My wedding fairytale - Page 2
Eric’s father wants to talk to my father about the dowry business but I am afraid my father is still not on speaking terms with Eric, there is no way both of them can sit down to have a talk. Despite my worries, Eric and his parents flew over from Heilongjiang to meet my family. I arranged our chauffeur to pick them up at the airport and settled them down in a nice hotel. Both his parents are very nice old folks and they are impressive with the hotel I put them up with, although I can tell Eric’s father would prefer to stay at my house instead. I also arranged a nice restaurant for a family dinner. True enough, my father did not turned up for the dinner. Leaving only my mother, my cousin and my aunt came as the family representative. I was very disappointed and bitter but I bit my tongue and smiled cheerfully for my future family-in-laws.
To ease off most of the traditions, both families agree not to have exchanging of gifts, just make do with dowry packet. My mother-in-law agrees to buy four pieces of gold jewelry as a part of my dowry. My mother in return bought Eric a jade pendant and necklace to signify the family welcoming a new son. I thought my husband will not wear the jade necklace because he is quite westernized with his ideas but to my pleasant surprise, he wore it until this day, he hardly take it off. He told me it is out of respect and love for his new mother-in-law.
As my future-in-laws are only here for three days, I brought them around to visit Chongqing and they got to meet my friends as well as hear me play the piano while Eric is busy with arrangement of our garden wedding. He managed to contact a vendor that does outdoor wedding and picked a popular location so that it is easier for everyone to come and attend our wedding.
We also spend the time discussing with both our parents their expectations of the guest list. Although my father is still stubborn, he participated by handing over a list of 150 guests! Except for the first 20 names, I do not know any of the 130 names. I know he will not back down and reduce the guests. My mother reveal to me it’s his way of telling us to afford it ourselves. My mother has another 70 names to add into the list. I have lesser friends since I usually kept to myself so my list is even shorter with 50 names.
On my husband side, things looks a bit brighter as the air ticket is not really affordable for us to send everyone from his hometown to come and attend our wedding, only 20 people are flying over. We already have to fork out air tickets, transportation and hotels for the 20 people. As for Eric, his boss and his colleagues are not really prepared to travel down from Beijing; only a handful of 10 people will be arriving from the capital. We started off with 300 guests on our list but as we started to remember more people and also news travel fast, I had people whom I have not heard from five years ago, messaging me to congratulate me. We end up having to add on another 30 more people to our initial list, making it 330 guests! Thankfully, we are having a garden wedding so the headcount does not really matters too much, imagine we have our wedding in the restaurant! Thank goodness for my husband’s foresight.
Now that we have the huge guest lists nailed down, we have to pick our wedding cards. The vendor that my husband picked has a range of one stop services and wedding cards printing is one of them so he sent us via email over 50 sets of wedding cards to choose from and asked us to pick one. My husband leaves the task to me as he is flying back to Beijing. We still have not had the talk on how and where we are going to live after marriage. Any advice, girls? I am very perplexed by this issue and I wonder if anyone out there have similar situation as mine.
I love this design a lot but my mother and my cousin thinks this is too pale in comparison they prefer with some colours. I thought it look elegant.
Next up is this little pretty card, I love how the pink ribbon tied over the card, well suited for my colour theme, don't you think?
At the request of my mother and cousin, I decided to choose a card with more colors but no red for me!
This actually was my final choice however, the vendor says this card is running low on stock and with my huge guest list, he might not able to accommodate my orders. I am disappointed but at least he is honest.
We chose this after viewing all 50 card design samples. Good service too since they delivered everything to my house within a week, all print out nicely with no error. I am getting excited as I sat crosslegged with my mother and cousin slotting the cards into envelops and labelling them for us to post out the next day! Yay!
I remembered fondly that the day we went shopping for Chinese tea set was a beautiful Sunday morning. My mother, my cousin, Amy and I went on a all girls outing to search for the tea set and as well as special red packets for us to put in money for the helpers. Too bad, Jiaoge have prior engagement and couldn’t join us otherwise it will be perfect.
We went to a few shops specialized in traditional Chinese customs but they don’t allow us to take any photos in the shop so we have to be sneaky about it. Haha!
We couldn't made up our minds which set we want because it seems to me the selections are very limited. Amy has a set she can loan to me, it used to belong to her cousin who got married last year. So we decided to direct our focus towards choosing the red packets.
I love these small little packet but my mother is afraid that it might not show we are generous enough.
These are my mother's favourite but all three of us think it looks too old-fashioned. Haha! Lucky, the girls are on my side for this one, or else I might just have to stick to this design!
Both Amy and my cousin think this is too colorful especially with a simple wedding like mine.
This is our final choice, modern yet retain the traditional feel to it. Enough of shopping, we had been shopping for my wedding stuff for 4 hours! Mother is the best when she announced that she is going to treat us all to hotpot for lunch!
Today, I had Jiaoge and Amy come to my house after work so we can browse through the dresses they are going to wear. In preparation, I had made cupcakes and cookies just like when we were young and they will come to my home for sleepovers. I wished I was young again. Haha! As my theme is pink and white, my bridesmaids dresses will have to follow my theme. We had so much fun choosing the dresses even my mother came into my room and joined in the fun!
Link:https://detail.tmall.com/item...
I found something like this for the girls but Amy and Jiaoge thought it was to plain although they like it for it is not spectacular enough for my wedding.
Link:https://item.taobao.com/item...
Amy love this look but Jiaoge thinks it is too girly for her taste. My mother thought it will steal the show away from my gown. Haha! Just like my mother, she always look out for me!!
Link:https://item.taobao.com/item...
Jiaoge and Amy loves this but I thought it was too casual and beach-like, I wanted something more formal for them. But all of us agree that they should go pink instead of white to have the contrast from my gown.
We chanced upon this picture in a bridal magazine and immediately I took a snapshot at it and we tried looking something similar to it. My mother thought it looks very elegant and enchanting to have the girls dressed like this next to me. And we found the below bridesmaids' dresses! Almost identical except that the dresses are in a darker shade than I would like them to be but the tailer is able to tailor to their preference and also gave a lot of suggestions to enhance their features so we decided to go with the ones below.
After my girlfriends left, I felt lonely. Eric is back in Beijing but we can’t FaceTime today because he is doing overtime at work again for the third time this week to make up for all the time he had lost while coming over here to visit me with his parents.
Unable to sleep, I decided to browse through websites with my iPhone and search for gifts for Jiaoge and Amy.
I want to sincerely thank them for volunteering their time to help me and always be there for me when I am sad or frustrated with Eric. Without them, I might not be brave enough to get married against my father’s wishes. Although I am still upset with the relationship between two closest men in my life, I know I need to let go and look at the positive side of life. I am going to get married!
Link:https://item.taobao.com/item...
I have one bracelet just like this and I know Amy always admire it but mine is bought in France by my mother when she went there two years ago in Spring with my father. But if I get this, Jiaoge wouldn't like it because she doesn't like to wear bracelets or even watches. She says it hinders her from doing her work.
Link:https://item.taobao.com/item...
So I thought of giving them each a pendant of their horoscope which is personal to them and I love how beautiful and detailed these designs are. But in the end, I got them scarves instead as winter is approaching, I thought it might be more useful to them especially when Amy always complains her office's air conditional is too cold for her. She could use this to wrap around her! I bought them at the city's central mall and since I'm buying something so useful, I decided I should buy one for my mother, one for my cousin (who helped me so much) and one for my future mother-in-law too!
This is for Jiaoge whose favourite colour is grey.
This is for Amy, the ever jovial girl!
For my cousin who always prefer to wear earth tones, I think this will blend in with the rest her clothes nicely.
This is for my mother. I know she have a nice red purse that can go with this scarf.
I chose this for my future mother-in-law because I thought dark colours are safer (I don't really know what is her favourite colour) but I didn't want to get her anything black so purple seems like a wonderful choice.
I do hope they like my gifts to them!
For a week, I was unable to talk to my husband because he was sent to Tokyo for business trip again. I wanted to go with him but my father is not happy that unmarried girl would follow a man to overseas. I don’t want to add on to his wrath and decided I should stay home, of course Eric is unhappy about it because he thought we could spend some time together at a place we met each other. But he understands and he promised we would have chances like that in future after our marriage. To keep my mind occupied, I took over the task of dressing up the best men.
When I mentioned pink, I thought I should be more specific because I almost died of laughter when Eric text me a picture of this pink. Its too shocking for my wedding!
Link:https://item.taobao.com/item...
So we decided to go a tone lighter but I still think it is not the right color to match my bridesmaids.
Link:https://detail.tmall.com/item...
This is nice and I like it that he looks so smart but my husband thought it is too simple and looks like someone going to work instead of going to somewhere formal and important.
Link:https://item.taobao.com/item...
Then Amy stumbled this online and showed me, I think it looks very nice and sleek. My husband agrees too however, he did pointed out that a jacket with a vest on top of a shirt will be too hot on a summer day. The bestmen probably will faints under the heat! So Amy had to help me to negotiate with the seller to sell us just the vest and the pants. Below is the results!
Don't you think he look so pretty in pink? Or should I say suave? Haha!
After a week, Eric is still not back in Beijing, in fact, his boss insisted that he should extend his business trip if he wants to have the extra leave for his wedding. He has been saving his leave for our wedding and our honeymoon but I don’t think we’ll have enough for an overseas trip this year. :(
My mother reprimanded me saying that career should come first for a man and us, ladies will have to be more understanding. I guess I have a lot to learn on how to be a good wife. So to take on more responsibilities, I decided to surprise him with a wedding itinerary!
He always commented that I never need to plan for anything in my life, everything has been planned for me from the start. Now I will show him!
Little did I know there are so many to plan for! Below is what I did for a rough guide.
9am – Make up and hair do
10am – My husband picks me up from my home
10.30am – Arrival of bridal couple to the garden
11am – Start of the event
11.30am – Saying of our vows
12noon – Cutting of cake
1.30pm – Lunch Begins
2pm – Popping of champagne
4pm – End of event
5pm – Return to home for tea ceremony
In the end, I still had to consult Eric and he was amused that I tried to do planning on my own. He did give me a thumb up for effort.
Just weeks away from my wedding, the bridal gown called me and they have bad news for me! The wedding gown that I booked with them is unable to loan to me! When I questioned them why, they refused to give me a reason and just asked that I go down to their studio and choose another gown instead. Oh my god! Could I get any unluckier?
I hate any confrontations and I know it is important to get someone to go down to the shop with me. My husband is too far away and even he is here, he probably will shrugged and go with their suggestions! I can’t have that and I can’t go to another bridal studio again within such a short time, to find something I like. Amy, Jiaoge and myself went down to the studio the very next day to find out what had happened.
Apparently, my gown that was supposed to be kept in the storage was left in the viewing area of the gallery, and a prospective bride saw it and requested to be photograph in it. Unknowingly, they brought the gown to outdoor photo-shoot and the gown was dirtied and torn at the ends. Seeing that I refused to believe in their story, they bought out the torn gown and my heart went into pieces. They apologized and asked that we choose another gown.
After spending another three hours at the studio, trying gown after gown, I can barely see myself in the mirror because of the angry tears kept welling up my eyes. Outside the dressing area, Amy and Jiaoge frantically calling my mother, Eric and my cousin to give them a blow by blow account of what is happening. In the end, my mother asked that I come home first.
When I am home, my cousin called to let me know that a friend of hers have a wedding gown to be let go and asked if I want to take a look at it. Not having other choice, I agree and the below photo is what she texted me. The friend of hers got pregnant and was not able to wear the gown anymore due to that was willing to let go to me. All I have to do is to go to her tailor to get it altered to my measurements. I immediately agree and went down to her friend’s place together with my mother and my cousin.
It is a beautiful gown and it is not worn yet. I am still reluctant to take it because it is not my choice of wedding gown but both my mother and cousin tried very hard to persuade me to purchase it first and think about it later.
Later that night, I did confide to Eric that I am disappointed with not having the gown I wanted. He did comfort me but he sounded very distant over the phone, I guess its because of his workload has recently increased.
Suddenly, I just want to get this wedding over and done with!
After that episode I had with the gown and my husband being so far away, I think its time for some pampering treatment. I persuaded my cousin to book an appointment for both of us on the weekend for some hair nourishing treatment. I need some time to myself and to clear out the silly worries in my head. I did choose to use the gown in the end and have my mother’s regular tailor altered it to my measurements. Since I wanted long hair to go with my gown, I don’t want to cut it short, I just want some pampering to it to make it softer and shinier.
The salon is centrally located and it is easy to find. It is called AngleLove Beauty Beauty Salon. Although I did find the place a tad too messy, the receptionist did apologised due to they are in the midst of moving to ground floor as the business is expanding, the staff are very nice and courteous. They even remembered my cousin from her last visit!! How thoughtful!
Both of us had fun taking selfie for ourselves before getting 'reprimanded' by our hair stylist to relax and enjoy the process. I put away my phone and relaxed myself, my cousin even caught me snoozing off while he dried my hair. I guess I must have been exhausted.
Before photo....
And after!! Yay!
For such a beautiful luscious hair, my spirit once again improved! Yes, I am back on the challenge of wedding planning again!