E-Pics: Day 2

Remember the yukata Sak's family sent over from Japan? Remember that they sent them to California so we'd have time to practice with them before we left for Hawaii? Well, that never happened. We never practiced.

So there we were, day-of, trying to tie the ridiculously hard obi.

At least we had instructions, which we tried our best to look at from Sak's ITouch.

But we got it all done, somehow, and headed out the door for the Byodo-in Temple in Kaneohe. You might recognize it as the place where Mrs. Sushi got married.

It's a beautiful place, that's for sure!

Sak's grandmother was very excited about us wearing the yukata, and requested pictures. I'll have to print some out and send them to her! But other than that, I'm not sure what else to do with all these. I'd hate to have spent all that time cloning random tourists out of the pictures for nothing!

If you took engagement pictures, what did you end up doing with them?

(Pictures by Penga-Mom, editing by Penga.)

My Friend Gauss

You've all seen it. The soft, fuzzy picture of a couple in love. It conjures up a warm, happy, day-dreamy atmosphere, not to mention hides many a skin flaw.

(source)

Now you, too can create your very own soap-opera scene, lovey-dovies included. All thanks to my man, Gauss.

You see, Mr. Gauss was a smart guy, and he came up with a bunch of ideas to contribute to the world of math and science. One of his more well-known ideas looks a little like this:

(source)

Don't recognize it? How about we graph a couple out:

(source)

Bell curves! One of my least favorite grading methods.

Now what does math have to do with soap-opera fuzz?

Go grab an image and open it up in Photoshop (Most other editing programs can do this as well, so you can check with what you have! And there's always GIMP, the popular, free alternative). Duplicate the image.

With your duplication highlighted, go up to Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur, and press okay.

Blurry, right? What you've just done is taken all your little photo pixels, and filtered them with Mr. Gauss's help. Sak, Peng-friend and I had a big long conversation on the exact way it works, but I think Peng-friend summed it up pretty well :

"The filter uses the equation, translates it so that the peak of the curve is at the orgin, revolves the graph to creat the contour, and then convolves it with the image (with each contour centered at a pixel). And the radius you set determines the variance (the sigma squared in the equation above)."

So that probably doesn't make all that much sense, but it doesn't matter anyway, since Photoshop does all the math for you! But if you do want a better explanation, you can start with the Wiki.


Now grab that opacity meter in your Layers (F7) window, and drag it down to your desired amount. I like 20%, usually.
There you have it - your own romantic glow!

And if you want to glow even more, set the blurry layer to "Overlay", for another neat effect!

Which would you rather see on daytime television?

Now show me what you got, and don't forget to thank Mr. Gauss for his superb equation!

What's the buzz?

Just so you know - you can now read me all over again as Miss Sewing on Weddingbee! Whee! I hope I can do us proud in getting some randomosity over on their blogs..hehe. (I'll still be blogging here too, of course)

And all you super-excellent bloggers I follow everyday that are still vying for a position, I pass the proverbial bouquet to you! You're next! Don't give up!

The Past Unveiled

I never planned on being a veiled bride. Only a hair flower or two is what I thought, and I was content.

Until I was presented with this:

That's right - my very own vintage veil pattern from 1951. And not just any pattern, but the one used by my grandmother many years ago for her own wedding.


Who could say no to that? I sure can't. Especially since she told me she can't make it to the wedding (due to my bedridden grandfather). I want her to feel like part of this wedding as possible!

Just like that, it looks like I'll be sporting a veil on our wedding day. There are several different variations included in the pattern, so I don't have to make an exact replica. I don't know how much we'll deviate just yet, but as I doubt I can pull off the Anastasia-esque headgear on the Vogue sketch, I'm sure we'll be working in some modifications.

And my grandmother actually has her veil (and dress), so I'll be able to see a visual example as I go along. Unfortunately, her veil is a bit fragile and worn at this point - otherwise I wouldn't bother "re-inventing the wheel".

I think it looked quite nice on her, so I'm hoping it'll work out for me as well!

Have you had the chance to use anything from the weddings of previous generations? Maybe a dress, a tradition, or simply old pictures?

E-Pics: Day 1

After the hair and makeup were finished, and Sak found some hole-less Dockers, we set out for our engagement photo shoot around the island!

Except...

The car broke down.

Yeaaah. So much for that grand-master-plan! So now, I present to you the pictures taken down the street from said inicident (while waiting for the tow truck). No joke, these were taken in a parking lot.

Sak: "Huh, what?"

Sak: "What did I tell you about kissing in public?!"

Penga: "Hmmmpphh!"

Okay, so I'm trying my hardest not to look super hopping-mad in all of these, but I really was. Could the car have picked a better day to die? Though in retrospect, Hawaii really does have some gorgeous parking lots.

Well, long story short, the tow truck came, we went back to Sak's Grandmother's house, and used their other car. They urged us to get to Ko Olina beach before sunset, so we rushed over to the West side of the island as fast as the 50 MPH speed limits would let us.

Let me just say, if I were getting married on a beach, Ko Olina is where I'd do it. The place is seriously huge, seriously gorgeous, and seriously perfect for weddings. Nice flat grassy lawns? Check. Nice sunset views? Check. Crystal clear water? Check. Tons of hotels right next door? Check.

Anyway, here's the pictures we took from there!












Not a bad way to end the day, as you can tell by my much happier expression. And the car? Well, it turns out one of the wheel bolts came loose, causing the loud freaky noises on the freeway. We were lucky nothing serious happened as a result, and Sak's uncle easily fixed the problem.

Were your engagement pictures a happy experience? Or did you have to "grin and bear it"?

(All photos by Penga-mom or Penga-dad, over-killed editing by me)