This Might Actually Happen

Mr. Grapefruit and I have been dealing with the harsh reality that you can't please everyone on the guest list and we've nearly died trying to accomodate. His sister is a very picky plain eater and some of our guests are not what we call 'culinarily adventurous.' We are not talking about escargot, truffles, or birds nest soup - we are talking about just having Chinese, Greek, or even Indian food may scare some people on the guest list! So since our PM grand reception will be taking place at the Harvest Moon we'll be dining on 12 "chinese wedding courses" which is seafood heavy and "ethnic" according to the tame palate. We decided that the AM lunch reception following the Asian tea and American ceremonies will need to be very American. The whole process of trying to find a ceremony site plus catering/meal options has exhausted and frustrated our nightly phone calls to one another - Mr. Grapefruit has lost sleep over this and my studying has suffred a drastic interruption in the process. Mr. Grapefruit said one evening, "Basically, when you are looking at something that has the modifier 'wedding' in it it means it will cost you an arm and leg plus some extra twisting." Despite telling potential vendors how brief and informal our luncheon will be and the fact that we are playing for a ver elaborate PM reception they still seem to think that asking for a $6K minimum food and bevearge cost in addition to space rental is nothing to bat a lash at. Now I understand that most American weddings the ceremony and reception are usually in one place and so the "MEAL" since you only get one will have to be about $$$ per head. We are doing TWO meals and we simply don't want two extravagant receptions! So after MUCH debate and anxiety we thought - why not do this in my backyard? The tea ceremony has to be done at home in the AM anyways, lets just tell the rest of the guests to show up "after" the tea ceremony and we'll have the American walk down the aisle ceremony in my backyard? We have a HUGE backyard and dad is a landscaper by hobby. It did not take long before we realized THIS was the perfect solution. We could rent the chairs and tent, buy the food we really want to have, I can FINALLY have some say/vision about how to decorate the place without having to worry about it being in another location, I will actually have the chance to add creative touches to the wedding. huge sigh of relief. For once, I realized this wedding might actually happen after so many months of dealing with obstacles.

Did you have a sigh of relief moment(s) in any of your planning?

I am a Witty DIM

I have been thinking lately that half the hassle I face with planning my wedding is that I can't play hostess and DO IT ALL. With my culinary, bartending, and paper prowess I have thrown wonderful dinner parties and this wedding is just another party - but alas I forget that I am one of the major components of it and I will NOT be able to play hostess! I dream of all the food i want to prepare, the endless signature cocktails that I can shake, and the amazing decorating I can fashion from paper products! Sigh. I have to make do with the things that I can do ahead for the wedding and look forward to enjoying the day as a bride not a hostess.
After reading about do-it-yourself (DIY) projects I realized this term should really be do-it-MYSELF (DIM)! As in, "$4K for a wedding planner?! Screw that I am going to DIM!" So here is the list of things that are on my DIM list:
1. my bouquet
2. boutenieres/corsages
3. all floral centerpieces and alter pieces
4. pomanders
5. slideshow
6. programs
7. signature luncheon cocktail
8. thank you photo cards
9. guest favors - those felt fortune cookies look neat!
10. if i don't pass out from #1-9, a runner

What is on your DIM list?

Stealing Thunder

My FI once told me, "I don't know what it is but girls grow up and dream about their wedding day being the most magical day of their life." Many years ago FI used to live in a large house with two other couples. Couple A got engaged late winter and began making plans for their wedding. Shortly after that in early Spring Couple B gets engaged. Mr. B (not to be confused with Mr. BEE) was having a nice dinner with Miss B and he "felt romantic" so he popped the question right there without a ring. Obviously Miss B was delighted and began scouring wedding magazines and racking up the cell phone bill. One day over the phone FI tells me that he feels Miss A is not too happy about Miss B's engagement because it is "stealing her thunder" in the same way that Rachel stole Monica's engagement thunder on the hit show Friends. I thougth two things 1. what the hell, this thunder business makes no sense and it would not happen to me 2. my bf is really sensitive about women's feelings!

Fast forward to our present day I am eating my words about not having someone steal my thunder. *wipes away tear* This past year I lost a friendship over this very idea of stealing thunder. Miss V and I were close friends and she knew that Mr. Grapefruit and I were getting ready to wed with the parental proposal (see engagement blog entry) due in May 2007. Over the 2006 winter holiday she and an old flame hooked up and started to see each other more. Our conversations started to naturally revolve around this re-newed love interest. It very quickly started to center on how much he was making, the incredible house he was building, the salary bonuses he was going to get, the huge diamond she wanted as an engagement ring and on and on. I started to feel really sorry for myself and insecure about where my finances would come from for my wedding knowing that Mr. Grapefruit and I are students with loans and virtually no finances/savings. I decided that I would avoid her for a week to let her finish talking about this to everyone she knew, and eventually she would lose steam/interest as I was not raised to speak about money this way and I thought it was rather tacky and low class. I eventually had a heart to heart talk to her about it and said it makes me feel bad about my own situation when she goes off about how "set" everything could be for her life if all she said was "yes" to this man. She gave me comfort and said she would not be getting married soon and it really "wasn't so set and perfect." I thought she understood but things did not change.

One day in early Spring as I was studying with another friend, he announced to me that she was getting engaged soon. This is after three months of "reuniting" with her old flame. I cried and called my mother. She gave me some Zen advice and told me to get over it and not feel sorry for myself. I told her I felt like Miss V did not care about my feelings and did not even take what I said very seriously. After Easter weekend Miss V came back to school with a ginormous engagement ring on her hand. She said nothing to me and we have not talked ever since.

I have pored my heart, my tears, and my thoughts into what happened. I have criticized my self and self reflected on where I went wrong and if I could get over it. I don't claim wedding days or years but it eventually boiled down to respect. If she cared and respected my feelings she would have said something to me and then went ahead and gone on with her plans and that I would have accepted. We would still be friends because I am understanding and compromising. But I feel that she did neither of these things after fully hearing what I had to say that day. I don't know if she did get married, or where things are now in her life. I've left some things out of this story about her because I wanted to tell a discrete story and not bad mouth her. Since we have not spoken for about a year now I think it may be past me as I have my own wedding to plan but a part of me wonders if I could/should have done/felt things differently.

Bridesmaid Blues

Bridesmaids are called "phu dau" in my country which translates to "help bride." The more I read about bridesmaids in America the more I am saddened and removed because I grew up viewing and treating them differently. First of all, there are some rules/guidelines that go into selecting your BMs:

1. she has to be single - emphasis on NOT married
2. this can not be the 4th wedding she is in

Notice that no where it says she has to be your best friend, or even a close friend. So basically any available and willing young girl will do.

Here are the considerations that the bride is obligated to do for her BMs:

1. she has to buy all the dresses (sometimes even all the accessories). This usually means TWO per girl as there is a morning ceremony dress and the evening reception dress.
2. she has to know and understand that asking these ladies to be her BMs is a HUGE inconvenience to them as they must follow her everywhere on the wedding day and help her.

So growing up with this understanding I never thought that I would have a "tough decision" to make when I needed to go find my BMs. I said find, not select. In many ways, this task became a process of elimination and I must admit there was no sappy emotional feeling that went into it. I ended up choosing a friend from medical school and months later asked my brother's gf to be my second BMs. They are both Vietnamese and I think that was an important part because the wedding is traditional. I never had to choose a gaggle of girls and fuss over which ones would "be part of the coveted wedding party." But after reading and researching wedding blogs I realized how special BMs are to the bride, what they signify and what brides agonize over concerning their selection. In some ways, because I am Asian American, I feel like my BMs do not have that much meaning in my wedding. Moreover, my FI has resorted to taking my brother and close male friend as his groomsmen because all his close male friends have sig others and we do not want these guys to leave them all alone at our wedding. So there you have it our wedding party of four will be people we respect and like but they are hardly people that we've had the most memories and bonds with.
Now I also read about the drama that goes into these I like to call "BMs Behaving Badly" and I am glad that I only have two who have caused no trouble for me. But after careful thought about the differences between our two cultures I wonder where the bad behavior stems from? I will post another entry on "BMs Behaving Badly" another time.

Do you think that the roles of BMs and brides are not clear sometimes and this leads to wedding blues? How have you disaster/drama controlled your wedding planning?

V - Day Swap

This past weekend I stole a couple hours of me time to make my DIY V-day cards for the card exchange! It was delicious therapeutic hours of grommetting, trimming, gluing, bradding, and stenciling. Excuse me I need a moment to gather myself as I relived those hours in my mind. =) I love crafting and seriously, who out there is actually sane that doesn't craft to some degree?! Anyways, you know you love your labor when you show it off to everyone in your house and then think - I must keep this, I can't give this away, what if I can't re-create this masterpiece again when I am old and memory loss sets in?! Just kidding, still sane. =) So here I am giving you a sneek peek into the cards that I created - if you are reading this and you end up getting it in the mail I am sooooooo sorry to ruin the surprise!

So when I went to my lab to create these darlings I wanted to veer away from the reds and pinks if at all possible without running into odd color territory. I chose purple as my first inspiration color and as I gathered all the neat backdrop papers together I remembered a post about the LOVE stamps - yeah I am ADD remember so who knows why purple sent me into LOVE stamps recall. But here is my final product:


My second card is inspired by none other than the charity group that most women feel a sense of duty to: Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. I had to use the pink in this case but I thought that I would make it a little more creative by using different shades of pink secured by matching heart brads. So cute and so Andy Warhol don't you think?


My last creation is a piece of my Eastern roots. It is very elegant and simple in its design, very different from the other cards but I think it is quite beautiful. I have to say that I was very pleased with the way the blue and brown turned out against the light pink background.


I hope you like my V-day card interpretations that I will be swapping out very shortly to these wonderful readers. Which of the three is your favorite?

PS: All you closet paper lovers out there - join us! It's good times I promise!!

Tough Talk Topics

Mr. Grapefruit and I love to talk about our dream kitchen, what jokes we'll play on our kids, all the rescue animals we'll bring into our home, what kind of garden of delights we'll grow...- fun fuzzy schmuzzy schtuff that couples talk about. But after watching a few couples (old, new, close, far) run into problems, broken marriages, and misunderstandings reality forces its rear end into my thoughts about the future. I don't think there is a perfect running checklist of questions that you can ask and find out about a person before you can say for sure "he is the one" - but I DO think that there are some ideas and "reality checks" that you owe yourself before making the commitment of a lifetime - at least that is how marriage works in my world. For example, my mother works with special needs children at the middle school in our town and she tells us wonderful stories about the progress her kids are making. Despite what a treasure her students are she can't help but feel and think about the unique struggles the parents of these kids face on a daily basis. Some of these children can not be left unsupervised, while others will never make it past a certain learning curve. It must be hard - it has to be.

Recently, I went to see my gyn for a well visit and to discuss family planning. Later that day my FI and I revisited the "When do you think we should have kids" talk. All along we have agreed and compromised on many points but today I introduced tough talk topic "the big A word." I told him that if we plan to have children in our mid to late thirties we face a higher risk of miscarriages and congenital diseases...

Me: So if we knew in advance that our child would suffer XYZ with an iffy percentage of survival. What would you do?

FI: I would find all the resources related to XYZ and read about it and know as much as I can to prepare for the baby's arrival.

Me: silence

Our discussion continued further into realms of philos0phy, science, ethics, and religion as it related to the big "A", pro choice, and the idea of quality of life. We have not come to a clear stance and we possibly may not but the point is we breached this topic and we are open with one another to explore more tough talk topics. As I mentioned, I have witnessed many couples go through misunderstandings great and small, some survive them while others do not. Twenty twenty hindsight reveals "I wish I had known or thought to discuss this with him/her sooner before we got married." This is indeed a normal and inevitable part of relationships but sometimes we need to put the ribbons, roses, and rings aside for a sampling of reality and honest reasoning.

What was the most difficult topic you have discussed with your FI regarding your future life together and how do you feel about outcome?

A Rose By Any Other Name Would “Bee” As Sweet

I am not doing it. Uh Uh. Nope not going to happen. It just would not be right. *sniffle* Mrs. Bee may have dived into it and said it will be alright but no, my foot is firm. *blows nose*

Over ten years ago I legally changed my lovely Vietnamese birth name to an American equally “lovely” name. I was tired of the taunts, the made up songs, the mispronunciations, and the endless jokes. I even recall that once in middle school, an asian teacher told the class, “If you have an ethnic name you really should change it to an American one so that it would be easier for everyone to call you.” As I sat there I thought this lady is whack and she is not going to make moi change anything! Then I changed high schools and it was just too convenient and tempting to “start a new leaf” and lose the name that had given me so much torture. I never looked back but I have THOUGHT back and forth what I have done and now that I am getting ready to get married I just can’t do it. I just can’t tag on my FI's last name. There I said it! I willingly gave up my birth name, a name that my late dear grandfather gave to me which means “essence of beauty” to legally adopt my American name which also means beautiful in Spanish (no I am not vain at all, really!). If I take his last name I will have “NO IDENTITY.” Gasp!!! What does FI think about this? He says he prefers that I take his last name but he understands this identity crisis. I love him. I love his name. I love that American women take their maiden names as middle names and adopt new last names. I cry a little inside when I see all my gfs names change once they are married but I am really torn about this decision. My maiden name would be hidden between two names if I take the plunge into marriage name changing land! *sniffle* My FI still thinks I am just as sweet and I think that is what I will hold onto...

So ladies, if you are keeping your names please share your experiences with us!