things you have to do, contracts you have to sign, meetings and what not to go to, and with airfare being almost $100 each way, doing everything myself just wasn't happening.

Enter coordinator.

Luckily, the venue we chose, Kathy Ireland's Beachfront Oasis World Estate (the venue and company have undergone some recent name changes, so I threw in all the names just in case) has its own coordinator who happens to have been born and raised on Kauai! He was willing to put together a package for us based on our budget and his connections working in the wedding industry. The house is actually licensed to have weddings, which is awesome because the neighbors can't call the cops if the house gets too loud (I think). It's a relief to know that someone else is putting all of the vendors together, and all I we have to do is approve or disapprove. It's also nice to know that all of the vendors are going to fall within our specified budget and I don't have to price a million things. All we have to take care of is cake, alcohol, and photography. My only gripe is I like to have all of my questions answered RIGHT WHEN I ASK THEM, and apparently our coordinator is not awake at 6:30 A.M. like I am, ready and willing to talk all about our event!



Does it bother me that I know I could have done all of this myself and maybe saved some money? Yes
Do I need to let go sometimes? Also, yes (but I'm only letting go because we're planning on getting pregnant, and apparently you can't plan anything with kids involved so I'm ACTUALLY practicing letting go of things [again, crazy]).

I made favors!

Favors are something I have been struggling with since we got engaged. We're on a super tight budget because we have other financial priorities besides getting married (gasp!) and I wanted to budget about a dollar a person. Originally we were planning on inviting 100+ people so I knew whatever it was I purchased would have to be something really cool. I thought back to previous weddings I had been to (which are not too many, actually) and the one favor that really stood out, which wasn't even a favor, was a polaroid picture of myself and Mr. K for a polaroid guestbook the couple had. Our picture had some random friends being crazy in the background so we were allowed to take a second photo for the guestbook and keep the first one. Immediately I went to Amazon and purchased a polaroid camera and 200 pieces of film.

Then our plans changed. Feeding 100+ people happens to be really expensive. We chopped our wedding down to 40 people, including us, and moved it to another island so we would have an excuse to keep it intimate. Now I had a little extra leeway in terms of providing an actual favor.

At this point I am going to let you know that I have an unhealthy obsession with trees. Seriously--I'm obsessed. I try my hand at artwork here and there and it seems every thing I create is tree related. See below:

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Anyways, you get the picture. Needless to say I wanted something eco- and budget-friendly to be our favors. I hate hate hate hate hate favors that are completely useless. After some time googling and looking through various wedding blogs, I found THIS at favorscreative.com. If you're too lazy to click, it is basically a little grow your own herb kit. It includes a little biodegradable pot, soil pellet, herb seeds, and instructions--all inside a little box wrapped with ribbon. This company is charging $3.50 per favor. $3.50 was still $2.50 over my budget so I did a little shopping around and created something very similar myself.

1) I purchased two packages of peat pots, 23 pots per package, which were 2 and a quarter inches tall from Amazon for about $2 per package.

2) At Home Depot I purchased about 50 peat pellets for $4. I also purchased herb seeds for about $1.50 per seed packet.

3) The favorscreative boxes are made out of recycled cardboard, which I didn't have. However, I did have a whole lot of cardstock I had picked up at Walmart in the reams of paper aisle. It looks just like a ream of paper, except with cardstock inside. Using my Martha Stewart Scoring Board and Fiskars Paper Trimmer, I made 3x3x2 little boxes. I was really careful with the way I cut the paper, however.

4) I tried to utilize each sheet of cardstock as much as possible. To make a 3x3x2 box, you need pieces of cardstock that are 7"x7" for both the lid and the box. When using 8.5x11 cardstock, this meant I would need to use 80 pieces of cardstock in order to make 40 boxes. I made sure for each of those 80 pieces of paper, I cut it in a particular way in order to make the most of the paper:

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THEN I still had to cut 7x7 pieces for the bottoms which was actually more simple:

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5) After cutting everything out, I scored the tops and bottoms using the scoring board and went ahead and assembled the bottoms of the boxes. I highly recommend the Martha Stewart Scoring Board for this. I am not artsy by ANY MEANS. I just pretend. I had no idea all of the things you can make with paper, but the scoring board is cool if you want to make cards, envelopes, or boxes yourself.

6) I separated out my seeds into 10-15 seeds per packet and made little origami packets out of the 4x4 piece of cardstock. Instructions can be seen here. Actually, that packet at the link is cuter than mine because it is a trapezoid and mine is just a square. I then stamped the name of the herb seeds on the packet with letter stamps.

7) I stamped a tree on all of the lids and then assembled the lids. 

8) I put everything in the boxes, including the instructions, pot, pellet, and seeds, then put the lids on. Note: I did have to cut the little pots down a bit because they were 2 and 1/4 inch when I only could fit 2" pots inside.

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9) Using yarn I made a bow using this tutorial from youtube.

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In the bottom right corner of the box, I'll be stamping our last name in kanji (Mr. K is a 4th generation plantation Japanese); unfortunately, my FFIL has misplaced the stamp.

Also, you may have noticed that on the bottom template it says I was using a piece for guestbook mad libs. I saw some really cute madlibs on Etsy and shamelessly plagarized them and printed them out myself (**don't tell!**)

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Sincerely,

Ms. Koloa