My Story of Jenny's Wedding

  Well, it's finally over.  After about a year of planning and LOTS of work (most of it done 2 months before the wedding....what can i say, procrastination runs in the family  =P), the wedding is finally over and I think it turned out to be an amazing success.  Jenny looked really nice, everything went smoothly, and it was a lot of fun.

  I actually thought since I've been helping out so much with all the pre-wedding stuff, making decorations, props, slideshows, ordering audio equipment stuff like that and since I wasn't in the actually wedding party, I figured, yeah this should be fun, I just get to eat, relax and enjoy the wedding.  Boy was that far from the truth.  =P 

  The days leading up to the wedding were pretty crazy.  We had to get all decorations and stuff ready, pick up dresses and tuxedos, pick up favors and other equipment among other things.  Then, Chris' (Jenny's fiance) mom decided to throw a rehearsal dinner the nite before the wedding, which lasted until like 11:30pm when my family was already swamped with pre-wedding stuff to do.  I think my mom was anxious the whole time we were at dinner because she kept saying, "maybe we should get going".  We were actually the first ones to leave the dinner.  I guess she had a good reason to be anxious though because once we got home it was work, work, work.  I didn't actually realize how much stuff we had to do.  Make place cards, finish last minute changes to the seating arrangement, and stuff like that.  We ended up staying up till 4am!  I especially felt sorry for ally and jenny becuase they had to be up by 6:30am to get their hair done by a stylist.  Thank god I'm a guy.  =P  I may have only gotta a couple of extra hours of sleep than they did, but I definitely needed it for what awaited in the day.

  My official job during the wedding was to take care of my grandparents.  They're pretty old and my grandfather has trouble walking so they usually need a lot of help.  My mom is usually the one to escort them around and help them out, but since the day of the wedding has got her shaking hands and whatnot with all the guests, it becomes my job.  So Jayne came over early in the morning and then we went downtown to pick up my grandparents.  Obviously I'm my chinese pretty much sucks crap, so it was hard to talk to my grandparents that day.  Luckily, jayne was there to translate.  I did more of the smiling and nodding type of communication.  So yeah, my mom was really worried we'd be late for the ceremony so she sent us downtown early to pick up my grandparents.  Turned out it was a little TOO early because we were the first ones there.  Then once we got there I had to help usher with Geoff and some other friends of the family for like an hour.  Yet again, I got to practice the art of smiling and nodding since I can't speak chinese for my life....not to mention I got lectured about learning chinese about 4 times.  But it turned out ok. 

Pic:  Inside the church with the decorations my mom spent hours working on.  You can actually see my grandparents and fuzzy me being the first ones to the church.

The ceremony was at Yorkminster Park Baptist Church, which was gigantic.  After I finished all the ushering and got everyone seated, I got to walk my mom down the aisle and the cermony began.  The ceremony itself was really nice.  After the wedding was pictures outside the church and if I could summarize it in one word, it would be HOT!  It was like 34C, but apparently felt like 40C.  If you asked anyone there, I bet they'd tell you it felt more like 50C the way everyone was sweating. 

Pic: My dad walking Jenny down the aisle

Pic:  The new Mr. and Mrs. Yip

Pics: 1.  Jenny and Chris, 2. My sister ally, 3. Ally and Jenny's bride's maid, Betty

Once the wedding was over, The wedding party and the parents headed over to Edward's Gardens to take pictures.  Unfortunately, since I was taking care of my grandparents, Jayne and I couldn't go since we had to drive my grandparents back downtown so that they could rest before the reception dinner.  Some of the pictures are below.

After driving my grandparent downtown, Jayne and I headed back uptown to my house to rest for a bit.  Haha...that rest ended up being about 20 minutes.  A couple of minutes after we got home, the wedding party arrived from Edward's Gardens to pick up last minute stuff to set up for the reception.  In terms of audio equipment, my sister had told me that all I have to do was to order teh equipment, pick it up and that's it.  We were gonna get someone in to look after the music, but she was like "nono, I can get someone".  Turns out that "someone" was Betty's boyfriend Romaro.  So he took all the audio equipment and left for the restaurant.  My mom was a little worried about the equipment and it's set up so she sent me and jayne to make sure it was done properly.  Put us to work is more like it.  Once we got to the restaurant Jayne was immediately put to work at the front table with Geoff as a guest welcomer, while I "helped" Romaro with the audio equipment.  I say "helped" because I got there and half the equipment wasn't even unloaded yet.  Then I had to set everything up while he taped 1 wire down.  In addition, we got to the restaurant at 5:20.  I had to be downtown at 6 and the wedding started at 7.  Since I did a practice run at my house, setting up all the equipment and everything a couple of days before, I hooked everything up in about 15-20 minutes.  I can't remember the last time I worked so fast.  I left Romaro in charge of audio stuff, left for downtown at about 5:45 from Brimly and Sheppard.  I don't know how but I got downtown in about 20-30 minutes...I just floored it.  Usually I'm such a safe driver, designated "granny driver" as jayne likes to call me, but I didn't have that luxury that day.  The dinner started at 7...not asian time 7.....but exactly 7:00pm.  So..ended up flooring it down DVP, had to call Minnie like twice for directions, got downtown a little while after 6, floored it back uptown (look a lot longer because of Gay Pride Parade), took half DVP, but then took too long so split off floor it up main roads, then that took too long so when we got closer split off onto small streets.  Meanwhile, the whole way down my grandparents were asking me "are we there yet" in chinese....either that or "slow down"...not really sure, I just reverted back to my smiling and nodding.  Arrived at the restaurant at exactly 7:01pm...sweating, tired, and hot.  Then, once I get into the restaurant, turns out Romaro couldn't figure out the audio equipment so I became the official DJ for the nite.  Jenny had just put some songs on her IPOD and brought that, but I think it was all her songs, with like DMX and whatnot.  Luckily for me though, I created a playlist for her the nite before (which was meant just to add to her collection), but i ended up using that all nite.  But other than that, I think the dinner went really well.  My dad even made a speech, which was actually really good.  The food was good too i guess....I wouldn't really know though considering I was getting up every 5 minutes to change the song, stop for speeches, and setup the slideshow.  By the time I got back my food would either be gone or cold. 

Pic:  The placesettings and wedding favours we spent so long working on

The slideshow, which I spent about 1 month compiling pictures, and 1 straight week working on, didn't go quite as planned though.  After so much hard work, the slideshow ended up being really fuzzy and some pictures didn't even show up.  It was really disappointing.  It was because the wire that we brought for the projecter wasn't very good so the pictures didnt' get sent properly.  It was kinda sad, but Chris posted it on the internet for ppl to look at anyways.  It's kinda long, but if you guys want to look at it feel free:

http://bigten.ibme.utoronto.ca/Members/cyip/Wedding/Wedding_Slide_Show_WWW 

After the dinner, made my final run downtown to drop my grandparents off, drove back to my house, said by to jayne, took a shower and just passed out.  The perfect end to a long, but amazing day.  Congratulations Jenny and Chris!

Note:  Pictures borrowed from Geoff's page:  http://yuggy.net/

and samson's page:  http://samsonchiu.blogspot.com/

More pictures can also be found on those sites.  My family so far has compiled over 200 pictures that we took or that were given to us by friends and family, not to mention pictures are still coming from the professional photographer that we hired.  So as soon as we get those and I scan a couple, I'll post those too.

"The thing that scares me the most:  Quicksand.

Quicksand is when one thing goes wrong and then another and soon everything you do only draws you deeper and deeper down until you can't breath. quicksand.”

-Shane Falco, The Replacements

The countdown begins.  The is exactly 22 more days until my sister's wedding.  Although I'm really happy for her that she's getting married and all that and I know it's really bad to say, but somehow I just can't wait until it's over.  I never actually realized how much work goes into plannig a wedding.  Haha...jayne can definitely attest to this, but I'm the worst planner of events ever.  Actually, i rarely plan any of our our goings out, so i wasn't quite prepared for what how much work and stress my family would be going through for just one day.  You've gotta do the guestlist, find a restaurant, find a church, find a minister, decide on a cake, get a wedding dress, order tuxedos, get a dj, ...AHH!  Haha...all this makes me kind of not want to get married!  =P 

Luckily for me, since I was in waterloo when all the wedding stuff started, i didn't get stuck with too many responsibilities.  =P I just have to look for a dj, create a slide show, and make a couple of speaches.  Looking for a dj was kind of dumb.  I'm not too familiar with any so i was calling around from other ppl's recommendations.  I called like 12 different djs, ended up getting like 5 answering machines, 3 ppl who answered the phone but were busy and made me write them an e-mail, and only a few that were actually there.  And when they were actually there, I had to deal with names like DJ Mistry (that's how you spell it) and Fab.  For the last dj, Fab, when i was talking to him, the conversation went like this:

Me:  Hi I was looking for a dj for June 25, do you think you would be free for that date?

Him: Of course, that's no problem

Me:  Ok great, and who am i talking to?

Him:  Fab

Me:  Fab? (i thought i didn't hear him)

Him:  Yeah, for fabUUUlous!  (he kind of had a lisp so on the phone he sounded a little homosexual)   

Haha.....anyways, I know the date is coming up soon, but I still haven't done the slideshow yet.  So far I've scanned jenny's side of the pictures and have a theme, but I'm still looking for romantical music.  So if you guys know of any, let me know!

haha...i'm really don't mean to complain so much, but i'm just a lazy ass, which is why it seems like i'm not too excited about this wedding.  And these are the pre-wedding stuff too.  The day of....don't even get me started on that.  But i'm sure once the day comes, my opinion of the my sister's wedding will totally change.  It's a special day so i'm still really happy for my sister.

Anyways, I hope this entry wasn't as homo as my last entry (FRANCY AND JAYNE! ) haha...

Well it's been about a month now since my last xanga entry so i guess i'm a little overdue on my update.  =P  So i'm gonna try to sum up what i've been up to for the past couple of weeks. 

I guess what really made me want to write this entry was my SUPER fun weekend in waterloo.  A few weeks ago, after my exams were over, i absolutely could not wait to get out of waterloo.  Now, I really want to go back.  It's so much fun living away from home and just hang out with friends.  Then again...school would be so much fun without the actually school part! =P  but anyways, ended up taking greyhound to loo on friday, which was pretty good because i only had to share the bus with like maybe 9 other ppl.  Which was very good considering, the last time i took greyhound home from waterloo i had to sit next to some smell fat guy who smelled like peaches.  (you'd think that'd be ok, but after a 2 hour bus ride of smelling peaches....not so fun)....  but as soon as i got to loo, it was like weekend of fun!  =P  First, on the friday, i got to hang out with chris, which i haven't done in a while....we went to Timmy's where we tried one of their chocolate specialty things they have now.  I tried one of their chocolate cake things, which had so much chocolately goodness (aw, now i want another one!)...so that was a lot of fun.  Afterwards, I had dinner with jayne, then met up with jayne's roommates, mel and minnie, and mel's boyfriend, ivan, and went to play BADMiNTON!  I can't even remember the last time i played badmInton!  but that was so much fun!  I think next term i'm going to have to go to CIF more often!  Minnie was like crazy good though, i played her for a bit at the end but she just kept kicking my ass....haha...so i had to give up.    =P THEN....after that, we came back to jayne's house and played the game of Life.  But not just any game of life...SIMPSONS edition!  This version is so much better than the original!  You get to be a character and take their career, you get a salary, you can buy a house, have foriegn exchange kids......it was just so much fun.  Except for the fact everyone kept stealing my salaries..(IVAN)!  We played until about 2 in the morning. 

  Saturday ended up being mainly me complaining about how sore i was from badmonton, so for the most part, we all stayed home friday.  Bren came over for lunch that morning too, where we had NACHOs, where the girls did an awesome job with a double layer of cheese (well obviously, jayne the cheese-aholic is there), ground beef, peppers,..more cheese.  So tasty! =P.  Althought that was really good, the best part of the day though was when we went out to ALL YOU CAN EAT SUSHI!  It's my birthday in a couple of weeks (June 12th in case you were wondering...*wink wink*  =P hehe...j/k) but, since jayne is getting really busy with school these days and jayne and I have a wedding to go to on my birthday weekend, we decided to go out for dinner at this sushi place near Galaxy Cinemas.  Minnie, Mel and Ivan also came with us which was really cool and we ate so much.  By the time we were done, i felt like my pants were about to burst!  We never did get those philadephia rolls though.  When we got back home, haha...first thing we all did was change into our stretch pants!  Then we just all kicked back, pulled out the futon and watched Meet the Fockers. 

  Sunday though, i had to leave a little bit early so we really couldn't do much.  Jayne did a lot of studying while I watched Liminy Snickets' A Series of Unfortunate Events, which was surprisingly really good!  haha...so good i think i'm gonna download it.  =P  The night before, we also picked up a cake for my birthday too and it was only the COOLEST cake ever!  It was a CHOCOLATE MINT ICE CREAM CAKE!  The only two flavors of ice cream that come even close to chocolate mint ice cream is maybe chocolate chip cookie dough....and maybe green tea ice cream....but to have a cake of chocolate mint ice cream!  Genius! haha  =P  I love ice cream.  Anyways, yeah so we had the cake before i left...too bad i ended up getting the all the candle wax on the cake, but still good! =P 

So yeah, that was pretty much the end to a very awesome early birthday weekend.  Jayne was so sweet to take me out and spend so much time with me this weekend even though she had so much work to do and Mel and Minnie are such awesome roommates, i had such a good time this weekend. 

hmmm....ok well i WAS going to do a whole summary entry about what i've been up to for the past month, but i think i got too caught up with talking about my weekend.  haha..and now i'm tired..and lazy...so i guess i'll fill you guys in in another month or so.  =P  haha...
     

Christine's Birthday

  Even though Chris' birthday was a couple of weeks ago, she was being too hardcore with exams so we just ended up celebrating her birthday last nite at Metro.  The initial plan was to go to Lot 332, but then they were being retarded and would only let ppl on guestlist in, so we ended up going next door.  It actually turned out pretty good though....it's not as asian as i'm used to.  =P  but it was still really good.  Met a lot of really cool people.  haha..i still think it's weird how they have mini tv screens in the club showing PORN!  ...which was a little dirty.....haha...but whatever.  Haven't gone clubbing downtown in a while and it reminded me how much easier clubbing waterloo is.  There you never have to worry about who's driving, never have to be DD, never have to dress up, never have to worry about guestlist, ....haha..and drinks are cheaper.  But whatever...i guess i can wait a couple more days for Fed 103.

ah....i'm bored.