Alcoholic

Jericho Beach:
- if you have ceremony at Jericho, i think it's best for you to call up Vancouver parks & recreation centre & ask them if you can use the beach on that day, & which area you're allowed to use. I know that even last year, when my company did a staff picnic at a park, we need to call up parks & rec center to pay them a fee for using public grounds.

新瑞華:
- you better reserve your venue, ask them to save you a good spot ahead of time. especially it's a chinese wedding dinner, no matter how big how small the size of your group, you still need to.

Invitations:
- sending out by the start of April is the way to go

Wedding Dress:
- geez girl. no wedding dress & it's almost March already!!!! i worry for you. the dress you pick might need to be ordered. you better get your @$$ out this weekend & find a dress ASAP & pray that you will get it in time, with all the alterations!!! omg...

Makeup:
you BETTER hire a makeup person!!! no matter how good you are at makeup, just get a professional, and have her do your mom's makeup too.

BAckup Venue:
- YES! you should have a backup, when it's outdoors! i had my wedding at the poolside of a hotel. luckily, it was sunny... otherwise, my hotel has a backup hall for me to use on a rainy day.

Commissioner:
Mine was Ivy ( i think that was her name). She speaks cantonese for sure... but mandarin, i'm not sure. YOU BETTER HURRY UP & BOOK COMMISSIONER NOWWWWWW!!! cus they're always quite busy!

Tips on booking:
- what you want & what you need is different things. try to cut unnecessary options, & it will save you a lot. balance what you want/what you need with your budget.

sorry girl... but i take back what you said: maybe you should consider hiring a wedding planner. the planners price depending on amount of work load...

good luck

blueprint

Congratulation bride to be!  Alcoholic had some good tips there.  Keep a checklist for what to do:

- register marriage license (commissioner needs to sign that too)
- get a commissioner (maybe consider someone who can be able to translate if can't get mandarin speaking one if it's necessary)
- rings
- decoration for the banquet
- beach/park permit and backup
- book banquet
- get a wedding dress, accessories, hair stylist and makeup artist (formal wear for banquet too maybe?)
- get a formal wear for your groom (hair stylist for him as well?)
- make sure if you have best man and bridesmaid, their formal wears are taken care of
- confirm who is going to be photographer and video recorder
- book flower artist and/or others (for decorations, "kum fa" on the chest, etc)
- confirm your invitation information is correct and send out at least before the first week of April
- music during the ceremony?
- have someone to do reception and probably have a little reception decoration that you can pull off at the beach

The list can probably go on and on.  Keep thinking what you guys need to do before and after.  Be prepare to expect the unexpected (ie. like change of weather, number of guests actually attended).

shutterbug

The most important things is to secure all the venues and commissioner NOW.  Other things can be adjusted...

I don't think a planner can help that much on those.

Alcoholic

another reminder(s):

- you need to make a day plan/schedule
- if you have decoration for any of the sites (ceremony, restaurant), who's gonna do it?
- wedding cake neh? set up & delivery wor...
- speeches (there's gotta be something simple if your not doing something too formal).
- flower car neh? ride arrangements?
- set up at the beach/back up location neh?

side story:
do you REALLY need a mandarin speaking commissioner at your ceremony? one funny incident at my own ceremony:

- i choose Ivy Leung because she's chinese, and i guess easier to deal with. actually, it was too easy to deal with her because before the day of my wedding, we just went through details with her over email, & probably only spoke to her once on the phone... all in english.

- on the day of the ceremony, as my makeup artist was touching up on me, my commissioner asked my hubby if we want her to deliver the vows in english or cantonese. my hubby said cantonese, so that our relatives, grandparents would understand wor... which i had NO IDEA.

- just before the ceremony started, commissioner & my wedding planner coordinated. so i walked down the aisle with my dad... & we were at the front starting the vows. she said it in cantonese version, & as bad as it sounds, i started giggling so hard because i was not used to & expecting the vows to sound so "proper chinese".

- so just be prepared to hear super traditional proper cantonese with absolutely no slang~ i felt bad... but luckily, everybody knew what i was laughing at (because my hubby was giggling too), and not that we're disrespectful. but i guess mandarin is more proper than cantonese...so shouldn't be a problem

icing

Congrats!
If for 30 ppl wedding, you probably don't need a "full time" planner
However, you can still hire someone for decoration at the beach and the restaurant.
For myself, I get an event planner to decorate the church and dinner reception. Also, she will arrange all the flowers (bouquet for myself and the maid of honor, and all corsages)for me as well and will deliver to my and my fiance's house that morning.
For the wedding gowns and evening dress, because of the time limit, you better find a Chinese bridal store to rent. If you don't care about the photos, you can  just buy their cheapest package, so you can have some photos plus the gown for your big day. They can also arrange the make up artist on you big day.

tsumorichisato

You don't need a wedding planner seriously. I am planning for my own 180 ppl wedding with no professional planner but everything goes well so far. I am deeply engaged into wedding planning though..hahaah..but not turning into a bridezilla. My friend did her 60 ppl wedding within 2 months and it was warm and fantastic. She didn't hire any planner as well.

I think many ones here give you some valuable tips.

1.You can't do much decor on the beach but you need to rent chairs, arch and table!! Make sure you call the park facility cuz not everywhere can allow you to hold ceremony and I know there's a maximum capacity (like 10-20ppl ).Definitely prepare a backup site, cuz it's still very likely to rain during May.

2.Confirm your commissoner

3.Confirm your venue

4.Get a good photographer. I am not sure how much you are in wedding photography cuz you need some time to visit and browse different photographer's portfolios and rates. Everyone's preference is slightly different, you can't simply rely on other ppl's recommendations without seeing them yourself.

5.Get a MUA.  same thing as above cuz it's better if you do a trial than just listen to other ppl's suggestions

6.Get you wedding attire asap. It's more likely for you to buy it off the rack now cuz of the short time frame. States like Seattle will have a bigger selection.

7.Get Invitations. That may be the easiest cuz you can always do it online plus delivery is fast (done within 3 weeks).

8.Wedding favors? order online maybe....

9.Get bouquets/corsages/boutonnieres - This may be down the priority list cuz there are many florists you can choose from.

布小熊

Don't worry too much. I think we are all getting too excited and try to help.  I don't think you need to do ALL on the lists. Sometimes, what is important to us (like photographer) may not be important to tpalice.
But I think some of the items really need to be addressed:
- register marriage license
- get a commissioner
- beach/park permit and backup
- book banquet (call 新瑞華 soon and secure the date and number of table). If you are not in town, you can get them fax/email the banquet menu to you.

If tpalice is in asia, getting a informal wedding dress and accessories may be done within weeks.
If tpalice is not in Vancouver:
-recommandation for wedding makeup artist. since you cannot try out the style, you have to base your choice on recommandation.

Little things on decorting, wedding fav, music, profession photographer, boquet, corsage...etc is totally optional. A wedding can still be nice and sweet without any of them.

katamari

Just ask yourself first of all if your wedding's gonna be casual or formal. I see lots of LYKs do have their points, but doesn't mean you have to do them all. You can decide how your wedding's gonna be, it can be with or without cake, with or without flowers, with or without favors, with or without photographer/videographer, even with or without a wedding dress and the wedding bands . marriage license and a commissioner are the only must haves to get married, others are up to you.

Ultraman

There are just a few commissioner with possibly Chinese last names. Email them see if they can speak Mandarin (and of course if they are available)  or not; or call them in person if possible, see if their Mandarin is acceptable for you or not, haha. (you know........ )

tpalice

Thank you all for all the feedback!

I will go back to Taipei next year for a bigger reception (補請客), that's why I want to skip some 禮俗 and just get married here. As I said, we both want something simple, so we choose the casual way to do our wedding. And no bridesmaid and best man, we just want our family and friends can be here with us.

I think these are the things I'm going to do after reading everyone's response and our considerations.

For the venues:
I know that picnic area need to be reserved for public park and beaches in Vancouver. But I'll definitely give the park board a call to make sure. We'll prepare some kind of a small and informal tea party after the ceremony. So everyone can chat and take some photos.

I'll book a private room at the restaurant for our reception right away. We currently don't have plan to decorate the banquet.

And we're still discussing a backup place in case it rains...

Wedding dress and the makeup:
I'll go back to Taipei in March for a month to attend my brother's engagement, and I plan to buy my dress there.
The makeup is optional to me. I already looked at the other thread on bridal makeup in the forum, so I'll think about it after the venues are confirmed.

Commissioner:
I'm going to find someone NOW! Mandarin-speaking commissioner is only an idea, but not necessary. I know I don't have much time, so I won't spend my time worrying what the language the commissioner can speak.
Also, we plan to grab the marriage license next week at an insurance agency.

Photographer/Videotographer:
We've decided that our families can do these for us. The photos won't be great, but we'll have these as memories to look at and laugh about.

Other things:
We got our rings several weeks ago at Cartier. We pick the simple platinum rings and we both love them!

If anyone have more experiences to share, please don't hesitate to post it here. I really like to know all these things. And I believe I'll keep posting my questions here, hope you guys don't mind.

[ 本帖最後由 tpalice 於 2008-2-22 00:21 編輯 ]