why i wish i were getting married in thailand...

flowers.
i went to the flower market this morning and picked up some orchids for the house. it's a really beautiful place, a few blocks of flower merchants selling there stuff on the street. lots and lots of beautiful orchids, plus roses and all sorts of other flowers, too! i bought four bunches of orchids plus a really tall, thin bunch for $7.00. sadly, you won't be finding them at our wedding. :-(

pictures!

ok i poached these from one of FH's friends. i think i explained the madness of songkran before, but perhaps a few photos would help? the first is the general insanity. note that this is a large street in the middle of the city. now imagine that for four days.

second photo is of me, getting soaked by seemingly innocent and friendly man (who smiled as he poured a bucket of water on me) while the four men i was with watched and took pictures. yeah, thanks for that. thanks a lot.

and last, a photo to illustrate the bender week it was. a crotch shot of FH.

wedding bee

a few weeks ago, i stumbled upon a wonderful wedding blog. not a website that tells me i have to have a cookie-cutter wedding and tries to constantly sell me stuff. but a real community of fabulous women who are asking lots of smart questions and approaching their big days with humor, grace and great attitudes. real women, except that they are probably better DIYers and writers than the average! some of this stuff is like macgyver level brilliance -- three popsicle sticks, a hot glue gun and and some old pigeon feathers will become a lovely centerpiece in the hands of these able-bodied women.


and one of the bloggers, ms. kiwi, posted a question i had posed about what to do about registering since we are so far from home. what a wonderful community!

http://www.weddingbee.com/2007/04/26/lets-help-suzie/#comment-112574

where have all the sleeves gone?

i've been thinking a lot about wedding gowns. because, you know, before we pick the date i should probably know what i'm wearing, right? ;-)

there's a trend that's been going on for a while, and i don't really like it. seems like every single lovely gown i've looked at is a strapless a-line. of course, they will put rhinestones on it, give you some tulle, even an accent sash. mermaid, plus size, taupe, sure. but all the dresses look pretty much the same.



but why do i want to look like every other bride? aren't i supposed to feel special on my special day?

elephants?

well, it's been a little busy the past couple of weeks! aside from the friends visiting, i've also been really busy with work. freelance is wonderful because i have so much freedom and flexibility, but sometimes i have to do many things at the same time, and that's stressful. oh well, at least i don't have to go into an office!

i'm covering a vacation for a friend of mine who's a tv correspondent and it's been tough to transition from print to tv! but, lots of fun in its own way. here's the story we did today (not the tv version, but you can see what it's about): http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/272480/1/.html
let me tell you, it was 102 degrees here in bangkok today, and after making sure you have all your interviews and b-roll, the last thing on your mind is how you look on camera. i think i'll go down in history as the sweatiest girl ever to be on tv.

what does this have to do with weddings? nothing at all. ;-)

where have i been...

it's been a very busy couple of weeks here. john had some friends visiting from philly and it was non-stop while they were here. now the guys are gone and john's on a business trip till saturday night so i can finally focus on all the things i need to get done.

the worst of it is that we have not yet been able to have a real conversation about the wedding! we promised each other we would discuss when he gets back, but... there are two girls coming to visit from france on saturday, and there is a chance i will have to travel to new delhi next week! someday we'll have some quiet time together to make some decisions.

one of the visitors, the guy who got engaged after us and had his wedding planned in record time (i call him the vince vaghn character because, well, he's pretty tall and big and funny in that vince vaghn sort of way) is getting married on december 30. and he's asked john to be his best man. so there goes a new years eve wedding! vince was like, no way guys! you'll be so hung over from my wedding, you need a couple of days to recover.

back to square one. does anyone get married in january? it would be so much easier for us to do it while we're home for the holidays.

picking the date: new years eve wedding

we've finally decided on a wedding in the US, but the when and where remain. it's got to be somewhere between boston and philly, but we can't pick a venue until we pick a date. i was talking to my friend julie, another american here who got married in boston, and she suggested a new years eve wedding. could it be?

pros:
we'll already be home for the holidays
people in their 30s are generally looking for something to do on december 31
we can have a formal wedding and a big, fun party

cons:
one of fiance's friends from home is getting married on december 30 (and he got engaged after us!)
people might already have plans

is it really selfish to have a wedding on a holiday? i was recently at a destination wedding in jamaica the weekend of thanksgiving and thought it was a little tough to have to fly all the way from southeast asia to america just to miss turkey dinner with our families!

grace kelly?

for formal events i tend to gravitate towards sleeveless styles, but i want something different for my wedding gown. my singaporean friend's gown (well, one of them) had a beautiful mandarin collar and see-through-lace sleeves. not sure i want to go that extreme, tho. that looks totally normal in the middle of asia, but back home might seem a bit dramatic.

but, what if i did a sleeveleess bodice and a sheer top with a mandarin collar? i came across a photo of grace kelly's dress and was thinking that something like that might work.

i'll probably have everything made in bangkok, since it's so much cheaper and we can select everything, so i can customize as necessary.

a couple of ideas for the bridesmaids...

i know i don't want that shiny satin every other bridesmaid's gown is made of. i'm thinking silk shantung. maybe in tiffany blue, since the groom looks good in that color.

why am i picking out their dresses before mine???

bridesmaids, gotta love 'em

i've just asked 5 of my sisters, my 12 year old niece and my closest friend from home to be my bridesmaids. seems like a lot, but i couldn't imagine having my wedding without them by my side. :-) fortunately, fiance has lots of close guy friends, so ushers won't be a problem.

bigger problem, what are we wearing??? all of 'em are beautiful, but they come in various sizes, from tall and skinny (niece) to tall and not so skinny. depending on what i end up wearing, i'm tempted to just let them pick out the dress themselves.

first decision made

well, we've done it. we've decided where we're getting married...

somewhere in america.

this is a groundbreaking decision for us. really.

and how did we decide, you may wonder (since we haven't been able to come to a decision for 3 months)?

well, future husband has three guy friends visiting from philly right now. it's songkran here in thailand, which is a five day new year celebration involving lots of water fighting. not kidding. originally, people would pour a little water on each other as a symbolic cleansing for the new year. now it's totally out of hand. you walk down the street and get ambushed by people with super soaker water guns and buckets of ice cold water. it gets a little boring after the first couple of days, but the guys seem to love it. it's their third year in a row visiting during songkran.

one of them got engaged 4 days after we did, on christmas eve. he and his fiance had already picked their date by the time i saw him for drinks on december 30. as you can imagine, this guy stresses me out, too, because he seems like the last dude on earth who could beat me at wedding planning. he's the vince vaugh character and i'm supposed to be the responsible girl.

anyway, something about those guys from back home all being here made me start to think we'd better get working. so, after a very long night of revelry (and the biggest bar tab i have ever seen in bangkok) fiance and i got to talking and decided we'd get married back home. it would be a lot easier for our parents, plus two of my sisters have small children. i don't want them to have to spend thousands of dollars dragging their families across the globe.

although we will have to kiss goodbye our dream of a casual, elegant beach wedding in southern thailand, we will have another reception here for all of our friends on this side of the globe.

hen party: good, clean fun

last weekend i went to a bachelorette party (as in europe, they call them hen parties here) for two brides to be. they're on either side of the bartender, wearing the veils.

all 15 of us, 2 brides and 13 friends, wore red. actually it was a pretty straightforward event. we all met up for a nice dinner, then hit the clubs for some dancing and general mayhem.

i knew we were in for a hard night when we did our first shot -- tequila, tabasco sauce, and something else that made it even more disgusting.

the brides-to-be had a list of tasks to accomplish:

get a guy to write your name on his chest in lipstick
gather as many phone numbers as you can
gather as many condoms as you can
get at least 3 guys to call or text the future husbands and tell them how lucky they are

the body shot was just for fun. ;-)

the two brides accomplished their tasks with lightening speed. hot chicks!

the day after was not as much fun tho. i ended up staying at the house of one of the other girls and the next day we laid out on the couch until about 2 pm, when we got up the energy to go out and find some breakfast. one of the guests, whose name i cannot mention, was so sick she couldn't leave the house the next night. yikes. i'm thinking my bachelorette party will be a spa day...

btw, does it make me a hippocrite that i would be really upset if my lovely fiance were out doing body shots before we got married?

other couples' weddings stress me out

i've just seen the three page email for the wedding of a couple we know here in bangkok (i'll get to the lovely printed invites momentarily. they sent out the email since there are people coming in from all over the world for the event).

the wedding is a two day event. ceremony and dinner at super-posh hotel in the city on the first day. dinner and dancing at very trendy and chic night club the second day.

we all have to wear some orange for the ceremony, since it's a lucky color in Thailand (the bride is Thai, the groom is Dutch). for the night club part, we are instructed to wear all white.

there is a website dedicated to this event (is that normal now?)

and the invitations...

well. they are lovely. the couple had a designer create a logo for them. two actually. one for the back and one for the front. the first one is a siloutte of the two of them, done all in white. the second one (on the back of all the pieces of paper) is a little padlock with their names on it, since they got engaged in Rome on a bridge where everyone apparently puts padlocks with their lovers' names on them.

did i mention that at the singapore wedding i was at a few weeks ago, the bride changed 4 times (including hair and makeup)?

i now resigned to the fact that no matter how hard i try, my wedding will never be the best wedding i've ever been to. :(

i'm not a slacker

my dad met john for the first time a few weeks ago. i think things went well. they laughed about their ivy league rivalry (barf barf barf) and chatted away comfortably for a couple of hours. after the first day in so. california (where my dad lives) he and my step mom surprised us with a cake and a toast.

but later, when i was alone with my dad, he asked if we'd decided where and when the wedding will be. when i told him i hadn't really thought about it, he said "if you really think this is the right guy for you, what are you waiting for?"

yikes.

trust me, there is no weird subconscious reason i'm not getting this done. but our situation is complicated.

1. we are from boston and philly but we live in bangkok.
2. we were in boston for an extended time after the holidays, and john's been traveling almost every week.
3. we have no idea where we want the wedding to be. not as in -- which lovely venue in new york city. as in -- which continent. i've been living overseas for the past 3 years, and many of our close friends are here. but... our families and old friends are on the east coast. and i'm dreading the thought of having to plan a wedding from so far away.

what now?

it's been more than three months since the engagement. the ring has already made what looks like a permanent groove in my finger.

we haven't planned a thing.

normally i wouldn't be so concerned, but i just got back from singapore, where i attended the wedding of two friends, and i am starting to worry. it was a beautiful event. but it took a lot of work, and jani (the bride) got going pretty soon after she got engaged.

i guess i'd better get on it.

engaged!

as most of you already know, at the end of the year, john and i were on a two day layover in seoul on our way home for the holidays.

after dinner, at a painfully hip, young soju bar in apku, in a fit of poor judgment, mr. brown proposed.

i said yes. left bangkok a single girl, arrived at JFK bethrothed.

[this is not an april fool's joke]