Me with 12hr old Cassidy
Sleeping princessI'm so looking forward to spoiling my niece!
-ange xx
-ange xx
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Welcome Cassidy Payton Tran!
I have a new love! This morning, Ann and Dave welcomed their baby girl into the world and she is as beautiful as can be. And I absolutely love her name (n.b. middle name Payton is to honour this year's Superbowl winner!). All day, all I could think about was meeting Cassidy and was thrilled when my day was over so I could make the trek to the hospital. The pictures are a bit dark because 1. iPhone quality, and 2. it was 7.30pm.
Me with 12hr old Cassidy
Sleeping princess
Me with 12hr old CassidySleeping princess
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Back from Hiatus - Wedding Updates Galore!
Last night, Cathy sent me a facebook message reminding me that I actually have a blog, and one that I used to be quite good at updating. I'm not sure why I haven't written in 3 months, especially since there have been many "developments" so I thought I would take a minute to jot down my thoughts before I spend a Sunday afternoon working on my thesis (side note: which I have been quite focused on in the past few weeks finally).
On finally picking a colour and bridesmaids dresses:
In January, I committed three full days to deciding what colour the girls would wear. My first trip was to Bridal and Beyond with Andrea and Maygan and was it ever overwhelming! I quickly learned that different designers define the same colour differently, and that it also varies by fabric. For example, a "royal blue" on tafetta in the Alfred Angelo collection is different when it is on chiffon. And it is different than a "royal blue" in Dessy, Jim Hjelm, etc. As an engineer, this is particularly frustrating: why can't all designers just follow the standard RGB characterization of colours? *sigh* So after learning this lesson, my second trip was with my cousin's wife, Ann on a cold winter day. Ann, 7 months preggors at that time, helped me go through 5-6 colour swatches across different designers and I finally decided that "Sailor" blue from the Dessy collection was the way to go! However, I was still uneasy because I was making a decision on a 2cm by 2cm piece of fabric since the stores that we had visited that day did not have a full dress sample. Which leads us to a third day of driving around the city with my mom to locate a full dress in Sailor. Long story short, we found the dress after 3 stores. Thank God for everyone's patience! What would I do without this support?
With the designer and colour now chosen, the girls have started to pick their dresses. I really believe in them showcasing their individuality (as I appreciated this when Andrea got married and I was her bridesmaid), so I'm encouraging them to pick their own styles. I don't think I'll post their choices - to leave them as a surprise but here's a photo of a dress that I had posted about earlier, in Sailor. The boys will have no choice: I'll order their ties in the same colour and they'll just have to be happy with it hehe
On a theme:
Jeff and I have recruited a childhood friend of mine, Catherine Quach to make our invitations. She has her own business which is doing extremely well (visit her website here). Since she is expecting a baby girl in May, I met with her 2 weeks ago to start designing our invitations. The theme is inspired by a city skyline (see picture below, upper right and bottom left corners) as it will match with the Art Deco-ness of Arcadian and pays homage (barely/slightly) to our engineering background.
A city skyline invitation (from here)
We will also match this to our wedding cake with a similar design to this:
We're going to borrow the idea of using bridges as a pattern, but that's all I'm going to say because I'd like to keep the rest a secret!
On DJs:
I have interviewed about 10 DJs (on the phone and in person) since January and we have still yet to pick a DJ. We have learned that LED uplights are a cool effect to have at Arcadian court (see picture below) so we are now trying to find a good package that incorporates great music and lightning. I feel that we've narrowed it down to 3 companies and when Jeff comes home in April, he'll be in charge of pulling the trigger. A question for everyone: does looks matter for a DJ?
LED uplights accentuate the pillars and can change colour to set the mood
On the Mother-of-the-Bride dress:
Last week, my Mom got her evening dress and it is absolutely gorgeous! It is a one-shoulder, cocktail-length dress in pink and violet with lots of ruching. I'm not sure she'll let me post a picture, but the search was well worth it even though it took almost as much effort as finding my dress hehe
On the Cheongsam:
Before Christmas, I went to visit my cousins Hang and Virginia in Markham and they suggested that I wear Hang's cheongsam (from her wedding over 10 years ago) which is quite traditional and beautiful though VERY red with lots of gold sequences handsewn to make a pheonix and dragon. It was a lovely gesture and I took them up on the offer - my aunt will have to bring in the waist a tiny bit and remove the shoulder pads (yes, shoulder pads haha). The dress will be my "something borrowed".
Now time to get back to work! There are so many other non-related things I'd like to write about - namely, my two trips to San Jose this year, thesis progress, knee recovery, seeing Dave Chapelle on Valentine's Day (yes, *second* best surprise from Jeff ever), etc., but that will have to wait. Maybe I will treat myself to more blogging when I finish writing a section on "Profitability, Industry and Life Cycle Analysis".
-angexx
On finally picking a colour and bridesmaids dresses:
In January, I committed three full days to deciding what colour the girls would wear. My first trip was to Bridal and Beyond with Andrea and Maygan and was it ever overwhelming! I quickly learned that different designers define the same colour differently, and that it also varies by fabric. For example, a "royal blue" on tafetta in the Alfred Angelo collection is different when it is on chiffon. And it is different than a "royal blue" in Dessy, Jim Hjelm, etc. As an engineer, this is particularly frustrating: why can't all designers just follow the standard RGB characterization of colours? *sigh* So after learning this lesson, my second trip was with my cousin's wife, Ann on a cold winter day. Ann, 7 months preggors at that time, helped me go through 5-6 colour swatches across different designers and I finally decided that "Sailor" blue from the Dessy collection was the way to go! However, I was still uneasy because I was making a decision on a 2cm by 2cm piece of fabric since the stores that we had visited that day did not have a full dress sample. Which leads us to a third day of driving around the city with my mom to locate a full dress in Sailor. Long story short, we found the dress after 3 stores. Thank God for everyone's patience! What would I do without this support?
With the designer and colour now chosen, the girls have started to pick their dresses. I really believe in them showcasing their individuality (as I appreciated this when Andrea got married and I was her bridesmaid), so I'm encouraging them to pick their own styles. I don't think I'll post their choices - to leave them as a surprise but here's a photo of a dress that I had posted about earlier, in Sailor. The boys will have no choice: I'll order their ties in the same colour and they'll just have to be happy with it hehe
On a theme:
Jeff and I have recruited a childhood friend of mine, Catherine Quach to make our invitations. She has her own business which is doing extremely well (visit her website here). Since she is expecting a baby girl in May, I met with her 2 weeks ago to start designing our invitations. The theme is inspired by a city skyline (see picture below, upper right and bottom left corners) as it will match with the Art Deco-ness of Arcadian and pays homage (barely/slightly) to our engineering background.
A city skyline invitation (from here)We will also match this to our wedding cake with a similar design to this:
We're going to borrow the idea of using bridges as a pattern, but that's all I'm going to say because I'd like to keep the rest a secret!
On DJs:
I have interviewed about 10 DJs (on the phone and in person) since January and we have still yet to pick a DJ. We have learned that LED uplights are a cool effect to have at Arcadian court (see picture below) so we are now trying to find a good package that incorporates great music and lightning. I feel that we've narrowed it down to 3 companies and when Jeff comes home in April, he'll be in charge of pulling the trigger. A question for everyone: does looks matter for a DJ?
LED uplights accentuate the pillars and can change colour to set the moodOn the Mother-of-the-Bride dress:
Last week, my Mom got her evening dress and it is absolutely gorgeous! It is a one-shoulder, cocktail-length dress in pink and violet with lots of ruching. I'm not sure she'll let me post a picture, but the search was well worth it even though it took almost as much effort as finding my dress hehe
On the Cheongsam:
Before Christmas, I went to visit my cousins Hang and Virginia in Markham and they suggested that I wear Hang's cheongsam (from her wedding over 10 years ago) which is quite traditional and beautiful though VERY red with lots of gold sequences handsewn to make a pheonix and dragon. It was a lovely gesture and I took them up on the offer - my aunt will have to bring in the waist a tiny bit and remove the shoulder pads (yes, shoulder pads haha). The dress will be my "something borrowed".
Now time to get back to work! There are so many other non-related things I'd like to write about - namely, my two trips to San Jose this year, thesis progress, knee recovery, seeing Dave Chapelle on Valentine's Day (yes, *second* best surprise from Jeff ever), etc., but that will have to wait. Maybe I will treat myself to more blogging when I finish writing a section on "Profitability, Industry and Life Cycle Analysis".
-angexx
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