wedding thoughts: February 2013

Monday, February 25, 2013

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!

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

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.

Friday, February 15, 2013

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!

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

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:

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:

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

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.

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

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!**)

Sincerely,

Ms. Koloa

I made a flow chart!

I totally saw this flow chart save the date here and decided I had to have one of my own. Unfortunately, I am not skilled at creating but am extremely skilled at copying! I decided my flowcharts would be 8.5x5.5 so I could just slice a bunch of 8.5x11 cardstock in half in order to print them. Of course I changed the colors here and there to fit our color scheme and my fonts are not exactly the same because, again, I was copying it. It took me about two hours to figure it out and arrange. If you're interested in making a flow chart here is what you would do (in Pages):

1) Decide your flow chart size and use Page Setup so that your "canvas" is already prepped to size.

2) Using Shapes you can decide what type of shapes you want to grace your flow chart. I just stuck with rectangles and circles because I liked the look of the original.

3) Double click your shape to type inside. Using the Inspector, click on the Wrap tab and make sure that you have selected "Floating (doesn't move with text)" and unselected "Object causes wrap" for each shape. Using the Text tab, you can select spacing and alignment of your text.

4) Click Insert > Shape > Line or Line with Arrowhead in order to begin drawing the flow of the flow chart. I used the Metrics tab on the Inspector to make sure everything was at a 0 or 90 degree angle and sometimes to make sure my lines matched up at the corners. If you wanted a dashed line, you need to click on the Graphic tab on the Inspector and selected the dashed line. You can also select lines like crayon or marker. You can even change the color of the lines. Using the Graphic tab lets you change the color or fill of your shapes as well.

5) Arrange everything to your liking!

Anyways, here is the original:

and here is my copy (and I am warning you, it is a blatant copy):

Enjoy!

Sincerely,

Ms. Koloa

How he proposed

My version of what happened:

I knew it was going to happen. I am like a detective, and I collect clues until everything adds up. I hate surprises, so I do my best to ruin them.

Background Information:

On August 1, 2007, Chad asked me to be his girlfriend on a psuedo-hike. He took me to the St. Louis Heights' Air Chair, overlooking Manoa Valley.

Last year (2011), early summer time, my mom started a wedding account in my name to begin saving money for a wedding in the event that I ever got married. By October, there was about $2,000 in there (the maximum was going to be $5,000). In October, my family flew to California to celebrate my brother's Marine Corps Boot Camp graduation. Some kind of strange, explosive chemistry happens when my parents and I get together, and I ended up arguing with my mom about something, and she asked for her $2,000 dollars back.

Clue 1: For my birthday this year, Chad didn't have a gift for me. He said it was coming in the mail. I wasn't upset, seeing as how I received my Christmas gift about three weeks late.

Clue 2: My mom called on my birthday to see if I wanted to open back up that wedding account. I told her no. I later told Chad about the conversation and he did not sound completely adverse to the idea. Then he started saying pre-nuptual a lot, because he likes Kanye West's lyric "We want pre-nup!"

Clue 3: The night before he asked, I was having dinner for a friend's birthday. Chad gave me his obligatory, work-night 8:30 P.M. phone call and informed me that I had better not get too drunk because we are definitely going hiking tomorrow. The reason this phone call was a red flag is because Chad never makes plans a day in advance. He is that much of a commitment-phobe. He is always concerned about the weather, how tired he'll be, craigslisting, the wind speed and direction, surfing--in short, he has a million excuses as to why he can't do something the next day, so I knew something was up.

Clue 4: When he came home in the morning, I decided to test my theory. I knew he would never, ever, propose to me in front of anyone--he is just that shy with his emotions--so I began to ask him if we could invite pretty much every single couple I knew to go hiking with us. He had an excuse for everyone (I don't know what to talk about with him, I don't think she likes hiking, I don't want him to feel like a third-wheel) and at one point, just repeatedDon't invite anyone! over and over and over again.

So we went hiking, just us and the baby. We had been wanting to do Honopu Ridge Trail after a friend suggested it, and because it was "visually stunning" according to the internet. After about two hours, we reached the cliff-side view of the Na Pali Coast. He was waiting there for me, petting Koko's neck. As I approached, he stood straight up and said, "I have your birthday present."

I said, "Then give it to me."

"First of all, it's not real. Second of all, you have to promise me you won't go crazy. Third of all, don't over do it."

Of course by now, I had seen what was in his hand and would have promised to turn myself inside out if it meant I would get that ring, so you could say I wasn't really listening. I did hear the it's not real part, though. He had Koko carry the ring to propose with down the ridge but he wanted me to later go pick a ring that I'd like better. Then he got down on both knees and asked if I would marry him, and I asked him if he was sure he wanted to do this, and he said yes, so I said yes. Then we hugged and kissed and I thought I would cry but I didn't, so I laid down on the ground and looked at the sky because that seemed like the second most romantic thing I could have done at that moment.

Then we ate apples and crackers and hiked back to the top. I began talking non-stop about the wedding, and doing all those things he made me promise not to do like go crazy and over-doing it etc, and he began to immediately regret his decision.

Chad's Version (I am sure this is what he is thinking):

She wore me down.

Super Planner Woes

I am a super planner. I may also have an undiagnosed anxiety disorder.

Before we were engaged, we had been dating for four and a half years, with me needling Mr. K to pop the question every few months or so, usually with him saying to wait for the right time and me ending the conversation in tears claiming that he obviously didn't think I was the one or he would just propose already! Hahahaha, so melodramatic.

In fact, it got to the point where I began tricking myself into thinking that he was going to propose on several occasions.

1) We had gone on a cruise to Mexico for our Annual Anniversary Adventure. One night we were watching some disco parade in the center of the ship and I felt something hit my head. Upon examination of the object, it appeared to be a stick of some sort. We looked up, but didn't see any obvious culprits. A couple days later, he purchased a massage for me, and after the massage, he brought me to the top of the inside of the ship. Hanging all along the ceiling were model planes. He then told me to look closely. I thought to myself, OMG THIS IS IT! He must have hidden the ring on a propeller or something!! I began examining all of the planes closely, thinking to myself that this did not meet any of my requirements for getting engaged. I had previously told him that I wanted to be wearing something amazing OR I wanted there to be an amazing backdrop behind us AND I wanted someone to snap a picture of my face right when it happened. He gave me an odd look and said, "Why are you looking up there? It's right here." I quickly looked toward where he was pointing and it was a bush. He brought me all the way to the top to look at a stupid bush. The same bush from which the stick came that hit me in the head at the parade. I burst into tears.

2) We had gone to Japan for our Annual Anniversary Adventure. There were many moments upon which he could have proposed but it didn't happen. I cried at the airport on the way back to Hawaii. After this, I started thinking that it would never happen and we would have to become domestic partners instead. On good days, I thought it would happen every time we hiked at the beach with our dog.

3) My parents came to visit us on Kauai from Oahu because they had decided to move to the mainland. One night we had a big family dinner with his family and my family. We were getting ready to leave when his father told us all to come back and sit down for a bit. I thought, this is it! I excused myself to go the bathroom to make sure that there was nothing in my teeth and let myself give off an excited tear or two, then prepared myself and came back out. We stayed for about fifteen more minutes making small talk and then went home. I was beyond crying. It seems at this point that I am just a huge cry baby but in reality I am not that type of person. My friends find all of these stories hilarious because they can't imagine me feeling emotions of sadness.

Anywho, he finally proposed. I wrote a post about it here.

ANYWAYS back to the original point of this post. Because I had expected him to propose for so long already, I had done a ton of research in terms of what I wanted for the wedding.

So we finally got engaged in January. It is now June. Already, in the span of six months, due to my super planning, we've lost $750. This is because, even though we weren't getting married for a year and a half (June 2013), I had convinced him that we had to have our wedding at Waimea Plantation Cottages and we had to use Contemporary Flavors Catering as our food vendor. There were reasons I had picked these two vendors. We didn't want a beach wedding or a hotel wedding because they are not private at all and I hate the idea of having random people watching us during an intimate moment, which is IRONIC because I ALWAYS watch when people have their wedding at the beach and I am tanning right there. Mr. K is 4th generation plantation Japanese so he wanted some kind of plantationy feel to the venue and Waimea Plantation Cottages is an Aston resort that has been converted from actual plantation homes. It was perfect. In addition, it was on Kauai where the majority of our guests were from. We chose Contemporary Flavors Catering because almost everyone on Kauai uses them for everything and the food is super good. I went ahead and put down my non-refundable deposits for both by March.

In May I realized that by having our wedding on Kauai, we were pretty much forced to invite everyone and their moms. Literally. Our budget, which was $10k, spiraled up to $17k just to feed everyone. This is probably not a big deal for most couples, but for us it was a source or worry and anxiety because we're trying to build a house this year and I need to buy a better vehicle so we can start a family. Anyways I really thought about it and said to myself, why don't we have a smaller ceremony with the people we really want?

So I completely switched gears, changed islands, cut the guestlist by 60%, and had to request my deposits back, which, of course, I did not receive back in its entierty. Sometimes it sucks being a super planner. :(

I made cake toppers!

Mr. Koloa and I are not cake people, however, we both like cupcakes! I wanted something special for the cupcake that we will cut, but I wasn't sure what I wanted until I saw these on etsy, created by GooseGrease. I guess they're super famous because they've been in all sorts of wedding magazines. If you haven't figured it out by now, I am really... thrifty. I didn't want to spend $50 for this so I made my own.

They are nowhere near the quality of GGs but it's fine because it only cost me $1.15 (unless you count the cost of paint and brushes, which I already had, but which could push the cost to $10 maybe... still a bargain).

1) Purchase little wooden people from your local craft store. I believe GooseGrease also sells kits on the etsy site too which costs $18.

2) Use a pencil to draw roughly what you want your dolls to look like

3) Using paint and really tiny brushes (I used acrylic paints and a small round and small flat brush) carefully paint your doll. Anywhere there was skin, I left unpainted as the wood was an appropriate color for our skin.

4) Let areas dry before moving on to other areas of the doll, that way you can hold on to the dolls easily. I did the bodies first and the hair last.

My dolls are nowhere near perfect, but for $1.15, I am pretty pleased. Besides, I highly doubt anyone is going to be examining them with a magnifying glass... most people could care less about this kind of stuff. I just happen to care because I still have a year 'til our wedding and time to burn! You will probably notice that the man is wearing a maile lei... that's because we are from Hawai`i and it is traditional for the groom, and often times the bride, to wear lei at a wedding. Also, we are from Kauai and maile grows plentiful in the mountains so we are able to pick and make our own lei.

Voila!

Sincerely,

Ms. Koloa

I made invitations!

Hello!

Because of our small budget, I've been DIYing things left and right, including our invitations. I'll put pictures first and then describe the steps afterwards.

1) First I made 40 invitations. I had seen in this book some simple ways to make invitations, including printing words on one side and embossing the other side. I thought it looked fairly simple so I decided to replicate it.

I ordered a Sizzix Texure Boutique (but I recommend that if you are doing flat cards like I did, you get an embosser that can fit cards 5.5" across, like the Sizzix Big Shot or that other popular embosser. I also ordered the Cuttlebug A2 Bird Call embossing folder.

Then I ordered this DIY Invitation Kit which came with 100 cards and envelopes about 5.5x8.5" large. However, when they came in the mail, I realized that the cards AND the embossing folder didn't fit in the Texture Boutique, so I had to cut both down to size. At that point I purchased a Martha Stewart Scoring Board, which I used on multiple wedding projects including the pocketfolds for the invitations and the grow-your-own-herb favors (see post here), and a Fiskars Paper Cutter. The paper cutter was super valuable because you get crip lines every time and it has a pop-out ruler up to 12".

After cutting down the cards and the embossing folder (with a pair of scissors), I created the wording I wanted on Apple's Pages, printed the cards out, and rolled them all through the embosser.

As a final touch, I punched all four corners of the invitations with Martha Stewart's Laurel Leaf Punch Around the Page corner punch.

2) I created 40 madlib thank you cards which had the same embossing as the invitations and were punched in the corners as well (not shown in the picture though.. I must have taken the picture before I thought to punch the corners). The reason they are madlib thank yous is because I created madlib cards for guests to fill out for the guestbook (see the bottom of my favors post).

3) After making the 40 invitations and the 40 thank you cards, I needed to do something with the last 20 cards. I used the last 20 to make the maps (two per card). I wrote a post about that here.

4) I wanted to make something to hold all the cards (invite, map, extra info) together and I really liked the pocketfold look, so I looked up some tutorials and it seemed fairly simple. My invitations are about 5x8 and the extra cards are about 3.75" wide so I used 12x12 cardstock to make the pocketfolds.

This is really where having a scoring board and a paper cutter came in handy. I scored 40 12x12 pieces of cardstock, then used the paper cutter to trim off the excess (shown in red). Once everything is cut, you simply fold the two bottom flaps in and then fold it up to create the pocket. I used glue dots to glue the flaps to the main part of the envelope. I used a scrap piece of paper as a template to cut a little triangle out of the pocket to make it look a little fancier. (NOTE: Step 4 should say 90 degrees)

5) All that was left was to glue the invitations into the center fold and insert the map and extra information into the pocket. I used a tree stamp to fill the extra space and on the outside used a red kanji stamp of my soon-to-be last name (my fiance is ethnically Japanese).

I hope you find this super helpful!

Sincerely,

Ms. Koloa

I made a map!

Mr. Koloa and I are getting married next year, but I am a crazy planner and also a spendthrift, so I've been trying to DIY lots of little things including invitations, favors, some guestbook stuff, etc. Anyways, I don't live near any of my family (my parents live on the mainland and my brother is stationed overseas) or any of my closest friends since moving to another island, so I don't really have anyone to share my excitement with over the smallest things I've been trying to do on my own--hence this post. I am hoping that other people who are DIYing things here can inspire me to do much more than the small things I've already done. Anyways, back to the title of this post: I made a map!

It all started pretty innocently. I teach and am on summer break and am completely bored out of my mind. Since break began, I have been doing several things to stay busy including reading, cutting things out of paper, browsing DIY blogs, etc. I began to think about our venue (which has changed islands and guestlist already within the past six months) and how it wasn't exactly easy to find, although it is right along the main road. It isn't in an area where most of the people we know would stop, because it is a private estate and we (or our friends) are not wealthy enough to just stop by those types of places.

Anywho, I decided I wanted to make a map to include with the invitation because I felt my invitation situation was pretty sparse to begin with. Simply stated, it is just an invitation. Nothing more, nothing less. No fancy RSVP postcard because I would prefer people to email or call. No menu choices because we can't afford a plated dinner and will be hosting a dinner buffet instead. Nothing. There's only so many times I can browse Pinterest:Weddings or Etsy:Weddings before becoming overwelmed with all the items that my invitation lacked such as pocketfolds, ribbon, or letterpress.

I decided I could solve this dilemna by including a map. After a quick google search I saw a little tutorial on Weddingbee here and decided that it seemed easy enough. However, I was going to be an innovator and use Apple's Pages to complete my map! In actuality it was not innovation but laziness, as I knew I wanted to print the maps out on the same size cardstock as the invitations and Pages already had the dimensions which saved me the trouble of walking the four steps to the table to measure the cardstock myself. Here is the final result!

If you are going to use pages like myself, you will have to march to a different beat (aka: follow different instructions) in order to accomplish this feat. If you haven't guessed by now, the whole purpose of this post is to have brides from all over the internet ooh and ahh at my remarkable DIY feat! Here are the steps I took below:

1) Type in the address of the venue into Google Maps. Print screen in order to save an image of the map (there might be another way to do this but I love print screening things) To print screen on a mac, you simply push command+shift+3 at the same time. It will save a picture of your screen to the desktop. I used a program called Paintbrush (free download here) to select the map only, copy, and paste it into Pages.

2) In Pages, you should use the Draw with Pen tool (Insert->Shape->Draw with Pen) to trace important things like roads or rivers or buildings or whatsohaveyou. You can use Inspector to change the color and thickness of the lines.

3) The most difficult part for me to figure out was how to make the land green and the ocean blue while staying in Pages. After drawing out the four roads and marking the wedding area with a star and using text boxes and the rotate function (also in Inspector) to place things where I wanted them, I deleted the image of the map in the back. I was left with a depressingly white background with four roads and a star.

4) There actually isn't a fourth step but I typed so much in step three I decided to break it up a bit. I used the Draw with Pen tool to outline the water first. Then, I went on the internet and searched "ocean pattern." I picked an image I liked and saved it to my desktop. Then I clicked the shape I made of the ocean and the bottom half of the rectangle, went to the Inspector, clicked on the Graphic tab, and under Fill, I selected Image Fill. The Inspector then had me upload a picture I wanted. The important things to do here now is underneath Image Fill another drop down menu will appear. You need to choose Scale to Fill, especially if your shape is NOT a rectangle. Then, back in Inspector under the Wrap tab, you need to select In Background.

5) Repeat step four for any other areas you want with a particular background. I used this for the land area after searching "green pattern."

Anyways, I hope you like it and I know it is simple. In Hawaii we really don't have many important roads so there is enough on the map for my guests to know where they are going. Please let me know if you need help making your own! I'm not sure if this things sends me an email whenever someone posts, but I sure hope so, so I can see what people think!

Sincerely,

Ms. Koloa