bullets seems to do a good job:

-the wedding was wonderful! in all honesty there were a few things i would have changed but overall jon and i were MARRIED and we couldn’t be happier!

-the married life…in one word….ROCKS! no, it’s not easy, fun, and happy all the time by any means, but it’s so valuable to spend so much time with your best friend.

married life pros:

-going to bed and waking up with him

-looking forward to coming home and seeing him

-hugs & kisses unlimited

-two bank accounts

married life cons:

-i’m a girl and he’s a boy (we live so differently!)

-gas issues

-chores

hahaha. there you go. married life after two months in a nutshell.

i have pictures galore but….i’m really lazy! i’ll post them eventually for the two of you that still read this! you know who you are (thanks mom!).

all my love: vivien tran jordan

food craving: chocolate milk & a nice, ,warm glazed donut

song suggestion: moonlight sonata by beethoven

there’s so much to catch up on! a full update is especially in order to discuss my two absolutely incredible showers from this previous weekend! but i haven’t uploaded the pictures yet (big surprise) and i’d love to describe, elaborate and reminisce on the showers in detail with some sweet visuals!

until then i just wanted to say how neat God’s timing can be sometimes. jon is out of town this weekend on a youth retreat with 20 guys he and cameron have led and disciples over the past few years at pine cove! and it couldn’t have been more perfect timing for me and for us because i’m busy all weekend with wedding, friend fun, and family time! my brother flew into town on thursday and jon and i had dinner with my whole family that evening at Zander’s House, our reception restaurant, to finalize details and finally give my brother the opportunity to see what the big deal was about our reception site. my mommy had the day off today so as soon as i got off work we:

-picked up my wedding dress! (it’s perfection…i think i’m in love…with my dress that is…jon too of course!)

-got some family business out of the way

-went shopping for my mom’s mother of the bride’s dress with Chi Kim and Christine at North Park

-bought Christine’s bridesmaids shoes!

-had dinner at bistro b

-stopped by target to pick out curtains for my parent’s new living room furniture

and now i’m at home spending the night at my parent’s house! i stayed home over the summer before i moved into an apartment with katie and emily but it’s been a long time since my brother, mommy, daddy & i have all slept in the same house.

i love family.

it’s kind of fun to think about my childhood and the different seasons of life our family has gone through and to stand as a 23 year old now, on the cusp of adulthood (or rather within the beginning years of adulthood) getting prepared to get married & wander down my own path alongside my incredible husband-to-be. do you know what i’m talking about? i love the relationship i have now with my parents where i actually understand somewhat where they are coming from when they offer advice rather than being dramatically defiant, like when i was a teenager, and instantly thinking “they don’t understand me.” i love my family so much and i’m excited for jon to be a part of my family and to be a part of his!

my parents invited jon’s parents to a lunch in dallas to formally celebrate our engagement & meet one another! and jon’s family graciously drove up to dallas with such excitement! our families are pretty fantastic.

my brother was able to visit dallas at the beginning of march as well. this is a photo from that visit at jon’s house! yay rockband

food craving: iced water

song suggestion: What About Your Friends by TLC & Lean On Me (i’m in a big friend mode right about now)

okay,

so this entry won’t be long to spare both your attention span and my fatigue, but i have to write briefly about this incredible evening. my bridesmaids went above and beyond to throw this spectacular wedding party for jon and me earlier tonight! (my eyes are seriously closing as i’m writing this as mary just pointed out to me!!!) i’ll elaborate further on  the party later, including pictures of course, but just like my title states…i’m simply sitting here in my bed basking in gratefulness for the people in our lives and how well they’ve loved us.

being engaged is SUCH a wonderful experience. i can’t wait to return the favor and shower my closest friends with  acts of service, gifts and time.

thank you so much mary, desiree, emily, katie, julie, bethany and christine for such a BEAUTIFUL, FUN, MEMORABLE night. you guys love on us too well. & there are million more thank yous to come!

 what have we done to receive blessings of this magnitude?

 nothing…

Praise God for the sincere joy we are privileged to experience although we’ve done nothing to deserve it….

 one more shower tomorrow to go! WOOHOO!

whereabouts: the apt

food craving: masala wok, a good crab cake, tomato basil soup, & nestle chocolate milk

song suggestion: dream a little dream of me (by either mamas and papas or ella fitzgerald)

so life is full of stuff right now. days are kind of back to back with dinners, commitments (i just now realized commitment is NOT spelled with two “t”s), work, and wedding wedding wedding stuff. one of our biggest priorities this past week has been our invitations! i designed our invitations about two weeks ago and worked with a printer (PROMENADE Printing in Richardson off of Coit and Beltline) and their graphic designer to get everything organized. I went to Fasclampitt to purchase my paper, which the tremendously nice two employees who helped me throughout the entire process also offered me a 20% discount on the more expensive paper that i was SET on getting. thanks again to them! after talking to the printers all week we finally had all the pieces i needed to glue the invitation together. i’d show you the invitation…but that’d be spoiling the fun now wouldn’t it? what’s the fun in that if my guests haven’t even received it yet!Praise GOD i had a lot of people come and help me out!!! Here are some pictures of what Christine (my bridesmaid) would call my invitation workshop or slaveshop.

WED:

christine (who is thinking “this sucks”), me, and my handsome husband to be! he didn’t help with invitations that night…but he did help in moral support and coffee consummation.

where the slaveshop began: dunn brothers!

FRIDAY:

Simo, Brett, Luis, & Vy Baby

pretending to be exhausted or at least i thought they were pretending. either way i still told them to “get over it and to evenly distribute that rubber cement…..or else”

now they’re pretending to be happy because i told them to smile or i’d bring out the belt.

SUNDAY:

amber, cameron (don’t be fooled, he never helped with invites but he did eat the remainder of my dinner…..without my permission), drew, katie, kaitlyn, vy baby, and jon boo boo at our church, Dallas Bible, working together like a happy family!

Other Events This Full Weekend:

SATURDAY EVENING

UTD Send Viv&Jon Off To Marriage Dinner & Game Night

SUNDAY AFTERNOON

after church of course! which my roommate katie came to church to watch and support jon teach sunday school and hear kyle preach! thanks katie! it was so incredible having a close old friend at church.

my nephew Chase’s one month birthday celebration! he was being passed most of the time so i didn’t get a pic of him so here’s the rest of the happy family and the brand spanking new parents!

and later that sunday afternoon brittanie’s first bridal shower! i absolutely loved the PA reunion and the shower was lovely. the cakes were ESPECIALLY GOOD…yum…cakeee

there’re so many pics and events that i’m missing so…please bear with me. keep in touch. if i just believe that we can get this whole wedding thing together with enough time, composure, and sanity then i know it can be done.

it can be done!

stay tuned

whereabouts: my comfy bed

food craving: masala wok…nuff said

song suggestion: the beatles cover by T.V. Carpio “I want to hold your hand”

is jon serious with that post about our latest photos? let me REALLY fill y’all in! when andrew first showed the preview collages of our engagement photos all i could say in response was:

“I @$@$^@&#*^@&*$&*@^%&$@& love them!”

haha & i promised him that i would write about how the photographs were so good it nearly made me want to cuss….that’s pretty dang good! admittedly, jon and i feel like we look kinda…..ehhh…in some of them just b/c we’re critical of ourselves but our photographers are clearly two brilliant and talented souls.

part of what was SO fun about our practically half day shoot was not really knowing how the photographs would come out. i mean, we obviously loved the sites they chose to capture us at, but we seriously had no idea that they would come out looking as crisp, picturesque, creative & beautiful as they did. i think that’s a good word for how i would describe them…beautiful….

our pictures tell a beautiful story of the relationship jon and i have

not to mention the perfectly fit description andrew wrote to introduce us! i loved it!

“I finally met these two goof balls after Jason had been talking about them for quite some time.”

- Andrew Chan

(son of jackie chan…not THE jackie chan, but seriously his dad’s name is jackie chan and nobody ever believes him! here’s our shout out to andrew that jon & i certainly believe you & we say that you have a blackbelt in keepin’ it real andrew!)

thank you again and again andrew & jason & your wonderful table4photography company! jon and i could not be more grateful for the pictures you’ve given us and the way you genuinely love to capture your clients with such an artistic, original and striking way. i feel so fortunate to have found y’all at an early stage in your career because y’all will clearly gain momentum in no time! not to mention they just love hanging out. jon actually plays basketball with jason and some of his friends on tuesday nights so if y’all ever wanna ball it up w/them just drop us a line!

i’ve plastered it everywhere i can think of but just in case you missed it, their website is:

www.table4photography.com

& it’s FINALLY running now! so go check it out…..right now!

love you all: viv

click to see them larger, or click here for a slide show!

location: Dunn’s Brothers Coffee in Addison (Marsh and Beltline)

food craving: banana coffee cake with yummy icing on top from dunn’s brothers & a burger…i just feel like a burger right now.

song suggestion: “brick” by ben folds five

hey guys,

i’ve got a trillion and one updates but i’m currently digging through the USPS website to try to find the information and prices on standard sizes of mail so i can determine what size i want our invite to be! at this point i’ve only been able to find information on postcard prices which is great b/c my RSVP cards will be postcards so to hopefully help out any of you are engaged and read this i’ll give you the site and some of the info:

http://faq.usps.com/eCustomer/iq/usps/request.do?session={6f316b20-fc5d-11dc-e2fe-000000000000}&event=1&view()=c%7B289f34a0-57e2-11dc-51b6-000000000000%7D&objectId=&eksObjectId=&objectType=Case&isJumpEnabled=false&isContentJumpEnabled=false&vendorKey=&objTitle=&versionId=361

Postcards – Qualifications & Costs

To qualify for mailing at First-Class Mail rates, a postcard must be:

• Rectangular and have angular (90 degree) corners
• At least 3- inches high x 5 inches long x .007 inch thick
• No more than 4- inches high x 6 inches long x .016 inches thick

also postcards are .26 cents versus a standard piece of mail at .41 cents.

200 postcards = $52.00

200 pieces of mail with standard postage = $82.00

that’s a 30 dollar difference! every penny is worth it at this point. i mean…i’m my invites won’t be postcards, only the RSVPs, but it’s just something to keep in mind.

table4photography is incredible and has two talented photographers named Jason Huang & Andrew Chan (who i’ve “secretly” nicknamed lucy lui and zhang ziyi!).

we were so fortunate to receive a 9 1/2 hour engagement session with them.

THAT’S RIGHT! i said 9 and a 1/2 hours.

-was jon miserable? of course, during certain points in the day. but he eventually got over it and enjoyed himself, which wasn’t too difficult around jason & andrew and their contagious laid back attitudes and goofy demeanors.

-why did it last that long? well we began the day at 3pm and went from

• downtown Dallas to
• deep ellum to
• frisco, where supposedly there lies some hay bails but we never found them…hahaha! but we did find some wicked awesome railroad tracks
• and lastly to the Moon house! the brilliant moon house where we spent the last three and a half hours of the shoot because it’s simply an awesome house and jason and andrew completely surprised us by taking photographs late at night and lighting them up fantastically!

don’t get me wrong. no engagement session is necessarily supposed to last this long…we were simply……fortunate! & we’re definitely grateful for everything they’ve done and offered to do so willingly and awesomely! i’ll give you all (all 4 of you) more details later! oh and i’ll end my post with what i normally begin it with:

whereabouts: houston, tx! visiting jon’s parents for his little brother, jay’s, 14th birthday!

food craving: vanilla coke

song suggestion: carl thomas “i wish” throwin’ a tribute to some good ol’ R&B

much love: viv

add one hour to your clock. sorry guys 

whereabouts: jon and i are watching Across the Universe (the musical film that features only Beatles’ songs) with the wonderful kids we nannied for in college 

food craving: tiramisu, creme brulet,  pear flavored izze

song suggestion: the soundtrack for across the universe, duh 

i’m so excited about picking my bridesmaid dresses but for some reason it’s taken a lot longer to choose them even over my own wedding dress. here’re some visuals i’ve been juggling with:

this dress and the girl with a creepy look on her face are brought to you by Ann Taylor 

jcrew

vera wang 

 this is obviously not a dress within a reasonable price range, but i’m also saving images for an idea of what i want

junior’s department at nordstroms

i would love to choose this dress especially since it’s $68 bucks but it doesn’t come in the color i want 

ralph lauren 

this one is my personal favorite!

i love silk dupiani! this is also nordstroms

i can’t remember who makes this dress….

 well there it is. i’d say they’re all somewhat similar in a way. i know the basic design of the dress i want, but will i be able to find it in the color i want for an affordable price? hopefully! lend me your thoughts and, furthermore, any dress pics you think i might like. i wish i could find someone to make the dresses for $150 each but….i can’t seem to find anyone. any help?

we know for sure that we want something all-inclusive in Mexico or the Caribbean, but we would love some suggestions on specific locations or resorts that you guys know aboot (in case we go to CANADA … jk … but aboot instead of about? hilarious!)

let us know, we would love to go somewhere that comes recommended instead of trusting the 50 resort websites that all say they are the best honeymoon location in the world!call us or post a comment, we would love to have some input!