Rob and I decided to celebrate our engagement with a big bash at our apartment in northern California. I had asked a few key friends from southern California to attend because I felt it was important to get as many close friends up there as possible. My Maid of Honor and my bridesmaids all happen to currently be in southern California so I had to coordinate a plan to get them all up there without it costing them too much. My MOH is my good friend Chapin. She drove her and her boyfriend up from SD to LA where I took over the driving in my car. We picked up Patrice and made it to the Bay Area in only five hours. I dropped them off so they can be with their families for the night, went to Costco to pick stuff up, and finally got home. Awaiting my arrival was Rob and Andrew, Rob's best friend who flew in from Florida just for the event. We had dinner at TGI's Sushi and then picked Jude and Luiza up from SJC. We went home and watched part of An Inconvenient Truth before people started getting tired and falling asleep.

The next day we had breakfast with all of our out of town friends at Hobee's.



Because we got a late start to our day, all our plans got pushed back so that we didn't get to enjoy the time before the party as much as I had wanted us to. I'm glad we all got to go to Hakone Gardens because no one in our group has ever been there before besides Rob and I.





After Hakone, we split up so that some of us could get our nails and hair done and others can go with Rob and check out the Apple campus. Our nail appointments were pushed back but the salon refused to push back our hair appointments, even by 15 mins. The nail place was nice though and tried to work as fast as possible. The hair salon was a bit of a disappointment even though I liked the end result for my hair. There was a miscommunication on the phone when I asked for the price of my service and they misquoted me on the price. Of course it had ended up costing more than they had originally told me. They also did a sub-par job on one of my friends and didn't act professionally towards her which made me angry. We had to head home immediately afterwards in order to have time to get ready and set things up.

I was extremely nervous especially at the beginning because I ended up being in charge of everything. For those who know me, that's not my favorite role to play. Looking back, I now know what to expect when it comes to what people expect of me and now I know what to expect of them too. It's one of those damned if you do damned if you don't situations where if you delegate tasks nicely, people will think you're a tyrant. And if you don't delegate tasks to people, then they will constantly ask you what to do or sit around staring at the walls. I'm so glad that we're hiring a day of coordinator for our wedding because I actually want to enjoy our day instead of stressing out about the details.

The practical aspect of having a huge party like this was the fact that by the end of the night it was blatantly obvious what Rob and I need to register for. Since we told everyone not to bring gifts for us, a bunch of people brought bouquets of flowers instead. We didn't have any good place to put half of them because we only had one vase and it was occupied...so we left some in the kitchen sink (I know, terrible!). We also lacked proper serveware so we had to improvise with large spoons. It's also really unfortunate that only a couple of people took pictures of the party because it was rockin'! (Thanks Komei!) It doesn't look like it in these pictures but the apartment was packed for most of the time. About 30+ people showed up and thank God we had enough food, wine, and drinks for everyone! I made a slideshow full of pictures of Rob and I since we'd met and it played unobtrusively in the background. I got to talk to a lot of people about engagement and marriage, which are topics I normally don't talk about. I feel that marriage is looked upon with cynicism nowadays and sometimes it's hard to distinguish those who believe in it and those who are jaded by it. Then there's also people who believe in it from an ideological perspective and I don't find myself in that category either. Everyone told me that they had a great time and both Rob and I feel so blessed to have the pleasure of everyone's company.