2014: A Year to Remember

Before we ring in the New Year, I thought it’d be nice to wrap up 2014 with a little recap.

We got married. For the rest of my life, 2014 will be THE YEAR WE GOT MARRIED. Planning our wedding pretty much consumed my entire year, and I took it on with gusto (however I would NOT do it all over again. Once is enough, thank you very much). We got engaged in September 2013 and up until our wedding in December 2014, I was a bride force to be reckoned with. The obsession with wedding planning only intensified when I was accepted to blog about the whole process over at Weddingbee. But all my planning and Googling were well worth it because our wedding was EPIC.

BEST DAY EVER. | Photo Credit: Clean Plate Pictures

Mr. S graduated from nursing school. While I was busy with wedding dresses, floral arrangements, and vintage furniture, Mr. S kept himself occupied with video games his last few months of nursing school. He graduated with his classmates in May 2014 and passed his NCLEX exam in November 2014. That means he’s officially a registered nurse and my husband so he is legally obligated on two fronts to take care of me for the rest of his life. Yes, you’re allowed to sympathize with him.

The graduate!!

We bought a house. OMG, we bought a house! How did that happen?!? I’m really not sure…we didn’t mean to buy a house. It was kind of an accident. The most expensive impulse buy I’ve ever made. As 2014 was the year of the wedding, 2015 will be the year of the house – but not until June 2015 when our NYC apartment lease is up, at which point I’ll be kicking and screaming my way to the suburbs. Wait, am I gonna have to change my name to the Suburban Rice Ball??? Shit, I really didn’t think this through…

We bought this gigantic tree and the house that came with it. Many home renovations are planned for 2015.

We celebrated Chunk’s first Gotcha Day. In September, we celebrated the one year anniversary of adopting Chunk. We are just as infatuated with him today as we were when we first got him. 

Chunk, stopping to smell the bodega roses.

In summary, 2014 has been very painful to our bank accounts, but so very worth all the stress and questionable budgeting. Hopefully 2015 will be a year of replenishing our coffers, travel (LOTS of travel), getting our last fill of NYC’s sights and eats, and turning the little house into our new home. With all the activity of the past year, I’m looking forward to a quiet New Year’s Eve, celebrating in sweatpants with my new husband, our overly flatulent dog, and copious amounts of Chinese food. 

Happy New Year to all! May your 2015 be filled with love, laughter, and lots of money!

A New Decade: Happy 30th Birthday to Me

So if you (and by you, I mean the three people who actually read this blog) noticed, I’ve been seriously MIA on the Urban Rice Ball. It’s not that I’ve stopped blogging. Au contraire, I’ve actually been blogging A LOT over at Weddingbee about none other than our wedding. But today marks a new decade for me – turning the big 3-0. I haven’t figured out a way to spin my age into a wedding story, so I’ve come back to my roots to vent, reflect, and memorialize my milestone birthday.

In the days leading up to my 30th birthday, I was a cool little cucumber. Actually, no I wasn’t, but the million annoying wedding details clogging my bride brain overshadowed any anxiety I might have had about leaving my 20s. Who cares about fine lines and gray hairs – what were we going to do about wedding programs?! Who’s going to take the floral arrangements to the church?! Send out the rehearsal dinner invitations nowwww!!!

And really, fine lines and gray hairs are not an imminent threat to me. I have friends who’ve already celebrated their 31st birthdays, and they didn’t spontaneously combust into a decrepit heap of loose skin and varicose veins so I knew I was safe. Plus, I’ve been blessed with the anti-aging Asian gene. I’ll look 21 until I turn 60, at which point I will instantly look like I’m 109.

 

Image via Buzzfeed

It wasn’t until the final hours on the eve of my birthday that I started to feel apprehensive. Gah, 30. It’s the age of a real adult. It’s the age Allure magazine tells you to start buying the expensive skin care products. It’s the age when you start wondering if maybe you’re too old to be shopping at Forever 21 and when a cozy dinner at a wine bar sounds infinitely better than bottle service at the hottest new night club.

My dear friend G had a theory about our 20s that I think sums up why it is so scary for a woman to enter her 30s. Your 20s are the decade when things happen. From the time you turn 20 to the time you turn 29, you theoretically would have graduated from college, entered the workforce, fallen in love, gotten married, bought a house, and had children. It’s not a far-fetched notion, but it is daunting when you consider how many landmark events happen in your 20s, and how almost all of them are foundations for a “successful” life. How exciting is this time in your life, when so many life-changing things are happening. And yet, by some twisted train of stereotypical thought, it leads us to believe that life – real, meaningful life – won’t start until these things are accomplished. What happens if you haven’t had all these experiences by the time you turn 30? Then you’re a failure? And what happens if you have already checked the box on all these to-do’s? What, then, is there left to look forward to in your 30s? I, like the majority of Millennials, don’t subscribe to this strict chronology and will probably argue until we're blue in the face that a formula for success doesn't even exist, but that doesn’t mean the pressure goes away.

The crux of my aversion to entering my 30s is that I don’t feel like a real grown-up yet, even despite having achieved most of the things listed above. I don’t cook (thank you Seamless.com), I don’t really clean (thank you Homejoy), and sometimes we run out of dog food and feed Chunk leftover pizza. Real grown-ups have pantries stocked with raw, organic ingredients. Their multi-room, multi-level homes are spotless and they know how to get stubborn stains out of every possible fabric. And they certainly would scold me for giving my dog cheesy, grain-filled table scraps. (Don’t worry, we paid the price in dog poop for that one.)

When I try to explain to anyone why 30 is so bad (“I’m not an adult, I’m not ready yet!”), they (especially the over 50 set) all tell me, “Well I don’t feel like an adult either! I look 62 on the outside, but I feel like 26 on the inside!” So then I’ll never feel like an adult? That sort of makes this whole aging thing somewhat anti-climactic, no?

But, lo and behold, in the span of writing this blog post, I think I’ve figured it out. When I think back to my 20s, I was always chasing something and I realize now it was this notion of who I am supposed to be when I grow up. It was like I had to prove myself to myself. Job security, money, single digit clothing sizes, credibility at work, more money, career paths, an apartment, a house, designer clothes, designer accessories, status symbols, etc. There was always another rung on the ladder to jump for, another standard by which success was measured.

And yet now, on the day of my 30th birthday, I can decidedly say that I have everything and everyone I need to be happy. Whether it’s because I have “arrived” as they say (doubtful), or because self-validation has finally won out over external validation, or because I am just too tired and too ::shudder:: old to keep up with the game, I don’t know. But I don’t want to, nor do I have to, play it anymore. And I’m totally fine with that.

It’s not that I’ve lost my ambition. I still have career goals and life things to accomplish and I will always enjoy the finer aspects of life. But the need to survive and win the rat race that pretty much defined and fueled my 20s is gone. I am content – with myself, with what I have (and what I don’t have) and who I share it with. And this confident, quiet peace didn’t come to me overnight – it’s only now that I even recognize that I’ve had it for some time. So I probably shouldn’t spend my 30s waiting around for the Grown Up Fairy to finally get here because, as it turns out, there is no magic adult pixie dust that will instantly transform me into Rachael Ray or the editor-in-chief of Good Housekeeping magazine. There’s just another decade of experiences to live, happiness to pursue, and stories to tell. And perhaps, somewhere along the way, most likely without me even knowing it, a little bit of growing up too.

tl;dr I guess my 30s won’t be so bad, as long as Seamless.com and Homejoy stay in business. But 60, ugh, I’m definitely not looking forward to that one.

I Live to Entertain You #tbt

The second and final installment in my Throwback Thursday series.  

From: urban rice ball
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 3:24 PM
To: my good friends
Subject: I live to entertain you....

So, I tried a belly dancing class last night. Let me preface by saying, I consider myself a coordinated person...I can walk and drink coffee at the same time, I can talk and write about 2 different subjects at the same time, I can kick a ball while running...I can even rub my belly and pat my head at the same time.

That said, I have concluded that belly dancing takes the most coordination of any activity one can do on this earth. Think Shakira. She must be superhuman. Imagine -- you have to move your hips vigorously while not moving your upper body while keeping your legs calm and relatively still. I can do the hips, but then my shoulders start going and my legs look like they are doing the running man. To top it all off, you have to move you arms slowly...like a serpentine. I don’t know how that is possible when my hips are going at mach speed. Then on top of that, you have to make figure 8's or boxes or whatever other ridiculous impossible patterns...while maintaining your booty shake, while not moving your upper body, while looking calm and relaxed and not like a drowning worm.

I thought it would be a good change from boxing class and I saw girls in the class got to wear a skirt with coins on it so when they do the Shakira, the sound goes clink clink clink. It looked so fun and it had cute outfits! However, when I did it, I indeed looked like a drowning worm - not an ounce of sex appeal oozed from me. That was unfortunate because the classroom has huge glass walls where the meatheads can look in on your belly dancing moves. Also, when I "shimmied" (that is the technical term for the Shakira move) I felt things jiggling back there that I did not know could jiggle. I know for some guys jiggling is like sexy or whatever, but I don't find it attractive.

Needless to say, my belly dancing days are over. I do, however, challenge you all to try to shimmy plus do serpentine hands, plus move yourself in figure 8's, all while looking like a sexy harem lady... Let me know how you do!

I Draw Naked People

When I was 16 years old, I was accepted into a summer art program at the Cooper Union in NYC. I didn't know it at the time, but the Cooper Union is a prestigious arts and engineering college and the chances of my acceptance were actually pretty slim considering the competition and being an out of state student (the program was geared for NYC kids). In any case, by some miracle I got in and this is where I was first exposed to “artists.” Before this, my only exposure to artists was my high school art teacher, but he didn't seem to count. The instructors at the Cooper Union wore black jeans decorated with safety pins, had unkempt tie dyed hair, and just had something a bit “off” to their personality. They lived and breathed and died for their art. Me? I just came to draw pretty pictures.

The curriculum of the program covered a variety of mediums: sculpture, graphic design, contemporary art appreciation, and my favorite, drawing. While the other mediums were new to me, I knew I could draw better than your above-average bear. My portfolio was full of portraits, landscapes, and other high school-safe topics. So imagine my surprise when on the first day of drawing class, I walked into the room to find not one, but two naked models. Completely. Naked. The rest of the class didn't seem fazed by the day’s subjects, so I assumed they had experience drawing from live nude models. I tried not to gawk, but this was my first time seeing a living, breathing, adult-sized penis. That’s what they really look like?? Gross…

The instructor had us set up in a semi circle around the models. Were they going to pose frozen in lewd acts?? What the hell was going on here?! I scanned my fellow classmates again to see if anyone was as horrified as I was. They all looked like calm little cucumbers setting up their easels and newsprint pads. I tried harder to control my eyebrows.

The instructor explained that we would be working on gestures – drawing a series of poses done by the models in a short amount of time. Every minute a timer would set off, the models would change their pose, and we would have to start a new drawing. Gesture drawing is particularly useful for artists studying the human body since models can hold complex and strenuous poses (which express movement and emphasize the muscles) if it’s only for a short period of time.

While we were drawing, the instructor came around to each student, standing while giving his critique. When he got to me, he pulled up a chair. I guess he had a lot to say.

“Her legs are too stiff, and you gave her a pregnant belly. She’s not fat. And the proportion of his torso to his legs is off, see here? Focus on the line of the spine first, that will help you place the rest of the body. ”

Phew – at least he didn't mention that I castrated my male model and just gave him a scribble of pubic hair.

By the end of the morning session, though, I was really starting to enjoy the gesture drawing. It was surprising how much information I could capture in just one minute and the more practice I got, the easier it was to render the shape and proportion of the models. I started to see the man and woman as a series of familiar shapes and lines, not just limbs and genitalia. My improvement was noticeable and my instructor praised my work. “Good job, you started out a little rough, but these last few ones are very good.”

Today, live nude models are my favorite subject to draw. There is certain fluidity and rhythm to drawing the human body that just doesn't happen when drawing inanimate objects. My favorite studio in NYC is the Spring Street Studio, where you can draw or paint naked people three times a day, seven days a week. I’d still rather draw women than men – women have softer lines and make for prettier finished products. I mean, who wants to hang up a giant drawing of a dude’s wang on their wall? Although, I must say, I have gotten much better at capturing the male figure. (It took me a while to figure out that while a woman is shaped like an hour glass, a man is shaped like an upside down triangle.) I once showed Mr. S my drawing of a nude male model that I was particularly proud of, and his observation was, “Looks like you spent too much time on that penis...” I have to admit, it was a very good penis.

I ran into a pole this morning #tbt

Welcome to my two part throwback Thursday series (that's what #tbt stands for Mom). I'm reviving some stories from years past that I shared with friends via e-mail. Actually, these e-mails are the ancestors to my blog. When I blog now, I pretend that I'm still writing e-mails to my good friends, updating them on my life and hopefully getting a few laughs along the way. I'm also reviving these stories because I have nothing new to talk about.

From: urban rice ball
Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2008 9:20 AM
To: my good friends
Subject: i ran into a pole this morning

what a way to start the day...

when we pulled up to the train station this morning, the train was already there so i had to make a run for it. i was wearing a trench coat and as i was running the belt was dragging behind me. so in my efforts to try to pick up my belt and make the train, i failed to see the pole coming at me. it wasn't coming at me -- i was coming at it. mind you, i didn't merely walk gently into it. i was running fast -- had to make that train -- so i hit it hard, bounced off, a little stunned, but nevertheless unscathed. i looked behind me to see if anyone saw...of course they did, everyone was running to the train too. the train was 5 minutes early -- that never happens! so anyway, i saw the pole out of the corner of my eye, and i knew i didn't have a enough time to slow down so i put up my arms to protect myself. my hand and arm hurt now, but there was no blood.

good news: i made the train.
bad news: my dad saw and called to laugh at me. he said the "no parking" sign on the pole was shaking after i hit it.

happy thursday.

The numbers don't lie

Shortly after we booked the wedding reception venue for our date in December I got a FaceTime call from my dad. My dad loves cell phone technology and will FaceTime at any opportunity he gets.

"Hi! Your mom wants to talk to you." 

My mom on the other hand is terrible with cell phones. She has an iPhone solely to take pictures and post to Facebook while on the go. Because of this I ended up FaceTiming with her nose. 

"It's a bad date!!! You picked a bad date!!! You have to change it!!!" 

It took me a while to figure out that it was her nose I was looking at. 

"What are you talking about??"

"The numerology of your wedding date! It's a bad number! You have to change it to November!!"

Surely someone else can explain the concept of the auspicious date much better than I can, but essentially the auspicious date refers to the luckiest or best date to do anything -- get married, buy a house, etc.  Depending on one's culture the auspicious date can be determined in a number of ways, including numerology. While I knew this was a thing in the Chinese culture, this was the first time I was hearing about it in my own. I knew my mom dabbled in numerology from time to time, but more so just for kicks. The numbers never played a part in selecting other milestone moments in our family's life, so imagine my surprise when this was suddenly a big deal.

I tried to get a better understanding of the situation. "How are you coming up with this? Are you sure you have our right birth dates? And who is your source? Because if it's Uncle R, he's not really an expert. Mr. S and I don't really believe in that stuff anyway so we should be fine." 

The nose spoke frantically, "NOOO!! Your number signifies hardship and struggle!! Do you really want your wedding to start off that way?!? Move it to November!!" 

Was she being serious?? 

"November costs $3,000 extra!" 

"Well if you ask me, that is a cheap price to pay for starting your marriage with the perfect number!!" 

Well then. "I don't trust your source. I will find my own." 

And with that I went to my authority on all things big and small - Google. Turns out there are lots of resources to explain numerology and how to select an auspicious wedding date. I happened upon one that was decorated with rainbows and butterflies and included an auspicious wedding date calculator. Obviously, the accountant in me felt right at home.

I entered our birth dates and wedding date into the little calculator which spit out this result: 6. That meant absolutely nothing to me, so good thing it had an explanation:

A personal year, month or day of 6 is a number of family, responsibility and the home. Of all the numbers in numerology this number is the most auspicious number for creating a home with someone, settling down and perhaps having a family too if that is important to you. Try to have a 6 in the personal date numbers of both the bride and groom when picking a date for a wedding. In Tarot's Major Arcana The Lovers is card number 6.

I zoned in on the key words -- family, creating a home, lovers. Looked good to me! In addition to all that, it told me that Mr. S and I have the same personal day and personal month numbers despite us having different birth dates. Again, meaningless to me, but matching numbers had to be a good sign!

I sent my findings to my mom expecting her to come back with a reason why my numerology website (which could have been published by My Little Pony for all I knew) was a bunch of bull. 

"Did you see what I sent you? It says our date is fine!" 

"Ok." 

I was silent for a few seconds, not really sure what was going on. 15 minutes ago her flared nostrils were telling me my future marriage was a future disaster and now all I was getting was an "Ok"??  If this was some reverse psychology shizz I wasn't falling for it. 

"Great, December Xth it is! Bye!" 

The numerology thing never came up again. Maybe during the time I was Googling she realized she had a mathematical error. Maybe she decided that My Little Pony was a better source than my Uncle R. I'll never know. And as long as we get to keep our bargain date, I don't really care!

Mawiage. Mawiage is what bwings us togethahh todayyy.

The Princess Bride is my favorite movie. When I was younger we had it on Beta Max. And then one day Beta Max became obsolete and replaced by VHS and I could no longer watch The Princess Bride whenever I wanted. It sucked.

Anyway, this post isn't about my favorite movies. It is yet again about the wedding. Bride brain…bride brain…bride braaaiiiin!!! Imagine I said that like a bride zombie, because really that’s what I've become.

Getting married in the Catholic Church was a given. Mr. S and I both grew up Catholic and have received all of our sacraments to date. Plus, I really like the tradition of getting married in church and repeating the vows that have married so many generations before us. So it shouldn't be a problem, right? Riiiiighhhtt…

To be married in the Catholic Church, one must be “a Catholic in good standing.” I wasn't exactly sure what that meant, but considering Mr. S and I didn't attend church on a regular basis, weren't officially part of any parish, and have been living together in sin, I felt there was a good chance that we were actually “Catholics in very bad standing.” Throw into the mix that we are having our reception in Brooklyn and want the church to be relatively close to our reception location. This criterion pretty much narrowed the options down to one church. One.

I emailed the church rectory asking if they allowed non-parishioners to wed there, and the priest himself replied back saying that he does make exceptions. Allelujia! He added that before meeting we should attend mass at the church to see if we like the look and acoustics. The look and acoustics? They seemed like pretty odd details for a priest to point out, but I agreed that attending mass made sense. 

 
I've seen lots of churches in my life of all different types, and I've never been in one where I said, “Ugh, gross.” Needless to say, I didn't have any strong feelings about what the church should look like as long as there was an aisle for me to walk down. Maybe my low expectations contributed to my reaction, but when we walked into St. C, I got the feeling...similar to what a bride feels when she finds the dress, I had a feeling of this is the church where we are going to get married. 

 
The church is on the smaller side, which I love. I grew up attending a larger church where it felt like half the church was empty most weekends. St. C is done in a gothic style with dark wood, columns, and large stained glass windows throughout and behind the altar. This was a HUGE bonus to me. I was never a fan of saying my vows directly under a crucifix of a dying Jesus, but resigned myself to this fate since that’s how most churches decorate their altar. But with stained glass windows…I could already picture us being bathed in colored sunlight as we stood at the altar professing our everlasting love.* Princess Buttercup, eat your heart out.

My anxiety levels were up when we arrived the following week for our meeting with Father E -- this church was seemingly perfect for our wedding and what if he refused us for all the reasons that make us bad Catholics in bad standing?! We didn't even have a good excuse! Maybe we tell him that yes we live together, but we sleep in two separate twin beds? My dad goes to mass everyday…does that count for anything? Yes, I actually entertained all of these options, but in the end I decided that we couldn't lie to a priest. My co-worker had the best advice: Don’t lie, but don’t embellish either.

 
It turns out we had nothing to worry about. Father E is quite possibly the hippest priest I've ever met. He took great pride in telling us how he conducts his weddings so that the bride and groom get the perfect photo ops and was totally understanding about the co-habitating part, noting that rent in NYC is expensive.  Preach on Father, preach on! He even used curse words and the middle finger when telling us stories of his childhood. Mr. S and I were shocked! After the fantastic storytelling, Father E took down our information, asked us to provide baptismal certificates, and gave us information on Pre-Cana. He let us know that once Pre-Cana is complete, we could discuss further logistics of the day.

That pretty much sealed the deal. Up until this point, we were planning an elaborate party: reception venue, catering, flowers, music, etc. Now that we actually found someone to marry us, our little shindig is officially a wedding! 

* Reality check – that sunlight bit probably won’t happen as we are getting married on a December evening. We will probably be holding flashlights up there.

An URB wedding

Planning a wedding. The thought makes me giddy and nauseous all at the same time. On the one hand, I love to plan, and I love to be pretty and surrounded by pretty things. Oh, and I also love Mr. S. On the other hand, our wedding is a BIG MOTHER TRUCKING DEAL. Why?

1. I am an only child. No other siblings to get "do-overs" with, 
2. I am a girl. Weddings are always bigger deals for girls than boys. 
3. Mr. S and I have been together for 13 years. We have a lot of "shared" people. 

And so, the pressure is on, along with all the options, decisions, and expectations to consider. Every time one decision is made, another one rears its ugly head before I can even think of congratulating myself on a job well done.

When are you getting married? Where will you have it? Picked a date! Booked the venue!

What about the church? Oh right, ok, booked the church!

What about the photographer? Yes – so important! Picked out a photographer!

And the videographer? Um…

And florist? Um…

And an aisle runner? And then before you know it, you’re bald and cooking the books in the budget tab of your wedding spreadsheet.

Mr. S and I are barely three months into this endeavor and this has happened to me more times than I can count. The budget tab in our wedding spreadsheet resembles a Sudoku puzzle – change one number here, and another number somewhere else must also change. And why? Because all the wedding gods tell you that the first part of wedding planning is making a budget. And the second part of wedding planning is sticking to it.

Those close to me will tell you that I have no problem spending money (really, it just seems to spend itself). But the wedding budget…I could never get my head around spending all that money on one day. And that argument about memories for a lifetime? I’m pretty sure we will have memories for a lifetime no matter how much money we spend.* And after reading various wedding blogs and attending a few weddings myself, I was convinced that having the wedding of our dreams did not equate to sacrificing a down payment on a future home.

From the beginning, Mr. S and I had very similar ideas of what we wanted for our wedding – fun, cozy, informal but still special, and very dancy. Surely we can evoke those feelings on the big day without spending ridiculous amounts of money? And so I set out to research/obsess what those feelings would realistically cost us.

The budget started arbitrarily at $25,000 – tented backyard wedding at my parent’s house, barefoot bride, iPod DJ, pour your own drinks, etc. That budget evaporated once I saw that a tent and dance floor alone would cost $25,000. Not to mention our family members are not hippies and would be digging holes into my parent’s backyard with their stiletto heels. Ok, maybe I was being a bit naive… bump it up to $40,000. And while we’re at it, let’s move it to NYC. What, you need $100,000 to have a wedding for 150+ guests in Manhattan? Uh ok, let’s back it up to Brooklyn and call it a deal.

Fear not, Mr. S and I are not starting off our marriage in debt – actually we are because we both have student loans…but at least not in debt on account of our wedding. The issue wasn't that the money isn't there, more so is the money really necessary? And what I soon found out was yes, yes it is.

So there you have it – step one of wedding planning. We're already a little iffy on step two.

*And just in case that’s not true, I doubled the budget allocated to the photographer.

My deep, dark, and dirty secret: I’m not a wedding dress virgin

I’ve already worn a wedding dress. And Mr. S was there -- in a tux.

No, I wasn’t a runaway bride – I was a Sweet 16 debutante.

Mr. S and I started dating in the year 2000, coincidentally also the year of my 16th birthday. Sweet 16 parties are (or were?) pretty normal where we’re from, ranging the full spectrum from Knights of Columbus halls to hotel ballrooms. Guess where I fell on that spectrum.

I fully own up to this. My parents graciously offered me a trip to Europe, a new car, or a Sweet 16 party. I chose the party. Looking back at my high school self, I have to admit I was pretty savvy. I knew that Europe would always be there. I knew that even if a new car wasn’t in the works, a used one would be, and I could deal with that (my dad was the sole driver in our household before I got my license. He couldn’t wait to get me on the road). But a Sweet 16?? A girl only turns 16 once in her lifetime. To me, the choice was obvious.

Things moved quickly from there (with the help of my mother who has an inclination towards the extravagant). We had a family friend at the Sheraton who could give us a deal on the ballroom and catering. We hired a balloon guy to do gorgeous balloon centerpieces. My uncles wanted an excuse to wear their tuxedos. There was talk of family flying in from the Philippines to attend. We hired a choreographer for the group dance. Wait, what?

The Filipino equivalent of a Sweet 16 is called a “Debut” (pronounced “deh-boo”) and occurs on the celebrant’s 18th birthday. Part of a traditional debut is a group dance – a complicated choreographed dance of classical styles (waltz, cha-cha, etc.) performed by the celebrant, her chosen partner, and as many couples of her friends that her little heart desires. I chose 8 couples. 8 x 2 = 16, duh. And guess who was in that group of poor souls forced to rehearse the waltz for 3 weeks straight in my uncle’s basement? Mr. S!!! Actually, those rehearsals happened very early on in our relationship -- our first dates if you will. My other deep, dark, and dirty secret: I forced Mr. S to date me by enslaving him to my Sweet 16 ensemble. Don’t feel bad for him because he loved it.

So you can see where this is going: big ballroom Sweet 16 gala. What’s a girl to wear? My aunt called my mom from the Philippines with the news that she could have my dress made in the Philippines. Awesome! Not awesome. The dress arrived and it didn't fit. And it was too short. I am only 4’11” and three-quarters – how can anything be too short on me?? So the dress was deported back to the Philippines and my mom and I shopped for a dress Stateside. I really don’t know how it happened…but one day we found ourselves in the bridal section of an evening wear store, and somehow I put on an ivory ball gown with floral detailing, and then we bought it, and then I owned a wedding dress at 15 years old. To our credit, we didn't buy a veil. Not to our credit, we did buy a tiara.

But the story doesn't end there…no, no, no! Because that Philippines dress came back with a vengeance. Serious alterations were made and the dress came back, fit like a glove, and looked like a million bucks. It was pink and gold (fitting with our theme – major plus), poufy, and custom. So I’d be a two dress Sweet 16er, no big deal. …Or would I be a three dress Sweet 16er? Because that wedding dress and that pink cupcake dress were really big, and how was I supposed to dance all night in that?? And so a third dress was bought - a simple light pink column sheath dress with pink beading.

My Sweet 16 was everything I could have imagined it to be and more…it was pink and gold and over the top with 140 guests, singing and dancing DJs, photographer and videographer*, sky-high balloon arrangements, plated dinners in the main hotel ballroom, three dress changes, and 30 minutes of choreographed dancing entertainment. And it is not what I want for our wedding. When we set out on this wedding planning adventure, I knew only two things: no hotel ballroom and no poufy dress. Something about it reminds me of being a kid and of our relationship when we were kids. And we’re not kids anymore, we’re full-fledged almost-but-not-yet 30 year old grown-ups.

When I think about it now, it’s crazy how long Mr. S and I have been together…how we have been able to grow up but not grow apart over 13 years.

So there you have it. My deep, dark, and dirty secret. I’m not a wedding dress virgin. Mr. S has assured me he will still marry me despite my indiscretion.

* One thing I learned from my Sweet 16 – the value of a videographer. We watched that video over and over so many times that my mother memorized it.