While I wait for my pro pictures, I decided that I needed to finish blogging about my wedding planning, since life had gotten a bit crazy in the past couple of months.... so here I go!

Some girls dream of their wedding gowns their whole lives. Most women search till they find THE wedding gown of their dreams and want to wear it as long as they can... I am not one of those girls. Ok, I have dreamed about the big white gown, but my style has changed over the years and... to this very day, while I love my dress, I would also have been happy with almost any other dress that fit me well and looked good.

My ideas of wedding colors, theme, style have all changed (even considerably since I've been ENGAGED). But there is ONE thing that I've always known I was going to wear...

And that would be a Cheongsam/QiPao. This is a traditional Chinese dress that most brides usually wear during the reception, as you walk around and greet each table. Traditionally, it is mandarin-collared Red and Gold (colors that represent happiness and prosperity, and also are classic wedding colors in Chinese culture) form fitting dress, typically with a Dragon and Phoenix, which symbolize a male and female counterpart, which represent the bride and groom. I know there's a lot more history and symbolism in these dresses, but.... that's what I know off the top of my head.

At any rate, growing up going to tons of Chinese weddings and looking at my parents' wedding pictures, I always knew I wanted to wear a RED Cheongsam (red is my favorite color!). My grandma actually made my mom and my aunts' gowns, but as my sweet grandma is now 98, that is no longer feasible. So I set about on an adventure to find a store in California where I could get a custom-made Cheongsam.

Here's some real-life inspiration pictures, for those of you interested in seeing a few different styles/designs.


My cousin JW's wedding. Her Cheongsam/QiPao was custom made at Dragon Seed in SF Chinatown. The tailor here makes the gowns for all of the Miss Chinatowns, so he's super famous (so he says) and in high demand. With all of that fame comes a pretty huge price tag.


I couldn't find a better shot of cousin JL's dress, but hers was a ready-made Cheongsam that she just had tailored to her body.


My friend J - her dress has that extra gold edging.


One of my dear friends, A, who recently was married - her QiPao is a little more Westernized - with the cut-in shoulders and she had a long train. She got her custom QiPao at Chi Pao in Temple City.

Anyways - did you notice one thing in common? How freakin' skinny all of these girls are!!!! And I.... am not (and I'm fully aware I'm not obese or anything... but I'm quite a bit more voluptuous than your typical Asian chick). Anyways, let's just say that while it can (and is) done, Chinese dresses don't look all too flattering on people if they aren't in relatively good shape. Seriously. They are cut to fit you perfectly and the silky shine is totally unforgiving. Sigh. Talk about gym motivation!

Anyways. I visited the few shops in SF's Chinatown. No dice - I was quoted ~$350 min at Dragon Seed (and likewise at other stores - all via my mother who spoke Chinese to the shop owners). And about that much at a few other smaller shops. According to Mr. Famous Tailor at Dragon Seed, my body type requires a custom-made gown because of all the extra curves. I don't know if he was referring to my spare tire, but... I was convinced that I needed a custom dress. I considered ordering one online and getting it tailored - but decided that it was too risky, even with a $50 pricetag. So I did lots and lots of digging and found a couple shops in SoCal.

Chi Pao in Temple City (9417 Las Tunas Drive, Temple City, CA). The owner is Helen Zhou, and she speaks very limited English - mostly Mandarin. I somehow was able to communicate with her via my super basic Chinese skills and tried on some dresses. I was quoted about $280 for a custom gown. Due to the fact that I couldn't communicate well with her and it was a bit of a drive, I decided to not order my gown here; although she is very sweet! She also didn't want me to take a picture of the store, so no pictures to share here!

 The store that was super close to me, and the one I ultimately ended up purchasing my dress from was Vinshop USA in Rowland Heights (18192 Colima Rd, Ste B, Rowland Heights, CA).


Vinshop is located in the Yes Plaza on the SW corner of Fullerton Road and Colima (they also have a website, here). It's actually really crazy on the weekends, so if you can avoid going on a Saturday, there will be much more space to walk around and more attention from the really sweet couple that runs the shop. I think they prefer to speak Chinese (definititely Mandarin, not sure about Cantonese), but since I'm like... bilingual in English and SPANISH, and not Chinese, I used my native English.


Here are a bunch of their sample dresses.
The 5th dress from the left is the style that I chose - simple AND the cheapest option. Haha. Surprise!
The next two dresses to the R are a little bit pricier - like I said before, the more bling you add to the dress, the more cha-ching goes on the price tag. On a negative side note... my mom was in town with my sister and stopped by this shop. Since my mom speaks Chinese (both Canto and Mandarin fluently), the price that was quoted to her for a QiPao was $60 LESS than what I paid, which the owner had told me was a *special* lower price for me. SIGHHHHHH. So is life.



The coolest part of getting a custom dress is picking out the fabric! Vinshop had the most extensive collection of fabric swatches that I've seen. Crazy!


And I picked this one! It had the dragon and phoenix all over it, but subtly, and was the right shade of red, although it looks all garish with my ghetto little camera flash.



And here's the final product. And I KNOW, you can see my big ole Ramen gut, but keep in mind I was wearing granny panties and no Spanxies or anything. This photo was taken when I went to pick up my dress, a day after my fitting. The cute lady in the picture is Anna, the tailor. The entire time during my fitting, she kept exclaiming about how I had lost *too* much weight in such a short time. AND I actually ended up losing even MORE weight the week of the wedding, unintentionally! My QiPao was too loose at our reception (and I still didn't wear Spanx, woohoo!)! Usually a good thing (at least for me), it was not a good thing in terms of the fit. Oh well, at least I had room to eat! I would recommend Vinshop with some reserves, mostly because of the price quote ordeal. I really liked my dress, and it was definitely the cheapest option out of all the shops I looked at.

But how did it look on the day of my wedding?



I'm not sure if you can tell from these snapshots, but the dress is seriously deflated in the boobage area (and I have a pretty sizeable Asian rack). A little disappointing to pay for a custom dress only to not fit it *perfectly* on the day of. Sigh. Buuuuut.... Mr. Ramen loooved the dress, deflated boob area and all, and I know our grandmas were really pleased that I was paying homage to our heritage. I never thought I would be so excited to get all blinged out either! Since we didn't have a tea ceremony, my mom lent me her old Chinese wedding jewelry that my dad's mom had given to her at her wedding, and I wore a few pieces that my grandmother had gifted to me. When I went to greet Mr. Ramen's grandmother, I was surprised when she had some jewelry to gift to me as well! I looooved getting to do something that made me feel more tied to my culture.

How were you able to incorporate your heritage into your wedding?

Miss me much? I swear I'm the worst Bee.... I didn't mean for this to happen but I now COMPLETELY understand why most of the Bees disappear ~ 2 weeks prior to their weddings... I am exactly at that point (just under 2 weeks), and I'm a weeeeeee bit stressed.

So let me make some excuses, like:

• Mr. Ramen and I just moved into our *new* apartment!!! This will be our first time living together so we are suuuuuuuuuuper excited, and I can't wait to play house with all of my new kitchen stuff. Since Mr. R is finishing up his internship/job in AZ, I am left to setup our new nest alone. It is a bit intimidating, to weed out all of the old household hand-me-downs from my mom that I (and my sister) have used throughout college, to make room for all of my new registry toys! I've been packing up/moving/unpacking over the past week, in between classes and labs. Phew!
  
• I have 3 exams and 3 proficiencies to take by next Tuesday. It actually wouldn't be so hectic IF I didn't have to reschedule my exams and proficiencies for next week so I can try to RELAX before the wedding. Needless to say... school is keeping me a bit busy. Yes, I think my school is determined to kill me. They are currently winning.
  
• I had my Phx shower and my second bachelorette. Call it old age or maybe I have no stamina, but all of these parties (which I loved and appreciated very much!) exhausted me. I can't hang anymore.
• Wedding "crap". This is the stuff that needs to get done, but keeps slipping through the cracks. I usually remember them while doing something else, which makes me go, "Crap! I need to still pay the florist!" etc.
  
• The usual "can't do it until last minute" wedding stuff, ie reception seating, programs, gifts, last minute arrangements/rentals/payments, etc....

Anyways. I actually hate giving excuses but I kinda just wanted to vent. And hopefully you won't think I'm that huge of a slacker still.

Anyways... so this post is actually about, duh duh duhhhhhhhhhh....

Registry Stalking.

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I do it. We all do it. Admit it. So, to begin with.......... registering was actually one of the most stressful things I've done. Crazy right? See, I have crazy amounts of gift guilt (which I've dealt with)... I am the type of person who will never tell people what I want because I get guilty that they are spending money on me, so I just buy things for myself. The exception would be with Mr. Ramen, but of course. Anyways, that and I always do tons of research when I buy appliances, SO....

I basically researched via amazon reviews, consumerreports.org, and epinions.com. So I finished registering and... I dunno what prompted me to do this, but.... one night.... in the privacy of my own room, I looked up our registry, just *wondering* if anyone had bought us gifts yet.


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Someone had bought us our Cuisinart Brew Central coffeemaker from BBB. I excitedly called Mr. Ramen to share the good news. A few days later, my Silpats (I'm a baking enthusiast) were gone and I was hooked.

I tried to keep myself from checking it every day, so at first I limited myself to a little peek every few weeks. It was so hard to keep myself from stalking! I know! So... I finally got busy with school and forgot about it... until my shower when a few of my friends told me that I needed to ADD MORE stuff to my registries. Uhm, what? OKAY!

Since that point, it's pretty much been a stalking free-for-all, especially when school gets rough. It cheers me up. I know, I know, so superficial! Shame . Anyways.... at least I'm honest. It's still cool because even though I know WHAT we're getting, I don't know WHO we're getting things from.

And in the past few weeks, the Ramens keep getting tons and tons of packages at our parents' homes. Hehe. This Christmas is going to be the best (which means every Christmas afterwards will be less exciting, I guess?), since we will probably open all of our wedding gifts around that time. Woohoo!


This was my pre-Thanksgiving shipment. Apparently this is nothing compared to the stack that awaits me....

Am I the only stalker out there? Anyone else reveling in all of their new house goodies?