I must have tried on a dozen different wedding bands in my search for the perfect one.  In a previous blog, I wrote about the Tiffany’s wedding bands. 

We are still going with the 6mm platinum band for Mr. Butterfly.  I absolutely adore this band on him and I think it looks fantastic. 

For me, we were struggling with a decision on whether to try and replicate the one that I loved from Fortunoff, or just buy it directly from them.  With gift certificates and a 10% discount for registering, the ring that I want now is pretty affordable.  Also, we are having the ring shipped to the Best Man in Virginia, so we don’t have to pay taxes on it.  Woohoooo~!! No taxes!!   

Here is a (not very good) picture of the ring.  Seriously, this picture just doesn’t do it justice, but its the only one I have.  They only have 2 left in the entire company.  I’m so excited because its really unique!

AHHHHHHH!!  Now that the day is drawing nearer, I had to make a schedule of the day’s events.  It still hasnt hit me yet that I am actually getting married.  But making the schedule definitely helped cement that fact.  This is what’s happening on the wedding weekend.

November xx, 2006 – The Day before the Wedding

Until 1pm
Drop off everything at the venue and check that I packed everything for the weekend

1:30pm
Check in at hotel with my girls

1:30pm – 2:30pm
Have lunch

2:30pm – 5:30pm
Relax

5:30pm – 7:30pm
Rehearsal Dinner

7:30pm – not too late
Hang out with wedding party

November xx, 2006 – Day of the Wedding

9:00am – 11:00 am
Hair for me and the girls and my mom

11:30am – 12:30pm
Manicures for me and the girls and maybe my mom

12:45pm – 1:15pm
Eat in the hotel room; Mr. Butterfly and the men check into a different room in the hotel

1:15pm – 2:30pm
Get ready.  Photographers arrive at 1:30pm to take “getting ready” pictures for both men and women.

2:30pm – 4:00pm
Take pictures in the West Village

4:00pm – 4:45pm
Back to venue to take family portraits

4:45pm – 5:15pm
Rehearsal

5:30pm – 6:00pm
Guests arrive; Quartet starts playing background music

6:00pm – 6:25pm
Wedding ceremony!!  Cocktail Hour starts

6:45pm to 7:10pm
Paebaek Ceremony open to guests

7:30pm – 11:30pm
Dinner Reception

11:30pm – whenever
After party!!!

Now that the wedding is drawing nearer, I have become very conscious about the money I spend.  Only because I need to have enough left over to pay my vendors on the last week.  Can you imagine if I ran out of money?  Eeeek!! 

Anyway, one way that I am saving money (albeit only a hundred bucks or so), is to have “shared” menus at each table, instead of one menu per person.  I guess when I go to weddings, I only take the programs so I don’t think menus are as important.  But that’s just me.  So my menus will be in tent card form. 

I will have 3 per table, which should be plenty for the people to share.  However, I didn’t know what to put on the other side of the “tent”.  I didn’t want to leave it blank, so Mr. Butterfly and I have decided to write our story of how we met, or a timeline of our relationship, or something else personal.  I think that the guests will really enjoy reading about it. 

When I actually write the story, I will post it – I promise!!

Oh, the last detail of my menu that I really wanted is the pictures of the cow and the fish from a previous blog.  Since many of the guests are Korean and may not understand the menu, I wanted to put pictures of the animals on my menus too!  Does anyone know where I can get them?

Mommy Butterfly sent over some money yesterday to help pay for my wedding.  I truly appreciate that she’s paying for half of this because otherwise, I would never be able to have a wedding like this.  And so far, I feel that my wedding is turning out wonderfully! 

At first, I was going to deposit this cash, but realized that I need a lot of cash on the day of my wedding.  When I was going through my budget, it really hit me as to how much money is put into tips.  Mrs. Bee always told me that if the vendor owns their own company, you dont need to tip them.  My vendor also told me that I should tip the people who are working my wedding.  So these are the tips that I have calculated so far:

Maitre D – $400
Bridal Attendant – $200
Coatcheck – $200
DJ – $200
String Quartet – $80 to $100
Driver of Limo – $80 to $100
Hair – 20% of total
Parking Attendants – $40 per garage
Bartenders – $100 per bartender?

I think $100 per bartender should be enough, since there will be two of them.  Should it be $150 per person, instead?

Do you think I should also tip the event coordinator at my venue? What about my florist?  She doesnt own the shop, but she is the wedding person.

As for my photographer, I will probably send a very nice gift basket.

What are you doing for tips and how did you decide how much to give?

 Based on Mrs. Bee’s program, I have finally written up a draft.  I have been feeling guilty about not doing this for the past week, and it feels good to actually start on it.  

Cover

Ms. Butterfly

and

Mr. Butterfly

November xx, 2006

(image of double happiness from the invitation)

Twenty Four Fifth
New York City  

Page 1

The Marriage Ceremony
Uniting
Ms. Butterfly
and
Mr. Butterfly
on Saturday
xxxxxx of November
Two Thousand and Six
at xx O’Clock

I think I may be more stressed out than I thought.  I don’t feel stressed, and I work very well under pressure.  In fact, I do my best work under pressure, and I thrive on it.  But apparently, all the stuff in my life right now is causing me stress.  My dentist told me that I cracked a filling last month because I grind my teeth at night.  Teeth grinding is a sign of stress, and I never used to do it before. 

And now, I’m having nightmares all the time.  Last night’s dream was nothing compared to two nights ago, so I wasn’t at all panicky when I woke up.  But it still wasn’t good.

Its a few days before my wedding, and one of the executives here wants to invite herself.  I somehow can’t say no, and before I know it, her entire family is invited to my wedding (ex husband, and 2 kids).  I’m collecting all of the names of the people who are coming, and it turns out to be over 110 people, which is way over what I had budgeted for.  Luckily my venue makes all of the accommodations. 

My venue, is no longer my venue.  My wedding is now taking place in a very large conference room – one of those conference centers in a hotel.  There is a podium and a large screen in the front of the room.  Somehow, I am sitting with the executive with her family.  At first things are OK, but then her ex-husband starts asking me questions on the mike.  I am drunk in my dream so I can barely understand him. 

Then I realize that my family is not there.  Not a single one of them.  I start panicking and wondering where they are.  I go outside of the conference room to find them.  They are not there.  They have already missed the ceremony because its reception time.  I walk back into the conference room, and there is absolutely no music playing.  People look so bored.  So I scream out “can we get some music in here!!?”  Really cheesy music starts playing and I start dancing.  A few people join me, but half heartedly.

Finally, my entire family walks in 2 hours late.  The dinner has already been served, and there are may 15 people left at the wedding.  Everyone had left because it was so boring. 

This is when I wake up.  To be honest, I am terrified that no one will have fun at my wedding.  I still haven’t picked song lists for the DJ and I know everyone has a totally different taste in music.  I don’t want anyone thinking that my wedding was boring. 

I don’t know why I am having these nightmares all of the sudden, because I really haven’t done any planning this week.  Maybe its the guilt of not doing anything…..hmmmm.

Either way, tonight, I am hoping that I have a good dream.  I don’t think I can take anymore drama in my head. 

I woke up from the most horrendous nightmare this morning. 

I was getting ready on my wedding day, and for some reason my groom didn’t show up.  I searched high and low for him for 3 days.  Finally, my brother and I found him at a hospital morgue, listed under John Doe.  They needed us to ID the body.  As soon as they showed a bit of his face, I recognized his eye brows and knew that it was him.  Apparently, a car ran over him. 

Fast forward, and I am home in our apartment.  I see my dog and I completely lose it.  Mr. Butterfly usually walks the dog, and I just couldn’t bring myself to admit that he had died.  All of the sudden, I remember all the little things that he does for me around the house.  And I feel so lost because I dont know who will take care of me.  I’ve always thought of myself as a strong person, but I feel like I can’t go on.

I’m still in my apartment with the dead body (don’t ask), and I keep bargaining with it.  Please….Please wake up.  Please dont be dead.  I will give anything for you to be alive again.  I also kept telling myself that it was a dream.  This couldn’t be real.  How could he be gone?  But I could not wake up. 

The longer the dream went on, the more I believed it to be real.  Finally, I woke up.  For a few seconds, I honestly thought the entire thing was real.  And I had to reach over and wake him up, just to make sure he was still alive.  Once I knew that it was all a dream, I started bawling like a baby. 

Poor Mr. Butterfly.  I couldn’t even stop crying long enough to tell him my dream, so he was so bewildered and just held me until I stopped.  I’m having a hard time shaking that feeling today, so I called my mom.  She kept asking me if I had actually seen the dead body.  Of course I had…it was in my living room!  Apparently, in Korean folklore, seeing a dead body in your dream is a really good sign.  I swear, that is the only thing that really made me feel OK about my dream.  Leave it to mom to save the day!!

I know it was only a dream.  But the feelings were real to me.  And after last night, I can honestly say that I truly appreciate every little thing Mr. Butterfly does for me.  I know that I am strong, but I dont ever want to think of a world where he is not my partner for life. 

Have you ever had such a dream?

I’m at the point in my wedding where I can write the programs.  I already know what time the ceremony will start.  I know what will happen after the ceremony.  I know what time the dinner will start.  I know who is in my wedding party and all of the people who are important.  I know who I want to thank. 

What I don’t know is how to start writing a program.  And I’m also not very organized, because I cant find a single program from the 3 weddings I’ve been to last year. 

I know that you also write the music that everyone walks down the aisle to – but I haven’t quite decided on the music for the last piece.  What do I want to have playing when Mr. Butterfly and I walk back down the aisle as a married couple.  Probably the Wedding March….although I have no idea how that will sound with a quartet and not an organ.

Anyway, can anyone help me write the damn program?  I am so confused and lost!!  I need examples to see, please?

Thanks!!

 I’ve mentioned a few times that both Mr. Butterfly and I are huge Excel geeks.  Seriously – we do everything in Excel.  My personal budget is on Excel, our Guest List is on Excel, our school and work is in Excel, etc.  In fact, the only other program that I use as much (aside from the Internet and email, of course) is PowerPoint. 

Anyway, back to Excel.  On Sunday, after we finished our registry, we updated our budget spreadsheet.  The one we have is slightly complex, consisting of actual costs, payments made to date, payments due, when the expenses go out on a weekly basis, whether its cash, credit or check, and the balances of each type of money on a weekly basis.  Ok – that made it sound way too complicated.

 (image here)

That’s an image of what my budget looks like.  The next page groups all of the expenses together into cash, credit and check to see how much cash I will need when v. what is being charged on the credit card.  Then I can see how much cash I have to pay off the wedding charges on the credit card.

I’ve blanked out all of the amounts on here for now.  But I promise to post this complete version, with formulas and amounts, and make it download-able (is that a word?) after my wedding. 

I will say this though.  Once I finished adding up my expenses, I realized that I went about 15% over my original budget.  Its not that much considering that I added other expenses that were not included in my original budget (i.e. personal trainer).  But I’m starting to think that no matter how much you try, you’re going to go over.

What do you think?

I had to go into work today (Sunday) for a few hours, and my lovely fiance decided to join me.  While I was working, Mr. Butterfly and I worked on our registry.  I found it really hard to “complete” our registry in-store.  First, after 15 items or so, I couldn’t remember what we had scanned, let alone try to color coordinate.  Second, everything was sooooo pretty that I scanned a million things!!

Now, because both of us are pretty much Excel freaks, we made a table of everything in our registry.  A simple table labeled “Bedding Set 1″ with items such as fitted sheets, flat sheets, duvet covers, pillow cases and shams can act as a real life saver when trying to keep track of multiple items.  Next to each item, we wrote the color, brand and quantity.  The reason for doing this is because your registry list online doesn’t always group everything together.

Here are the things we registered for (most of them anyway):

Macy’s
1 Trashcan
1 Vacuum Cleaner
1 George Foreman Jumbo Grill
1 Crockpot
1 Carving Set (for roasts and stuff – like I ever roast)
1 15-piece Knife Block
3 Bedding Sets (fitted sheet, flat sheet, 2 pillow cases, 2 shams, duvet cover)
2 Comforters
2 Pillows
2 Blankets
3 Bathroom Sets (4 bath towels, 4 hand towels, 2 face towels, bath rug, shower curtain)
2 pieces of Luggage
Bathroom accessories

Crate & Barrel
8 Kita Dinnerware Set (dinner plate, salad plate, bowl, cup)
2 Kita Platters
8 Masa Dinner Plates
8 Masa Bowls
16 Masa Dipping Dishes (for Korean side dishes)
2 Masa Platters
2 Masa Serving Bowls
1 Rustic Red Platter
1 Serving Set
8 5-piece Placesettings
8 Dublin highball glasses
8 Dublin double glasses
4 Stratton Beer Mugs
8 Placemats
1 Centerpiece Bowl
And a ton of other stuff – cooking utensils, wine rack, tea kettle, measuring devices, cookware and bakeware

Wow.  Now that I’ve listed it, I think I went a bit overboard.  Where am I gonna put all this stuff?  I guess I just need a bigger apartment.

Question:    Since we are moving into a new place within a few months of getting married, we will probably use only the new stuff.  The old stuff in my kitchen is pretty new and of good quality.  What do you do with your old kitchen stuff when you get your registry items?