Episode 13: The Wedding - You Thought You Knew...

Finally getting around to posting wedding pictures up, but this is with a twist. Most of you have seen the nice pictures that our photographer Kristine took (as well as our other friends), but some of you don't know the stories behind them. Think of this as a behind the scenes narrative :)

We started getting our hair and makeup done around 10:30am on Saturday March 27, 2010. The flower girls came by around 12 or 1 to get their hair done too. While the bridesmaids were getting done up, the girls and I played hide and seek, horsey and a bunch of other stuff that would tire any 28 year old out when playing with lil ones.

What you don't know is that while playing horsey, I gave Ava a bloody nose :o Brooklyn was lying down on top of me, and Ava on top of Brooklyn, so when I got up to give them a ride, Ava fell off. SORRY Ava! I love you!

After giving Ava a bloody nose, we all settled down and had lunch (left overs from rehearsal dinner) and continued to get all the hair and makeup done. The plan was to finish by 3, go to Admiral Kidd Club and start taking pictures. I was last to get done up, and I started panicking because it was past 3. I was actually running 2 hours behind before they even started on me. All of a sudden it's about 5:30 (and the wedding was supposed to start at 5pm mind you), and I'm just barely getting finished up. I'm not even in my gown yet. I'm worried that Romeo is gonna bail thinking I left him at the altar and that everyone has been waiting outside in the heat and is all sweaty...

This is me running into Admiral Kidd Club trying to make sure my veil stays put. I found out later there was a big sink hole in one of the main streets that leads to Admiral Kidd Club so everyone was stuck in traffic, so my being late and there being a sink hole actually worked out perfect.

Another little known fact (only 2 people have noticed this so far) is that the song I walked down to wasn't your traditional wedding march or Canon in D.  You know me, I have to be different...

So I walked down the aisle to the piano version of Melodies of Life from the video game series Final Fantasy. Hey, it really is a beautiful song, check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdGXURdrmb0

Then, during the ceremony when we went over to do the sand pouring, there was a little bug tanning himself on top of my sand vase, so when I saw it, I tried to blow on it inconspicuously to make it fly away. Of course that didn't work, and Romeo had already started pouring his sand, so I slowly started to pour too, hoping the sand movement would make it fly away. Of course that also didn't work. So this beautiful picture here is actually a tombstone for a poor ol' bug:

We took our pictures after the ceremony and the usual.

(This one is actually pre-ceremony in the bridal room)

Or I should say, usual for us:

When our photographer Kristine was doing her job, she had a little flip chart with poses of pictures to help couples visualize what the photographer wants to do.

So of course, Brian says, "I want to pick one!" and Kristine being the nice girl she is, hands it over laughing. And Brian being Brian, he picks this pose:

But because Brian is now family, I get to abuse him if I want. After we were done with pictures and waiting for our grand entrance into the Skyline reception room, my feet were hurting real bad. Yours would too if you were wearing these bad boys :

4.5" heels. Gotta love the height, but not the pain. So thank you Brian, for your assistance!

Here are some miscellaneous pictures of the reception:

  

There were forks, but he opted not to use them. Men...

It's kind of hard to do the toast when you're different heights. Not sure how Ro managed to get any champagne in his mouth here.

Did anyone see the hidden mickey we put on the cake table?

The favors were Chinese take out boxes. We bought the boxes, fortune cookies and almond cookies from the same restaurant supplier that our rehearsal dinner restaurant (Mandarin House) uses. Thanks Peggy and Peggy's dad (she's my hookup!)

And that is it for now. Thank you everyone for making it such a special day! I love you all :)   (Honeymoon blog will come soon-ish)

- The new Mrs. Gain

Episode 12: Life in general

 

(I give you cuteness~!!)

Okay, so the last few days I got to thinking about life and have come to the conclusion that life in general is just too short to spend the majority of it worrying about little details.

Some of you already know that I'm getting married this month, which means that it's now down to the nitty gritty details and final payments. At first I was really stressed out with all the planning, but now I realize that stressing out is only going to give me more white hairs that I'll ask my photographer to photoshop out of the final pictures. So no more. No more worrying about whether each little detail comes out perfect or not. No more worrying about whether so and so will be coming to the wedding or not. (No RSVP, no come!). There's plenty of other things I could also worry about... but....

You can't please them all, so you might as well please yourself as much as possible. (That almost sounds a little dirty haha sorry). Seriously though, why worry when there is so much around you that you can appreciate instead? 

I am still on my quest to find my calling in life, but if I'm going to be on a journey to greatness, I might as well enjoy the ride.

Even when you think that things are sucky, there is usually some silver lining somewhere. You may not see it at first, but it's there. Keep looking for it and always stay positive. It's much funner than being gloomy all the time ^^

Episode 11: Oh Disneyland...

 

My hair is finally long enough to tie up in a ponytail! ^^ Anyway... So for those of you who remember my Disney CA Adventure entrance story, I finally got a second response back from Guest Communications. 

For those of you who don't remember or didn't read the insanely long first post about it (found here), this is the short version:

I have my bachelorette party at Disneyland, we hop parks to DCA, but the older lady at the entrance gates doesn't think the picture on my annual pass looks like me, leaves me standing there stupidly. A supervisor eventually joins us, agrees w/ first lady, I give my ID, they don't think it looks like me. I give my debit card with picture ID, they still don't think it looks like me. Supervisor walks away with annual pass, ID, AND debit card w/o telling me where she's going... comes back and finally lets me in saying she'll have to put a note in my file. Once inside, my friend asks about her picture on her pass and gets told off by the supervisor that this not her issue, the problem was between me and the supervisor and it was resolved (says who?!). 

I write complaint letter online, get a generic "sorry" back, hit reply to that email, and 2 weeks later nothing. So I copy that last email I sent and previous correspondence and submit another online letter, and get a new response finally.

Yup, that's the short version!!

And for all that trouble, I get 6 attraction re-admission passes.  I'm still trying to decide if I feel under-compensated or not. First reaction was yes, but thinking more about it... if I use it on the right rides on the right days, it could potentially save me more than 3 hrs at Disneyland. 

As for my favorite Disney Cast Members Zoe and Teresa, I haven't seen them working around the DCA gates since that incident ^^ I'm half hoping they got demoted to janitorial duties for the women's restrooms (which I believe to be much nastier than men's - though I've never been inside the men's restrooms).

Episode 10: Disney California Adventure POS Employees

So I'm having tons of fun at Disneyland for my bachelorette party this past Saturday, and we decide to hop on over to Disney California Adventure since a bunch of the girls hadn't gone there yet. They've completely decked me out in Bride to Be gear... FAR from inconspicuous. All 10 girls get in and I'm the last in line to get in... Here's where my story begins!

I walk up to the little turnstyle thing and this elderly white haired lady, Zoe, takes my annual pass, scans it and then looks at me. It beeped like a normal entrance ok beep I thought...

Zoe: *looks at me* Hmm...

Me: ... ?

Zoe: *looks at the pass, then looks at me again* Hmm...

 

Me: .... .....

Zoe: I'm just not sure this looks like you.

Me: Uh, that's me. ... *waiting for something else to happen*

Zoe: Hmm...

Me: *waiting* ...

< A couple of minutes later >

Zoe: I need you to step aside so I can let other people in.

Me: ...  *thinking wtf at this point*... Okay.  

< I step aside... and wait. Again. Zoe continues to let other people in. No word of what to do with me, for 5 minutes at least. Pose for a picture, trying to look happy at Disneyland, but it's not quite working haha.>

 

Me: ... Ok, well here's my ID then.

 

Zoe: *takes ID and looks at it* Hmm...

Me: ... *waiting*

Zoe: *looks at ID, looks at me, looks at annual pass, looks at me* Hmm...

Me: ...

Zoe: I need you to step aside so I can let other people in.

Me: *look of disbelief as a I step aside*

< Some other lady, Teresa, apparently the supervisor, shows up and takes my annual pass and ID from Zoe >

Teresa: *looks at annual pass, looks at me, looks at ID, looks at me* Hmm...

Me: ...

Teresa: ... I'm not sure these look like you.

Me: Okay, well here. Here's my debit card with my picture too.

 

Teresa: *takes debit card, looks at picture, looks at me, looks at annual pass, looks at ID, looks at me*... Hmm... *walks away to who knows where with my annual pass, ID, AND debit card without saying a word to me*.

Me: UHHHHH. *WTF, come back with my debit card and ID please.*

< More waiting here, no choice really. It's now been about 15 minutes since I've been trying to get in >

< Teresa comes back finally >

Teresa: Well, the names match, but I'm just not sure these pictures look like you. When does the annual pass expire?

Me: August 22 this year.

Teresa: ... Hmm. I don't know... You have glasses on here. 

Me: Right. *slowly* But I'm wearing contacts today.

Teresa: Do you have your glasses? Can you put them on?

Me: Um. No. I'm wearing contacts today.

Teresa: Hmm...

Me: Are you serious? I don't know what else to give you. I've already given you my ID and even my debit card. 

Teresa: Hmm... *looks at me, looks at IDs* ... Well, I'll let you in but I'll have to put a note in your file.

Me: ... *taking annual pass, ID and debit card back (while I can!) while entering DCA finally*

My girls greet me on the other side and we're all wondering wtf just happened. I'm still not entirely sure what just happened either. We see Teresa on the inside so I go up to her again and I ask...

Me: Excuse me, what did you mean by putting a note in my file?

Teresa: I think you might want to take a new picture or something, because that doesn't look like you.

< My friend Miley pipes in with a question of her own >

Miley: My picture doesn't look much like me anymore either, will I have problems too?

Teresa: *rudely* This is between me and her *gestures my way*. This has been resolved, so you need to step back.

Miley: No, I'm not asking about that. This is a separate issue.

Teresa: This has been resolved. I don't need to speak with you about this. < Probably not her words exactly but that is what she meant >

Miley: ...

At this point, we're all just kinda pissed and walk away. We'll deal with her later and file a complaint at City Hall. Lucky for DCA, they have an awesome awesome cast member Carrie who made up for the shitty ass customer service I just went through. Carrie hooked us up with a private meeting for wedding advice at the Turtle Talk with Crush show. She even met us at the exit of Tower of Terror to give us all buttons and front of line passes to whatever ride we wanted. 

 

Fast forward to the end of the night. We stop by City Hall as we exit the park to file our complaint about Zoe and Teresa and to give our compliments about Carrie.  Chris handles our complaint professionally for the most part, but decides to make it up to us by letting us know he'll go upstairs right after to the complaint department to talk to the people there, and then offers us some hot cocoa, or coffee or a drink. 

Because free hot chocolate makes up for super shitty customer service. 

Me: Oh, and Teresa mentioned something about putting a note in my file... What's that about?

Chris: Let me check... *looks up stuff*... I don't see any notes in here. I'm not sure.

Go figure.

So apparently people trying to sneak into DCA will dress up all gaudy and conspicuously with Bride to Be sashes, Minnie Bride ears and veils, big bachelorette ring plushes hanging from their necks, Bride butons all over the place, know the expiration to their fake annual pass, put a different picture but same ethnic name on their fake picture ID, and also put their fake name and yet another different picture on their fake debit card.

Kind of an awesome story isn't it?

Episode 9: Twitter at the altar?

I read this morning on Yahoo Odd News that someone interrupted his wedding to Tweet that he just got married hahaha.

Groom creates viral storm twittering from altar:
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Maryland groom has created an viral story storm after he interrupted his wedding last month to update his Facebook and Twitter accounts from the altar.
Dana Hanna, who works for a pet website, also posted a short video of the ceremony on the Internet. It showed him reaching into his pocket for his phone as the minister was about to pronounce the couple husband and wife.
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For the full article (must read, it tells you what his Tweet was!), go here: Twitter interruption.
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I'm really new to this whole Twitter thing (literally, maybe a week only), and while I acknowledge that it IS pretty addicting... wow. Even I have a limit to my geekiness. (Yes, I say that even though I took the picture of me so that you can see my Bleach anime calendar at my work cubicle.)

Romeo better not pull out his iPhone at the altar next March because if he does, I'm going to laugh so hard that I'll start crying and then it'll ruin whatever makeup I have on and he'll look like he's marrying a clown lookin' chick (nobody wants a clown for a wife. They're scary!). And then my family will disown him before we're even married! Traditional Asian parents FTW.

My friend Hollen suggested streaming a video of my wedding live over the internet for those who can't make it. Not entirely sure what I think of that. It could be pretty cool, and then it could be pretty ... embarrasing. Blackmail material :O Who knows what crazy shenanigans will happen that can't get edited out before the world sees it? :)

I know I say I want to be famous one day, but I'd prefer it to be for something a little more worthwhile... say, saving the world for example. Ah well, we'll see what happens. Can't have it all I guess :D