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?

I love Love LOVE my florist.  Her personality is awesome, she has great taste, and she has so many great ideas!  Of course, I am paying the price – granted she is doing my wedding for a really good deal, but its just a bit more than what I had budgeted.  Luckily, I saved money on other things so I was able to swing it.  It was a pretty penny though.

Anyway, without further ado – pictures!!

This is one of the styles that we are having on half of the tables.  Its different height vases with orange candle floaters, and spotted orange orchids floating in water.

This is the other style we are having.  Instead of mixed heights, the center is taken up by 3 tall vases.

Then, on the table settings, a single orchid bloom will sit on top of the napkins (not this exact setting, but similar).  This cost me extra, but I think its worth it.  Besides, when we’re talking tens of thousands of dollars for a wedding, what’s a few hundred bucks?  (That’s what I keep telling myself so I don’t feel so guilty about spending all this money )

This is a model bouquet that she had in the store.  The chocolate orchids will be used for all of the bridesmaids and all of the groomsmen and family.  I am also having sleek, tall ceramic vases by where I will be standing which will be filled with branches.  These branches will have the chocolate orchids glued onto them. 

This is also a model bouquet.  The mango calla lillies will be used in my bouquet, but I wont have any of the “skirting” of the leaves.  Just plain calla lillies with a champagne ribbon.

This is the first time that my vendor will use orange in my venue.  I really like the sunset hues matched with more neutral colors like champagne.  I also ordered mini orchids in bright red and yellows to line the aisle runner.

Finally, I ordered 10 uplights in amber so that the entire room will have the right “hue”. 

I am SO excited about how this is going to turn out!  I have complete faith in my florist and I know it will be fantastic.  I just have to remind my photographer to take tons of detail pics.

 Ok, Ok.  There is an actual store here in Manhattan called “Here Comes the Bridesmaid.”  I stole the blog title from them.  Anyway, my bridesmaid dresses finally arrived!

Here are some pics of one of the dresses (still in its plastic bag). 

Then my vendor, Coco Myles emailed me some great information!  The junior bridesmaid is finally ready.  And according to their email, since I had been so patient they FedEx’d an actual mock-up dress to my house so that I could see it.  Of course, its not the exact dress that I am ordering, but it certainly gave me an idea.  Also, they FedEx’d it free to my house same day, and will pick it up via messenger for free too!  What service!!!!!

I feel so good now that things are finally coming together.  I will order the junior dress tomorrow for $115 + shawl.  And the rest is just falling into place!

First, I apologize to my readers for my lack of updates.  Work has been absolutely crazy for the last month or so…..

Onto the post!  Mr. Butterfly and I were in Chinatown this week and I realized that I could get great deals on their slippers.  Originally, I didn’t want to buy the Chinese slippers that were popular last year, because I really never thought they were much of a fashion statement.  However, after exploring all my options, Chinese slippers became my only options due to price. 

We all know how much weddings cost, and at this point with only about 2 months to go, I really have to watch my budget.  With about 95 guests, and assuming that half of them will be women, I figured 30 slippers would be plenty.  Lemme tell you – 30 slippers is not that cheap if you are thinking of spending $5 per pair.  In Chinatown, however, everything is up for bargaining.  And that’s exactly what I did. 

The guy wanted to charge me $3 per pair.  $3 x 30 pairs = $90 buckaroos.  That’s expensive!!  So I managed to bargain him down to $70.  That comes out to about $2.33 per pair!  What a deal!!!

This is a picture of all the slippers after I’ve arranged them into the beautiful baskets from Target that I ordered a while back.

I know I dont have any blue in my color scheme, but it was the most “neutral” color besides white and black.  They didn’t have enough whites and blacks in the sizes that I wanted.  In that basket, I have:

3 size 5 slippers
7 size 6 slippers
10 size 7 slippers
10 size 8 slippers

Now my only problem is to figure out a place to put the slippers in my venue so that people will see it and use it! 

I have heard horror stories about how hard it is to get your invitations hand cancelled from the post office.  Some post offices wont do it at all.  Others will send you on 4 different lines (and we all know how long those lines can get at the post office).  So I was not expecting anything different when it was my turn.

I happened to be at the post office buying the 63 cent wedding stamps.*  While there, I asked the woman helping me if they did hand cancelling.  She told me just to drop off the invitations to the customer service line and that would be done.  Of course, I didn’t believe her.  I mean, how could it be so easy?  No way. 

Few days later, I finished my invitations and walked over to the post office at 5:30pm.  It was 30 minutes til closing and I knew that the employees would be desperate to get out of work.  I took my bag of invitations (about 40) and the customer service asked if there were less than 50**, and then took my bag. 

That. was. it.

Now, I didn’t have an extra invite to mail to myself so I dont know how they turned out.  Perhaps we can ask one of the recipients to send in a picture?  (ahem…Mrs. Bee?)

If anyone lives on the upper east side, go to the post office on 91st and 3rd avenue.  They are by far the friendliest post office that I have ever been to, and everyone who works there is very helpful. 

*I think its ridiculous that the 63 cent stamps only come with the 39 cent stamps on one sheet.  I already had all my 39 cent stamps.  What a waste of money.

**The first 50 invites are free to hand cancel.  Each one after that costs you extra – I don’t know by how much.  I think only 5 cents.

 Here they are!!!  As promised, here are the pictures of my invitations and the 2 day process of putting them together!

   First, run the tape along the back of the invite panel.

Mount the invitation to the backing layer.

Run the tape along the back of the backing layer.

Mount the backing layer onto the pocketfold.

Run the tape along the back of the top layer of the seal.

Mount the top layer onto the backing layer.

Run the tape along only the top 1/3 of the backing layer.

Mount the backing layer onto the pocketfold flap.

Organize the 3 inserts.

Stick the inserts into the pocket based on size.  This is what it looked like completed.

  Completed invites from the outside.

Adrienne from Custom Programs sent over extras of everything!  When you order or buy the materials for your invitations, make sure you order at least 15% to 20% extra on everything.  I thought I only needed 50 invitations, so I only ordered 60.  It turns out I needed about 55 (more if I have to move onto my B list).  And of course, I did make a handful of mistakes.  If Adrienne hadn’t sent over extras on top of the 60, I would be totally screwed.

Anyway, there they are.  I’m so proud…..*tear*