Here we have a miscellaneous collection of items including some recipes that people expressed interest in, ceremony related links like the songs we sang at the wedding, a list of all the vendors we used, special thanks to everyone who helped out, and finally the miscellaneous section of the miscellaneous page.

Recipes

• Hazelnut Cheesecake Recipe

  This is the recipe for the top layer of our wedding cake. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough to go around and for those who didn't get any and wanted some, I completely understand. Jiaying made me this cheesecake recipe for my birthday the year before last. Normally when she makes a cake I take most of it in to the lab at school and share it so the two of us aren't eating an entire cake ourselves. This cake, however, I liked so much that I refused to take it in and I ended up eating the entire cake myself over the course of about two weeks. Just so it is clear, we cannot be held liable for any pounds gained from making this dessert. :)

• Smoked Cheese and Sausage Lasagna

  Here is the lasagna recipe that we make. This is the one we served to our families the evening they arrived.

• Hot-Sweet Italian Sausage

  You can buy Italian sausage to use in the lasagna or you can make it yourself. Once we tried out this recipe we haven't gone back to storebought sausage. The down side is that it does add another step to the cooking.

• Lindrusso's Marinara Magnifica

  We also make our own tomato sauce to go in the lasagna instead of using store-bought. We pick tomatoes at a local pick-your-own farm and can them each summer using this recipe. It makes a great basic tomato sauce that can later be used in any number of dishes.

• Wedding Ceremony Script

  This is the script we wrote for the wedding ceremony.

• Movie of Ceremony

  This is a movie that our friend Bryan Horling made of the ceremony. Be forwarned, it is 50 MB.

• Raphen and Jiaying's Wedding Round, Original

  This is the original version of the wedding song that my cousin Mark Andreas wrote.

• Raphen and Jiaying's Wedding Round, Simplified

  This is the version of the wedding song that we sang. My cousin Loren Andreas simplified it to make it easier to sing for those of us who did not have a chance to practice it before the wedding.

• Song of the Soul

  This is the second song we sung at the wedding. Unfortunately, we were never able to find music to go along with the words.

• Wedding House: Hill's Memorial Club House, a.k.a., Amherst Women's Club House.

The house is rented out for wedding and other events. In order to rent it, you need to contact the property manager Jeanne Harlow at (413)259-1935. She is a real nice lady. The house is very nice, accommodating up to 75 seated and 100 standing, and at an affordable price. In order to host the normal reception inside, you will need to find your own caterer though.

• Reception Dinner: Panda East Restaurant

This is our favorite Chinese restaurant in the area. They don't do out of house catering (unless you just want regular take out), but the manager Jack Lee was nice enough to let us use the back room, which is semi-isolated for our reception dinner. He and his chef also created a multi-course traditional Chinese wedding banquet for us. The restaurant can be reached at 413-256-8923.

• Wedding Cake: Black Sheep Deli

Cake tasting was one of the most fun part of wedding preparation, where you get to taste all sorts of free cakes! We decided to choose Black Sheep in the end because we like Rosemary, the cake baker, and she is willing to do anything we ask. The price is not cheap, but we offset it by using a 30% off coupon, which brought it down to the same as other cheaper bakeries. You can reach their catering department at (413) 253-3442. They do normal catering as well, though again, on the pricey side. But their menus certainly look good. Also, if you are in the downtown area of Amherst, you should pay them a visit. It's a nice cozy little place, with excellent cakes and other desserts for sale! We love their cheesecakes.

• Flowers: Nuttleman's Florists.

We started interviewing florists quite late in the preparation process, and interviewed most of the local florists in the area. Before we started, I went online and browsed around for a lot of pictures, and knew that I wanted a red and ivory flower combination with roses and lilies. Along the way of interviewing different florists, this idea got substantiated. By the end, we knew exactly what we wanted. We like Nuttleman's the best, because Brenda, the woman who actually did the flowers, was very nice and very helpful in helping us deciding what we wanted. She brought out the actual flowers for us to see the color and shape, and gave good suggestions of greens to go with the flowers. Their flowers are also so pretty. Of course, the 30% off coupon (thanks Michele!) we used helped make the decision process much easier as well. We are really happy with the end results, and would definitely go back again if we need more flowers. Nuttleman's Florist locates at 135 Woodlawn Avenue, Northampton, MA 01060. Their phone number is (413) 584-2272.

• Photographer: Hawkeye Don.

We paid for our own wedding and set a tight budget. The wedding photographer is the single most expensive item, taking more than 1/4 of the entire budget. We decided to hire a professional, because pictures is the thing that will last well after the wedding itself. We chose Hawkeye Don, mainly because of his reasonable price. After interviewing several photographer, we found that though you can in general find a good price for the coverage itself if you only need the photographer for a couple hours, the post-shooting cost can really bump up the price. All professional wedding photographers retain the copyrights to the pictures, and you have to get reprints through them, which is definitely not cheap. If you want to have album made by the photographer, that ups the price again. Hawkeye Don's reprint price is reasonable, compared to the others. Though he doesn't offer albums, we found some good album sources online and will assemble them ourselves. We are happy with the pictures we got (215 in total!) and certainly don't regret our choice. His studio, Hawkeye Photo, can be reached at (413) 589-7340.

• Justice of the Peace: Patricia Olanyk.

Patricia works at the Amherst town clerk office and is a very nice and kind woman. She gave a collection of sample ceremonies to choose from and helped us start thinking about making up our own ceremony. She was nice enough to come to the rehearsal and did a nice job at the wedding itself.

• Pianist: Carolyn Holstein.

We didn't want to waste money on a DJ for such a small wedding (not many dancers in our group). We were not sure what to do with the music until the very last minute when Patricia recommended Carolyn. She turned out to be an excellent choice. At a much lower price than normal DJs, we got live music, and good processional advice. She made the congregational singing and the Violin Duet more enjoyable as well.

• Outfits: Bridal Barn for the bridal gown, Bridal Corner and Ron's Formal Wear for the bridesmaid dresses and tuxes.

Monica and I had a lot of fun going around shopping for dresses. It was fortunate that we had similar taste in dresses. Before too long, we knew what we were looking for in the dresses and developed an efficient system for putting on and taking off the dresses in less than 5 minutes. Even the shop ladies were amazed at our speed of going through the dresses. We had a long list, a short list, a short short list, and a 3 dress finalist list. Special thanks goes to Joel, who had similar taste in dresses as Raphen does, and helped us make the final choice of the bridal gown without Raphen seeing it before the wedding. Bridal Barn locates at 425 Greenfield Rd in Deerfield, MA. They can be reached at 800-437-0186 or 413-774-2691. Bridal Corner and Ron's Formal Wear locates at 720 Memorial Dr. in Chicopee, MA. They can be reached at 413-593-6425.

• Ladies' Hairdo: JCPenny Salon

I hadn't really been to any American hairdressers, so the glory of the choice of hair place all goes to Monica. Kerrie, who is Monica's normal hair lady did her hair and recommended Michele, the updo lady of the salon. I went for a hair trial about one month before the wedding. I showed Michele the pictures I collected from the web and told her that I would like to try a curly updo. My hair is heavy and long and straight, and I was worried that it wouldn't hold up curl very well. But we were happy with the trial result that went so well with my pearl jewelry and the wedding gown, and decided to go with Michele. The wedding pictures certainly show that it was the right choice and I got lots of compliments on the hair from the guests. The salon is located in the JCPenny store at the Hampshire mall, and can be reached at (413)584-7416.

• Reception Dinner Menu

  The menu for the reception.

• Double Happiness

  The Chinese character that we have used throughout the wedding is the symbol for happiness repeated twice. It is the traditional character used for weddings, in part because it resembles two people holding hands.

• The wedding colors

  Red is the traditional Chinese wedding color and ivory is the traditional western wedding color. We are glad that the two colors went together so well. Special bonuses: red is such a good choice of color for the winter, and there are plenty of choices for flowers in those two colors!

• The wedding flowers

  Roses are universal symbol for love, while lilies have a special meaning in Chinese wedding traditions. In Chinese, it's pronounced as Bai He, the same sound as the Chinese characters "hundred" and "together" (yes, we Chinese are big into puns). So, lilies are often used as wedding flowers, symbolizing the good wishes for the new couple to be together for a hundred years. Ivy was chosen as part of the cake decoration because of its shape and its meaning in Chinese as well. Ivy is pronounced as Chang Qing in Chinese, meaning "always green", symbolizing a long and healthy life and a heart that is forever young.