Bachelor Party

The posts have slowed down a bit. . .maybe because there's a little under two and a half years until the wedding on November 20, 2010. While Carly is thinking about some of the details for the wedding, I've already begun thinking about bachelor parties. Yes, plural. There will definitely be more than just one bachelor party.

The idea is to definitely do on in Erie and then probably an international destination. One of the main things I want to do is make the bachelor party unique. An unforgettable, guy bonding experience sans strippers but lots and lots of drinking.

The ideas so far:

1) Do a relay triathlon where we all split up into teams and tackle a different leg (swim, bike, run).

2) Jumping out of a plane aka Sky diving.



3) Half mile run for your life aka Running of the Bulls in Pampalona, Spain. Realistically, only 15 people have been killed since 1910 so its not as dangerous as people think it is. Interestingly, approximately 14 people are killed each year sky diving.



4) Biggest Food Fight. Ever. aka La Tomatina!



5) Mexico (blah, but an idea nonetheless)

Wedding Season

There comes a point in your lives when you stop going to 21st birthday bar nights and graduation parties from college and start going to Weddings, showers, and "gasp" baby showers. I think Quoc and I have about at least 6 weddings within a years span. I'm in 2 of those weddings, and have 4 wedding showers to go to. We have four neighbors we are friends with; one of our neighbors got married last november, another gets married this weekend. One just had a baby, another is due later this summer. And the last neighbor we are friends with got engaged the same week as we did. There must be something in the water haha. We're in one of those growing up transition periods in life. When do you stop going to all night binge fests and start going to couples dinners and kids birthday parties? I think the best thing to remember through all this is balance. We still go out and have fun but we also get up early and do house stuff and couples things. Well Quoc gets up early....

Weddings and showers are not only a part of an adult transition period. They can be a lot of fun, open bars, dancing, good food, and good people. Plus you get a lot of ideas for your own wedding. The fun does come with a price though. With shower gifts, bachelor/bachelorette parties, travel costs, and wedding gifts....and then multiply that by six you can really break bank. So we try to cut costs where we can. One thing that is nice about having your two older sisters getting married before you is that you get a lot of pass-me-downs. It is probably the one time pass-me-downs are good. Everything from votives, baskets, to veils, and corset bras haha. But one thing said, I haven't regretted any of the money or time spent for any of the weddings or baby showers I have been to. I feel like Katherine Heigel in 27 Dresses. You enjoy doing nice things for those being honored and feel good sharing their happy moment. And when it comes time for you to have your moment. Those people who you've helped will be there for you during your happy moment.

A Typical Vietnamese Wedding in Vietnam

According to Vi:

They had fireworks and a laser show. I feel to maximize wedding day you should do what Uncle 7 did with the church wedding in the morning and a reception at night. Carly then gets three dresses and if you do the whole vietnamese custom of getting the bride she gets 4 dresses! But at the reception at night, the bride and groom are there 2 hours before everyone gets there to take individual pictures, once thats over there is an announcement and the lights go off and theres lasers and music and then the lights come on and the couple walk down the aisle to the stage followed by people with umbrellas and fireworks go off on the side as you walk down. After that the bride changed her dresss and the couple went to every table to toast. What are your plans? Cause if they dont include lasers, fireworks, dancers and a live four piece band, youve been upstaged oh and the 7 course meal.

How It Happened - Letting the Secret Out

The night before we left for the Bahamas, I sent a cryptic email out to a select crowd modeled after the movie "Fight Club." Here's a copy:

Welcome to the Quocshow. . .

The old blog had to be filed away but I started a new one...mainly just pictures for now but it will serve its primary purpose over the next few days.

A few housekeeping items:

Rules of The Quoc Show

1st RULE: You do not talk about THE QUOC SHOW.

2nd RULE: You DO NOT talk about THE QUOC SHOW.

3rd RULE: There shall be no public discussions about happenings in THE QUOC SHOW over facebook, myspace, etc

4th RULE: Secrets in THE QUOC SHOW stay in THE QUOC SHOW

5th RULE: Rule #4 means you do not expose secrets to anyone, even significant others. I cannot stress how CRITICAL this is.

6th RULE: Seriously, keep this to yourselves.

7th RULE: Follow along at the Quoc Show Blog

See attachment.

(attached was a file called, Sssh its a Secret.jpg which was a picture of me holding the engagement ring.)

The plan was then to send updates to my blog while I was in the Bahamas to keep people updated up until the big moment.

How it could have happened...

So Quoc mentioned all of the many ways he was thinking of proposing. I must admit the pressure is on the guy in the first part of the engagement to not only propose, but come up with a good way to propose, find an amazing ring, and drop a significant amount of $ for said amazing ring. Words can't describe what a great job Quoc did with the proposal and ring. Truly an unforgettable experience. 

Details about the actual proposal will have to wait for a later post. I did, however, come across ways not to propose in the June edition of Women's health. Hope any of my girls don't find themselves with these proposals.

Wedding Budget

As we plan for the wedding of the century...aka...can't miss party of 2010, part of it is figuring out the budget to start putting money towards. I found a sample budget and the breakdown looks like the following:

* Ceremony 3%
* Reception 48%
* Attire 10%
* Rings 3%
* Flowers 8%
* Music 8%
* Photography 12%
* Transportation 2%
* Stationary 3%
* Gifts 3%

How It Happened - Proposal Ideas

Aside from the ring, the other special memory of a proposal is how its done. I'll give the rundown on how it really happened in an upcoming post but below is run down of the different ideas I had kicking of how to do it. I wish I could've went through with some of the ideas but you only (hopefully) get one shot at proposing :-P

Who loves you?

Carly: "Who loves you?"

Quoc: "I do. No one loves me more than me, but you're a close second."

Reading materials

After getting engaged, people have given me a number of bridal magazines and a few wedding books. I won't lie, I've looked through them all already. A friend of mine from work gave me a book called the Anti-Bride wedding planner. The idea of it is that it gives traditional wedding advice as well modern hipster twists for planning a wedding. The advice is practical and useful with a lot of cost saving suggestions. While perusing for wedding books at Barnes and Nobles (to give to a friend who is also planning her wedding) I came across another Anti-Bride book. This one was on wedding ettiquite. I bought it and the information is invaluable. It covers everything from engagement advice to wording on invitations. Again, the theme of the Anti-Bride is explaining the traditions and how to bend the rules without breaking your ideals or your bank. I highly suggest this series for anyone interested in planning a wedding, shower, bachelorette, or engagment party.  

     

How It Happened - The Perfect Ring

When it comes to choosing an engagement ring, the majority of guys have the same number one requirement:

"What's the best rock I can get for the money I want to spend?"

Its a bit shallow, but the engagement ring a girl wears will always be compared to other engagement rings. The guy has to be aware that the ring will be the center of attention when the engagement is announced. It will be the single source of pride and excitement for the girl.

Needless to say, its quite a bit of pressure.

Most of the time a girl will mention to her boyfriend what she likes in a ring. Things like setting, cut, design, etc. The fun thing about surprising Carly is that I didn't know any of this. All I knew was that she probably didn't want yellow gold since she doesn't wear any jewelry that is yellow gold.

I did some research online and based upon past discussions with some of my female friends, I had a rough idea. Rough meaning that it would be a princess cut diamond on a white gold ring. Still no clue about setting or design. The more I researched, the more I learned about diamond quality. I was unfamiliar with how a diamond's value was derived. Things like clarity, color, cut, etc. Apparently there were a bunch of factors that determined how much a diamond was worth.

When I got back to Erie, we talked about the ring and decided the best place to get a diamond was in Toronto, Canada because we'd get a better deal, we were familiar with the jewelers (they were Vietnamese), and it would be tax free.

Note: For those who don't want to drive to Canada for tax free benefits, Delaware is a better option if live in the Philly area.

After talking about settings, my Mom talked about her original setting for her engagement ring. She no longer wore it because she had her diamond remounted and offered to use that as the setting for Carly's ring. It made sense on two fronts:

1) The setting was white gold.
2) I haven't had many traditions where something was passed down from older generations because I've never met most of my family (they are still in Vietnam). It was special to me to be able to have a ring that belonged to my Mom become a part of the ring I'd give to Carly.

I was half way there. Now it was a matter of getting the diamond.

We looked at several diamonds and it came down between choosing a big diamond (bling bling) or a smaller one with higher quality. I went for quality since the diamond was exceptionally pretty and I figured that Carly's look wasn't "rap star" with a superfluously sized diamond relative to her finger size.

"Got so much ice you can skate on. . ." (BG)

The final piece was finding out sizing. This is the first I'll admit it, but I did end up stealing a ring from Carly's jewelry box. It looked to be about the right size. I have seen Carly specifically wear a ring on her right index finger but I could not find that one so I went with any other ring I could find that Carly wouldn't notice was missing. As the jeweler was sizing everything out, he asked a pretty good question:

"Does she wear this ring on her middle finger? It looks bigger than normal."

Damn, that was a good question. After some debate, I think we agreed to size the ring at 6.5 (I think) which seemed about average. The jeweler then went to work on the "masterpiece."

While this was going on, Carly actually called me to check in. The store was a bit loud with everyone talking and she asked what was going on. I had to make up a story about relatives being over for the weekend, etc which seemed reasonable to Carly.

After two hours, the finished product was ready. The ring was absolutely gorgeous. I looked at in admiration and thought to myself:

"Wow, the future is literally in my hands."

and then I thought

"Man, I hope she likes it. . ."

and finally

"I hope it fits her finger!"