Bridal Get-up Updates

Since Mr A decided to get a professional videography team in to cover the solemnisation, I decided that DIY hair and make up is not going to make it. So I called Sephora at ION Orchard to make an appointment – $100 for hair and make up – and I hope they’ll be able to do a good job with my face and hair.

In other news, I bought my wedding shoes!

The Shoe

Pretty right? It’s definitely not going to be tall enough to lift the front of my dress off the ground though. In any case, I sincerely hope I’ll be able to walk down the aisle in this… Thanks to my stupid ankle, I may have to do so in flats T__T Hopefully it won’t come to that.

Nails

Got my nails done en route to the doctor’s yesterday! Accomplish many things in one day – check!

4 more days to go!

More DIY projects!

Over the past two days, as I rested my ankle at home, I found some time to complete my DIY projects for the solemnisation party 🙂

Mr A’s Boutonniere

This is Mr A’s boutonniere. Nice? I thought so too 😛 The tutorial for the boutonniere can be found here. Of course I think their boutonniere was a lot nicer, not least because the colour of all their materials looked better. But still I think I did a pretty good job!

Pompom Backdrop

The weekend, and part of Monday afternoon, was spent making garlands for the backdrop!

No, doudou is not going to be part of the backdrop – he is an invited guest! But, yes, those are all paper pompoms that I’m stringing together to make garlands for the backdrop. It turns out that I will be utilising less than half of the 240 paper pompoms I bought! Oops, overkill much?

We tried fluffing up one of the garlands and it took much less time than anticipated, so I had to call off on the fluffing session the girls were supposed to help out with! XD

Table Placards

I also found time to make the placardss for each table, according to *drumroll* our whatsapp group names! 😛

I kid you not. Spot the functional group name! 🙂

Ring Box Lining

Finally, today, I took a little time off to sew the lining for our ring box, and a matching cushion cover for the ring cushion (upcycled watch cushion from my mum). The cloth was the remnant cotton from when I made my billboard earlier this year.

 

The only thing i’m not too happy with is that I overlooked the need to iron the cloth before I stuck it onto the inside of the lid. But otherwise, I think it turned out nicer than I expected it to when I embarked on the project.

Of course, the handwriting on the cover is not mine – the ring box itself was bought off Etsy 🙂

All in all, the solemnisation table decor is now complete!

Except… not really ^^” because I still have to remove the clips from the flowers and print photos for the frames. Oh well, work work!

Collection of Documents

Last Monday, Mr A and I went to ROM to collect our documents 🙂 Yay!

I’m not too sure what I was expecting, but the place looked… like a civil service building XD seriously! I was like, …that’s it? XD

It’s very efficiently run though, and with an appointment, we were called on within 15 minutes (10 minutes?) of arriving at ROM. At the counter, we were required to present our ICs and photocopies of our dads’ ICs. The highlight of the session was having to raise our right hand and read our statutory declarations.

I have to admit, I put on my English Teacher Reading Voice to read it. Belatedly, I wondered how the officer must have felt – he must hear a lot of very unnatural reading voices every day. Felt super embarrassed to have read in a pro voice but stumbled over a few words. Even Mr A noticed!

But whatever – we took turns to read the declaration, sign on a few forms and ta-da!

The photo came from a photo-booth, complimentary of ROM! Not too impressive, but a good memento!

Another item off our checklist, hooray!

Keeping Fingers Crossed

So the other day, I was dumb about carrying heavy logistics and I fell, spraining my ankle. 3 weeks before I’m supposed to walk down the aisle.

*despair*

The worse thing is… I was kept so busy at work that I hardly had time to rest the injury. Hence, I’m only taking medical leave 2 weeks after the incident… less than a week before my solemnisation.

Really hoping I will be able to:

1. Walk down the aisle without limping
2. Wear high heels
3. Wear high heels and walk down the aisle without limping

Don’t have very high hopes 😦 I shall look at my wedding shoes and make myself walk less!!!

Photobooks!

Sometime in 2014, I attended a wedding of an ex-colleague, Ms K – now Mrs L – and I saw that she had compiled photos from her travels with her hubby into photobooks. A year later, I had to source for a photobook vendor to compile the shots from the pre-engagement shoot into an album.

To my great surprise, when I went on to Photobook Singapore’s website, they were having an awesome pre-paid sale for their photobooks – $20 for either a medium sized (letter) landscape layflat album (20 + 2 pages) or a regular medium sized landscape album (40 + 2 pages). Additional pages would be charged separately.

I thought, what a steal!, and proceeded to buy 5 albums, two of which have now been delivered!

The Pre-Engagement Album

 

The cover was really high quality and the pages lay really flat, with no seam in the middle, so the pictures flow from one page to the next, which is good for all the landscape photos we had 🙂 Of course, the layout had to be done manually, so kudos to me for not making a mess out of it!

I had to add an additional 12 pages though – for lay flat albums, this came at a price of $3 per page. Also, the $20 voucher makes it mandatory for you to purchase the express shipping ($10) which is kinda bleargh, but all in all, this album cost me $66, which is quite fair 🙂

The Thailand Trip Album

This is similar to the pre-engagement album, except that it has normal pages instead of lay flat pages. I love it! This is so so so much better than keeping travel photos in a digital archive! I mean, how often will you open up the folder to look at all the photos again, right? I swear, I’m gonna do one book for every trip I go on!

I added a total of 20 pages to this book, at $1.50/page. It comes with the same stipulation for the express shipping, so I spent a total of $60 on this. Pretty much the same as if I were to develop my shots and put them into an “old-fashioned” photo album.

Verdict

I absolutely love the idea of photobooks. Apart from the fact that it does take plenty of time and effort to put together (made easier with the comprehensive app from Photobook Singapore) it is a wonderful way to store your memories. And it can look so professional too!

Both albums are going on display during the solemnisation party! Hope everyone likes them too 🙂

Tip: You can pre-pay for albums during promotions. Photobook Singapore always has some promotion going on – wait for the one that meets your needs and go for it!

Disclaimer: I’m not getting paid by Photobook Singapore to share this – I truly think it’s a good idea and the prices are reasonable.

Sun, Sweat and Smiles

We have survived our engagement shoot! I have never ever imagined that outdoor shoots were such sweaty affairs.

The day started at 7am for me; DIY make up, hair etc. And then the much awaited balloons arrived at 8am! They were super pretty 🙂 but too bad I didn’t have the sense to take pictures of them at home *sigh*. Mr J the photographer came around at 845am and then we were ready to roll!

Our first location was at my place, where we took slice-of-life shots in my bedroom, and on the couch. I felt that the shots quite accurately represented various aspects of our lives. Haha.

Like sleeping in, or watching TV and getting fat. It felt super awkward trying to pose “naturally” and some of that may have shown in the pictures, but most turned out beautifully!
The next stop, at 11am, was Bishan-AMK park. We drove over, picked a nice spot on the grass and began our midday picnic. Slowly, we got fried under the sun, but had to smile through the heat.

Just as we lay down to take a few “lying on the picnic cloth” shots, Mr A suddenly said, “oh no” and pointed to the sky. Where we saw a bunch of colourful balloons. Slowly floating further and further away.

Yes, those balloons. That we agonized over the logistics for. I must have tied the knot too loosely around the picnic basket (removed the weights from the bunch to separate them into two bunches) and the balloons just floated off while we were posing 😦 thankfully we managed to get a good shot with them.

We wandered around the park a little more to get more varied shots. Everytime Mr J asked us to converse and joke with each other to get natural looking shots, the conversation topic inevitably returned to the balloons, which made for some really sad/funny moments.

Retired to macdonald’s for a breather and met up with Ms A, who rushed down from work, before going over to L’etoile Cafe at Owen Road to continue.

By the time we arrived, the priority was to cool off, clean up, change and get something to eat. Mr J’s idea was to get some eating shots, but those turned out to be too unglam. In the end, we ate, shot, and then ordered cake to shoot and eat.

Finally, full and somewhat rested, we made our way to Esplanade where we spent so many evenings paktor’ing. I changed into my wedding dress and Mr A changed into his suit. The heat was not so bad thanks to the breeze, but that same breeze really blew my hair around and I ended up with a really natural, but not very attractive windswept look. Plus the glare made it really hard to open my eyes in the shots, so my expression looked really weird in some of them.

The plan initially was to either go around to MBS or go to the merlion. Either way turned out to be too tortuous for my feet and I was really super tired. Mr J asked if we wanted to proceed to Keppel Bay or Sentosa Quayside Isle to capture the sunset over the yacht, but because we were so tired, plus we really didn’t know how the sunset would look in the haze, we decided to call it a day. Quite a pity actually, it would have been nice to have some shots at the yacht park. And for no additional cost too. Hahaha. Oh well, the experience is just as important as the product, and I would say that staying further would have really pooped me out.

All in all, quite happy with the experience and shots so far. The pictures I’ve shared are a sneak peek, and were delivered a mere 2-3 days after the shoot,with some preliminary editing for colour and framing. Can’t wait to get our touched up shots and start planning the photobook!

Look forward to our shots, guys! Just slightly more than a month left to the big day!

How We Got Engaged

The Context

As my friends were very aware, for the whole of 2014, I had been wondering when Mr A was going to propose. While awaiting the proposal, of course I was not one to sit still. Instead, I was reading up on venues and wedding costs, which made it seem like I was super eager to get hitched. Which, you know, was not too far from the truth.

But I digress.

The Set Up

Mr A, being very aware of this baited me throughout the year. Looking back, this formed an important part of catching me off guard for the real proposal.

For example, as early as Valentine’s Day, he tricked me into thinking I would get proposed to on 14th Feb by sending me this picture.

In case you can’t tell, it’s the “ee” from “Destinee” the Lee Hwa diamond. Being the overeager girlfriend, I thought it was a ring when he confirmed it was a bling bling. Well, it wasn’t, but it was the third pendant he got me, once every alternate Valentine’s Day. Very happy though, that he keeps up this little “tradition” 🙂

Then I confirmed that he had nothing up his sleeve because we went ring shopping together between April and May, and finally went to Jann Paul to get my ring made 🙂

Because I knew he would have collected the ring sometime in August, during my birthday, and subsequently during each important relationship milestone, I would wonder if he was going to propose. Haha.

And he didn’t disappoint! In the sense that he would continue to bait me. By pretending to have something up his sleeve, or “practicing” at home.

Finally, it was time for my trip to Korea. He kept joking that he was going to fly over and propose while I was in Korea, and got me suspecting if he would propose when I landed. Not too disappointed that there wasn’t a proposal at Changi when I landed though, by then I had taken all fantasies to be what they were – figments of the imagination of an overeager girlfriend.

That’s how Mr A completely blindsided me with his proposal!

The Proposal

While I was in Korea, Mr A had casually mentioned a staycation with the EEE bunch which I did not think much of. When I asked where it was held, and what time we had to be there, I was completely appalled that we were only going to arrive the The Fullerton Bay Hotel at 7pm. What a waste of an entire afternoon we could be spending in such an atas hotel, right?

So I kept insisting that we had to go early – could Mr W possibly authorise us to check in early on his behalf? Mr A was completely thrown off – not that I knew – and had to cook up all sorts of excuses to turn up late, because the set up was not ready!

Eventually he convinced me by scheduling a haircut that very afternoon by claiming that the hairdresser was only free in the late afternoon. And he paid for my hair treatment too, which would have been suspicious normally, but you know what they say about looking gift horses in the mouth.

When we reached Raffles Place, Ms H picked us up at the station, pretending – not that I knew – to have only just arrived, and we went up together. Upon opening the door to the room, and seeing that the room was pitch dark, I finally caught on to what was going on.

Following the dramatic entrance, a bouquet of flowers was presented to me, and I was welcomed by an entire party consisting of my family, bestie and the girls, the gumi and the EEE peeps. And balloons, cake, wine, MARRY ME balloons stuck to the wall.

In my defence, the sight was really touching, hence resulting in the non-stop stream of tears.

Mr A gave an impromptu speech. Someone presented me with a piece of tissue. Mr A proposed and I said yes! Of course I did!

Mr A presented the ring and tried to put it on… unsuccessfully. Haha. We thought he was given the ring in the wrong size, or that I had gotten fatter, but after I tried to put it on for myself, it fit beautifully 😀

Then, Mr W passed Mr A his guitar and Mr A performed an acoustic rendition of 好不容易. Cue more tears from me.

Following that, the party began and there was cake, wine, plenty of cozy conversations with friends and family.

We stood at the balcony to watch the light show at MBS across Marina Bay, enjoying the moment, and when we turned back to head into the room, everyone was gone.

Wow. We were alone and engaged and very happy. Took a walk along the bay where we had spent so many evenings just enjoying each other’s presence.

Conclusion

The proposal, not sure if Mr A was satisfied by it, but it’s a huge 10/10 for me! Although there were a few hiccups – my insistence to go early, spotting Ms S in the middle of Mr A’s proposal, finding a used condom under a couch – the whole proposal was everything I could ask for, sweet, cozy, and a complete surprise!

Dress.Hair.Bouquet.Makeup

This, what I’ll be sharing in the post, was never supposed to happen. When the whole solemnisation was conceptualised, I imagined myself walking down the aisle in a pretty sundress, with my hair down, and a floral wreath in my hair, maybe, holding on to a small bunch of randomly arranged but still beautiful wildflowers.

I set myself a budget of $200 for the dress.

So of course, the concept was shot and the budget was… revised. And I don’t regret it one bit, not really.

Presenting… The Dress.

Bought the dress on etsy after browsing through a few hundred dresses. I had a few conditions: they must not be shipped from China, and they must fit into my (expanded) budget. The quality of the dress was really good and I loved the cut. The dressmaker was also really good – the dress was made-to-measure and it fit like a glove. The golden sash was handmade out of 6m of gold double-sided satin ribbon bought at Spotlight.

This picture was taken without shoes on, but upon trying it on with my heels, the drape of the skirt was really pretty 🙂

Hair

I was super torn trying to decide how to do my hair. It had to be something nice, and easy enough to learn to do by Monday for the photoshoot. Considered a number of down-dos and half-up-half-down before finally deciding to go with an easy DIY updo, a tuck-and-roll chignon using an elastic headband.

Had to do a simple modification in order to pin up the wedding veil. Bought my veil off taobao for like $8 and it looks great! Did a test run of the hair, now we’ll just need to pray it holds up for the whole day.

Bouquet

My fabric pride and joy. We decided not to go with fresh flowers due for a couple of reasons: 1. they don’t last, and 2. they are expensive. This bouquet below cost less than $20, and is fully customisable!

The tutorial for the fabric flowers can be found here.

All you need is time, tealights, fabric, and scissors 🙂 This bouquet took me an entire afternoon between my mum and I, and a lot of patience dealing with burnt cloth. You read that right – burnt cloth! If you look closely, the edges of some of my flowers are a little charred, but hopefully they won’t show up in the pictures!

Makeup

I haven’t even started looking at make-up tutorials. The photoshoot is in two days and I haven’t practiced putting on make-up. Hm. Okay, maybe I should stop blogging and start looking at make-up tutorials.

[edit]
Tested a simple “natural make-up”. Not too, bad, maybe a bit too natural, because Mr A says he can’t tell the difference… Although he said a moment later that I looked “too fierce”. Hm… I think it went okay though. Will consider it a success and go with this for the photoshoot first, and then maybe engage a professional for 22 Nov.

What do you think?

The casual solemnisation reception that isn’t

The other day, we met up with Mr A’s colleague and friend, Mr K, to go down to KTailors to pick up Mr A’s new 3-piece suit. While we hung out, we talked about well, wedding stuff, and I found out – apparently Mr A already knew – that Mr K’s wedding was planned along the same lines as ours: a Chinese customary separate from a casual, cozy solemnisation reception. That ballooned as ours is ballooning.

You know, the most question I get asked most, when I show my friends the dress I would be getting married in, is “That’s not casual at all!” The same happens when I tell them Mr A got a 3-piece suit tailored for himself. It’s the same question I ask myself at times, mostly in wonder – how did it all balloon so quickly?

So the initial idea, when we first ate in Skyve – and fell in love with the laidback atmosphere there – was that it would be nice to have a fun and casual wedding there. Mr A even wanted to get married in berms, and I was thrilled with the idea of getting married in a sundress.

Along the way, things changed – first, Mr A said that a long dress would be nicer, so I started hunting for nice maxi dresses. Garden style casual, still good. Then my dad said we needed to respect the occasion, so I changed my focus to nice and not too casual maxi dresses. Then, out of the blue, Mr A said he was going to get a suit and that we should consider proper wedding wear, because the solemnisation was the most important part of the whole wedding (solemnisation, reception, Chinese ceremony, banquet).

I thought, whoa, things certainly escalated quickly.

Okay, so first came the made-to-measure dress and suit.

Then, a good friend, Ms L had a friend flying in from France who was a professional photographer, looking to shoot couples for his portfolio, and happily, we volunteered – because, come on, who doesn’t want to get a free photoshoot, with all soft copies – but unfortunately, due to a mismatch in his schedule, the shoot could not take place.

But the idea of getting photos professionally shot had taken root, and we did not even stop to really reconsider before we started looking for a photographer to do an engagement shoot for us and to cover the actual solemnisation reception. We managed to get the help of my friend Jerome, who has been absolutely wonderful and helpful in the planning for the shoot so far. We will be going for our engagement shoot in two days time.

So now, we have a simple and casual solemnisation that includes a full wedding gown and suit, an engagement shoot and a photographer for the event.

Jerome also kindly offered to help us edit any video footage our friends capture for us of the march-in, exchange of vows and first kiss. But… Newsflash: we are now looking to engage a professional videographer so that we can get well-shot footage. Also because the photography/videography company we engage for the Chinese customary may not wish to include non-professionally shot footage in the wedding highlights in case people think that they do sub-pro shooting.

On top of that, I now have a veil to wear, and my dad will march me in. All our decor is DIY.

Mr A’s thinking of engaging a cellist.

So yupps, not a very casual solemnisation after all. But, Mr K shared with us, if everything went right, all that effort and elaborateness of the solemnisation will be totally worth it. Because no one moment will be more precious the one in which we graduate from fiances to newlyweds. And it will definitely mean more, and be more memorable, if we did what we could and all by ourselves too.

Mr A & Mrs A

So. Hello hello! It’s so weird to be addressing a reader which may or not be existent, but oh well, I guess that’s the idea about blogging? *shrugs* Anyway, the idea of this blog is to record the whole process from of the wedding conception to reception.

Of course, this blog technically belongs to both me and Mr A, but since it’s registered using my account, I doubt you’ll be hearing much from Mr A. Haha.

There’s a lot of backlog to blog about, since we’ve been wanting to set this up for a while, but being the awful procrastinators – or wonderful, it’s quite funny how these acronyms convey the same meaning now, but I digress – that we are, this blog has popped into existence mere weeks before the solemnisation. So yes, a lot of backlog, and a lot of not-very-current-at-all posts.

On top of that, our Chinese customary wedding is supposed to take place next year, and we’ve started the planning in the midst of preparing for the solemnisation, so there’ll be the odd post about that too, might this blog be a little confusing and not systematic at all as a form of historical record. Hm… Maybe hashtags and categorisation as organisation tools? I dunno. My last wordpress blog died an early death, so I haven’t really explored the functions of such a blog.

Yupps, so that about sums up the whole purpose of the blog. By the way, we’re doing this because we’re getting married! Yay! Yupps, me and Mr A are finally getting married!