The Adventures of Monkey & Rat
Back when I was a nuptial neophyte, I thought that a rehearsal for a wedding was like a rehearsal for a theatrical play: people would recite the lines that they will say during the actual event. I thought that the couple would go through their entire ceremony before their wedding day; each to the other will say “I do” along with other mushy expressions of love. I thought, “How unromantic to have their sentimental surprises spoiled before the big day!”
Now I know better. Oh, the wedding rehearsal is still very much like a theatrical run-through, but at least the vows and other specific dialogue are omitted, and the fancy clothes are also saved for the big day. (Actually, I couldn’t help dressing up a little, but more on that later.)
My and CP’s wedding rehearsal was on May 13th. Given the availability of our officiant, the one person besides either of us who absolutely had to be there to tell everyone what to expect for the ceremony, we could have had the rehearsal on the Thursday or the Friday before the wedding. The Friday would have been more convenient for some, especially for best man Lee, who had another commitment Thursday evening. However, our venue’s event manager convinced me to hold the rehearsal on the Thursday, the most likely night of the two for the hotel to have available rehearsal space.
Boy, it was a hectic Thursday. I had a long list of items to complete and hand over to my wedding planners Renée and her co-lead Judy at the rehearsal. I also had another wedding-day preparation arranged for by Mom.
Read on →
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I learned that the answer to what I would most to do for my bachelorette party is hang out with my girlfriends and not have them be bored. So, encouraged by another great suggestion from my friend Jessica, I arranged an outing at the go-to place for go-to places; a place where various attractions, restaurants, and shops are a short walk away from one another; the Disneyland of Edmonton. What else can I mean but West Edmonton Mall? It may not be the most unique venue for a girls’ night out, but there’s something for everyone there.
In fact, there may be too many things offered there. I didn’t know what we would do once we got there.
Oh, well, I thought. Let’s just wing it.
I quickly created a Facebook event for trolling the mall on Friday, May 7th. I invited my bridesmaids and some gal pals. Type. Click. Submit. The process made me nauseous, but I was done.
Part of the reason why organizing this particular kind of event on my own made me feel uneasy was that I wasn’t sure who I should invite. I had friends who were out of town. I had friends who just had a baby (or two). I had friends who I knew had better things to do than to go mall exploring on a Friday night with me. Still, I virtually nudged a subset of all these friends who were likely to come or who I thought would want to know that such an event was happening. In retrospect, I really did overcomplicate the process for myself. (Sorry if I forgot any of you dearies. I was going through a bizarre, silly moment.)
There really was no plan. I threw out some suggestions as to where to eat and what to do afterwards. “Food court” isn’t specific in the slightest and seemed uninspired. fUNTOWN looked intriguing, however, as it featured a glow-in-the-dark miniature golfing course that neither CP nor I has tried as well as a 3D (black light) fun house, among other amusements. But other people may not be as thrilled with the idea of walking around in the dark as I was.
Since I had no itinerary other than “we’ll eat first because I get hungry after work”, this had to be the most haphazardly organized event I’d ever “planned”…after the engagement party…and the wedding rehearsal…and the wedding-day tea ceremony. 
Nevertheless, I remained hopeful that at least one person would come and we’d be able to figure something out together. If not, it would be a shopping day for me then.
Fortunately, it was more than that. I met my friends Jessica, Rachel, and Crystal at WEM. Jessica and Rachel greeted me with a set of delightful red, blue, and purple foam wands with ribbons that I eventually incorporated into my toss bouquet (because the colours considerably appealed to me and went well with the wedding). Glowing new mom Crystal was also a delight to see. Well, all three were.
Read on →
Filed under Bride-to-be, Event Spotlight | Tagged Bachelorette Party, Friends | 2 comments
Whoo! Wow, weddings sure are fun, eh? That’s right—we came, we saw, we said “I do”. It was the most exhausting yet happiest day of my life, and overall it went better than I expected (and in the most unexpected ways, too)!
But, oh dear, I seem to have a problem now. My and CP’s wedding came and went, as did our honeymoon, but…I have more pre-wedding blog posts that I want to write. This is the result of a busy bride who procrastinated. Nevertheless, this website isn’t going to go away because the wedding’s over, and in order for CP and me to have a complete chronicle of our trials and fun times until the big day, I must try to fill in the gaps.
This is going to look odd, but I’m going to go ahead and write my backlog of posts in the present, publishing them until I receive my sets of wedding photos and could properly detail the wedding day.
Of course, I have my set of honeymoon photos on hand, but the account of our adventures in California and French Polynesia will have to wait. 
Some time in the near future, this website will be converted to a general website for me and CP as a married couple as well as a more user-friendly archive for the wedding content. I may be slow nowadays, but you bet that I’ll still be blogging. I will not only blog here, but at my personal website (which mostly has just the blog). CP shares his musings mainly at his Twitter page, but I’ll bug him to guest blog here occasionally. 
Please bear with us.
And to those that were able to make it out to see Christopher and me tie the knot, thank you ever so much! (Expect something in the mail after next month. )
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Okay, due to an urging of a good friend of mine, I may have some sort of bachelorette party after all. It will likely be a simple dinner, much like my surprise sort-of-bridal-shower. While I was thinking of which restaurant to hold the not-really-a-party-and-that’s-the-way-I-want-it, I got to thinking if there is anything else my girlfriends and I can do.
What do I most want to do before I become a married woman? Heck, what do I even like to do now? I can’t even come up with something at this very moment other than browsing IKEA and going miniature golfing. (I blame the wedding and work stress.)
Wow, I’m boring.
Well, what do you like to do in Edmonton? I’m in dire need of ideas.
~Mythi
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Woooo, Vegas baby.
I was really excited at first and was thrilled that we were going to go to Vegas for my bachelor party. It would be my first trip to Vegas. As the trip started to get nearer and nearer, my mood changed more and more as I was somehow worried about my impending doom. I knew my friends were planning things for me and weren’t telling me much, which basically made me more paranoid.
On the day of our flight to Vegas, this is what woke me up…
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As far as the trip itself, you know the rule, so that’s all I can say about that.
I had to bring M&M’s back from the M&M’s store for our cake.
It turns out that my paranoia was for naught as it was a really awesome trip. Thanks, Lee, for planning it.
-CP
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I worked up the nerve this afternoon to send the last of the “Are you coming or not?” emails. I’ve never seen this particular person at a social function outside of work before, but I shouldn’t assume he’s not coming because he didn’t send in a response card.
Certain invitees, however, used multiple methods to tell us “no, sorry, we can’t make it” and I appreciate their efforts. Among them are two of my cousins in Ontario. I believe that it was Jeffrey who sent me the best worded email I’ve ever read, and it may be him who sent me the below doodle. It could also be Amy. Either way, the card was a nice surprise in the mail yesterday.
Our largest doodle, done in pencil
Thanks, Cousins!
Would a doodle soften a rejection for you?
~Mythi
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Surprise!
April 18, 2010 at 11:30 pm
If you have asked me about my bridal shower or stagette in the past, I probably hemmed and hawed and gave not much for an answer. That’s because I didn’t know what to do, what I even want to do, or who to involve. With the stress of wedding planning in addition to everyday life, it seemed easier to not do “something extra”, even if it is traditional and expected. I am happy that CP got to have his event (blog about it, sweetie); although I envied him visiting Las Vegas, I didn’t feel that I would be missing out on a similar rite of passage. I would have been content to be out of the spotlight until the wedding.
I didn’t count on having sneaky relatives and a sneaky fiancé. CP and I were supposed to meet my parents at southside Mikado for dinner tonight. Instead, he ran away back to the car as I was walking towards my mom, who was waiting outside the restaurant.
“I forgot something,” he said. The liar never did go inside the restaurant.
Read on →
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The reason that our trip to Derks was easier than expected was that I resigned myself from being the style selector for CP’s and his groomsmen’s tuxes. His best man Lee has been in at least two wedding parties before (and so has groomsman Paul now that I think about it), and he seemed to have strong preferences for how the tuxes should look or not look. Lee seemed to know what he was doing, so I let him take charge and pare down our options. I, on the other hand, already proved to CP that I didn’t know what I was doing when it comes to choosing men’s formal wear.
When we decided on our colour scheme and that my half of the wedding party would wear blue while his would wear red, CP expressed an interest in wearing a red tuxedo. I didn’t know whether or not he was joking, but I treated it as a serious request.
I tried searching online for red tuxedos to get ideas. My results showed me that people consider red tuxes mainly for one of two things:
Read on →
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Two weeks plus after the RSVP deadline and less than a month until the wedding, I’m still waiting for responses. I think that we received all the mailed responses that we’re going to get—and such nice responses!
Truthfully, not many of our invitees made use of the comment box at the back of their response card, and this perplexed me. (Really, not one word? Not even a smiley face?) But okay, I understand that the box was foreign to some people, and I was grateful to those people that used the box for its most important purpose, to inform us of what foods would kill them. Still, I was happy to read well wishes and to have four people suggest songs for the reception (although one may have gone overboard with 19 requests). I was ecstatic that some people sent drawings.
I may be a gal of odd tastes, but they can run simple. Drawings make good entertainment, for they are a source of smiles.
Here are some of the doodles we received with our guests’ responses:
Read on →
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Ah yes, the one big job of the groom is to book the honeymoon.
Mythi and I are not fans of the summer months when the heat is blazing us at 30 or so degrees Celsius. A tropical destination is not what we would call an ideal vacation because of this. I would rather spend my vacations in the mountains skiing than go to Mexico for example. However the honeymoon is more of a special case. This is a good opportunity to go somewhere really nice and exotic and make it a stereotypical honeymoon. Why not go somewhere completely isolated and tropical even just this one time on this special occasion. I wanted to go somewhere remote, far away and lay on a beach drinking pina coladas or something and not have to think about anything back home. It would most likely be some small island somewhere which we’ll probably only visit once in our lifetimes.
So where should we go? A few things that came to mind initially were Jamaica, Fiji, Tahiti and Galapagos Islands. I kept checking around and doing research on these spots. I wanted to try to find something that has a complete honeymoon package because it would probably offer great rooms with some included gifts, activities and maybe even meals. Eventually a package was decided on.
I decided on a Honeymoon package that would take us to Tahiti and Bora Bora for a week. Our package includes all of our flights in and out of Los Angeles (LAX) airport. The first night is in Tahiti and then the remainder of the vacation is in Bora Bora in an overwater bungalow. We will get 6 breakfasts and 5 dinners included. We also get a few other things like a sunset cocktail in Tahiti; Shark and Ray lagoon excursion in Bora Bora; champagne; flower lei; and Polynesian jewel. Having most of the big meals included should be really nice as I have heard that the restaurants are expensive. The overwater bungalows look amazing. You are literally staying right on the ocean. There is even a spot with a glass floor so you can see the fish from inside. Doing some more research on the hotel in Bora Bora leads me to discover that they have a turtle sanctuary there as well, so that will get Mythi all giddy. Mythi invested in a new camera and also got a waterproof enclosure for it, so we’ll be able to get some great photos underwater. We are also planning to bring our own snorkel masks.
So now that the above is booked, we’ll need to book flights in and out of LA as well. I didn’t buy any of the cancellation or travel insurance so it is very important that we are in LA in plenty of time to start our trip to Tahiti. It would be safer to arrive in LA a day early and spend a night there. Since we are doing this, we might as well go two days early and spend a full day in Disneyland, while its right near by. So there we go. We have two nights in Anaheim booked now too. There are some cheap shuttles that can get us to and from LAX and our hotel there as well. I think Mythi is more excited about Disneyland than Bora Bora now.
Those are our honeymoon details. I am really looking forward to this vacation. Probably more than the actual wedding. I am planning to enjoy this vacation as much as I possibly can.
-CP
Filed under Event Spotlight, Groom-to-be | Tagged Honeymoon | 3 comments
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