One miraculous day, fiance Justin told me he wanted a new pair of jeans – gray jeans, specifically.  I jumped at the rare chance to take him shopping!  We ended up going to Tilly’s and that’s where we discovered 514 jeans!  My brother had been wearing these slim jeans for a while so he highly recommended Justin getting a pair!  The jeans looked really good on Justin.  Tilly’s had a few different washes so I encouraged Justin to get a couple pairs, but he got overwhelmed and only got one pair.  A few months later, to my surprise again, he asked me to buy him two pairs of 514’s.  Ok, you may find this detail to be insignificant to the topic at hand, but if you know Justin, he HATES shopping especially for clothes.  Anyway, we then decided he would wear one of those pairs for our engagement photo shoot.

A week before our shoot, we headed to the mall to find him a shirt that would go well with his jeans and my floral Top Shop dress.  Since I was going to wear a dress, we thought a casual button-up would do.  He ended up getting a gray LRG button-up on sale at Sun Diego.  Awesome because we found it right away.  His more formal look, on the other hand, was a little bit more of a challenge.

I wasn’t sure what I wanted him to wear to go with my black lace dress (you know, because it is after all up to me).  When we work out in our living room, we put the tv to the music video channels and Nicki Minaj’s “Right Thru Me” came up.  I noticed the super hot guy in the music video had an untied bowtie hanging on his neck.  And then, a Bow Wow video showed and I noticed the same look!  It has a look of just coming from or getting ready for a special event.  To me, it kind of tells a story so that was the look I wanted Justin to go for.  I tried googling images of “untied bowtie tux” and the like, but the results weren’t quite what I was looking for.  So I proceeded to YouTube the videos, click pause, make a print-screen picture, and cropped the images as so:

A little too much?!  Yeah, I know but I’m a bit obsessive like that when it comes to all things wedding.  Anyway, we went to Men’s Wearhouse and asked for self-tie bowties.  The saleslady gave us one and said, “it’s not the P-Diddy kind if that’s what you’re looking for”.  We didn’t exactly know what a “P-Diddy” bowtie was, but we had a feeling that was the kind of bowtie we wanted!  We proceeded to search at the mall.  Nordstrom’s had the “P-Diddy” bowties (at least our opinion of what they were), but not in a solid black.  We went to a couple more stores, even asked my uncle who was in another mall to inquire, but had no luck.  Finding the right bowtie was more of a challenge then we expected and I just felt like the look wouldn’t be complete without it!  I considered buying online, but thought it was too much of a risk – what if it didn’t turn out to be the kind we were looking for?  What if it doesn’t arrive in time?!

We decided we’d have Friday and if needed, Saturday to look for the bowtie before our photo sesh.  Then I asked my sister to look for one at South Coast Plaza mall in Costa Mesa since she lives up in Irvine and the Nordstrom’s there had only one left!  “A huge relief!”, I thought to myself, “The look is now complete!”.  So along with a white dress shirt, black pants, and shoes, Justin wore an untied bowtie around his neck and these nice Gucci cufflinks I bought him for Christmas to go with my black lace dress:

I thought he looked quite dapper and we are super excited to see how our engagement photos turn out!

Anyone else had a vision for their engagement photo shoot and worried it wouldn’t pan out?  Have you clicked on the “super hot guy” link above?  If not, scroll up.  Don’t tell me you don’t think he’s super hot…

On my last post, I showed my inspiration shoots and mentioned that I decided to focus my time and money on our outfits.  Well, I knew early on that I wanted to wear my floral Top Shop dress I got on my trip to NYC a couple years ago.  I couldn’t find it online anymore and I could have just taken a picture of it, but I’ll show you this from my personal blog:

My dress was featured on People.com’s Fashion Faceoff so I added the best picture I had of me wearing the dress.  You’d think these celebrity fashionistas would be wearing $300-$400 dresses on a daily, but this one was around $90.  I wasn’t sure if this would be my more formal or casual look because it could be dressed up or down.

Then, my MOH/fashion advisor/sister Marj got inspired when watching Pretty Little Liars and loved the black lace look of Aria’s (one of the characters from the show).  She linked me this image:

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I was like, “Okay cool.  We’ll try to find an inexpensive black lace number.”  I figure if we find a black lace dress, it can be my more formal look and the floral dress can be my more casual look.  A couple weeks later, we headed over to Vegas for a fun (it was a really fun!) weekend and stopped by Fashion Show mall.  We were about to head out when we saw French Connection.  They tend to have really cute clothes and really good sales.  And lo and behold, my sister found a “black lace number”:

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Ok, well the picture is a “navy blue lace number”, but I got it in black and it was on sale!  Miss Lucy Lace’s original price was $268, but I got her for $79.99.  I didn’t make that name up; that’s actually what the dress is called.  Here’s another picture with a model (of course, I’m not as tall and skinny but you can see the flow of the dress better when it’s worn):

Ok, so finding outfits for me turned out to be pretty easy.  Justin’s, however, was just a little bit more of a challenge.  Mainly because he’s not big on shopping and finding clothes (although he’s been better about it since we first got together).

Anyone else put finding outfits as your priority for your engagement shoot?  Were your outfits a little more dressed up or down compared to my two outfits?

Fiance Justin and I just took our engagement photos this past Sunday with our photographer and friend Daniel Galang.  I thought I was going to be more nervous than I actually was, but I prepped myself to not think about it too much.  It helped that I had “practice” when April and I had a session for Simply Chic with Heidi from Heidi-O-Photo.  I was super nervous that time!!  It probably also helped that I was with the love of my life this time around (sorry Apes! Haha).

I thought about using props or trying to figure out a quaint locale but my lack of drive to do so won over.  I didn’t want it to look like we were trying too hard to have this amazing photo shoot, in part because that doesn’t really go with our personality as a couple.  We’re quite a normal and simple couple.  We don’t travel very much (although I’m hoping that’ll change once we’re married) and we’re not very artistic so to come with a unique and creative shoot is just not our style.  Though I do really like “UP” inspired engagement shoots like this one by Wildflowers Photos:

Super cute right??  I’m just hoping that our pictures capture our essence (you know, as totally awesome people) and make us good-looking!  Haha.  I think Daniel is pretty good at doing both those things so we didn’t have much expectations going in!  I felt kinda bad, thinking I should have done more research, because he kept asking us for our input to make sure that he incorporated any of our ideas.  I did have an inspiration photo session by Jill Thomas Photography:

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Don’t you just hate love how beautiful they are??  I liked how they had a piece of indoor furniture out at the beach and also how damn beautiful they are (I know, repetitive).  After having like 6 months to figure out what to do, my laziness took over because I just didn’t want to think much about it.  So rather than focus time and MONEY on props like balloons, furniture, and suitcases (as I was thinking to do), I did so with our outfit selections.

Stay tuned tomorrow for our outfit inspirations and selections!  Were there anyone else’s engagement photo session that served as your inspiration?  Were you jealous of did you admire any lovely couples just from seeing their photos alone?

One thing I think is essential in wedding planning is having a binder or booklet of some sort to compile all your contracts, ideas, etc. together.  Some call it a wedding binder, but I’ve dubbed it the “Wedding Bible”.  There are PLENTY of wedding binders you can purchase at bookstores, but I decided to make my own.  I already had a white binder and sheet protectors so I got dividers, a pencil pouch, business card holder sheets, and binder pockets to hold thicker items.

I think I got the idea of using a pencil pouch for receipts and such on WeddingBee, but I’m not totally sure:

I divided the sections into vendor contracts, ceremony details, reception details, bridal fashion, decor and design, and miscellaneous items:

The ceremony details section includes the sheets given to us at our first meeting with the priest and our Catholic Engaged Encounter certificate:

The reception details section includes our menu choices:

The bridal section includes sketches of the bridesmaids dresses, inspiration photos, and the Quail Bridal lookbook (more on fashion later):

The decor and design section includes my “inspiration board”:

The miscellaneous section will include the vendor contact list, day-of schedule, reception music list, budget breakdown, and wedding planning timeline.  I didn’t want to waste paper printing those out just yet because I’m constantly updating them, but I do have a wedding folder on both my work (shh!) and home computers!

This contains a lot more of my inspiration images and soft copies of EVERYTHING!

Did you purchase a wedding binder or make one of your own?  Anyone else thinks it’s very important to bring your Wedding Bible to every meeting with a vendor so brought it on the plane with you to the Bay Area, but then totally forgot to bring it to your actual meeting??  Oh yes, I did…

I’m a fan of gift registries for weddings and showers.  Some brides and grooms prefer getting money, which is totally fine, especially if you don’t really need anything!  Justin and I don’t really need anything, but I like giving our guests options and I love giving gifts over cash!  On the other hand, if there’s two things Justin hates, it’s 1) shopping/going to the mall and 2) gifts – giving and receiving.  So I knew we had to be quick and efficient.

We registered at Crate and Barrel and Macy’s and I’d have to say, we’re probably the most horrible registerers.  We started at Crate and Barrel, which is one of my favorite stores!  It’s fairly affordable compared to William Sonoma and Pottery Barn.  I kind of got overwhelmed and we wanted to stick within a certain price range so we didn’t register for very much.  Then we headed to Macy’s and registered for even less items.  I think we probably started with at most 20 items total in both stores.

I ended up going online later and registered for more stuff.  We did register for three big ticket items and everything else was basically $50 or less.  I doubt I’ll get it, but I registered for it anyway:

Not just any Kitchen Aid stand mixer, but the Professional 600 in pearlized metallic!  I actually wouldn’t mind getting any version – I did buy my mom the Artisan one as a gift a couple years ago.  I especially wouldn’t mind the Martha Stewart one (*hint, hint*):

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Another mucho expensivo item is 7.25qt Le Creuset French Oven.  The colors in both Crate and Barrel and Macy’s are limited so I registered for the Cobalt blue although I do prefer the Carribean Blue (*hint, hint*):

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I don’t know why I love that shade of blue so much!  Anyway, the last big ticket item was a Dyson Ball Animal vacuum.  No *hint, hint* needed because my parents bought us the Dyson DC25 Ball vacuum as my birthday/Christmas/wedding gift!

It’s compact (perfect for our condo!), lightweight, and easy to assemble (I did it myself!).  When my family asked me for my Christmas wish list, I told them to look at our registries so my uncle also got us glass canisters for the bathroom as our Christmas gift.  A secret someone told my brother to tell me to take the Crockpot off our list.  Hmm.. I wonder who that is.. guess I’ll find out soon enough!!

Anyone else get registered gifts for gifts other than for the event you registered for??  Anyone else not follow the rules of registering for twice as many items as your number of guests?  Because we have half as many items as we do number of guests. If that!

In Part 2, I mentioned having a coin ceremony and I even showed a picture of our coin holder.  I forgot to mention (in part because I hadn’t taken a photo at the time) that we have a special wedding coin!  We bought the coin at the Mission San Luis Rey gift shop during our Catholic Engaged Encounter.  We will include it as part of the thirteen coins!

Ok, I think I covered the cultural aspects of the ceremony.  One Filipino tradition we are incorporating into our reception program is the money dance.  Some Wedding Etiquette books may tell you it is faux paus to make your guests give you cash, but it’s a tradition shared by many cultures.  For those of you unfamiliar with the money dance, it’s where male guests line up to pin a dollar bill (or sometimes more) on the bride’s veil or dress and dance with the bride (likewise, the female guests with the groom).  It symbolizes the guests wishing good fortune to the newlyweds.  It is also referred to as the honeymoon dance, where guests help pay for the honeymoon.  Here are a couple money dance photos from Karen and Christian’s wedding:

I stole the pictures from Christian’s Facebook album, but I’m pretty sure I can credit their (and my) photographer Daniel Galang Photography for them!

Justin and I were reluctant to include this at first because we didn’t want to have an extensive program and money dances can take up to an hour (not that the planner in me would ever allow this).  Fiance Justin thought of the idea of just letting our guests make it rain on us while “Make It Rain” plays.  I wasn’t very fond of the idea of people throwing money at us and we having to pick it up from the ground… kinda cool at clubs, but not so much at weddings.  I like the money dance because it gives our guest rare one-on-one time with us.  Granted that may only be for 15 seconds before the next person in line comes along, it’s still personal time with a friend or relative the bride or groom may rarely see.

Sooo, we’re setting the max to 30 minutes and I won’t be getting pinned.  I hate needles, pins, and anything of the like, so I’ll have a little money dance purse and we’ll concentrate that precious time on dancing and talking instead of the guests trying to figure out how to pin the dollar bill on me without piercing my skin or ruining my dress.  Maybe I’ll wear my DIY-bridal-veil-fail veil so guests can pin on that… hmm…

More on that and my MANY FAILS and STUPIDITIES as a bride later.  Anyone totally against having a money/honeymoon dance or all for it??

The lovely groom and his men will be wearing black tuxes with skinny ties.  I was thinking they could wear gray suits or tuxes but this was one of the few things fiance Justin had an opinion on so, of course, I let him have it.  His inspiration (don’t ask why):

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We have yet to decide on the exact style (we’ll be going to Men’s Warehouse this weekend), but I did already get the skinny ties and pocket squares from Tie Obsessed/rabbitstop on Etsy.  Some brides and grooms do boutonnieres, while others do pocket squares, and some do both.  I opted just for pocket squares.  I think it’s a cleaner and classier look and it saves on our budget not having to get bouts!  Vivian from Tie Obsessed made a custom listing for my order (1 black skinny tie, 7 teal skinny ties, 1 white pocket square, and 7 teal pocket squares).  I just feel so special when I get a customized listing!!  I was concerned that the teal color wouldn’t match specifically what I wanted but when the package came in, I saw the teal was the perfect shade!  Here, you’ll see Justin’s black skinny tie with his two teal brothers:

The ties are, in my opinion, well-made.  They’re even lined, which I didn’t expect:

Another view of the back of the tie (100% silk and handmade):

Here are the white and a couple teal pocket squares:

I’m crossing my fingers and toes they go well with a tux they can rent out.  Anyone else prefer pocket squares?  How about bow ties, regular ties, skinny ties, or no ties?  Also, does anyone else LOVE getting a custom listing on Etsy??

I failed to mention before that there’s one source I seem to go to for inspiration, advice, and a good ol’ read.  It’s Wedding Bee!  I love that the authors are brides planning their own wedding.  Not only because it’s the same position I’m in, but it’s just fun to see all the different ideas brides are pursuing or coming up with.  One thing I’m definitely grateful for is getting calligraphy.  I wasn’t going to do it but I saw in past posts that people really recommended Michele Clark.  My invitation envelopes are in Crane’s Lettra paper, which not any printer just can print on.  My MOH/sister offered to handwrite all the guest addresses, but I wanted her to concentrate in school.  I figured it would be VERY time-consuming for her and I don’t have nice enough handwriting so I contacted Michele.  She seemed super sweet and her pricing was really affordable – even with shipping (she’s all the way in New York).  I have yet to send out the invitations, but here are some samples and lettering options Michele sent me:

Michele was probably the easiest vendor I had to work with!  Would you get calligraphy? Which one these lettering do you like the most?