Wedding – The Luxi Look

By Amy Zhang June 6, 2022 in Lifestyle, Wedding 1 Comment

How I’m De-Stressing Before the Wedding

gummies for De-Stressing Before the Wedding

Wedding stress and anxiety are real. I heard from countless friends and former brides the month before your wedding is a blur – time is flying and the to do list is never ending, plus the added pressure of being, you know, a bride. I told myself I wouldn’t get stressed and that at a certain point I would have to let things just be… but truthfully this is SO much easier said than done.

I’d like to think I kept it mostly together, but I did have a few mini meltdowns and a full blown panic attack that came seemingly out of nowhere. Determined not to let pre wedding jitters get the best of me, I went into full on “relaxation” mode the past few weeks. Now we’re officially 8 days out from the wedding (!!) and I’m feeling surprisingly… mellow? Chill? Not stressed? Who is she?

How I’m De-Stressing Before the Wedding

Everyone talks about “self care,” I think self care looks different for everyone. It took a lot of trial and error to really define what “self care” looks like to me (as much as I thought it was taking midday breaks to buy $7 iced coffees, the truth is it’s often much simpler than that). As someone who is perpetually stressed and anxious, these are the practices I’ve implemented the past month that have gotten me to a place of (relative) calm and chill before the wedding.

+ Journaling

I saw on TikTok someone mention starting a journal in the weeks/months leading up to her wedding. I loved the idea and started a fresh journal to write about my wedding planning experience and feelings – it’s tough to commit to every day, but on the days I remember I make a solid effort to write 3 pages of free flow, stream of consciousness thoughts. I’m happy to have this time (somewhat) documented as I’m sure it will be interesting to look back on my mental state during this time.

+ Exercise

I don’t know who I would be without a consistent exercise routine!! Will share my entire pre wedding routine/regimen separately, but carving aside an hour for myself every day made a huge difference in my mental health. Losing weight was never the goal of all the pre wedding working out, it was honestly one of the only practices that calmed me (hello, endorphins!) and gave me a much needed energy and mental boost during extra tough times. My favorite thing to do would be to go on extra long walks, but life gets in the way of that sometimes. I really made a point to prioritize daily movement and it went a long way in keeping me grounded.

+ CBD

ok I never understood CBD until I tried Molly J. Ask AJ, I’m a different person when I take one of these gummies. I learned a few things about CBD after taking these regularly. There’s a difference in quality among most CBD lines, and the amount (dose) you take is V IMPORTANT!! These are 25mg, come in the yummiest flavors, and are like unwrapping a little present for yourself at the end of the day. I cut out drinking so it’s become my new evening ritual and I’m obsessed with these (get 10% off your order using AMY10).

+ Breathwork

I’ll be honest, I have failed at meditating more times than I’d like to admit. It’s a really wonderful practice I’d like to get better at, but for whatever reason it keeps slipping from my routine. I recently connected with a wonderful breathwork coach and did the most transformative session 2 weeks before my wedding. More to come and I’m excited to share more as we continue our breathwork journey, but it really opened my eyes to the power of our breath and mind. This was super game changing to get me in the right “headspace” before the wedding and the effects have been long lasting.

By Amy Zhang May 20, 2020 in Wedding 1 Comment

The Best Digital Invites and Wedding Websites from Bliss & Bone

One of the best decisions I’ve made while wedding planning is the decision to use Bliss & Bone for our Save the Dates and wedding website. Not only is it a small business run by the absolute nicest couple (Carl and Cindy – they are SO easy to work with), it has everything you need in one place to stay organized and communicate with your guests. Not to mention, their designs and customizable templates are absolutely gorgeous. When it comes to aesthetic, Bliss & Bone just gets it.

Why I love Bliss & Bone

+ Pre-made or entirely custom templates you can make your own

Their templates are modern and clean, which is very much my aesthetic. If you’re looking for something a little edgier or want to go the completely custom route, you can do that through Bliss & Bone. No graphic design experience needed, but it gives you an opportunity to set the stage for your wedding aesthetic. It takes a little more time to set up than your typical wedding website. But you have so much more flexibility to make it your own. And it’s still much easier than designing it entirely from scratch.

+ Thoughtful design details throughout

Bliss & Bone templates and designs feel luxe and modern – it isn’t your cookie-cutter website. I especially love the range of fonts and calligraphy options you can use to create semi-custom logos.

+ Going paperless never looked so chic

Considering skipping paper save the dates or invitations? Go paperless! Forgoing paper is not only sustainable and gives brides planning more flexibility (custom paper goods take a long time to design and finalize, which may not be an option depending on your wedding timeline), it also saves a lot of money. If you’re tight on budget but don’t want to skimp on the aesthetics, I highly recommend looking into digital save the dates and/or invitations.

We knew we wanted to send paper invitations to our guests. But we did opt to send digital Save the Dates due to timing. (Our original wedding date was less than a year out from our engagement. And we wanted to communicate travel plans to our guests as soon as possible). Now that our wedding has been postponed due to COVID-19, we will be announcing our new date through Bliss & Bone.

+ Matching paper designs

On a similar note, if you’re looking to maintain a cohesive aesthetic from start to finish, Bliss & Bone helps you do that! From digital communications to the wedding website to fully customizable paper goods, you can do it all and more on the website.

+ Helps you stay organized

Anyone who has planned a wedding knows how chaotic and stressful it can be! Bliss & Bone allows you to input all of your guest information into an address book, track and manage RSVPs and preferences, and send updates as needed. Our website also had in-depth travel information, details on all of the events, things to do in the area, and FAQs. Basically, you can provide your guests with all of the information they need and more.

Although wedding planning may be on pause, I’m still using Bliss & Bone – I might even redesign our website just for fun. If you’re interested in trying out Bliss & Bone, you can sign up for a free 7-day trial to play around with the designs and templates yourself before committing to a longer-term plan.

By Amy Zhang March 14, 2020 in Wedding 2 Comments

Wedding Planning Diary: Postponing Our Wedding

This week, we made the incredibly difficult decision to postpone our wedding due to COVID-19, aka coronavirus. I still wake up and feel like I’m living in a nightmare – I mean, when’s the last time a global pandemic unexpectedly occurred and threw the entire world upside down? Global businesses are having their employees work from home, large scale events such as SXSW and Coachella have been canceled or postponed, travel has essentially come to a complete halt, stores are temporarily shutting everywhere…I don’t think most of us have ever lived through anything like this. I think we’ve all been affected in some way, shape, or form by coronavirus and will continue to be. Aside from how the pandemic has affected me personally, I feel incredible anxiety over how this will affect every other aspect of life for months, if not years to come.

Two weeks ago, our mentality was that we would have our wedding no matter what. I’m a very stubborn person and must admit I did not fully understand the seriousness of the virus, or what was to come. I felt that if guests didn’t feel comfortable traveling, we would understand. But we were determined to get on a plane to Italy ourselves unless we were dragged off and told we couldn’t go. Too many wheels were in motion, too much had been planned, and it felt like there was no turning back.

Postponing Our Wedding

Over the past 14 days, that mood has shifted dramatically day by day, until we realized this was so much greater than our destination wedding in Italy, and we would have no choice but to postpone our wedding. Ultimately, we felt that the health and safety of our guests and vendors came first, and who knew what the travel policies would be in three months? Would we even be able to go to Europe or come back?

I was never the girl who dreamed about her wedding growing up. Yet, going through the process of postponing my wedding is taking me through all of the stages of grief. I’m taking the time to mourn this loss. I think anyone who has planned a wedding can relate – it takes so much time and energy. The entire process is incredibly emotional but ultimately fulfilling.

Our wedding has been a labor of love for the past 9 months that we couldn’t wait to finally bring to life. Having a destination wedding and vendors abroad meant countless emails and 6 AM phone calls with my planner overseas. We adore the vendors we chose and had ironed out all of the big pieces. Invitations were sent earlier this year. My wedding dress just arrived at the beginning of this month. I had my bachelorette party three weeks ago! We had shifted to finalizing all of the small details– the music choices, signature cocktails, surprises for our guests. Having that ripped away overnight was more difficult than I expected. To be honest, I’m not the most outwardly emotional person. But recently, I’ve found myself randomly crying throughout the day and feel like I’m walking through a haze.

More difficult than the loss of the day itself, is what feels like a painful halt of the start of the rest of my life.

A little dramatic? Maybe. I mean, yes, there are so many worse things in the world and practicing gratitude is important – we have our health, our relationship is not fundamentally changing (we already feel like we are married), we can still get married here. There’s nothing technically stopping us from going on with our lives as planned. But as many brides will tell you, when you have your heart set on something, nothing else will do. You should always have a Plan B, but it’s not what you want to do. No bride wants to execute her plan B.

AJ, my fiancé, and I have been dating for six and a half years. We’ve known for a long time that we wanted to be together forever, but took our time enjoying our relationship and getting to know each other. Getting married is not a decision we took lightly, and we were over the moon to finally make it official. We consciously chose to plan an incredibly intimate destination wedding and had planned to go on our honeymoon next year. We even started discussing our future family.

Now it feels like all of that is paused and has to be pushed back a year.

My heart truly goes out to all of the brides who are in a similar position, and the vendor teams that stand behind them, as planning and executing a wedding really does take a village. I feel incredible sadness for all of the weddings that are being postponed and canceled as a result of this virus. The small businesses that now have to worry about their livelihood. The entire wedding industry is comprised of small independent businesses that rely on these events to support their families. Losing out an entire season or even a few months of events can be devastating to these small businesses.

In the meantime, we are working with our planner to secure a new date and making the most of the situation. I’ve already joked that an extra year to prepare will mean more florals and a second dress. I’ve relaxed my fitness and wellness routine. Dessert and wine have returned to my diet. But what this experience has really done is to teach me a valuable lesson. Our family and friends have also shown an incredible outpouring of love and support. I’m beyond grateful for all of them. I feel this experience has made our relationship even stronger and ready for marriage. At the end of the day, we have each other, and nothing else matters.

*Not my dress!!

By Amy Zhang February 16, 2020 in Wedding 2 Comments

Saying Yes to the Dress – How to Find Your Dream Wedding Dress

Finding your dream dress is one of the most exciting and stressful parts of wedding planning. Whether you’ve had a vision in your mind since you were younger or have no idea where to start, there’s a lot of pressure to look and feel your best on your wedding day. As much as I loved shopping for wedding dresses, there are many things I wish I knew going in. Ultimately it all worked out and I found a dress I love. But if I were to do it all over again, these are the things I would keep in mind when shopping.

Do’s and Don’ts for Finding Your Dream Wedding Dress

DO: Set a budget.

As with all things wedding-related, budget tends to be the main limitation around the choices you make. By now you should already have a wedding budget created, and hopefully, you carved out a budget for your dress. When shopping for a dress, make sure you are clear with bridal consultants on your budget (range you are hoping to shop within, and absolute max). They’ll respect your budget and help you find a dream dress that falls in that range. Be sure to have a buffer in your budget for alterations and accessories – many brides are surprised when they learn of additional costs they weren’t anticipating. More and more brides are also opting for multiple wedding looks. So make sure you account for that in your planning as well!

DO: Have a plan.

You don’t have to go in knowing exactly what designer and silhouette you want. But the more research you do in advance, the more smoothly the dress shopping process will go. Even high-end bridal salons tend to keep appointments to an hour – and trust me, the time flies by! As tempting as it may be to try on every single dress, you’ll most likely only be able to try on between 5-10 gowns during an appointment. If you have the time, going online or through Instagram to find current and past season styles you gravitate towards will help your bridal consultant tremendously when it comes to pulling dresses off the rack. Trust me, once you’re face to face with racks of gowns in various shades of white, you may not know where to even begin!

DO: Schedule appointments.

Most bridal shops won’t take walk-ins, especially on weekends. Be sure to schedule at least a few weeks in advance, and try not to do more than 3 appointments in a day. After a while, you will hit dress overload and all of the looks will start blurring together.

DO: Take photos.

Even if you can’t decide at the moment, you’ll want to go back home and revisit the photos as you make the decision. I know I personally didn’t have a moment where I found “the one” and started crying. But taking lots of photos (and videos!) helped me see the dress from every angle and begin to visualize how it would look on the day of. Also, some dresses look beautiful in photos but not so much in person, and vice versa. Ideally, you want to find yourself a dress that does both!

DO: Consider your venue.

There are no hard or fast rules when it comes to your dress. At the end of the day you want to find a dress that fits your personality and event that just screams YOU. When dress shopping, consider the environment and setting of your event. Bigger events tend to command bigger dresses, but if you want something with lots of drama for a smaller affair, by all means, go for it! Are you getting married on the beach in the summer or having a winter wedding? Keep these things in mind when choosing silhouettes and details.

DO: Choose your crew wisely.

Dress shopping can be incredibly stressful, especially when multiple opinions get thrown into the mix (let’s take a moment to admire how bridal consultants tend to refrain from throwing in their personal opinions). Some brides want to go shopping with all of their bridesmaids and important family members, others keep the group intimate and tight. Personally, I did most of my dress shopping alone. I knew I wanted to take my time trying on dresses and ended up revisiting a few stores multiple times. I also knew that I was set in what I wanted and didn’t want too many other opinions in the room influencing my decision. It also allowed me to be incredibly efficient and choose my wedding dress quickly.

DO: Be open-minded.

As much as you may go into dress shopping with a clear vision in your mind, there’s a good chance you may end up gravitating towards something completely different from your initial vision. Even though I thought I knew I didn’t want certain styles, I still made sure to try them on, so I could either eliminate them or be pleasantly surprised. I told every bridal store what I liked and thought I didn’t like, but that ultimately I wanted to be as open-minded and diverse in the dresses I tried on as possible.

DO: Look for discounts.

Let’s face it, wedding dresses are EXPENSIVE! Fortunately, there are a couple ways you can save some money. First, most designers will do trunk shows where they will give a 10% discount on their dresses. If you have the time, definitely try to purchase your dress during a trunk show! These are typically held twice a year and can be found on bridal sites and social media accounts. If you’re not sure when the next trunk show will be held, you can shoot the shop or designer an email directly. They will be more than happy to share.

Another great way to buy a discounted dress is through secondhand shops and websites! These outlets offer designer dresses at steep discounts – be sure to read the measurement details carefully before purchasing, but if you are looking for a couture wedding gown at 50% off, this is the best way to do so!

DON’T: Hold other people’s opinions too highly.

As vocal as others might be during the dress shopping process, at the end of the day your opinion matters most when making your decision. Sure, some well-intentioned feedback may help steer you in the right direction, but you ultimately want to choose a dress that you feel comfortable in and love.

DON’T: Rush the process.

Be sure to give yourself plenty of time to make appointments and ultimately decide. If you aren’t the most decisive person to begin with, try to follow the wedding timeline of purchasing your dress 8-10 months before your big day. Made to order dresses also need at least 6 to 8 months lead time. So you’ll want to buy your wedding dress far in advance to avoid any rush fees.

By Amy Zhang January 27, 2020 in Wedding 1 Comment

Becoming Bride-Chilla: How to Handle Wedding Planning Stress

How to Handle Wedding Planning Stress | by The Luxi Look

Everyone says wedding planning is a huge undertaking no matter the size or scale of your event. If you think about it, when have you ever coordinated and executed such an elaborate event in your life?! Every person’s idea of their wedding day is different, for some it’s a simple elopement, for others it’s a multi-day 500 person affair. There’s no right or wrong way to do it! At the end of the day, it’s your day and ultimately about what you want. So there should be no stress, right?

If only it could be so simple!! Wedding planning is a process, and over the course of planning, there will inevitably be stress and some uncomfortable conversations. Whenever there are so many factors at play – differences in opinion, family members involved, a tight timeline, a seemingly infinite to-do list, and a lot of money being spent, on top of trying to balance work/life/wellness/a social life/make time for your fiancé (aka you know, life), something’s bound to erupt. (I’ve heard that this is normal, but if anyone has had a wedding planning experience with zero experience, please do share!!).

With that said… I have been doing my best to stay calm (no one likes a bridezilla!!) and find ways to relieve stress while wedding planning. I wouldn’t say I’m a chill bride as I’m way too type A to ever be so laid back about planning (you should see my vacation itineraries), but I think everyone in my life would agree that lowering my stress levels is good for not only my own health but also those around me : ).

How to handle wedding planning stress

+ Be proactive

Some of the planning stress is inevitable, other parts can be somewhat mitigated with some planning and being proactive. There are so many great resources available to help brides-to-be plan their wedding – download a wedding checklist or two, and do your best to stay on track. If you’re planning on hiring a planner, this will help you stay on track and make sure no detail is forgotten.

+ Delegate

I’m terrible at this and tend to try to take on everything myself. But with a project this large it helps so much to delegate. Get your fiancé, friends, and family members involved. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness! If you want to do a lot of DIY elements, enlist the help of your family and friends (bribe them with dinner or wine). Have a big guest list? Put on a fun playlist and stuff envelopes with your fiancé. Ask a girlfriend with killer music taste to make a playlist. Have your bridesmaids help with planning the bachelorette. Little favors go a long way – and so does a thank you!

+ Workout

I’ve tried to like meditation. I really, really have. I’ve come to terms that it isn’t for me, at this point in my life. Working out is my daily stress reliever. Yes, I try to do it daily or as close to daily as possible. Life gets crazy and stressful regardless of whether you’re planning a wedding or not, and moving my body is what I’ve found to work best for me. It also doesn’t hurt to add in exercises or classes to help you achieve whatever fitness goals you have in mind for your wedding.

+ Pamper yourself

Self-care is great in theory, but it often falls to the wayside when life gets in the way. Take your engagement as an opportunity to finally pamper yourself the way you deserve to be. Whether that’s in the form of facials, massages, manicures, or other treatments, pampering yourself is a great way to unwind from the stress.

+ Take a break

When you’re feeling overwhelmed, take a step back. Wedding planning doesn’t have to be a 24/7 job. It’s ok to leave an email unresponded to for a day or two. Decisions don’t have to be made overnight. Most things simply aren’t that urgent. All of the little details and vendor contracts can wait – ultimately, the only thing that matters is getting to marry and spend the rest of your life with your person.

+ Date your fiancé

Throughout the process, this is the person that matters the most. Make time for them. Set up date nights and time to connect with each other. A couple years ago, I realized that AJ and I rarely had dedicated time for each other. Other plans would come up and we’d put our relationship on the backburner. It was only after we set aside one night a week for a date night that we were able to carve out the time that was for us – and only us – and have a time and space to reconnect every week. It’s made a huge difference in the health of our relationship and gives us the chance to catch up and check-in with each other regularly. We love going out for sushi or opening a bottle of wine at home, but you can do whatever feels the most you.

+ Shift your mindset

The most important thing I’ve learned is that most of the stress that arises during wedding planning isn’t relevant in the grand scheme of things. Your friends and family will be happy to celebrate your marriage and no one will notice if anything goes wrong (which, inevitably, something will). Things that feel significant during the moment will fade, you won’t even remember most of the little details or arguments a year from now. The engagement period will fly by, so try to enjoy every second of it and the wedding planning process. That’s what I try to remind myself everyday : ).

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