wedding planning break

Even though this my second post in two days, I've been slacking on this whole blog thing.  It's mainly because we haven't done much wedding planning lately.  We've also been a little busy with weekend trips and even being a nanny for a weekend (see pics below) so there's no time to plan when you're out of town or watching an 18th month old. 

So far we've booked most of our vendors...well mainly the venues, photographer, and videographer.  A family friend is going to be our DJ and another volunteered to do all of our flowers.  We feel sooo lucky to have such great family friends!

The two vendors I would like to book next are make-up and cake.  If anyone has recommendations please share! :)  Wedding planning will definitely start again in a few weeks when I'm back in Hawaii.  I'll be home for over 2 weeks which is the longest I've been home in 5 years!  Sadly, Dan isn't coming with me. Boo!

As for traveling, last month we went to Portland for my little brother's graduation and to Vancouver, Canada to go zip-lining.  Here are some of my favorite pictures:

The Wong kiddies :)

 Congratulations Makana!

Vancouver, Canada

 We didn't expect this much snow in May!

In our Zip-lining gear.



Vancouver has such a great food! Other than zip-lining all we did was eat/drink and we loved everything.

The weekend after we got back from Vancouver, I was a nanny for a weekend.  I watched a little boy name Jack who loves to eat like me.  He's such a cutie!  Dan helped me on Friday night since I also had to watch Jack's older brother Regan and came on Saturday afternoon to take Jack to the park.  It was fun but very tiring.  Jack's naptime = nanny wong's nap time, hehe.

Isn't he adorable?

♥...this makes my heart melt.

Next stop: LA and Palm Springs! I'm going on a solo trip this weekend to visit my bridesmaid Erin.  I'm super excited since it will be nice and sunny!  Apparently, Seattle forgot that it is officially summer and it rained today. :( 

700 or so to go...

Meaning, I have 700 or so cranes to go.  Cranes, you ask?  Yes, I am folding 1001 cranes to be displayed at our wedding reception.  Folding 1001 cranes is a local Hawaii tradition for weddings.  I decided to make cranes since I LOVE the framing of the actual cranes and think it's something special from your wedding that you can display in your house.

While I was back in Hawaii in March, I bought 11 packs of 100 sheets of double sided gold 3x3 origami paper.  I oppted for the double sided gold paper since I'm not an expert at folding cranes so I need all the help I can get.  After folding over 300 of these little cranes, I have to say I am getting better. There are some that aren't perfect, but its okay those can go on the bottom.  I try to fold 10 a night but that doesn't always happen.  Good thing, I have about 7 more months finish since most vendors need 6 months to do the design and framing.

For those wondering how these cranes are going to be framed, here are a couple examples:

source

source

Typically, couples frame their cranes into their family mon which is Japanese and we don't really have one.  Or some make the cranes into the Japanese/Chinese character of their last name which doesn't really work for us since our last name will be Libby. ;) So we will pick another design similar to the second one.

Here are a few pictures of my work in progess....

The gold paper

Finished cranes!

 My container full of cranes

My guess is there is a a little over a hundred in there, the first two hundred are in a safe place in my room. 

Our Seattle Bucket List

Since we're moving this fall, we decided to put together a list of things that we want to do before we leave.  Here's the first draft of our list. It's just a draft since we will probably add to the list as we think of more things to do.  If you want to come join us on any of the activities below, let us know!

Our Seattle Bucket List:
1. Blazers Game Yah, we accomplished this one!
2. Visit the San Juan Islands
3. Weekend in Chelan
4. Wake Boarding
5. Eat on the patio at Rays Cafe (at least two times)
6. Eat at Paesos (we did this last weekend, but I'm leaving it on the list so we can go at least 2 more times)
7. Brunch at Pesos
8. Hiking at Mt. Rainer
9. Visit the UW Cherry Blossoms
10. Hiking -Olympic peninsula
11. Brunch at Portage Bay
12. Picnic on the Kirkland waterfront
13. Wine tasting
14. Brewery tour at Red Hook
15. EMP Museum
16. Kayaking
18. Pool party at our place
19. Weekend getaway at Suncadia
20. Romantic dinner Canlis (I guess I better good, hehe)

I am happy we were able to knock off #1 on our list.  A few weeks ago, we drove down to Portland to watch a Blazers game.  It was so much fun!  My goal was to get on the jumbo tron and we did!  Here's a few pics from the game.

Cool signs + Dancing = Jumbo tron

Special thanks to Amy and Brian for getting us our tickets. :)

say yes to the dress?

Sorry this post is long overdue, but while we were in Hawaii my mom, Dan's mom, and two of my lovely bridesmaids had a girls day out and went wedding dress shopping.  It was sooo much fun!  We went to three shops and I tried on a ton of dresses. At the last store, we found my favorite dress and maybe it will be THE dress. 

I finally download the pictures to my computer and got giddy looking at all the pictures!  Since we're not getting married for another 14 months, I decided to wait till this summer to make any final decisions. At least now, I know what I want and hopefully in July, I'll say yes to the dress!

Thank you to my mom, Dan's mom, and my besties for coming with me. Love you!

Since we booked our venues, we decided the next two vendors to research and book were videographer (CHECK!) and photographer (almost check?).  When I was doing research, I found myself spending hours looking at blogs of photos and examples of videos. I love it!

On another note, its finally spring in Seattle and for the first time we went to see the cherry blossoms at UW.  

It was a great Sunday activity! :)  I highly recommend going to see it in person.

Mission Accomplished!

Wedding date is all set!  On July 14, 2012, I will become Mrs. Libby.  Hehe, I'm so excited!


We just returned from a quick trip to Hawaii for my cousin's wedding and while we were back we were on one mission to set our wedding date and book our venues.  Mission accomplished!  After doing a ton of research, contacting 10+ venues, narrowing down our picks to three venues for the reception, visiting each of our potential venues, we decided to get married at Punahou Chapel and have our reception at Japanese Culture Center.  I'm so happy that we were able to get the date that we wanted and it's such a huge relief to have our venues booked.


I also was able to go wedding dress shopping with my mom, Dan's mom, and two of my bridesmaids.  It was sooo much fun!  I'll save the details for my next post. :) 

On my last post I mention a little birthday surprised I planned for Dan.  For his surprise, I drove him to Edmonds and we brewed our own beer! 

We made an amber similar to a Mac & Jacks. It took about two hours and we have to go back soon to bottle the beer.  Since we only made a half a batch, we plan to bottle it in 22 oz bottles so we will take home about 30ish bottles.

Hopefully, it tastes good.  If you want to taste let me know, we'll be happy to share a bottle with you.  :)

Excel = Best Wedding Planning Tool

Yes, I believe excel is one of the best wedding planning tools.  It's dorky but I use it every day at work and if you know me I love to use excel to stay organize.   I soon found out that it was also handy for the first two wedding planning tasks we completed: 1. setting a budget and 2. drafting a guest list. 

So first things first, we set a budget using a handy-dandy budget template.  I have to be honest it was quite overwhelming all the things you have to think about when setting a wedding budget and then seeing how much money everything adds up to! From the wedding reception to flowers to invitations, weddings are not cheap.  With the budget set, Dan and I both agreed we want to have a budget savvy wedding that our guest will enjoy rather than spending a TON of money.  This means it will take probably take more of our time researching and price comparing but we're up for the challenge.

After we set our budget, we started task #2 drafting a guest list.  I took my wedding book's advice and had my parents draft a list, Dan's parents draft one, and then Dan and I would draft ours.  Since we both have pretty big families our guest list grew pretty quickly (it’s around 350 now).  We'll look at the list and finalize it over the next few months but it was nice to get this task out of the way.

Next task on the list: picking a ceremony and reception venue which I'll save for another post. :)

On another note, tomorrow is my fiancé’s birthday!  Hopefully all this snow that is supposed to come tonight doesn't so we can go to dinner tomorrow night.  More importantly I hope that my little birthday surprise on Friday works out.  Sorry I can't give away any details since he might actually read this before then. ;) I'll share after Friday.

My first post: Engagement and New job!

Greetings blog world! Since we're moving to Hawaii and starting to plan our wedding I figured I start a blog to document all of these exciting new things!

As for the engagement, Dan and I got engaged on Christmas day.  What a surprise!  After waking up at 5am, flying to CA to spend our first Christmas together, and arriving at his parent's house in Orange County, he proposed.  I was and still am the happiest girl in the world and sitting on cloud nine (hence the title of my blog).  Christmas 2010 will always be one of the best days of my life!

Best Christmas Ever!!!

In all of the excitement of getting engaged, I also had one more big decision to make...where I was going to work in Hawaii.  Yup, Dan and I are planning to move back to Hawaii in the fall.  We've been talking about this for awhile and we are finally taking the steps to make it happen.  So after interviewing, I received two offers to start next fall.  It took me a few weeks to decide and I took an offer from a small local accounting firm.  My tentative start date is in November so which means I have approximately 9 months left in Seattle!!! It seems so far away but I know its going to come quick especially since we have a wedding to plan! 

So over the course of the next 18 months (9 months till the move and 9 more to our wedding), this will help me share the details of what it takes to move across the ocean and plan a wedding.  :)