Wall Full of Memories

Since we had to drop by Costco to pick up prints for the reception tables, I thought, why not print out a "few" more pictures? What was supposed to be a few turned into over 100 shots of ours lives over the past 3 years.Thank goodness photo printing is really cheap here! Last night we made this sweet photo wall in our living room to add some color:

On this photo wall are pictures from a ton of places:

In Korea: Daejeon, Seoul, Seoraksan, Sokcho, Gyeongju, Hongdo, Buyeo, Damyang, Namhae, Tongyeong, Jeju Island, Anmyeondo, Jirisan, Maisan and probably more I am forgetting.

Other countries: Mongolia, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia

USA: Maine, on the Appalachian Trail (Virginia/West Virginia/Maryland/Pennsylvania), Outer Banks (North Carolina) etc.

When you put it all on one wall, it seems overwhelming. We have been so blessed in so many ways!


We have a ton of leftover ones, plus a bunch of vertical pictures. Maybe tonight I will make another collage in our bedroom, since our Korean flag has decided to fall off the wall in there.

Why haven't we done this before? It looks awesome and makes the room so much more cheerful!

Guestbook Cranes & Burlap Runners

I may have mentioned before that Heather, my future sis-in-law, is making our guestbook for the wedding. She just finished cutting out the cranes that guests will write well wishes on:

Once guests are finished writing a nice message, they will hang them onto twine using a mini clothespin. After the wedding, we will put the cranes into a scrapbook so that we can revisit the well wishes any time we want ^^

Along with the guestbook cranes, Matt's mom and Heather have been busy bees cutting and finishing the burlap table runners for the reception:

Don't they look awesome!? Because burlap is a little messy, they will be lining the bottoms, and because it's also pretty smelly, hopefully we will air them all out a bunch before the big day!

Just wanted to share a few great projects happening in Maine right now ^^

On a Roll!

So this weekend was, to be honest, probably the only weekend I can deem a true "wedding weekend". Unlike other wedding weekends, we spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday cranking out projects like you wouldn't believe! The other weekends designated for wedding planning only ended up being one-day events.

I know that at some point I will probably get craft burn-out, but it hasn't happened yet, and for that I am thankful! Matt was on his game too, and the two of us were able to accomplish so much:

1. Mock-up crane hanging. We bought the neccessary items (fishing wire, more glue for the glue gun, a needle), and strung 25 cranes to a clothes hanging to give us an idea of the final product. It turned out GREAT and wasn't too tedious to put together:

 2. Mason Jar Tags: We printed, cut out, laminated and punched 150 mason jar tags. We already made the design, but tweaked it a bit before printing. While I didn't get a close-up shot, so maybe I will post one tonight when I get home from work ^^


3. Mock-up seating charts:

While obviously we can't finalize the seating charts until everyone has RSVP'd, we did make a mock-up. I printed out 19 blank pages with a circle in the middle, and labeled each page a different place name (instead of a number). We wrote out everyone's names on post it tags, with different colors corresponding to: Dani's family, Matt's family, friends, +1's, etc. It took us some time, but it actually was pretty painless and hopefully the final result will be just as good!

4. Cranes: Our count now is almost 600. We took a 3 week break because we actually needed more paper and had to have Heather send us more! While we ordered enough to begin with, a few packets mysteriously disappeared, we made a ton of those "bad" cranes in the beginning that we had to throw out, and I think a few of my teachers took some from the desk, never to return them.

5. Readings Finalized: We finalized the 3 readings for our ceremony. We had a lot of different readings to choose from, but it was relatively easy picking the ones that "spoke" to us. Now we are in the process of finding and finalizing people to read them at the wedding.

6. Trail Mix Bag Tags: While I forgot to take a picture of this, we designed, printed, and stickered 150 trail mix bags with labels. The label simply says "Happy Trails! August 18, 2012" and includes our M&D monogram. They're super cute and simple, and will look really nice once the bags are filled with yummy goodness ^^

7. Finalized our singer for the wedding: Kayla Roy, an amazing singer and family friend. We could not be happier about this. She is quite the busy woman, working as a professional singer all over the country and currently in New York City. A week after our wedding she will be embarking on another adventure singing for Disney Cruise Lines! Now that she has confirmed, we will work on the music selection. Along with Kayla (who grew up in the same church as me), we have an organist/pianist, Phil, who has been playing at Sacred Heart for many many years. The two of them have done weddings together before and have participated in church choir with me since the beginning. It is an honor having both of them join us! Now for the fun of choosing the music!

8. Jewelry for the wedding: While I have had my eye on an absolutely gorgeous necklace for some time, I finally chose earrings to match, and will be purchasing those shortly. That is for another post entirely, though!

9. Wedding Party Gifts: Did a lot of searching this weekend for gifts for the wedding party. ^^

While we did lots of other things, these were the big ones. So happy to have so little time left and to have most of the projects under control!!!

Where the Hell is Matt?

Matt (not to be confused with my fiance!) is this dude from Seattle, Washington who likes to dance. If you've never heard of him, then I strongly suggest youtubing "Where the Hell is Matt?" and watching all of his original videos.

Matt travels around the world and dances. I have been showing his videos to my students for the past 2.5 years when we do our "travel the world" unit, and they love it. I am THRILLED that he just came out with the 2012 edition!

Not going to lie, I get teary when I watch any of his videos, and this one even more so. How can you not be so utterly happy when watching a little bit of humanity all interconnected? It's truly beautiful. And since I have had a "connection" with this guy from showing his videos all of the time, the last scene with his family dancing had me practically crying, so friggin cute.

If you have a few minutes, sit back and enjoy this great example of humans at their best:

Putting it all into FOCCUS

After our pre-martial investigation "meeting" via Skype, our deacon sent us the FOCCUS forms to fill out. FOCCUS stands for "Facilitating Open Couple Communication, Understanding and Study". It is a 156 question survey that couples take separately. The results are then interpreted. The statements that you disagreed on will be the things the priest will talk about during the pre-maritial counseling session (which we're having when we arrive home in Maine).

Last night Matt skipped his nightly tae-kwon-do session and the two of us headed down to the river to fill out the survey. Subconsciously I found myself singing "As I went down to the river to pray" on the path down. Funny, eh? For those who know me though, I am always singing or humming, it's just funny how that song (from O Brother Where Art Thou) was in my head! I crack myself up sometimes :)

The sun was setting and we had just enough light to complete all of the questions.

 
 To give you an example, you read statements like "My partner and I have discussed  whether we want to have children or not". You simply answer either "YES" or "NO". You can also put "undecided" but our deacon advised us not to put too many of those since it skews the results significantly.

Over-all, it was a painless experience and we (for the most part) followed instructions and didn't consult with each other. There were a few giggles when we read aloud some interesting questions, but other than that we didn't talk about our answers.

Now we just have to scan them in and send them to our deacon. When we're home in less than 6 weeks (!) we will have a meeting with him to discuss the results.

I have a pretty good feeling that Matt and I are on the same page. We are extremely open with each other, talk ALL the time about our future, our finances, our goals, our expectations. Of course there will be a few disagreements on the survey, but that's normal.

It was a positive experience and glad to have one more thing checked off our list!

Bloom.

In a few days, summer will officially be here. It's not welcome though, if what happened last year repeats itself. I distinctly remember the first day of summer last year, it was amazing. A few of us teachers went out to the rooftop garden and harvested a bunch of lettuce to eat with lunch, the sun was shining and the humidity wasn't unbearable. Then the next day came, and BAM! Jang Ma (the rainy season) hit like a ton of wet, soggy, sticky, bricks. The humidity came tumbling in to a disgusting degree, and the heavens opened up like you wouldn't believe. I am NOT looking forward to that again! Oh, the joys of the Korean rainy season, where you must carry an umbrella no matter the weather, or risk getting completely soaked with not a moment's notice. FUN.

So, with just a few days (hopefully weeks) until the start of the monsoon season, I am going to appreciate the beauty that is our urban garden:

The lily's are blooming!!! It's been a long impatient road, but finally they are blooming, just in time for us to enjoy them for another month before going home. So far, only two of the four plants have bloomed, we have a pink and a yellow one. I believe we were given four bulbs of different colors, so the other two are a mystery!

Besides enjoying the lily from the garden, walking down the sidewalk now is beautiful:

This cool tree has wispy-like pink flowers, similar to dead dandelions in texture.

Cheers to enjoying what little we have left of dryish, sunny days before the deluge! 

40/60

Today we have:

40 days until we fly home to Maine.

60 days until the wedding.

Trying to concentrate on our meditation and deep breathing in these last few days after a stressful week.

This weekend was filled with:

late night river walks
watching tango dancing on the bridge
a Subway sandwich trip
future life planning over iced coffees
naps
Breaking Bad episodes (very addicting show, ha ha)
car rides with the windows down
origami cranes
to-do lists
blooming lily in the garden

This coming week will be filled with:

first grade speaking exams
summer camp preparation
turbo fire workouts
lettuce wraps
more river walks (as long as the rainy season holds out)
wedding projects galore

Cheers to the 2 month countdown!

Confessions of a Tom Boy

If you didn't know me, you might think that because I am seemingly obsessed with my wedding that I would be of the girly-girl persuasion. While I LOVE crafting and projects and flowers and pretty things, I am a tom-boy at heart.

This whole wedding business has caused a sort of conflict in my mind. While I have always gravitated towards comfort (re: t-shirts and comfy pants) and natural beauty (re: no make up and lack of hair style), my wedding has turned me into an etsy-searching, dress shopping GIRL. Of course I haven't fully converted to the "other side", and I don't plan to, that's just not me. But I am realizing that if I am going to be a true girl for once in my life, my wedding should be it. If I spent so much time figuring out the style of my wedding dress, and shopping online for a perfect necklace to match, then I should probably take the time to make sure I fit the bill.

So last week commenced "operation beautification". On a typical trip to the store for essentials, I decided to purchase some products to help in the process:

HAIR
My hair is thin, and getting thinner every year. I have had a problem with weak locks and split ends. So I picked up some damage therapy product:

FACE
While I usually get a little bit of acne once a month (ahem), for a while my face has been fine. But NOW with the increase in humidity, I find myself sweating all day, which has caused a little extra bit of skin issues.  Heat + humidity + exercise = unhappy face. So I bought some trouble therapy skin products, which will hopefully help combat the issues I've been having:

NAILS
I have very thin, flimsy nails that never seem to grow more than a tiny bit. While I do keep up with some filing and nail-painting every now and again, I bought a new Emory board, and not shown is a cuticle trimmer.  Hopefully this will remind me to work on my nails a few times a week leading up to the wedding ^^ I also bought a new pumice stone for my feet.

You might not think this is a big deal, but if you know me, you know that it's something. I have 9.5 weeks left until the big day, so hopefully I will be looking and feeling my best by then! I figured if I am going to eat healthy and exercise, I mine as well concentrate on my skin, hair and nails as well. It certainly can't hurt!

Puzzle Pieces

A few more pieces to the wedding project puzzle have arrived!

Here are some pics of a few more items that have been recently delivered to Heather's house:

Matt's mom and Heather went out and purchased a bunch of burlap to make runners for the tables at the reception! They have taken on the task of cutting the material, sewing the edges and air drying it all out so it will be awesome come wedding day. I think it's going to look so good with our blue, white and green flowers!

 The ribbon and dowels also arrived for the ribbon wands. We got TONS of ribbon from an amazing online sight (papermart.com). Each 100 yd. spool of ribbon was like $6.00. The dowels we ordered from Jo Ann Fabrics online sight. Now all we need are eyelet screws and we're good to go for that project as well!

Not shown in this post are 13 dozen mason jars! The first batch to arrive at the house ended up being completely shattered, so after a few phone-calls, the second shipment arrived good as new.

Exciting!!! ^^

DIY: Invitations

Here they are, the pictures of our finished invitations. I'm missing a few shots of what it looks like all put together, so I will add those to another post.

First, I'd to reiterate that our South African friend Claire designed the various pieces. We were in charge of printing, cutting and assembly. So technically, it's not a 100% DIY project, but regardless, it was a TON of work.

Here are the pictures of the finished product:

Here are the finished pocket-folds, twine, origami paper, RSVP cards, the invitation itself, the map and a how-to card with origami crane instructions.

The actual invitation

As you can see we carried the crane theme over onto our invitations by putting two cranes at the bottom.

the invitation, crane to-do and map

close up of the origami crane instructions

A few family members have let us know what fun it's been to try to make the crane. While obviously a lot of people are failing miserably, it has definitely served as a conversation starter! We've had a lot of laughs when people have asked if they need to complete a crane in order to enter the reception. Too funny ^^

close up of the pocket folds

close up of the map

While the map has the church and the reception labeled and a few major roads, it's more of a fun thing to look at than a useful item in the invitation. It just gives people an idea of the area. 

Here are a few shots of the invitation and my ring:

Not shown in detail is the small RSVP card that you can see in the first picture. The card instructs guests to RSVP by going to our wedding website or calling my mom. 

And that's basically it! They came out WAY better than anything we had ever imagined, and are absolutely thrilled. The response we've been getting regarding the invitations has been great, it feels good to know how many people appreciate our hard work and creativity ^^

I will post more pictures later of what the entire package looks like together. Stay tuned!

Luck.

Look at this picture I found on someone else's blog that just so happens to coincide with our wedding day!

sweet ^^

RSVP

So now that the invitations have been circulating for a week and a half, a lot of our guests have been responding via email and phone to let us know that they received them, so that's awesome! The post regarding the invitations will come soon, maybe today or tomorrow, once I upload the photos of the finished products ^^

The best part about guests receiving our invites is that the RSVPs have already started to roll in! Because the majority of guests are using our website and online form to RSVP, we have been waking up every morning ecstatic to check emails. It's been a lot of fun so more, and we can't wait for more to come in.

To keep track of it all, of course I have a google doc:

names have been censored to protect the innocent, hehe ^^

As each guest RSVPs, we highlight with either blue (YAY!) or red (nay) and then include the following information (from the form they fill out):

1. names of those attending
2. how many people are attending
3. how many vegetarian meals they would like
4. how they RSVP (what number email or if they called my mother)

The yellow highlights are when we first made the doc and are for people that most likely can't make it because of distance or situation. We were trying to get an idea of the total numbers, but it's still too early on to tell!!


RSVPing to a wedding is so exciting. I absolutely LOVE getting invitations in the mail, and find a lot of happiness in RSVPing.It's nice hearing from people that they have enjoyed our invitations as well. Even though a lot of our family and friends can simply tell us that they're coming, or it's very obvious that they're coming, it's still so nice to receive a confirmed RSVP email. Besides, we included a blurb asking guests to give us some advice about our wedding/marriage and those have been so fun to read!

Once we get the majority of RSVPs we can then start to plan out seating charts, etc. Fun fun!

Searching for S(e)o(u)lice

Today on a whim Matt and I took the slow train to Seoul. We had a few things in mind, mainly eating at our favorite breakfast place (one of the only true American breakfast places in Korea), and shopping for bridesmaids gifts. We ended up:

1. Going to Gangnam for Buttermilk pancakes, veggie omelets and free re-fills of actual brewed black coffee! Anyone living in Korea knows that this is huge.

it's almost impossible to find this anywhere in Korea

2. Taking the subway to Sam Sung station and wandering around COEX mall, one of the largest and nicest in Korea. I absolutely LOVE the Totoro store there, it's so fun! ^^

3. Stopping off at Myeongdong for some clothes shopping. We didn't end up getting a lot, since we'll be home so soon, but I did score a freshly squeezed lemonade in a bag

4. After a bit of clothes shopping we headed to Insadong, a great place to buy traditional Korean gifts. My mom and aunt Katie have been there and we've been numerous times for Christmas gifts etc. We accomplished a lot, and to finish off our amazing food day, enjoyed a subway sandwich for late lunch/early dinner.

Exhausted from our 5:00AM wake-up, we slumped into our seats on the train and enjoyed a nice 2 hour nap on the way back to Daejeon, arriving home at 8:30PM. Off to bed to gear up for another week of school and city-wide debate competitions! 7 More weeks until Maine ^^

Fillin' Out the Forms

Because we're getting married in a Catholic church, we have to fill our various forms and also participate in pre-marital counseling.

Being in Korea has complicated things, of course. Luckily we've been speaking through email to the deacon at our parish and have had a lot of our questions answered that way. When it was time to fill out the "Pre-Marital Investigation Form", things got a bit hectic. Our church advised that we try to fill out the form here in Korea with a local priest because this is what's normally done. After I scoured the internet for weeks looking for English speaking parishes in Daejeon, I only had one contact me back, and they weren't sure what that form was.

Considering the form should be done 3-4 months before the wedding, we had to come up with another solution. That's when our deacon recommended a Skype call. We're so fortunate that he was familiar with the internet-calling system and we set up an "appointment" with him last night.

Because the form should be filled out separately by each of us, I left the room and Matt answered the questions first. 15 Minutes later it was my turn, and then we wrapped up a bit with the deacon before signing off. In a few words, the entire experience was painless! The form contains mostly basic information about us, our parents, our religions, baptism dates, etc. Then there are a few questions asking about your will to marry and if there is anyone pressuring or forcing you to get married. He also asked a few questions like "will you love him unconditionally forever?" and it made me feel like I was reciting vows!

So now that the initial form is complete, the next step is the survey. Usually this is done as part of counseling, but since we're not coming home until 3 weeks before the wedding, the deacon will scan the forms and send them to us to fill out separately. When we're finished, we'll scan them back, he will take a look at them and then when we're in Maine we'll have the actual counseling session with him regarding the results. Basically it's a 100+ question "test" asking you various questions about everything under the sun: your beliefs, your views on children, on work, on sex, on finances, on politics, etc. I guess it's somewhat like a compatibility test, haha. After the priest looks over the results from both of us he can focus on the questions that we might have disagreed on. That way we are aware of some things we might need to communicate more openly about being and during our marriage. Sounds like a wonderful way to start off a marriage :)

After we "pass" that test, it's all systems go!

Just 7 weeks until we're home in Maine <3

Sweaty Face

I just realized I haven't been talking much about exercise and diet. A quick update: I've been exercising as much as I can and the diet has started. I am bringing in my own lunch to school now which is low-carb, usually salads and lettuce wraps. Things are going good!

New problem though: it's freakin' HOT now.

Evidence post workout:

me pulling the Korean kiss photo routine

It's been in the eighties every day here which means our apartment (which you think would be cool because it's practically a basement) is a furnace of trapped heat! This makes my workouts a lot more painful. I suppose it's time to turn on the AC, even though we're trying to wait as long as we can. Even though it's cheap here, I don't do well with artificial cold air, makes me sick. Whatever! I can't win in this scenario, I just gotta roll with the punches!

Korean Memorial Day tomorrow. We were planning on getting things done around the house, but we've since nixed those plans and are heading to the beach! Yeah!

Ribbon Wands, Check!

Feeling accomplished today after checking off a ton of things from our checklist. This weekend was another "wedding weekend" and we did a lot! The trend continued today since I only had 2 classes.

I was able to order the ribbon and dowels for our ribbons wands:

We ordered 3 colors: the royal blue, the light blue and white

dowels from Jo Ann Fabrics

 Hopefully with a little blood sweat and tears, they will eventually turn out to look something like this:

just envision our colors instead ^^

The materials will be shipped to Heather's house and stored until we're home to put everything together. We just need a few eyelet screws and we're good to go!

The ribbon wands will be used as we exit the church, in lieu of confetti or rice. Fortunately we're not making one for every guest, just around 75, for those who want to stand in front and wave them. That way it is cheaper, and less work for us! Besides, not everyone will want to participate in the wand waving or be close enough to wave them at us as we walk by.

Can't wait to go home and make these, along with all of our other crafty projects ^^

This weekend we accomplished:

> a TON more cranes. We are now up to almost 400. That is quite an acheivement considering at the beginning of last week we had 119! We are almost half way, and are feeling very confident about the progress. We need to finish by the end of June so we can spend July poking small holes in them for stringing.

> Designed tags for the mason jars (for people to write their names on), and also designed stickers for the trail mix favor baggies.

>Created a cute puzzle for our wedding program for guests to do while they're waiting for the ceremony to begin. Now we're just waiting on finalizing readings and songs and the program will be ready for printing!

>We created post it tabs for guests so that we can start to figure out the seating chart. Of course we can't do this until everyone has RSVPed, but we have started to think about family and those who we know are coming.

>We set up a Skype meeting with the deacon so that we can finish the Marriage Investigation Form.

Bling Bling!

Look what arrived in Durham, Maine yesterday!!

So shiny and sparkly!!! Can't wait to get home and try them on!

Creative Fun

I love how every wedding is different, depending on the direction the bride and groom want to take. Some couples focus on lots of tradition, and so the wedding is focused on dances and cake cutting and any cultural customs. Other couples focus on a theme, designing a modern, or vintage, or victorian style wedding. Other couples tend to focus on the simplicity of a wedding ceremony, while others go elaborate. Some weddings are causal, some are black tie. I am so thankful that where I grew up (America), every wedding is truly different, and that even if you attend a wedding every weekend for a summer, you won't be experiencing the same thing twice.

I think if I were to categorize Matt and my wedding, I would say that it is focused on us as a couple, and the crafts, projects and little touches that we're putting into our special day that speak to us and are unique to our situation.

Here is an example of one of the small projects we're doing to add a little personal touch to the reception:

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but our tables are not going to be numbered but instead are going to be places we've traveled together. We're going to print the guest seating tags and hang them from twine near the entrance to the tent.At each table is going to be a picture of us at that specific place A few weeks ago, Matt and I came up with the idea to create little icons as well, to use on the tags. Do we need them? Heck no. It's definitely not a "must do" project, but in fact I've had a lot of fun with this. It has allowed me to get in touch with my creative/artistic side. It's not much, but it has been so therapeutic drawing these! We came up with 19 icons to represent each place. Can you guess which places these icons represent??

I am almost finished the 19th icon, now I just have to scan, adjust the colors, and make mock-up tags!