Wedding changes....

Well, I guess they aren't really changes since we haven't put anything in stone yet. But our ideas are rapidly changing from our original ideas as things pan out. We mentioned that we had met with the caterer and found out the expenses and what things we would need to fix around the backyard to get it presentable for the wedding. Quoc also went to the vietnamese restaurants in South philly with his parents to see what they offered. Well, we were both a little less than thrilled with the results. It was beginning to look like it would be two complete weddings both in cost and magnitude.
After talking a bit on Sunday and going over the pros and cons of the info we had at this point and what we wanted for our wedding we came up with this idea:
Rehearsal dinner/Vietnamese ceremony at my parents house in Bucks County
Small tent for ceremony in case of rain, chairs, cocktail tables, parking in the field, kegs, wine, food from chinatown (including full roast pig), Emcee for vietnamese/american translation, photographer, etc. By having it in our backyard we can have more people and do more of the laid back things we want while including vietnamese tradition with our marriage.
American ceremony at Fonthill
This allows us to have the outside feel, with the same caterer for less money, in fact this is where I wanted to get married when I was younger because it is so beautiful here. The only downside to having it at an outside venue in Bucks is that the noise curfew is 10pm so it would be an early night.
Well this is our basic idea at this point. As we are learning things could change daily and I'm sure they will continue to change up until the wedding. So we'll keep you updated haha.

The Meeting of the Parents

After close to 3.5 years our parents finally met this Friday night. With a 6+ hour distance between our families it has been hard to find time when everyone was available to meet. Quoc's parents were coming down for a visit over the Easter weekend and wanted to try to get together with my parents. They came in late thursday and would leave early Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately I was on-call 24 hours on Saturday so Friday was our only option. The weather has been unseasonably warm so we wanted to do a BBQ at our house. We thought it would be more intimate than a restaurant and allow everyone to get to know eachother a little better.
Needless to say I was nervous. We had just been really pursuing things with the wedding and it was on both parent's minds, I didn't want that to be the first topic of conversation. Quoc's brother Andy, and my sister Ashley and her boyfriend Brandon joined us. I was happy that everything went very smoothly. We had tons to eat for dinner, conversations went easily, and the night melted away.
I feel better now that the parents have met and there is really nothing left up in the air. Now we just have to plan that whole wedding thing...hmm

Keeping me sane

So as most everyone knows I am on the last leg of my grad school. In November I graduate from Anesthesia school and take my boards and luckily I have a job lined up at Einstein for when I'm done. Anyway, as much as I like school and enjoy what I'm doing it is extremely time consuming and often stressful. I'm supposed to be putting in 20+ hours of studying in addition to my clinical hours and call. So unfortunately a lot of other things fall to the wayside. I try to balance my time between school and studying with everything else including: family, friends, working out, wedding stuff, house stuff, and a little time for myself. Recently I haven't been able to keep up with the house stuff and it has started to stress me out. I felt like everytime I turned around something else needed to be done and I'd have to choose between studying and cleaning. It started really wearing on me, I'd have to leave the house to study because if I stayed at home I'd just clean and not get any studying done.
Sunday I was on-call and I asked Quoc to help me out. He is usually so busy with work, working out, and all of his other extra curricular activities. When I called home from call Quoc said he didn't get to anything he was too busy. I was a little bummed but what can you do.
When I came home though I found out Quoc was a liar. The only time I was really happy that he lied. Haha. The whole house was not only cleaned, he tried to install the new doorknob (there was a problem with the fit), install the molding strips upstairs, put away our xmas stuff (finally), put together the deck chairs, cleaned the grill, cleaned the bathroom, installed the curtain pull backs, and much more. Oh and he burned the cd I wanted. It must have taken him the entire day to do everything. It felt like such a weight off my back (especially because his parents are coming in this weekend) I was able to focus on studying and getting my stuff done. I know it sounds a little silly but Quoc does know how to keep me level and help me out when I need a hand. He knows when I reach my breaking point and he goes above and beyond to make things better.

Caterer update

So the caterer came to my parents house and we walked around the yard to get an idea of the layout. Due to the trees and a slight grade of a hill we had limited options on where to put everything. We then discussed what they can provide for us and what we wanted. It turns out doing a champagne reception (which is basically a big cocktail hour) isn't really reasonable. So I thought the next thing we could do would be a buffet but again, it would take more time than a traditional sit down dinner. Hmm, that is one of the reasons we wanted to do it at home, a less formal champagne reception. We talked about some more options and then the caterer left with a basic plan and is going to price it out and get back to us.
So first thoughts afterwards is how much more money it is going to cost to have it at home. I thought there would be some differences in price but overall it would even out. Apparently it won't. It is a little disheartening to have an image or idea in your head and realize that it is not really feasible and will be more hassle than it is worth.
In addition to that after the caterer left my parents and I walked around the yard and discussed everything we need to do to the property to get it ready. Anyone who has been to my house knows it is pretty nice outside, however there are a lot of things that need to be taken care of. We need to get dirt and level off some areas, re-cement some areas of the back patio and pond, move the wood piles (so they are not next to the tent), plant flowers, clean up the woods where all the trees fell down.
Yikes, well I guess we can only wait to hear back from the caterer and see how we want to proceed from there. Wamp wamp, I'm glad we are starting though so we can get things figured out and continue planning.
Aside from that I already know what our flowers are going to be, centerpieces, bridesmaid gowns, videographer, special favors, etc. Well we'll keep you updated.

Caterer

This Saturday we are meeting with Memorable Affairs to look at catering options. The caterer is coming to my parents house to check out the site and discuss options. I'm excited to finally get the ball rolling with some of the wedding plans. We basically have ideas for what we want for our wedding, we just haven't really solidified any of them yet. Once we have the caterer squared away we can actually commit to our ideas and put them into action.
I found this caterer online and it sounded like a good fit, they do everything that we would need including tents, chairs, tables, flatware, bar, dance floor, food services, trash removal, and more. I'm all for one stop shopping and I think it will be much easier to deal with one vendor for what we need.
So, wish us luck, hopefully this is what we are looking for and it works out.

MY DRESS!!!!

Since Quoc and I got engaged I've perused magazines and online at dresses. I cut some pics out and saved some others online for ideas of what I liked. I had no idea when I'd actually like to go try some on because we had over a year left before our wedding. However, in January I came across a dress that I absolutely loved. The only problem was that it was at a boutique and I knew the dress would run close to $5,000. I wasn't planning on spending anywhere near that amount. A friend of mine had told me about a company that made designer knock offs at a fraction of the price. All the reviews of the company were amazing so I thought I'd try. Before I could even consider this I had to try the dress on. With that thought I got really excited and wanted to go try it on. I hurried to get my sisters and bridesmaid and of course my mom, to get together to try the dress on. I also wanted to try it on before my little sister went back to college. I tried multiple dresses on and some were very nice, I ended up liking another dress more than the one I went there to try on. However, it was more intricate and more expensive and everyone agreed that it probably couldn't be reproduced by that company. I went home empty handed and looked over the pics from it, I was surprised I didn't have the same feelings about the dresses after I looked at the pics.
I decided to look around more before I made any decisions. I picked out a bunch of potential dresses I wanted to try on at David's bridal. I picked out a ton of different styles that normally I wouldn't think would look good on me. I tried on a bunch but nothing wowed me. My consultant then pulled a different dress that I hadn't picked. I was skeptical but tried it on anyway. When I looked in the mirror I was shocked. It looked perfect and I felt perfect. I got the vote of approval and said yes. I was shocked that it was that easy. I just committed to my dress!! I was slightly apprehensive that I would have buyer's remorse but after seeing the pics and hearing my friends and family agree I felt re-confirm my original feelings. In fact I just got an email that my dress came in and I am going to pick it up on Wednesday to take it to my parent's house. Wow, it is becoming more real each and every day! yay!

Making our way down the aisle

So many of you may have seen this on youtube, good morning america, and many other media outlets. It is the "boogie down the aisle." We have received many requests to do this as well. Here is the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0
(For some reason it won't let me put the direct video up, stupid youtube).

I also saw another idea to not necessarily dance down the aisle but to use different tunes from the tradition. I think I have an idea of what I would like to walk down and what we would recess to but I am not sure what we would have the bridesmaids walk down to. It's just another fun part about making our wedding unique and fun.

long overdue

Wow, it has been quite awhile since Quoc and I have updated this blog. We've both been pretty busy. Anesthesia school is, as anticipated, consuming most of my time. And between house, work, and working out activities Quoc has been keeping busy as well. Tomorrow we are heading to my parents to help do some yard work. It is amazing how much work my parents have done in the past year with landscaping. It is kind of an excuse to do more things with the yard since we will be having our wedding there in the future.
As time goes by I will continue to update with happenings and wedding planning. We have so many ideas at this point but it is hard to book things so far in advance. We will definitely keep you posted with all of our fun ideas and plans. Can't wait to share with everyone such a wonderful moment in our lives!

Until next post
~Carly

One year later

Well, it is just about that time. Quoc and I are reaching our 1st year of being engaged. It's amazing, time really does fly by. I won't lie, wedding planning thus far has been frustrating. We spoke about getting married when we were dating and we both agreed that we wouldn't get married while I was in school. It really isn't feasible. However, this makes planning a little, well, different. Things don't follow the normal timeline. How far ahead of time can you plan something? Will that place you are planning to use for catering or flowers still be in business in 2+ years? Quoc and I have many ideas of what we want to happen at our wedding, many of them conflict with the strict regulations facilities impose. So we decided to have the American ceremony and reception at my parents home. Well, that puts restrictions on when we can have the wedding. Our original idea of having the wedding in November when I graduate is not feasible due to the weather. We then thought about stretching it into early October b/c most of my heavy school stuff may be at a lull at that moment. For my parents, October would be stretching it with the pool and weather, and for me and Quoc it would be stretching it with school. Wow, now what? Well the next time that would work would be Spring of 2011. But in all honesty it would be the best option, I will be done school (hopefully earning some $). The weather will be nice and the yard will be in bloom. I'm excited to have a date (estimated June 4th 2011). It gives me something to look forward to while I'm in school. Hopefully it will give us time to do all of the things big and small that we want for this special day. Man after 3 years we better live up to all of the hype! Haha.
3 years of being engaged sounds like a long time, but wow one year has passed already! We decided to celebrate our engagement and we used my "spring break" to do something nice. Originally Quoc had wanted to take me somewhere, but I knew I'd still have school work to do and some other things around the house that we nixed that idea. Instead we took a day to ourselves in Philly. Living in a house with multiple people and being the social people that we are, we rarely have much time to ourselves. So on Thursday Quoc took the day off for our date. We both went for a run in the morning and then caught the train downtown. Our first stop was Sabrina's in the Italian market for brunch with mimosas. After that we walked to jeweler's row to get my ring appraised. I know I know, it has been a year and we haven't done this yet. Honestly I was scared to take it any place I didn't know anything about. Unfortunately after finding a good place, we didn't realize you needed an appointment. Woops, honestly who needs an appointment on a Thursday afternoon. After that we both got a massage at the Philadelphia Massage School. Lily got us gift certificates and we finally made it down to get one. It was Quoc's first time having a massage and we both enjoyed it. Then after taking a detour through Reading terminal market for some browsing it was off to Rittenhouse for some afternoon drinks and people watching. We first hit up Drinkers, then over to Tequilas for a margarita. The last stop on our route for the day was a BYOB birthday dinner for Di with good friends, good eats, and of course good drinks! It was a beautiful day and I couldn't have enjoyed it anymore just walking around the city enjoying spending time together.

Sip n' Scan

I got an email thru theknot.com about our registry at Macy's. We signed up at Macy's so my Mom had things she could buy us for christmas and birthdays but haven't put much on it. This email informed us about an event coming up at Macy's in KOP and downtown Philly. Basically it is called a sip n' scan. We go to the Macy's, meet up with our own personal wedding assistant to help us with our registry, and have drinks and appetizers while we scan items. Quoc is away this week at a sales meeting so we won't be able to go to the one in KOP, so we'll be heading downtown to register next week. I was surprised that Quoc wanted to go...I think the promise of drinks to get him through it helps haha. We'll let you know how it goes.