The Guys

The boys all looked so handsome in their uniforms. Let's take a closer look at Kyle, Paul, Rico, Henry, and J.Lo. Pictures by Hannah Suh.

Here is a close up of Brandon's spiffy uniform with his blue cord. He had an issue with his button. The boys got right on it and tried to fix it. Notice the look of concern on Henry's face.

A bro handshake was exchanged.

But then the button fell off again so Paul took off his own button and let Brandon use it. That's brutal. What a good groomsman.

We took our portraits with the guys by the helicopter. That's brutal, too.

Don't they all look amazing?

Brandon ran off somewhere so I had a chance to be alone with the boys.

Surrounded by a bunch of Army guys. Every girl's dream.

I am so glad that all of them made it out to California for the wedding. Even snow storms and the holidays couldn't stop them from joining us.

The First Look

Traditionally, the groom does not see the bride until she walks down the aisle. Some bad luck superstitious mumbo jumbo. But we were already married at this point, so why wait? Also, this allowed us to do all of the portraits beforehand so that we did not have to fight the sunlight.

Hannah had Brandon wait in the gardens for me while I crept around the corner.

I love how excited he looks here as I walk towards him.

At that moment all I could think about was how my hair was too curly for his liking, how I had much more makeup on than he was used to, how maybe this was not the dress he had pictured me in...

And then I thought about how handsome he looked in his uniform, even though I could only see his back.

I tapped his shoulder and we saw each other for the first time.

And then we kissed a lot.

Here I am checking out his blue cord

He backed up to get a good look of his bride

Always the sweetheart, he told me how beautiful I was.

Ha! He's caught checking me out!

As always, pictures by Hannah Suh.

What Do I Do If I Have to Pee?

The day did not start off according to plan. I was behind schedule by about 45 minutes because of last minute packing, hair and makeup touch ups, and trouble finding a parking space. Any time I hit traffic or if someone decided to walk slowly in front of me in the parking lot I became instantly annoyed and thought, "Don't you know I'm getting married today?!"

Despite this hiccup in the time line, I made it right before Brandon arrived. I ran into the bridal room and stripped down to my bra and undies right away, only to be reminded that Hannah needed a shot of my dress on its hanger. I waited not so patiently to slip into my beautiful dress, but not before sucking myself into some Spanx-like underwear. I don't know how well it held in my love handles, but it did keep me nice and warm. It also made it difficult to go the bathroom. I'm sure my bridesmaids are thankful that I was able to manage that on my own.

It took many hands to get me ready for the big day.
I hit slight panic mode when the corset would not tie, but was also relieved that the dress fit.
The gorgeous detail on the back of the dress was the main reason why I purchased it.
The last task was to put on my something borrowed: diamond earrings from my mother (which I also wore on our prom night).
Debbie did the final makeup and hair check before I went out to meet up with Brandon.
And the boys? Well, they're just sitting around upstairs waiting to get the show going.
(Picture by Antonio Gomez)

Thank you for all your help dressing me, ladies. Thanks to Tony for running back and forth between the guys and gals as my personal messenger.

Pictures by Hannah Suh unless otherwise noted.

How Sweet It Is

Brandon and I received some really great gifts from our friends and family. The following are pictures of Brandon opening his first wedding gifts when he came home before the big day. I was not considerate enough to wait for him to open the gifts that were trickling in for us so I let him have a go.

I love Crate and Barrel's fancy packaging

As a thank you for our guests, the caterers provided a candy buffet. These beautiful pictures were taken by our photographer, Hannah Suh.

We also placed little red baggies on each person's place setting. My mom purchased these adorable pouches for ten cents each in China. The Chinese symbol represents happiness. Brandon patiently helped place little Chinese candies in each bag while I worked on some other wedding project.

Each bag contained a photoshare card, candy, a free ticket to the Nixon Library, and a little note that read: "If Brandon loves history and Min loves Brandon, then Min loves history, too. If you share this love, please come back and visit the Nixon Library's beautiful gardens and amazing exhibits for free with the enclosed ticket. P.S. We love you, too."

I hope our guests will take advantage of this when the weather is a little nicer.

Gifting the Wedding Party

I have mentioned gifts for our wedding party before, but I can actually share them with you now.

For the ladies (and man):

A tote bag made by my grandmother out of fabric I found at the swap meet for $3.


Personalized name tags with our love birds logo

Luggage tags from Forever 21

Chocolate brown cashmere pahminas from Ebay

Packaged nice and pretty


Red flip flops (that no one really ended up wearing)

They also got manicure sets and the bridal party survival kits that I previously blogged about. Bridesman Tony got a gift card to In N Out instead of a pashmina.

For the guys:

Cigars are a West Point tradition. I ordered engraved cigar cutters for them.

Add a cigar, some ribbon, and a personal note from the groom.

The parents received framed 5x7 pictures of us.

Thank you for being a part of our special day, everyone. We love you!

Two Weddings

Dear Guests,

The ceremony you watched on December 27th was a fraud. We apologize for tricking you all. The truth is we actually officially got married on the 22nd in a civil ceremony at the Norwalk branch office. We only did it out of necessity because our officiant had no legal power to marry us.

Since I can't seem to post any videos from what we consider to be our "real" wedding, here is a video of the civil ceremony.

We really tried hard to downsize the importance of the civil ceremony simply because we didn't want to spoil our wedding day. It wasn't really that difficult to do either when there were protesters outside the office, crying babies, and long lines.

Even so, you can tell that we were still giddy with excitement.

And if you see pictures of our December 27th ceremony, you will see that emotions were still running high despite the fact that we were technically already hitched.

Plus, I didn't have to worry about cold feet on Sunday since it was already too late to back out...all a part of the grand scheme.

Thank you for understanding.

Love,

Min and Brandon

My Bridezilla Organization

When it came to packing all the boxes of wedding items up, I admit that I went a little wild. I am the type of person who has to do everything on her own, and I knew that it would not be possible on my wedding day.

In an attempt to have things perfect, I wrote/drew things in detail. It seems like a completely Minzilla thing to do, but it ended up being incredibly useful because no one knew what was going on.

Each box was labeled with our names and a list of the items inside. I purposely organized everything so that similar items went together. Things on the seating card table were all in one box. All the candles went in another, and so on. I also pasted detailed instructions for people to use because I did not want people coming to me and asking where things belonged. For example:

Glass apothecary jar w/ pink roses
◦ To be used for holding wish cards. Make sure the “wishes” sign is hung over the handle. Place on guest book table in hallway next to brown basket w/ wish cards and gold and silver pens. Throw in three blank wish cards in as an example for guests to follow.

But I didn't stop with just words. After all, there are many visual people. I also drew diagrams!

And I also labeled some of the items inside the box with post-its.

People thought that I was crazy for doing all of this, but I think it was worth it in the end. I was able to go into the reception room and the hallways and see everything placed exactly where I wanted.

Minzilla is Back!

My sincere apologies for not posting updates earlier. I'm sure you can understand. I have been busy getting married and going on our honeymoon, after all.

Yes, Minzilla finally got hitched!

I really do not know where to begin with the wedding recaps. There are so many good wedding pictures thanks to Facebook and digital cameras, and I have not even seen the professional shots yet. Expect a lot of pictures later on because I just want to show our wonderful day to the entire world.

Here is just a teaser from our seriously kick-ass photographer, Hannah Suh.


I am going to take some time to organize my recaps and will probably wait until I get the professional photos because I want to get it right the first time. This means that you will have to wait weeks before you see everything in all its perfectly lit and placed glory.

But don't worry, I won't leave you completely hanging. I still have some more DIY stuff that I haven't covered.

Can I just first tell you that the wedding was truly amazing? I could not stop smiling...except when Brandon had us all crying like babies, but more on that later.

See you soon!