(All pictures courtesy of moi)

Not that I didn’t LOVE all three of our weddings (Justice of the Peace, France, and Houston), I’ve been making a mental list of things I wish would have happened differently, and now I’m writing it down to share with you all:

1. I wish the music system at the reception wouldn’t have crashed last minute (we  had to use Pandora).

2. I wish Houston was not so hot in July, and I wish France did not have a heat wave the day of our wedding.

3. I wish I would not have forgotten to wear my sash during the France wedding (but don’t worry I remembered for the Houston wedding!)

See? Sashless!

4. I wish I would have remembered everyone who told me to take a second, sit down with Mr. Chick during the reception, and just take a moment. (Don’t worry, we still have our fourth and final wedding in Taiwan!)

5. I wish I would have known about companies like Printable Press where you can give them your information, select a template, and create your personalized wedding invitations. I am considering using Printable Press for my thank you cards since they have such adorable templates, so I was curious as to whether any of you guys have ever used it.

I thought it would be fun to make a couple polls this time instead of asking you for your thoughts in the comment section. Here we go!

Can’t wait to see the results!

The day of the wedding, our chateau hostess Brigitte had kindly made a hair appointment for me in a local salon. By local salon, I mean the only hair salon in the town. I was prepared for some old-school hair appliances, and was actually a bit excited about it! I was picturing Chocolat…which it turned out to be a bit like it when two sweet old French ladies walked in and started gossiping…but then they saw me so the gossip turned to gawking. Before I went, I thought they would probably use the curling iron I had when I was in seventh grade. When I sat down, the nice hairdresser lady started wetting my hair and putting it in velcro curlers. I thought hmm, this will be interesting. After she tightly curled all of my hair into multicolor curlers, she put a hairnet over my head and sat me down under this Paramount hair dryer vent thingamajig. I thought, well, there’s no AC, and they’re having a heat wave, but surely this can’t take long. She looked at me and said “One hour.”

My poor mother waited with me for about fifteen minutes when I decided I have had enough. While I am a girly girl, I am a pretty practical person, and I refuse to wait for things that I can do by myself much quicker. I stepped out of the vent and asked her to simply pin my hair up and put my veil in. She kindly did so, and when I got back to the chateau my awesome sis/MOH did my hair for me with a CHI…which leads me to believe, if they have never heard of a CHI in Barsac, perhaps I should open a salon there? I can get customers in and out so much quicker than they can now!

But I digress. While I was at the hair salon, my dad, Lisa, Mr. Chick’s lil bro and best man, and Paul (chateau owner) were busy setting up the ceremony area! I can tell you now (spoiler alert) that there were no major hitches in the wedding but one: I brought the wrong adaptor for our ipod speaker! By Lisa’s description, the plug started smoking and Mr. Chick’s uncle asked if anyone smelled anything. They quickly unplugged it and my dad went through the chateau searching for another adaptor (thanks dad!) Thankfully Paul had one that worked—crisis averted!

On the left is Allen, Paul and Brigitte’s son’s English teacher, who performed our ceremony for us.

Here’s dad walking me out:

Saying our vows, which we wrote in the chateau garden the day before. We had a hard time coming up with vows that didn’t include religion or too much sappyness. We ended up printing out a bunch of pre-made vows from the internet, and eliminating all the ones we hated…which was basically everything. We finally came up with something short and sweet we both loved and said them to each other in what possibly was the shortest ceremony in history:

We’re married!!

My poor mom trying to bustle my dress. MOH and Lisa later joined in.

First dance to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips:

Mr. Chick getting a kick out of the surprise “I Love You More Than Bacon” sign I made for him. (In parenthesis should be “most times.”)

Mr. Chick looking through the wines we had carefully handpicked at the Maison de Vin the day before. We had picked six wines that were to be drank in a specific order to truly appreciate the flavors:

Off to take photos in the vineyard and gardens:

MOH went back to the chateau to kick up her heels with mom!

Did I mention that Brigitte and Paul have the cutest little Westies named Velours and Cannard?

Me finally getting to sit down and have a bite to eat:

After the reception, we all changed into more casual clothes and went to Le Saprien for a delicious dinner. Some of us got lost along the way so we almost didn’t make our reservation, but we all made it there in one piece at the end.

Next three images courtesy of Restaurant Le Saprien.

For appetizers we had four kinds of foie gras! One of them was smoked!

The heat had died down by then, and we were able to sit in the beautiful courtyard.

All dressed down and nowhere to go

Mr. Chick had the duck in mango sauce:

I had the huge rib eye (which I ate almost the whole thing!) with perfectly cooked little potatos.

I’ll end this post on the delicious picture of the steak. I hope to get the professional pictures soon so you can see really how awesome the wedding was!

Overall I had a great time at my France wedding. There wasn’t too much to do, and since there were only eleven of us there, everyone pitched in to help and I think felt like they really were part of our wedding and our lives (which they were and are!) It was very relaxing and intimate. I did forget to wear the beautiful sash that came with my dress. I didn’t discover this until we were going to dinner. I felt like I spent the majority of the reception taking pictures, which I am so glad that we will have awesome pictures for memories, but I do wish we had more time for dancing and eating canapes (which as all brides have told me, you never get to eat  your food at your own wedding—true! This is why we had the casual sit down dinner—I ate all my food there!). However, I was not too sad because I knew I could do it again in Houston…and then in Taiwan (our next two weddings)

How was your day of wedding experience? Did it seem like a blur?

How long has it been? I don’t even want to think about it. But here I am, back in Houston and ready to tell you guys all about our wedding, from the very beginning! I’m so excited to be back and to be blogging again!

Where to start…I had been prepping for the France trip for a couple of weeks, just trying to remember to bring everything…from scissors to my ipod speaker. It was a bit stressful because I was also trying to finish all the odds and ends of the Houston wedding because I knew when we came back, we would be very tired and only have about three days before the rehearsal.

As we drove to the airport, I was already very tired and anxious from the weeks of prepping. I had bought so many wedding/honeymoon outfits, and I had even bought a brand new carry on bag for the occasion. At the last moment, I decided to wear my short white banana republic trench but ditched my jeans because I thought they might get uncomfortable as the trip went on. Instead I changed into my work out capri pants…which made for an interesting outfit…which Mr. Chick made a remark on as we waited in line to check our luggage. Being the over-anxious bride, I said:

“What do you mean?!”

Mr. Chick said “Oh, I just thought your outfit was funny! It’s cute! Don’t worry!”

Me: “You hate my outfit! Everything is going to go wrong! It’s a sign!!!”

This goes on, and by the time we get to the ticket counter, I was starting to tear up. The clerk took one look at my teary face and arm holding up the wedding dress and said:

“I can upgrade you to premier class!”

Sweeter words have not been uttered. Suddenly the clouds lifted and Mr. Chick said “See sweetie? Everything will be alright! And look there’s the McDonald’s! It’s your favorite!”

I knew I kept him around for a reason.

All photos courtesy of yours truly and family members and friends:

Here we are successfully on the plane:

Here we are playing with the fancy reading lights in premier class!

They gave us a bath kit which included tiny toothpaste. TINY TOOTHPASTE!

We flew from Houston to Paris, then flew together with our awesome photographer John Rozier of John Rozier Photography from Paris to Bordeaux. It took us a while to get the rental car from the Bordeaux airport, and some tricky navigation to reach the chateau in Barsac, but once we reached there, it was all worth it:

We took it pretty easy the first day. John fell asleep so Mr. Chick and i went exploring for food. We came across a charming sports bar, empty except for a couple of locals outside. The bartender kindly made us some of the best sandwiches I have ever had (baguette with butter and prosciutto) and we downed the icy beer which cooled us down from the slight heat wave they were having.

The next day everyone arrived, and we went into town to order a bouquet and for general fun!

Flowers found, after a lot of gesturing and helpful translation from Mr. Chick and my mom.

John, sis, Mr. Chick, and I being goofy:

John, Aunt Teeny, Mr. Chick, Me, Uncle Wes, and part of my sister and my mom’s heads:

Our chateau owners, Brigitte and Paul, were wonderful hosts who made us breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday! Dinners were always 5 course meals, in which everyone had a choice of many different kinds of salads (smoked duck and foie gras salad, scallop salad,  cantaloupe balls soaked in Sauterne wine, shrimp cocktail, just to name a few), entrees consisted of pork tenderloin, fresh fish, or duck. This was followed by cheese plate, which was followed by dessert.

Next post: the France wedding!

Did you have a destination wedding? What was your travel experience?

Let me give you some updates on what has been going on:

I got my first ever gel manicure yesterday. It took about an hour and a half and I totally fell asleep while they were doing my nails. I’m sure it was very interesting for my manicurist to hold a completely limp hand and sticking it into the UV light box for me while my eyes were closed. Man I was tired!

Since it was a gel manicure, there aren’t many colors to choose from. I did manage to find a very cute light pink to match my toes, which is “Got a Date To-Knight!” from OPI:

(Image courtesy of http://www.opi.com/)

I am almost all packed. Ok I’m halfway packed. I’ve completed my spreadsheet of what to pack. It’s separated into sections and tabs…it helps me relax to know what I am bringing!

We got our wedding bands and they are beautiful! I had to get mine resized so I don’t have a picture yet…I will post as soon as I get them!

So…in summary:

Wedding bands: check!

Packing: half check!

Bikini-ready body: check when I haven’t eaten!

Dress+veil (thanks to mama chick!): Check!

Shoes: Check!

Oh I forgot to show you guys my shoes! I finally found my THE shoes!

(Image courtesy of www.piperlime.com)

They are Kate Spade Lora from Piperlime, on sale right now!

I can’t wait to see our families in France and to go on mystery honeymoon! We return on July 20th, and we will have another reception (wedding #3) in Houston on July 24th. Until then, au revoir!

Did you have multiple weddings? How did you coordinate them?

Ok not yay on the jury duty part (heh heh, doody). But yay for having spare time to blog!

This past Sunday, our friend Bex threw a shower for us. I must admit, when I got engaged, I dissed the idea of showers…the one I went to was nice but very adult (not in the sexy way!) and a little boring. I love the bride dearly, but to be fair, it was an office shower so it was full of coworkers, and there’s just no way logistically for an event full of coworkers to be actually fun…at least not where I work anyway. I specifically told Mr. Chick that I was very glad we are not having any showers because I thought they were awkward.

As months passed, some of my friends got engaged and they had wedding showers. I began to think, why has no one threw a shower for me? Do my friends not love me? POUT. (of course now that I think about it, it may or may not be because I kept telling everyone how showers are boring. Hmmph.)

Then, my MOH and BMs in San Francisco threw me a lingerie shower. Hooray! It was so much fun!

But then I got back to Houston and the pouting of the why-no-shower-from-Texas-friends began again.

Bex Prime to the rescue! She asked if she could throw us/me a shower and i said YES PLEASE! She asked Mr. Chick if he wanted to come and his response was “Will it be boring?” Ok, I guess that is my fault. He has never actually been to a shower, and has only heard my rantings (from the early days before my SF shower).

First we brainstormed on what theme the wedding shower will have. Being the clueless bride I was, I thought Bex meant like a costume theme…so my response was something like “oh, the 80s?” which…makes no sense in wedding world. Bex, being the more sophisticated one between us, suggested maybe a kitchenware theme. Since our registry only has a couple physical items and consists of mostly honeymoon donations, Bex suggested that we could do a honeymoon themed couples shower. What a great idea!!

Here is her very cute evite:

(I am trying to credit the source but for the life of me I can’t find it. Bex said she found it randomly on google image search…)

When we arrived at Shade, one of my favorite restaurants in Houston (if you ever go, you must get the breakfast assorted pastries basket), we had the restaurant all to ourselves, and the tables were beautifully decorated with flowers, paper airplanes, and little pictures of Mr. Chick and me cut into heart shapes! Bex even had the restaurant make a special drinks and food menu for us that said “Congratulations Mr. and Miss Chick!” (but with our real names) on it. We felt so special!

(All photos courtesy of BM Lulu)

(l to r: Max, moi, Bex, Mr. Chick, officiant Javier!)

Hooray for martinis! And Mr. Chick!

Everyone came! Hooray! We are a colorful crowd.

Mr. Chick enjoying a delicious coconut scrimp.

Afterwards a couple of us went to another bar. We decided to bring our centerpieces and use them as props:

All in all, I had a great fun time at our shower! It was casual, full of yummy drinks and food, and none of that opening the present ceremony. Not that that’s a bad thing—it’s just not for me!

What kind of wedding shower did you have? Did it have a theme? If so, what was it?

All photos courtesy of BMs Lulu and Julia. I am so lucky to have friends who are such great photographers! It’s great to have life documented so beautifully.

That being said, this is a long and picture filled post…so if you’re not into that, I apologize in advance.

It started off with BM Lulu and I flying from Houston to SFO:

The next day, we all had brunch at Baker Street Bistro, a delicious French restaurant owned by our friends Dave and Danel. It was the only event where boys were allowed!

I’m one of those people who cringes when people use the word “literally” incorrectly. But literally, this was the best French toast I’ve ever had in my life.

After brunch, we headed over to La Creme Spa for mani pedis! BM Jennie found a great groupon for them and got one for me as a present! YAY!!

I love my sis:

Toes!

After the spa treatments, we headed over to Union Street to pick up some cupcakes for the lingerie shower, and of course we had some cocktails as well! American Cupcake:

Eugenia had me wait in her upstairs neighbor’s apartment while they got her own apt ready for the shower. When they called me to come downstairs, I was greeted by my own beautiful mug!

The girls opened the door and voila!

Finally, Eugenia was ready to unveil the biggest surprise: dinner.

FRIED CHICKEN AND FIXINS!! My favorite!! did I tell you my sister is the best?

Then it was on to the lingerie shower!

Then it was off to bars and clubs for some good ole fashioned wild times!

Here’s me and Lulu doing the Single Ladies dance:

More crazy dancey times!!

My favorite: FIST PUMPS!!!

The next day, we took it easy and went shopping during the day and saw Sex and the City 2 at night. The day after that, we rented a limo and went to Napa for wine tasting!

Here I am having the time of my life, sticking my head out the limo’s moon roof, then promptly getting yelled at by the driver for doing so:

We really did enjoy the moon roof.

Our first stop was Chandon winery, where the Real Housewives of Orange County went in one of the episodes:

mmm. I love wine. I really do.

Then it was time to take some pictures in the bathroom. Yes we are weird.

Our next stop was V Sattui, which is probably my favorite winery in the country!

V Sattui’s Madeira—yet another case where I can say LITERALLY THE BEST Madeira. Ever!! V Sattui also has a nice grounds area where you can buy sandwiches from their deli and have a picnic…which is just exactly what we did!

No more pictures. I promise.

All in all it was an amazing weekend. My friends all have very distinct and big personalities—that’s why I love them. I have to admit I was a bit nervous that they wouldn’t get along. I have never had all my girlfriends in one place (and even on this weekend not all of them were able to make it, but it was the most girlfriends I’ve had at one time in one place ever). The weekend really went so much better than I can ever imagine. Everyone actually clicked and became friends with each other. These girls truly have got my back, and this weekend made me so very happy.

How was your bachelorette party experience? Did your friends who never met each other become friends?

Check them out:

I think the RSVPs were everyone’s favorite! So many people asked if they can RSVP electronically so they can keep the card. Our cat Blue is undeniably adorable.

Thanks to JoJoFunbun for the beautiful invitations! She is a very talented artist and was kind enough to make these invitations for me even though she has a more-than-full time job!

As you can see, I printed the little shoes from our Save the Dates! It was a good way to still have our personal touch on the envelop without spending money on personalized stamps.

My lovely mother spotted these awesome stickers in Taiwan and sent them to me! I used them to seal the envelops!

What was your wedding invitation process? Did you design them yourself or did you order them?

1. The food, especially the traditional Taiwanese dessert of pink and white glutinous rice balls that are fried then sprinkled with peanut powder and sugar.

2. Being able to wear a really cute chipao!

These are some chipaos that I am in love with. They are all worn by Maggie Cheung in the movie In the Mood for Love:

(images courtesy of The Fashion Spot.)

I love that these chipaos are all so traditionally styled, but the fabrics are so modern yet timeless!

BM Julia was so awesome and bought fabric for me from New York:

A month ago, I went to a Chinese tailor who made a wedding chipao for BM Lulu’s friend. Last week I went back only to find out that they stopped make chipaos! I looked on yelp and of course, Weddingbee, but didn’t find anyone else in Houston. Luckily, BM Lulu saw a place on her way home that makes chipaos. Yay!

The shop is on the outskirts of town in an old shopping plaza. I drove around the plaza but could not find it. Finally I called and they said they are next to the Cash Box Karaoke. I parked my car and saw only “Floor Mills” next to the karaoke bar. On a closer look, the windows under Floor Mills displayed wedding dresses and chipaos. I went in and a very nice lady took my measurements and promised to have it done in a month. Fingers crossed! I will keep you all posted…pictures of finished chipao to come!

The tailor’s name is Zi Yuan Gao. I can’t promise anything about the finished product since I don’t have it yet, but here is her contact information in case there are any other Houston brides who need a chipao:

10600 Bellaire Blvd

suite 123

Houston, TX 77072

713 885 4818

Are you wearing a chipao for your wedding? If so, are you buying a ready-made one or are you having one custom-made?

Here is a sneak peek at the invitations:

I cant’ wait to see the final version!

Did you have someone design your invitations for you? what was your experience?

I made a banner:

Since Mr. Chick and I both have names starting with the letter “A,” we have always called ourselves the A-Team. Not to mention that I totally learned how to speak English from watching every episode of the show when we moved to the States.

I used www.weebly.com to make our website. It’s free and very easy to use! It’s not the most flexible program, but after shopping around for website programs, weebly really made the cut.

Here are some screenshots of our website:

Welcome page:

The logistics page:

Introducing the wedding party page:

Since our invitations are running a little late, it’s nice to have the website done so that people can start planning their itineraries.

Which program did you use to make your wedding website?