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!

Surviving the Wedding Day

To my wonderful bridesmaids and bridesman: If you do not want to know anything about your gifts stop reading NOW.



One of the ideas I found early on while browsing through dozens of wedding blogs is the bridal party survival kit. I was inspired by a post in 100 Layer Cake that featured cellophane bags holding useful emergency things for the wedding day. The post also provides a beautiful downloadable label template.



I decided to create my own label that used our wedding fonts, was larger, and required a little less ink. I used a Martha Stewart template and pasted it into a Microsoft Word document since I do not have PhotoShop. I had to create another document with the text only and matched it so that when I printed the two documents together they would match.

Each female kit includes deodorant, hair tie, bobby pins, Aleve pills, band-aids, gum, tissues, oil absorbant sheets, baby wipes, Q-tips, chocolate, and a tampon. I put these items into a disposable 25 fl oz. plastic containers.

I adjusted Tony's kit and tossed in an extra Twix because his was so sparse compared to the girls' kit.

Cost breakdown:
Travel-size deodorant: $0.97 each
Gum: two packs of three for $4
Twix: $1.02
Aleve: two packs of six caplets for $1.94
Containers: $2.14 for five
Tissue: two packs of four for $2.24
Band-aids: $0.58 for ten
All other items were found around the house

Total cost: $16.77
Cost per kit: $3.35

Budget friendly, thoughtful, and practical. Three cheers for Target and their crazy clearance prices!