Cake Coupon

24 days till the wedding!

Tasks accomplished today:
1. finalized the backdrop decoration
2. picked up 8x10 enlargement for the seating chart arrangement
3. make appointment with "THE" seamstress (she is the official seamstress for Lululemon!) to have one of the many evening gowns altered!

Found out from my parents that in the chinese culture, not only do we need to give out chinese bridal cakes, we also need to give out bakery / cake coupon (western style)! Long sigh! Exactly how many cakes / pastries are we going to give out???

Reader for the Bible Reading

25 days till the wedding... we have finally found a reader for the second bible reading.

It was a long story... sigh! At first (15 months ago), we asked Jason, Joe's cousin and godson to do the reading. About 4 weeks ago, we received the bad news that Jason's dad has been recently diagnosed with cancer in the neck and he is going through chemo-therapy, and they have decided not to come to the wedding.

Joe asked his sister, Melissa to do the second bible reading. We thought Melissa would understand the situation and would agree to help us. Unfortunately, she said she is only comfortable of speaking in front of 5-year-olds, and she won't be ok to speak in front of adults. Long sigh! Joe was really disappointed, and I felt for him but I was not able to help him much as he was pretty adamant to have someone from his side to do the second reading.

Tonight, Joe spoke with his cousin, Monica. Again, Joe explained the situation we are in, and without even thinking about it, Monica agreed to help us! We are so relieved! Thanks Monica! :-)

Kids' goodies bags and activity books

25 days to go until the wedding!!!:-)

Mom and my dog Elmo arrived last Friday night! Joe and I are very grateful that my mom came out a month before the wedding to help out. My parents are very involved in the wedding planning, and they have provided us with a lot of advice and guidelines, and we can't thank them enough for their help!

Final meeting with the flower lady went well last night. All flowers will be ordered today. She will drop off the flowers on Thursday May 16 so that mom and I can start working on the boutonnieres and corsages! Yay! I will be swimming in oceans of flowers at home! :-)

I managed to finish the kids' goodies bags and activity books. The goodies bags are made of organza, and my mom sewed the name of each kid on the bag. Lucky that we are only having 7 kids attending the wedding reception, or this would have taken days and nights to do it!

Chinese Tea Ceremony

Joe and I went to Toronto in the beginning of April, and we went to mall after mall to find the "traditional" teaset with the wording "double happiness".... we had no luck and settled for a regular set of teapot and cups. E-mailed my MOH (my lovely sister who lives in HK) and she got me the appropriate teaset and also the kneeling pillows! :-)

Joe asked me the other night about the details on tea ceremony... Though I am a Chinese, I am not quite familiar with this ritual... so I turned to the World Wide Web for help, and here is what I found!

On the wedding day, the bride serves tea to her parents, as a token of appreciate for the love and care that her parents have given her. The tea (regular Chinese tea) is served in a tea cup with a tea saucer. The bride serves it using both hands. This tea ceremony is done before the bride leaves the house and is usually not too elaborate.

On the other hand, the tea ceremony to the groom's family takes place after the wedding ceremony and is much more elaborate. The tea to the goom's family include lotus seeds and two red dates. The lotus seeds together with the red dates symbolize early arrival of children from the newly weds.

The newly weds knee in front of the parents when they serve this tea. A "lucky woman" will help the newly weds to make the tea, hand the tea to the newly weds, who will then serve it to the groom's parents. The groom's parents will return "Red Envelopes" to the newly weds, usually consist of either money or jewellery. A red envelope (with money) will also be given to the lucky woman when each cup of tea is served.

This is repeated for each of the older family members as respect to them. Tea is usually not served to the younger brothers and sisters of the family, instead a hug or hand-shake will usually be done.

When these teas are served, the woman stands on the left side and the man stands on the right side. For example, the groom will be kneeing in front of his mom and the bride will be kneeing in front of the groom's dad.

Nowadays, many times, both the bride and groom will serve tea to the bride's parents and family members in the bride's house before they leave for the wedding ceremony. After the ceremony, they will go to the groom's house and serve tea to the groom's parents and family members. The red envelopes usually consist of CDN$10-20 each. Jewellery can be watches or necklaces. Some "traditional" parents have their son and daughter knee before them to serve tea, other more "modern" parents have their children stand before them to serve tea.

Chinese Wedding Culture Part II

The more I read about the chinese wedding culture, the more confused I am.

Here are more of the pre-wedding rituals:

1. Return Present
The bride's family usually returns half of the present to the groom's family. There should be tea, fruit, Japan cypress, lucky money, ube, ginger, guava and towels, all in pairs.
Presents to be given to the son-in-law include trousers, belt, purse (with lucky money inside), a pair of shoes, part of the money, Chinese pastry and cake, and one betel-nut.

2. The Bride's Gift for the Groom
The bride's gifts for the groom will either arrive a couple of days or at least a day before the wedding. The dowry in large and small boxes gives the girl's family the opportunity to display both their social status and their love for their daughter.

The bride's gifts usually consist of valuable jewellery and something symbolizing good fortune.

3. Setting Up the Bridal Bed
After the groom's family has selected a 'good day' as the wedding day, a man who's considered to have good fortune all through his life will be hired to move the bridal bed to the right place. Then a lady who's considered to have good fortune (with healthy and living husband and sons) will make the bed and place certain good fortune food and fruits on the bed. Then the bed will be left untouched until the day of the wedding.
(My mom said that it is very important to follow this ritual. Joe and I had already bought brand new Egyptian Cotton 500 Thread Count Sheets for this ritual.)

4. Combing Hair

The night before the wedding, both the bride and the groom needs to find a 'good fortune' woman and man (usually relatives of the new couple who have son, daughter, a nice marriage and living parents) to comb their hair in his/her home respectively. The groom needs to do this one-hour before the bride does so.

Both the bride and the groom need to bath themselves and dress in brand new underwear and pajamas and sit by a window where they can look out to the moon before the event. Incense needs to be burnt. Moreover, lotus, dates and sweet dumplings are served in 6 or 9 in a bowl. There are also fruits and roasted pork and chicken prepared. Furthermore, both the groom and bride have to prepare ruler, mirror and scissors for the ceremony symbolizing good generation.

Their hair needs to be combed four times and each has a special meaning.

The first combing symbolizes: from beginning till the end.

The second combing symbolizes: harmony from now till old age.

The third combing symbolizes: sons and grandsons all over the place.

The fourth combing summaries: good wealth and a long-lasting marriage.

The whole action also symbolizes the adulthood of the couple and wishes them a happy marriage.

(This is one of the rituals I am soooo looking forward to... I have seen this ritual numerous times on the chinese soaps and I can't believe I will be doing this too! My mom has already made me a brand new nightgown (of course, it is RED in color) to wear during the combing hair ceremony!)

Chinese Wedding Culture Part I

Let's talk Chinese Wedding Culture today. Though I am a Chinese, I don't know much about the chinese wedding culture. All I know is that it is all RED, GOLD and FANCY.

Joe is a Caucasian, and he is very interested in finding out everything about the chinese wedding culture. With my limited knowledge, I decided to turn to the internet for help. So, here is what I have gathered so far...

Three Letters and Six Etiquette
Three Letters
Request Letter: This letter confirms the formal arrangement of a marriage. It is sent by the groom's family to the bride's family. This letter is normally presented with the initial gifts for the bride's family.
Gift Letter: This letter accompanies the formal gifts for the Bride's family. It is actually a gift list that records the description and quantity of the gifts.
Wedding Letter: This letter is presented to the bride's family on the day of the wedding. It confirms the act of bringing the bride into the groom's family.

Six Etiquette

Request for Marrying the Bride: This is the most important thing in a marriage. After the groom's family has spotted a young girl whom the groom wants to marry, the family will hire a spokeswoman to communicate their wish to the potential bride's family.

Request for Bride and Groom's Birth Dates: The groom's family will request for the bride's 'Eight Letters' through the spokeswoman. That is the bride's name and birthday.

After obtaining the 'Eight Letters' of the groom and potential bride, a fortune-telling master will be hired to determine whether the two match each other.

Initial Gifts for the Bride's Family: If the potential bride's birthday is acceptable, the groom's family will request the spokeswoman to send some initial gifts accompanied by the gift letter.

Formal Gifts for the Bride's Family: The groom's family will pick a 'good day' and send the bride's family the following bridal gifts: gifts, cash, cakes and food and sacrifices for worshipping the ancestors. This act confirms the marriage agreement between the two families.

Select the Wedding Date: The fortune telling master, hired by the groom's family, will select a 'good day' according the bride and groom's and their family's birthdays.

Wedding Day: The groom will go to pick up the bride.

.... I am glad that I live in the 21st Century that the whole procedure of "Three Letters and Six Etiquette" is no longer popular and necessary.

Chinese Bridal Cake

It was customary for the bride's family to distribute the bridal cakes they received from the groom's family to friends and relatives as a form of announcement and invitation to the wedding feast. Since Joe is a Caucasian, my family did not ask Joe's family for the bridal cakes. Instead, my parents spent the last few weeks doing taste-testing of the bridal cakes in Vancouver, and had placed an enormous order on bridal cakes!

The significance of various kinds of engagement Cakes:
1. Togetherness Wedding Cakes (commonly called Boxed Cakes as in Chinese the word "box" sounds like "together") are now usually replaced with coupons for Western-style Cakes.
2. Courtesy Cakes (commonly called "Large Cakes") are gift boxes of Chinese-style Cakes such as sesame, date paste, lotus paste, walnut, and green bean cakes.
3. Fragrant Rice Cakes (also known as "Old Flowers"). After you eat Fragrant Rice Cakes tradition has it that you will be blessed with a good husband. "Fragrant rice" Cakes can also be replaced with "Saqima" candied fritters.
4. "Ritou" Cakes are gift boxed pineapple and bean paste Chinese cakes. The three types of Togetherness Wedding Cakes above are what everybody recognizes as Lucky Marriage Cakes, whereas you can select one of either the Courtesy Cakes or Fragrant Rice Cakes to give. It is customary to give one box each of Togetherness Cakes and Courtesy Cakes.

Chinese Wedding Gown -- KWA

Joe and I went to Toronto for the first fitting of the wedding gown! GOSH! MY WEDDING GOWN IS FABULOUS!!!! It is custom made, and Josephine, the gown designer, is super talented and gifted! She put tons of details on the dress, and I had tears in my eyes when I tried it on!

Joe and I managed to go to Pacific Mall to do some, shopping. We bought some wedding stuff that is related to the chinese culture (a double-happiness sign to be posted on the front door, and a chinese tea set for the tea ceremony) We came across a few tiny shops in the mall that sell chinese wedding gowns. And that prompted me to write something on the chinese wedding gowns. When I first explained this to Joe, he was so confused! :-) Well, who says Chinese culture is easy to understand and learn? Joe honey... you have a long way to go! :-)


Chinese wedding dress attire traditionally includes beautiful brocade Qi Pau (Chinese jacket) and Cheongsam. It is a tradition to wear Cheongsam with red dragon & phoenix design at the wedding day. Dragon & Phoenix design symbolizes the balance of male and female power.

Cheongsams gowns are easily recognized for they are a very slim fitting chinese dress that have two side slits for walking. For men, the style is called a Da Gua, featuring a front-closing tunic.

Because of my chinese culture, I feel that it is extremely important to incorporate my culture in the wedding. It is extremely difficult to get a Kwa (see picture attached) in Ottawa / Toronto, so I settled for a Qi Pau. Though Qi Pau is not the "official-offical" chinese wedding dress, but it is a formal chinese dress! I won't be posting the pictures of the Qi Pau-s I bought... as this is going to be a surprise for everyone, including Joe.

Waxing -- Be Extremely Cautious

For those brides out there, who are reading my blog... please be extremely cautious when going for waxing.

I went for full arm waxing on Thursday night (as first gown fitting was saturday am)... the lady did a great job in the full arm waxing, she managed to get every single tiny hair on my arms! Since I was there, I thought to myself, "Might as well get the upper lip done!" I am a hairy person (well at least to my own standards... Joe thinks I am crazy!) and I have been going for waxing since I was in my mid 20's. My skin conditions are great... and not even once that I had any allergic reactions to the wax. I found this place not too far from home, because of the location and convenience, I decided to try out this place, instead of going to my usual place,where I have been going there loyally for the last year and a half.

BIG MISTAKE #1 I should have stick with my usual waxing place.

So I went for the arm waxing, and then suddenly decided that I should do the upper lip as a treat to myself. Waxing procedure was the normal routine, when done, it was a bit red, but it is normal. So after paying for the fee... I went home happily... thinking about the upcoming wedding gown fitting on Saturday in Toronto!
Before I went to sleep that night, I did my usual face cleansing routine but I stayed away from the lip area, and only applied CETAPHIL on it and then went to sleep.

Friday morning... I almost had a heart attack. I woke up and found out my upper lip is all RED, and skin is peeling off! OMG!!!!! What the XXXX happened? I panicked and cried as I had no idea what went wrong!

Friday at work was a torture. I tried my very best to stay at my desk, facing the computer so that no one would noticed the hideous red mark on my upper lip. No joke! The red mark covers half of my upper lip, and not one single concealer is strong enough to cover it! OMG! I was sooooooo embarrassed that I wish I could dig a hole in the ground and put my head in it!

Saturday morning... I had changed from totally looking for the TO trip to "please let me stay in bed all day and hide underneath the blanket!" Joe managed to scope me out of the bed, and we left the house at 5:30am. Joe was pretty good about it that he paid no attention to the hideous red mark and kept telling me that it will be gone in no time.

My gown fitting was at 1pm. When the gown designer had the first glimpse of my face. She was shocked.... yes SHOCKED! She was like," What DID YOU DO TO YOURSELF? WHERE IS YOUR PRETTY FACE?" I told her the story while I was sobbing. She was so mad that she told me not to go back to the waxing place again. She told me that brides usually do all sorts of waxing except the face as the face is the most sensitive in the body. Ok, lesson learned the hard way!

One positive thing was that my custom made wedding gown looks GORGEOUS and ELEGANT! The handmanship is meticulous! I am super impressed by Josephine's talent!

So, back to my hideous upper lip.... Josephine (she also offers face beauty care as well) told me that when the waxing lady pulled the strip off my lip, she pulled too hard that the skin got pulled as well, and that the wax was too hot that it burned the skin! It will take 2 weeks to heal (darn... how am I supposed to go to work the next two weeks? I checked my schedule, and lucky that I had no vendor meetings scheduled for the next two weeks!) and she had also suggested some face products to use after the skin is healed... whitening cream and anti pigmentation cream. After a whooping $330, I left the store!

Needless to say, the rest of the Saturday was uneventful.... I did not feel like going away at all! Joe.... I have to give him credit... he tried hard to cheer me up, and told me I still look stunning even with the hideous upper lip. He took me out for dinner at one of the city's finest steak and seafood house for dinner!

This morning, I got up at 5am... while Joe was still sound asleep. I quietly slipped into the bathroom, and looked at myself in the mirror... ok... it is not as bad as yesterday... I kept telling myself... but still a long way to go! LONG SIGH!!! Lucky that I bought Aloe Vera gel friday night and have been applying a generous amount on it once every three hours!

Bad experience of waxing... will never do it again. The good thing is... as Joe keeps reminding me... it is good that it happened now than it happens the day before the wedding! well, I guess he is right on this one!

I was tempted to post a picture of how I look now on the blog, but Joe warned me not to as it is considered as "very disturbing matter... viewer's discretion is advised!"

Wedding Gown -- First Fitting

Martha Stewart says it takes 240 hours of planning to plan a wedding...she hasn't met me. I think I'm going on 240,000 right about now.

I am so glad that Joe and I are going for a mini getaway this weekend... I am going for my wedding gown first fitting (yay!!!!) and I do not feel like driving for 5 hrs all by by myself, so Joe is coming with me, but he won't see the wedding gown until the wedding day!

Ring Pillow

This post is dedicated to my talented, Martha-Stewart-ly mom. She can turn the impossible to beauty, elegance and one of a kind!

15 months ago, when Joe and I first got engaged, a coworker of ours gave us an engagement gift -- a ring pillow. When I opened the gift, I was not quite sure if it was a gag-gift or a real gift. The ring pillow is hideous! Seriously... the ring pillow is in a"fading away" yellow and it looks like it has travelled miles and miles before coming to my hands. I did not really take it seriously, but did make a metal note to buy myself a nice ring pillow, and then stashed it away in the closet in one of the guest bedrooms.

With the wedding planning in full swing, I had completely forgotten about it until two months ago, mom asked me casually if I had bought a ring pillow. I was like, "Darn! I knew I had forgotten something... wait... I thought I got it as a gift and I put it somewhere in the house..." So, one saturday morning, after a big pot of starbucks' breakfast blend, I set out on a mission to find the "ring pillow" in the house. During this search, I also found a bunch of long-lost items. Anyway, I found the ring pillow... when it, once again, made its appearance in front of my eyes, it, once again, reminded me of the reasons why I stashed it away in the first place.

So, I called my mom (for those who do not know... my family live in Vancouver where sushi and dim sum are cheap and yummy! ) and told her the little story about the ring pillow. When I finished the story... she laughed and said, " Put it in a box and mail it to me. I will see if I can do something about it."

A few weeks ago, my mom sent me a picture of the completely revamped ring pillow. When I looked at the picture, I called my mom right away and said, "Are you sure this is THE same pillow I sent you?"... and yes my mom did it!!! Once again, she had done the impossible!!!!

While I am writing this blog, I am kicking myself of not taking a picture of the before / hideous ring pillow... or I would be able to do a before / after picture! After Joe saw the picture... all he could utter was, " Wow! I can't believe this! Your mom did that???" The next question he asked was if it is ok to give the ring pillow as a keepsake to his niece (who is also the flower girl). Unfortunately... Joe honey... the ring pillow is going to stay in the family!!!! I am planning to give it to my sister when she gets married next year! :-)