Dancing in the Moonlight

So I just talked to my cousin, Elaine, yesterday, and we finalized the details for the Filipino folk dancing. We have it all figured out, and it's going to be a 15 min. presentation from people involved with the Filipino Cultural Center. They will have the bamboo dance (Tinikling), candle dance (pandango sa ilaw), and other dances that I don't know the Filipino names for. I'm really excited that I can check this off my list. So far, we are doing a good job with getting things finalized even though I had so much other things going on such as the curling tournament and jury duty.

So the next thing that I want to focus my energies on is getting the boy's clothing figured out and getting the invitations done and over with. We'll probably an "invitation-making" party. It should be fun...not sure what that entails, but I have to schedule that really soon.

I am trying to find a place where Paul and I can get dance lessons. I've always wanted to learn how to dance. I know Paul is dreading it, but he shouldn't have anything to worry about. Regardless, he's going to have to dance at some point, and he might as well start learning now. I think he'd be great at it. We just have to work on moving smoothly despite our height differences.

Hawaiian Airlines-Wedding Wings Discount

Hey Everyone,

If you haven't bought your tickets yet, I have some information for you for Hawaiian Airlines. I apologize for people who already bought their tickets...they cannot make the discount retroactive once you've already bought them, which kind of sucks.

Before you pay for your tickets, please put in this code: WED216

This includes a 5% discount off our lowest available transpacific roundtrip webfare. You can access this through: www.HawaiianAir.com. The Wedding Wings Discount doesn't apply to wholly interisland travel and cannot be combined with any other offers.

Route that is registered is between any West Coast gateway and Oahu - Honolulu.

Travel validity period is between 6/20/09 - 7/11/09 (The Wedding Wings discount is not applicable to any flights made outside of this period.)

To get more information visit: www.Hawaiianair.com/weddings.wedlogin.aspx (not accessible before or after the booking period)

If you have any questions, feel free to give me a call or email.

Wedding Coordinator

I have good news. Even though I stopped wedding planning at the moment, it doesn't seem to stop by itself. Looks like I found a wedding coordinator, and I am so relieved. I tried to interview some wedding coordinators before, and they were a little out of my price range, plus I am always a little worried depending on people to follow through; so at least if there was anyone to blame, it would be myself, and I can handle that. Also, there were a few snobby ones who told me that I had to spend a lot of money in order to use them, and I thought that this was not me, as you all probably already know.

So Michelle, one of my bridesmaids, has a sister who is starting to get interested in wedding coordination, and I thought maybe she would like to try it out with my wedding. She can see what it is like, and help out in areas where I need help. She is local, living and working in Hawaii. I love Michelle; so I already love her sister, Christine. I am so excited to share this news with you. All the people I have helping me out are already busy with other things wedding and non-wedding related, and I needed one person who wouldn't mind overseeing it all especially on the day of. We are going to get things started once I return from the curling tournament, which by the way is awesome. Right now, we won 2 games and lost 3, but the girls here are so much fun. We have a great attitude, and we're not going to give up.

I'll definitely kick wedding planning up a notch once I return! There's still so many things to do...

Also, I was thinking if there was some subtle way I could add something curling related into the wedding. It might be hard, but I am going to think about it since it has currently been such a big part of our lives.

Wedding Plans on Hold Again!

So I am in Utica, NY competing for the Club National Curling Competition. I am going to be here for a week, and so the wedding plans will have to go on hold for just a little bit. I did try to do as much as I could before we left; and I was able to cross a few things off the list, the biggest one being putting in the order for the bridesmaids dresses. My biggest challenge right now is to find paper to make the invitations, and I'll have to figure that out when I come back.

I am really excited to be in this event with my team who are really awesome. They have great attitudes and skill. We've been fundraising for this trip for the passed 2 months, and we're finally here.

Here's the blog website for Team Bond Girls that we will be updating throughout the trip: www.bhttp://www.bondgirlscurling.blogspot.com/

Well, wish us luck. We're going to need every bit of it.

It Pays To Be Filipino

So a few weeks ago, Charissa and Kathy accompanied me downtown LA to find alternatives to the Jim Helm dress that we loved for a bridesmaid dress because it was too expensive. Basically, there's a section in LA called The Fashion District, and that's definitely the place to be to find deal on everything, cloth, clothes, shoes, etc. Before this excursion, I have never been there before, and I think after this experience, I'll go there again. We found a dress right away, but we didn't make an order yet because I wanted to be sure.

Yesterday, I went with Michelle to return to the same store and make a final order. It was good, too, because Michelle could try the dress on and make sure she got the right size. After all that, the sales woman called the factory, and they told her that they would not do a special order for them for the dresses in that color we wanted. They would have to buy about a 100 dresses not just the 6 dresses that I would need. I was kind of a little disappointed because it was hard enough finding this dress, and the other dresses in the store just didn't have the right look. I felt stressed out. With the upcoming curling tournament and everything going on, I wasn't sure when I could go dress hunting again. Then the owner came out and talked to me. He asked if I was Filipino, and of course I said yes with a big smile. He looked at the dress, and said, "Ok, I'll do this for you." He told me that his girlfriend was Filipino, and she told him to give all the Filipinos a discount. It was just going to take 6 weeks. I thought that should be more than enough time to get the dresses and then get it altered; so I made the purchase, and it is DONE. I thank his girlfriend for putting out that good karma for all Filipino customers, and I wish her all the good luck. May their relationship blossom with many children because I got my bridesmaids' dresses. =P

It's kind of a coincidence that all of this happened, but I am very happy that it did. I think there is someone up there looking out for us. I mean I could have just left the store, swearing up a storm, but we decided to stay just a bit longer to find some alternatives. And that's just when the owner arrived to save the day.

So I am recommending this store for anyone who wants to find an affordable evening dress:

Nobell
950 Santee St.
#8
Los Angeles, CA 90015

Tell them the little Filipino sent you.

Paper & Lots of It

That is what I am going to need to make my invitations. I've contemplated going through a company and ordering the invitations and letting them do all the work, but I feel that first of all, it's too expensive and secondly, maybe they can't do things that I want to do, especially the cookie cutter invitations that only print your information out. I've got a plan, and I think it's going to work.

I went over to both Paul's mom's house and Sarah's (friend from college) house and played around with their cricket. It's a machine that cuts out shapes, cards, etc. for scrapbooking and cardmaking or really anything you need it for, and I might need it for my invitations. We experimented with different shapes and cardstock and papers, and I think we have a rough invitation that looks really good. I just have to figure out the many details such as postage...I don't know how much it will cost to send the whole invitation. Hopefully, it will still fit within the weight limits of a normal postage. Also, I need paper! It's extremely difficult to find bulk paper in the color that you want for an affordable price. Micheal's Arts and Craft Store sells a lot of nice paper, sheet by sheet, but that's really expensive. They have packs, but it's filled with all sorts of paper not necessarily the ones I want or could use in the future. I have searched at Staples, and their cardstock is extremely limited and in 8"x 11" size only. So it's just been a little tough. I've contacted a few paper stores, and hopefully, they'll be able to shed some light into this predicament. I'm going to see drop by their stores sometime this week and look around. Of course, I do have a backup plan if all else fails.

Scan Away!

So Paul and I were finally able to fit in a moment to get at least a large chunk of our registry done. We've been meaning to do it for a while, but our schedules have been quite unpredictable with all the extra things we've had to do for work and life. One night, we just went to Bed Bath & Beyond and got it over with. At first, we weren't really sure how to start. Luckily we talked to someone who was actually the store manager, and he got us registered with scanners and everything. He just recently got married and new everything about the store; so he personally took us around to explain a few things and help us with the whole process. It was a much more enjoyable experience than when we tried to do our registry at JCPenny. There were a few things that he told us that stuck in my mind. He said that there are some things that people just love to buy for other people such as pillows and towels. The explanation for pillows is that they think every night before you sleep, you will think of them as you lay your head on that wonderful pillow they bought you. That made me laugh, but he did have a good point. I think I should revise my gift giving method from now on. So he walked us around the store asking us questions and pointed us to a few things that would be good to add to the registry. It was really nice to have him around because the whole process was really fast and really enjoyable. We learned about the difference between German knives and Japanese knives and why people choose certain things. We ended up choosing the Japanese knives (they are sharper than the German, even though they need to be sharpened more often) because of the handle. They fit really nicely in my hand (since I'll pretty much be doing all the cooking), and our guide told us that these knives won't give you blisters because of the way the handle is made. That was a really great selling point to me. He didn't really show us the most expensive things or made us choose a certain brand. He gave us views that he gathered from his personal experiences and product information which let us decide for ourselves what we wanted. I was kind of dreading this part of the process because shopping for me takes a really long time. I don't really know anything about a lot of these products, and I'd hate to waste anyone's money. I think Paul and I can agree that we chose a good range of things to put in the registry. There are things that we each really love and hope that people will get for us, but it doesn't really matter. It's not really our priority...we know it's already a little financial burden to come to Hawaii especially for our far away guests. Just having them there is special for us. So I am glad to get that bulk of the registry done. We did want to do some additional "house" stuff from Lowes that would be good to have like power tools. Paul's been a little interested in doing some handy work such as rebuilding a foosball table and maybe later on a pool table...I'm kind of hoping he'll learn to make some shelves so that I can finally put together my pantry. =P One step at a time I guess.