Category Archives: Crazy wedding lady

You know how I had Dress Envy? Well, now I have a major case of Neck Envy. I am swooning—no, more like prettygasming, oh, oh, oh, OHHHH it’s so pretty!—over all the fabulous statement necklaces that I’ve been seeing everywhere. I already bought a necklace to go with my wedding dress and yeah, yeah, it’s gorgeous, but oh my fancy, check out these stunners. For brides with simple gowns, bold necklaces are a great way to add a flash of drama.

Of course, you don’t have to be getting married to rock them.

Lucidity Necklace, $198 at Anthropologie.
This would radiate in the light, making for some amazing photos. Love the varying bead sizes.

Venus Lure Necklace, $79.50 at Banana Republic
Any bride who wears this striking piece is badass in my book. So glam.

Paris Necklace by Suzanna Dai.
This sequined, vintage-esque beauty oozes with allure. I can stare at the details all day.

Aubrey Necklace, $230 at Prismera.
It’s not white, but who cares? I would looooove to wear this with my dress. How glam would I feel?

Crystal Bib Necklace, on sale for $95 at J.Crew.
You guys, I really think I need this one. I’m obsessed. Hold me back.

Recovering from a whirlwind trip to Vegas with 68 seriously fabulous bloggers, a wedding filled with love, laughs and too much champagne … oh, and this:

We mailed out our wedding invitations!

Think I’m gonna drink some more water and pass out now. Be back soon.

I’ve become a mean, mean person. When I recently found out some friends broke up with their significant others, people whom I had nothing against, I let out an enthusiastic “yesssssssssssssss!” And then did a little fist pump.

You’ve probably heard it before from other whiny brides: Establishing a wedding guest list sucks nuts.

First, there’s pressure from all around.

Dad: “Well, if we invite this person, we have to invite these 50 other people. They come in a group.” [Who knew guests are like Costco paper towel rolls?]

Grandma: “Well, you have to invite [relative I've met once in my life]. He’s coming ALL THE WAY FROM [some far away place].” [And of course, whatever granny says goes.]

Me: “Does so-and-so need a plus one?” Matt: She’s married! Me: GAAAAAAAAAH!

Add to that our space constraints. We’ve already enlisted our interior architect friend to sketch out a seating map that would maximize our small reception hall dimensions. Guests, now that I think about it, how do you feel about eating dinner on bunk beds?

Hmmmm …

Yes, it was our decision to have a rather intimate wedding. I’m sure many folks would not consider 160 guests to be intimate but if you come from a Big Fat Chinese Family like I do, it really is. But while I want our wedding to be intimate, I also want everyone to be there.

TOTALLY MAKES SENSE, right??

And I want to make everyone happy. It’s a sickness, whatever.

I have hope that it will all work out. But right now, I’m pretty bummed knowing that some important people may not get to share in our celebration.

Filed under Blah, Blah, Blah … Nobody Cares But You.

… to have our ceremony reading come from The Pioneer Woman’s Black Heels to Tractor Wheels: A Love Story? To me, there’s nothing better than the simple, quiet kind of love.

“Later on, I would think about my old L.A. life a lot—never more than when I was alone in the country with Marlboro Man, my new cowboy love. Life had suddenly slowed, slowed to the kind of pace that facilitates self-reflection and contemplation. And even when Marlboro Man and I were together, there were plenty of moments of beautiful silence. We didn’t try to fill every second of our time together with conversation and action, unlike J and I had done. My time with J, while nice at times, had been filled to the brim with friends and parties and plans and Jason’s father’s yacht and oh, we need to stop by Steve’s and oh, there’s a get together at the Balboa Bay Club tomorrow. Oh, come on. We really need to go. I haven’t seen Dave and Scooter in awhile. In the first week of my relationship with Marlboro Man, I’d spent more time alone with him than I’d ever spent with J in the four years we were together. And now, many months later, I realized how important it really is—as a couple in love—to sit in silence, to be still, to trace your thumbs along each other’s hand, to let the sounds of the atmosphere be your music for awhile.”

Le swoon.

I feel like I haven’t written a true Crazy Wedding Lady post in a while. They say that when you have a typical year-long engagement, there’s usually a lull somewhere in the middle. For you math nerds, I guess the wedding frenzy would sorta look like a parabola. In the course of six months, I went from “OMGOMGOMG” to “It’ll all get done—chillax, yo” to “I never want to lay eyes on another wedding magazine. Gag.” Luckily (for me, not you), my lull was short-lasting and I’m bouncing back into wedding wonderland once again. Game on.

Matt and I have talked about the song I’ll walk down the aisle to, our reception entrance song and our first dance song—and I won’t mention those here because you gotta save something for the wedding, right?—but we haven’t really talked about the other songs that will play throughout the day. We’ve got lots of time to fill with happy tunes: the pre-ceremony, the cocktail reception, dinner. (As for our dance floor music, well, I figure we’d just play pop and booty-grinding tracks. I want all our friends to hook up and marry each other so we can save on wedding travel expenses.)

Here are some sweet songs that put me in the mood for love. No, not that kind of mood. Just happy, romantic songs that I’d love to be part of my wedding day.

Cheesy, probably. But it’s a wedding!

What love songs make you happy?

I have a strong aversion to spending money. It’s the cheap Chinese lady in me, I just can’t shake her. This, of course, is not the worst trait to have (Matt, you’re so lucky!), but it has made wedding planning slightly torturous. Weddings, as you may know, are expensive. I don’t know if there’s ever a time in your life when you drop your hard-earned money so rapidly, handing out checks you’re freaking Publisher’s Clearinghouse. (By the way, who still asks for checks these days? Wedding people do, apparently.) It’s all a bit traumatic for a girl who gets stabby when the price of Lean Cuisines rises over three dollars.

Side question: How do you think about money, if not in dollars? As a freelance writer, I’ve been thinking about it in word count. Like, oh man, this jacket is gonna cost me 800 words and a sidebar! My friend Jenny, a bartender, thinks about it in shifts. Like, dude, this handbag is three Saturday nights plus overtime. Is it worth it?

Anyway, when it comes to our wedding, I’m learning to let go. We set a budget at the very beginning and we’ve been staying on track. There’s no need to hyperventilate over every bill. The other day, while thinking about one wedding thing or another, I murmured, “It’s so expensive” and Matt was like, “Do you wish we weren’t doing this?” and I just looked at him in shock. “Are you kidding? No way! This is the best thing ever!” I’ve been having a ton of fun throughout my wedding year (What? We don’t get a year? Just a day? DANGIT).  I think, or well, I hope, it’ll be worth it. Also, despite what my psycho posts may imply, we’re actually having a pretty modest wedding, at least according to LA standards. And we’re doing everything we can to cut costs here and there, scouring for sales on attire (do I have an epic future post for you), negotiating when possible and enlisting friends and family members to lend their time and talents.

But yeah, the money thing is big. My advice to future brides would be to mentally prepare yourself for the expenses while also being budget-conscious. Also, if possible, marry rich.

This past weekend, Matt and I started our registry. The creation of the wedding registry is a process that sounds really fun in theory—hello! home shopping spree with a nifty gun!—but for us, it was just kind of confusing. First, we don’t yet know where we’ll be living, so it’s hard to focus on a specific decorating style, and second, we don’t yet cook, so it’s hard to know what sort of stuff we’ll need in the kitchen. Our day consisted of a lot of …

Matt: Do we need a basting brush?

Me: YES! A BASTING BRUSH! … what’s basting?

Clearly, we’ll have to go back and edit. Anyway, Matt was most excited about his blow torch, which I’ll be able to use, you know, for all the times I make crème brulee (riiight) and I was most giddy about my Sharper Image Electric Wine Opener, as I plan on drinking a lot throughout marriage. Other than that, our registry doesn’t excite me a whole lot. Forks, trash cans, cutting boards … meh.

If I were to create my own registry, it would look more like this. (Wedding guests, please don’t really buy us this stuff … I mean, you can if you want—and thank you!—but the hubs might be like, WTF? Also, I can’t believe I just said hubs. I’m really creepy.)

Panda skillet!

Ninja salt and pepper shakers!

Liberty of London Watering Can. I really need this! For watering stuff! Yeah, I also might need some stuff to water.