The Official Officiant

Months back, we found out that our California pastor-friend was not legally allowed to perform marriages in Hawaii.

Well, after a few letters of recommendations and some official filing business done right before the due date of two-and-a-half months prior, he is now allowed to perform one marriage on one specific day in Hawaii. And I sure hope it's mine. (Kidding!) I'll have to figure out a good thank-you gift to give him and his family for going through all this legal tape on our behalf!

With that major victory finally won (yay!), I think it's best to see what other legal hurdles we'll have to jump over before the wedding day.

First, we'll need the Hawaii marriage license application. It's good only for thirty days, so we'll have to apply for it when we get to Hawaii in July. Luckily, we picked up one of the forms on our trip in December, so we can at least fill it out beforehand. (Though, I found out that the same form is also available online.)

"You want me to change my name to what?!"

Actually, there isn't anything about name changes on the form. But there is something else that interested me:

Free newspaper announcement? Yes, please! Unfortunately, we don't get to pick out what it will say, but I still think it's pretty cool.

Anyway, once we present the filled out form, IDs and sixty dollars, we'll be all set. We then get married, have our official officiant sign us off, and await a sparkly new license that should appear in our mailbox back home in California. I hope it's truly as easy as it seems.

I've heard that you may need several copies of your marriage certificate after the wedding, especially if you plan on a name change. Though the first certificate is free, I'll have to pay ten dollars for an extra one, and four dollars for each additional copy after that.

I will be adopting Sak's last name after the wedding, though I have no lofty reasoning or good story as to why. I simply like his last name a whole lot, that's all. As he had no strong opinions one way or the other either, it looks like we're skipping out on the whole name-change-debate. All he asked me was whether it would be confusing at all, since I call him by part of his last name (Sak - pronounced like "sock", or Saka). I don't think it should be a problem though.

This, I think, is a more common confusing situation:
Me: Where's my sock at?!
Sak: What? I'm right here!

So, how many marriage certificates does one person need? And how many hoops does your state/country/etc. require of you?

A Cosplay-Anniversary

Forget Christmas, Easter and Halloween - Memorial Day weekend is my favorite holiday of the year. And I'm ashamed that it has nothing to do with the actual observance itself.

No, it's Fanime! And our dating-anniversary! Yaaay!

I told Sak that if they ever move the convention to a different date, we'll just move our anniversary with it. The event holds much more significance for me than the actual day, haha!

Anyway, the obligatory "Penga & Sak through the years" ~

2004: When we first met. See? We got along right away! Kindred spirits. And I was so not kidding about those cat ears!



2005: I'm kind of dissapointed by the lack of in-costume pictures I have. So I attached some pics of the costume construction at least. This is when we first started playing Maple Story, so we dressed as mages with slime hats!




2006: We got a wild rush of applause from the conventioneers for these retro throwbacks (five total). Until another group with better looking blocks showed up and one-upped us. I'm still bitter about it, too.



2007: The start of the big-paper-mache-ball-movement. The year we graduated college. We fought a lot during the creation of these costumes, cause they were oh-so-complicated. But we agree that it was worth it in the end, they were awesome. And now we collect all things Keroro and Tamama, as you know.


2008: Our first year out in the working world, with time AND money! We splurged on fabric that year, and made our most epic costumes to-date - digletts (from Pokemon)! (or dugtrio, however you want to look at it). Penga-bro is in the tall, angry one. And I don't know who that pikachu is.



2009: For some reason we wanted to do 2 different costumes this year. Cheese-kun from Code Geass (Sak and I took turns wearing him), and black mages from Final Fantasy, along with our friend Ed. Snuggies were all the rage last year, as you can tell. :)



2010: No costumes this year, but I know you'll all understand why. :) We just wore our yukata from our engagement pictures, since you've got to dress up a little, at least.


Anyway, I think it's safe to say that this is one date-aversary that we will continue to celebrate, even after we are married.

{Happy #6, Sak! Here's to next year!}

Congrats Alvina & Gator!

4 DAY WEEKEND! WOOOO!

Anyway I just want to pause for a moment and say CONGRATULATIONS! to two very awesome ladies getting hitched this Memorial Day weekened...

Gator! (aka Hannah)


and

Alvina! (and Tim!)


I *heart* you both, and I hope you have ridiculously awesome wedding days, and spectacular honeymoons!

(and then I expect you both to come back asap and blog about everything that happened! :P)

Decorating Race

One hour is all we get to set up for our reception.

(source)

You know, that one hour, when Sak and I are at the altar getting married?

I have no idea what we're going to do. I didn't bother with a coordinator or wedding planner since Sak's family assured me they could handle it. Plus I thought I could handle it. Someone we spoke to at our venue said we could set up earlier if there was no event prior to ours, giving me hope I shouldn't have allowed myself to have.

I made it a point to ask every so often, and was happy knowing there was nothing going on before our wedding. Well, I asked again yesterday and received the e-mail stating that there is now an event prior to ours. Thus giving us just one hour before the reception to get tables arranged, chair covers on, place cards in the right order, flowers where they are supposed to be, and the DJ set up. And whoever decorates will not be able to be at our ceremony.

I wanted to cry when I read that e-mail. But I guess it's something I should have accounted for, knowing that the place we chose is more geared towards business functions rather than wedding receptions. They are following the letter of their policy; it was wrong of me to believe they'd be more accommodating just because it's a wedding.

Chin up, Penga - time to figure out what to do with this mess.

1) I could hire a coordinator. Would he/she be able to do it on her own? Coordinators are awfully expensive, especially if all I need is someone to decorate. Can I hire decorators? Can I trust them to implement my vision?

2) I could ask my brother's friends in Hawaii. They don't know us at all, so missing a ceremony wouldn't be a problem. I'd have to add them to the guest list, and once again trust them with my vision. If my instructions were clear enough, it might be okay.

3) We could ask some of Sak's more distant relations to set-up anyway, and miss the ceremony. According to Sak's aunt and mom, this isn't a big deal and happens all the time - but it just feels wrong to me.

4) We could have a huge family decorating crew run over to the venue as soon as the ceremony is over, and do a decorating blitz in the 20 minutes or so between ceremony and reception. This scares me on so many levels, but Sak's family is confident they can pull it off. Though not knowing what they have to set up, I'm not sure where this confidence is coming from.

One thing for sure, I will make separate bags or boxes for each table ahead of time, and put all the stuff that goes on the table inside. Hopefully that will speed up the process. I'll have to make detailed mock-up pictures and floor plans, too.

Right now I'm leaning towards a mixture of #2 and #4. Penga-Bro's friends can help with the big, easy stuff like chair covers and such, and Sak's family can swoop in and make sure place cards are correct and aunt so-and-so is sitting next to her bff and not some-sworn-family-enemy.

How long do you have to set-up your reception? Can it be done in under an hour? Who is helping you out? I envy you brides that get to set-up the night before. There is nothing I'd like better than to oversee the set-up myself, *sigh*. Perhaps this is a lesson in "letting go"?

Creative Forces Are Out To Get Me

Last weekend Sak, Friend-T and myself got to visit the Bay Area Maker Faire for the second year in a row!

If you think a DIY convention is amazing on it's own, just try going to one when you've got a permanent wedding-brain! It was overwhelming in a good way, full of crafts and projects and interesting ideas.

Plus, I got to meet Cricut, in person!
Sorry for the blur, this was taken half a second before someone from church bumped into Sak, causing him to try and hide his crafty interests in some sort of crazy embarrassed spasm.

Anyway, there were a lot of really amazing exhibits this year, but I'll pass on the pictures of the robotic drooling tongue and focus on the crafty stuff!

Provocraft had their cricut cake cutter out on demo, cutting some gum paste...

I thought the cakes they made with the designs were pretty cool, especially the one with the stars.



We made some tags (Eagggle!) with some brand new Cuttlebug folders. I really want the Asian-looking one on the right. On a side note, I didn't know you could emboss on thin metal!

We got to YUDU some more canvas bags...Because, you know - we didn't do enough of that already.. ;)

And then we also grabbed a bag from the Xyron table next door. There was a huge set-up where you could decorate the bag with scraps of this-and-that, after running it through giant Xyron machines. However, the place was teeming with little kids, and we slightly-bigger-kids were getting the move-it-old-person stare down.

One really cool thing that I totally fell in love with were these pin-brads:
A brad that looks like a pin! Imagine the paper potential for that! They have a bunch at Oriental Trading, in every sort of shape imaginable. Some tropical brads might be fun, I think.

There were tables teaching knitting and sewing and crochet, scrap booking booths galore, and yes - even letterpress! My conversation with the girl at the letterpress booth went like this:

*Penga looks at all the typwriterey-looking metal letters*
Me: Is this letterpress?
Girl: Yes, it is! What do you know about letterpress? *friendly smiles*
Me: I know it's expensive.
Girl: ...Oh, wedding invitations?
Me: Or lack thereof!

And that was the end of that. They let you try it out for free, but the set-up was 30 minutes to put in the words you wanted, and Sak was eager to get to the robots, so I didn't get to play. Next year, next year!

Adam Savage from Mythbusters was also there, and he gave a speech on how to solve problems. A lot of talk about remembering the big picture and making sure you set deadlines you can meet. Mmm. Any bride can relate to that.

But really, what I really need at my wedding is a fleet of these:
Artoo! They can serve us noodles and join the line dances with us!(They actually have a club for building realistic remote-controlled astromech droids, and Sak and I promised each other that we'd join someday when we have a garage and a lot of spending money.)

Anyway, I had a blast at the Faire, so anytime you get the chance to go to a hip & cool craft fair, I suggest you jump all over it!

What kind of cool craft fairs have you been to? Was anyone in San Mateo this last weekend?

Maybe you saw this whacko?

Party Pencils

With some nice puzzles made up and ready to go, we were in need of some writing instruments.

Thus, I hopped over to Oriental Trading to pick up some pencils. 24 for $5.99? Not bad. Pause. Hello..what is this?!

(source)

Ooh. Free personalization. Penga loves personalization. Loves.

So, I sent out an e-mail to our friends and family - asking for interesting 30-character phrases we could write on our pencils! Six different sayings in all.

There were some really good ones, though many of the best ones were too long, unfortunately. Some people never responded; they must think I'm crazy.

But crazy or no, here's the winning phrases, which (in my opinion) increase the general awesomeness of the pencils by at least fifty points.

"Spellcheck Not Included" - submitted by friend Ed. His other super-but-unusable entry was "My other car is the Millennium Falcon", which would have been funny, since I nick-named our silver Prius "the Falcon". (Penga-Dad asked if that made me Chewbacca, since I'm always the co-pilot. Touche, Dad!)

"Together We Can Solve It All" - submitted by me, and chosen by Penga-Bro. I liked this one since it can refer to both two people in love, or simply the fact that you need a pencil to solve the puzzles!

"Patent Pending" - submitted by Sak. He had a ton of other gems, but nearly all of them were too long. Some that didn't make the cut included: "Marks made with this pencil are wider than they appear", "Produced in a facility that also processes nuts", "Caution: Pointed end. Keep out of reach of children.", and "Not an eating utensil".

"Magical Pencil of Love" - submitted by me, and chosen by friend T. C'mon, like I was going to let a Sailor Moon-esque opportunity pass me by?

"I Wish I Were A Lightsaber" - just because.

"Craig and Michelle..blah blah" - submitted by Penga-Mom, for the sake of there being at least one normal pencil.

My only complaint would be that the pencils were only etched in, never painted, so it is hard to read the words.

Luckily, Penga-Mom decided to paint them in herself! She simply gobbed some black ink onto the pencil.

Then she took a cloth and wiped across the pencil. That way only the ink left in the grooves would stay, creating a very professional looking paint job!

However mundane and insignificant a pencil might be, this was a really fun assignment. Especially since Penga-Sis agreed to sharpen all 100 something of them for me.

What detail had you grinning from ear-to-ear? And what would you write on a pencil? (I might order more for that 2nd reception thing, so really - please answer!)

Button Brigade Part 1

Way back when my dress was in a ton of unsewn little pieces, Sak made me a little promise to help motivate me to get started. Something to do with another project I was seriously considering.

Well, we finished the dress, Sak gave me the green light to make a big purchase, it came in the mail...and then he laid claim to it!
I thought it was my present, Sak?

There's just no separating the boy from a shiny new piece of heavy-duty machinery. Especially a cool one like a button maker. I bought it from here, along with 1000 button-pin sets! That should last us a while, I hope. The whole package weighed a whopping 11 pounds!

And apparently I don't get to play with it first. It's okay though, I can wait. Since he did most of the work on the dress anyway, I'll let him be in charge of button making. I'll still be doing the designing in any case. And while I work on coming up with designs, Sak would like to show you just how his fancy-pants-shiny-new-toy works.

First, he used a Fiskar's adjustable circle cutter we bought at Michael's to cut a 1.313" circle for the design. Since I haven't printed anything for him to use yet, he's taken to cannibalizing leftover washi paper.

Next, he stuck a button shell in the "pickup die" side of the machine.

And then placed the image (side-up) on top...

...followed by a piece of Mylar for a cover.

Clicking it into place under the die, he pressed the handle down all the way.

And like magic, the button top is gone! (It's really sucked up at the top of the machine)

For the other side, he placed a crimp in the "crimp die" barrel, and rotated it back under the die.

Pressing down again, and he's done!

But a button isn't complete without the pin, so he carefully snapped one into the back.

All done!


Now I've got to come up with some designs asap, or else Sak will use up all my washi paper! Any ideas? The sky is the limit!

Did you need to be bribed to finish something? Who else loves a good solid piece of machinery?