This took awhile and some effort to put together, but I decided to wrap up the wedding posts by sharing our actual mood board and our list of wedding vendors as a reference for brides-to-be because I found that the best insights I got during my own wedding planning came from blogs.

After comparing the actual mood board with the one I did during our planning here, I was quite pleased to find that it didn’t deviate too much from my vision. So to the brides-to-be who care about sticking to a theme or colour scheme, my only advice would be to spend some time doing up a simple mood board with the key elements (venue, stationery, outfits, florals, etc.) and use that to guide you through your decision-making. You’ll see from mine that even though it didn’t turn out quite the same, I didn’t go too far off either.

And now for the list…

Gowns and Suit — It didn’t take much shopping for us to decide that Bridal Veil (BV) was the one for us. I am allergic to tacky gowns with feathers, sequins on lace and what-have-yous so when I came across the classy, clean, Swarovski crystal-detailed designs by Michelle Huimin, I knew this was it. BV specialises in made-to-measure (MTM) gowns, designed based on each bride’s style, preference and frame. I had a lot of fun working with Michelle on both the wedding and evening gowns.

The BV team is also the most professional wedding vendor I’ve engaged. They never fail to call up a day in advance to remind us of our scheduled appointments, shared extremely useful (but commonly overlooked) wedding tips, was always prepared for our appointments and never once overlooked our preferences/requirements no matter how minute they were. Truly your dream vendor. It had been an amazing experience working with them and I would highly recommend them to any bride-to-be who is going for great service, an elegant look and impeccable workmanship.

BV delivers just as excellently even if you’re planning your wedding from abroad – check out Rachel of The Pleasure Monger’s wonderful experience with them here.

Hair and Make-up — My actual day hair and make-up came with package that we took on with Bridal Veil. I never thought to look further because Cedric was praised by friends who were clients of BV. I also read a lot of good reviews and saw some of his works on blogs (and liked them) so even though the trial session didn’t blow me away, I wasn’t worried. Cedric wasn’t just my make-up artist, he was also our consultant and point of contact during our fittings. Throughout our encounters, he was always jovial, warm and professional. You could also tell that he’s very passionate about what he does.

For my actual day make-up, he managed to skilfully enhance my features while still keeping to the natural look I wanted. He made the effort to genuinely understand my preferences and delivered the look exactly the way I wanted. We worked so well together and, really, if you’re a bride-to-be who have already signed up (or have decided to sign up) with BV, I couldn’t recommend Cedric more.

Venue — Hotel banquet weddings are most common in Singapore but there are hotels, and then there are wedding hotels. Conrad Centennial Singapore is evidently a wedding hotel as much as it is a business hotel. In fact, it is so wildly popular with couples that we had to book a whole 14 months (!) in advance after being on a wait-list with three other couples in front of us. It definitely wasn’t because we were kiasu, I assure you (I never would’ve believed it if we weren’t actually experiencing it first-hand). That’s not surprising to us now though. It may not be the most luxurious in town, but it definitely has one of the most experienced and professional wedding teams around. Our coordinator, Janice, and banquet manager, Min, were most helpful, positive and meticulous. The food from Golden Peony, were served individually to our guests. Everyone who gave their feedback raved about how impressive each dish was and how generous the servings were. Don’t underestimate how much your guests value the food; serving lousy food can get them tsk-tsking for years. This was one of our top reasons for picking Conrad.

Another critical part of our selection was the ballroom which fitted our anal criteria to a ‘T’. We wanted an exclusive ballroom, no pillars, high ceilings, comfortably-sized, with a straight march-in aisle. We also wanted the reception area to be exclusive and not shared with another event. The hotel was also flexible enough to waive corkage for the night’s alcohol so we were able to bring in our own wines and liquor without paying extra. And then there were also thoughtful little gestures on the actual day like handing us hot towels to wipe our hands with as we were sending guests off for the night, anticipating our exhaustion and serving us hot tea at various points during the banquet. The ambience was lovely, and the standard florals filled the ballroom sufficiently so we didn’t need to spend more to add on. It was run like a well-oiled machine, and till today, we are still patting ourselves on the back for picking Conrad for our wedding venue.

Photography — I came across Gabriel Mendes Photography while doing some random surfing and stopped for a long time on his site to scroll through his works. I’ve long raved about how much I adore Paris so maybe it was a sign that right after we got engaged, Gabriel launched a promotion for wedding shoots in Paris. I dropped him an e-mail, we met up for coffee and before we knew it, we were handing him the cheque to what was possibly our biggest wedding splurge – an engagement shoot in Paris. Coincidentally, Gabriel has shot a couple of our friends’ weddings and they only have good things to say about him so that validated our choice. (I wrote about our pre-wedding photoshoot in more detail here.)

Gabriel is a warm, honest and funny guy, and he really knew how to help us loosen up so we had a lot of fun working with him. He has a real talent for capturing outdoor journalistic shots, which was exactly what I wanted. Anyway, I shall not rave any more than I already did… you be the judge.

Photo Booth — There are quite a number of photo booth vendors in the market but what made Live Moments our choice was that they were able to offer both the photo booth as well as roving in the ballroom. If you have elderly relatives whom you know wouldn’t bother queuing up at the photo booth during the reception, having the ballroom roving during the banquet will ensure that they also go home with a memento. Al, our photo booth photographer and contact person in Live Moments, was thoughtful enough to spend more time with the relatives (especially those at the VIP table) during the banquet roving so I believe most of our guests, young and old, went home with an instant print.

Live Moments also prides itself on delivering quality prints and it was one of the few photo booth vendors that had nice borders/designs even though I eventually did the design myself to match the rest of my wedding stationery. I also did the backdrop design and Al very kindly threw in the production for me at no extra cost. He was also very obliging in helping me put together a bunch of good quality, French-themed props because I requested for classy props, i.e. no clown noses and afro wigs. It was a pity I didn’t get to spend much time at the photo booth but everyone who did told us that it was soooo much fun!

Jazz Band — L is big on music and I’m a sucker for ambience. For our wedding, these two went hand in hand because having live music enhanced the mood of our banquet tremendously. After spending one lazy Saturday afternoon watching video clips on YouTube, we engaged Dawn Wong and Summertimes Hotshots from High Notes Music to perform at our dinner banquet. The follow-up can be improved but they are understandably busy with all the performances they are doing. What impressed me was that our rounds of changes to the band’s configuration and numerous questions were responded with good cheer by August and Martin. L told me later, and I agree, that the band performed beautifully. It was exactly as we envisioned the mood to be and we thoroughly enjoyed the music while tucking into the first two courses of the dinner, brief as it was. If I had to pick only one add-on for our wedding, it would definitely be the band.

Candy — I mentioned that I ordered personalised M&Ms for the cocktail reception so I just wanted to share how I got them. For Online orders, M&M only delivers within the U.S. so I used a freight-forwarder, vPOST (which gave me a virtual U.S. address), to deliver them to Singapore. M&M also accepts international orders but you would have to call the hotline to place your order and with the time difference, it’s a bit of a hassle, not to mention the exorbitant international calling charges you’ll incur.

The whole candy production, forwarding and delivery process would take about a month so be sure to order them early enough to get it by your big day but not too early such that it melts, especially in Singapore’s humidity. It is a little tricky but I would think a good timeline would be about a month and a half before your event. As for the quantity, I ordered the 5lb bulk bag and placed them in glasses scattered throughout the reception foyer. If you’re using it as favours you may need a bigger pack so just order accordingly.

There are other elements like stationery design and printing, videography, florals, pianist, etc. but they were all done by my extremely talented cousins and friends so I can’t be of help for these, but I do hope the vendor list above will help overwhelmed or confused brides-to-be in your planning and decision-making.

This post is already looking like a novel so I’m just going to end off with some sites which I frequented and found inspiration from:

• Singapore Brides (www.singaporebrides.com) – Has a lot of relevant information on hotel and restaurant banquet pricing; the forum also contains threads with a lot of helpful discussions.
• Wedding Chicks (www.weddingchicks.com) – Lots of pretty pictures and free stationery printables that saw me wasting spending hours playing around with text and colours. So much fun!
• Wedding Bee (www.weddingbee.com) – Blog posts on real weddings and DIY projects.
• Wedding Gawker (www.weddinggawker.com) – More pretty pictures.
• Martha Stewart Weddings (www.marthastewartweddings.com) – Enough said.
• Pinterest (www.pinterest.com) – A place you can consolidate all your wedding inspiration on. See mine here.

That’s all, folks. Enjoy the process because I sure did :)

HAPPY PLANNING!!!

Once we got to this part of the day, I was completely and utterly relaxed and even enjoying myself. We did our first march-in and started off the dinner with a toast to our family. We also managed to eat two courses before it was time to go back up to the suite to change into our second outfit. Then there was the usual cake-cutting, champagne-popping, speech and individual table photography (we did away with the rowdy ‘yam seng’ session and incorporated our toast into the speeches).

Individual menu and floral stands

Wedding favour – the Conrad wedding bear

Our wonderful emcees for the night and my sister laughing about something

The first march-in

Cake-cutting

The ballroom and us sharing a toast with our families

Dawn Wong and The Summertime Hotshots

Second march-in and dramatic champagne-popping

Always thought this was fun

Even had time to have a drink with buds

Very unbecoming of a bride but this was how I felt – happy and relieved

L’s making his speech

Happy folks

My speech and stumbling when I tried to incorporate a bit of Teochew

My folks

My youngest sis tearing up during my speech

Happy faces all around

A toast to our helpers and guests

The evening passed by really quickly and before we knew it, we were thanking and hugging our guests at the door. The jazz band was awesome, the food was great, all our guests (relatives especially) had nothing but good things to say about the event. We are truly blessed to have had such an amazingly smooth and well-paced day. It was mostly because L planned and planned to make sure everything ran without a glitch – for that, I am enormously grateful. Couldn’t have asked for a better wedding (and husband, of course).

This concludes my series of posts on the wedding recap. Thanks for sharing this journey with me. Will try to find the time to do up a vendor review for brides-to-be soon :)

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Full set of photos from our dinner banquet have been uploaded here and here.

When we were deciding on our venue, L and I discussed at length about how we wanted our reception venue to be like. One of the reasons we picked Conrad was because it had an exclusive foyer right in front of the grand ballroom so it meant we wouldn’t have to share the space with another event. We wanted our guests to be able to mingle freely without worrying about whether they were encroaching into another event’s boundaries. But that’s just our preference.

For the reception, we put together some entertainment for our guests –

1. Personalised M&Ms to snack on
2. Copious amounts of prosecco to go around (we made sure to order plenty so that it wouldn’t run out)
3. Photo booth with fun props so that guests can bring home a personalised memento
4. Classical piano pieces in the background (by another one of my remarkably talented cousins) on Conrad’s baby grand piano

I had always wanted a fancy candy bar complete with floral arrangements, apothecary jars and pearls. But… there was already a lot of activity going on at the reception and, like I mentioned, we didn’t want it to look like a circus. While I was quite bummed about having to give it up and almost swapped the photo booth for a candy bar (it was one or the other), I am certain our guests had a lot more fun at the photo booth. The personalised M&Ms made for a good pre-dinner munch too.

Fast forward to the actual day. After saying ‘I do’, I was shuffled back to the suite to rest because my eyes were all red from tearing up at the solemnization. Sammi, my Maid of Honour, dimmed the lights, drew all the curtains and commanded me to close my eyes and rest. And so I rested, and only went back down when all the guests were seated and it was time for our first march-in.

That is to say, I missed out enjoying everything that we planned for the reception (as expected). Thankfully, we have a lot of photos to remember the day by and to see what went on when we weren’t mingling with our guests. I had the most fun going through the photos of our guests at the photo booth after the dust settled the next day, crazy expressions, oversized glasses, funny signs and all. I think I was chuckling to my laptop screen the whole time.

At least I managed to get in two measly shots at the photo booth right before the first march-in – one with the Bitches and one with L. Yay to that.

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Full set of photos from our cocktail reception and photo booth have been uploaded here and here.

A couple of months before we did the civil solemnization, we exchanged our vows in a quiet and solemn nuptial mass in a little chapel with only immediate family and close church friends.

My girlfriend helped me with my hand bouquet and the floral decorations in the chapel. I designed a conservative lace wedding gown and had it made in Shanghai. I also scoured the web for an affordable veil, and did my own hair and make up on that day. The only vendor we engaged was our photographer.

It was, on the exterior, the simplest of affairs but was in fact the most important part of our wedding and held so much meaning for us and my family. It was the day we made promises with God as our witness and received His blessings for our union.

But at the beginning of creation God made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.

— Mark 10:6-9

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

— Corinthians 13:4-7

We had a small lunch buffet reception which our families enjoyed, then took a looong nap after :)

So the photoshoot with our bridal party ended at about 2 p.m., just about the time we were supposed to check in at the hotel. L’s best man contacted the hotel coordinator while we were on our way and the hotel arranged to have someone meet us at the entrance to take us to our suite. When we arrived, we were greeted by the concierge bearing congratulatory gifts (a pair of wedding bears and an exquisite bouquet of flowers).

Remember I mentioned that I had to change into my kua and then back again into the wedding gown for the shoot? Well, my zealous Maid of Honour was so good at securing the ribbons that we struggled to undo it when I wanted to change out for a shower at the suite. Even after 25 minutes, a metal pick, two persons and buckets of perspiration, we couldn’t undo the knot and ended up snipping it loose with a pair of scissors!

I hear all sorts of accounts from married couples and know about how harried the wedding day can get so I was quite pleasantly surprised to find that after we each got in a nice hot shower, there was still time to take a nap. It felt sooo good to get all that gunk off my hair and face and get some shut-eye. Completely recharged us for the second part of the celebration. I woke up feeling superbly hungry so we ordered room service. Quite amazing how in the midst of a crazy day, we got this pocket of time alone to rest and enjoy a meal together in our suite. Am extremely thankful for that.

Soon after, our helpers started streaming in, the make-up artist I hired for our mothers arrived, my make-up artist arrived, and it was time to start preening again.

There was a bit of scrambling to get the certificate and documents to the solemnization venue and start the ceremony on time, but we made it. Accompanied by L’s sis and my Maid of Honour, I shuffled down to the salon room to meet my dad. There were relatives hanging around, looking lovely in their dressy outfits and I got to meet my pretty doe-eyed flower girl for a bit.

Then it was time to make our entrance. I hooked arms with my daddy looking dashing in his well-fitted suit and waited for the doors to open. Little M entered first together with her mum and I thought it was very adorbs how she refused to hold the ring pillow and ran straight to her dad who was at the front of the aisle. He was stationed there to egg her on but it probably worked a little too well. Hehe. My runaway flower girl :)

Our solemnizer, Mrs. Chia, was amazing. She made our ceremony very emotional and beautiful but also injected just the right touch of humour to make it enjoyable.

We were encouraged to write our own vows but agreed to not show each other the vows we prepared, so hearing L recite it during the ceremony touched me to the core and overwhelmed me with emotion. My sister-in-law later told me that everyone else in the room was sniffling too :’)

We were already married in church but decided to do the civil exchange of vows for the non-Christian relatives and friends who didn’t witness the nuptial mass (more on that in the next post). It was such an emotional ceremony for me, everything just felt so right.

So there… officially a missus :)

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Full set of photos from our solemnization have been uploaded here.

After wrapping up the morning’s activities, we made our way in a convoy to the National Museum to get in some portraits with our bridal party. We paid a nominal fee to do our shoot within the air-conditioned glass passage of the building because we figured whichever way the weather went, it would be the safest option.

Like I mentioned, it was brilliantly sunny that day so we got a little hot and bothered from the few outdoor shots we took but I never appreciated the sunshine more – nothing beats natural lighting when it comes to photo-taking.

Very glad we did this because the groomsmen and bridesmaids were scattered and busy with their respective duties that evening. We would otherwise not have gotten a complete shot with them :)

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Full set of photos from our bridal party photoshoot have been uploaded here.

It has been a month and a half since the wedding and everything seems a little hazy to me now. Not that I was very aware of what was going on around me that day, but I thought I should start writing what I can remember (given we have already received the professional photos from Gabriel) before my goldfish memory takes over.

The day started quietly at 4.15 a.m. I climbed out of bed feeling like I never slept because I had been roused awake every hour by my own anxiety. We have planned so much and so long for this day that it felt a little overwhelming to be finally staring at it in the face. I said so many silent prayers, each one for an element of the day – the weather, the schedule, the ride, the food, the band, the family, the bridal party, etc. There were so many running parts that there was so much room for things to go wrong. But once I was done with my prayers, I felt a sense of calm. I knew that the only thing I could do was trust, sit back and accept everything the day would bring. Come what may, I was going to be married when the clock struck midnight. That I was pretty sure of.

After washing up, I sat down at the dining table to comfort food, my mum’s freshly steamed rice and dishes, and tried to fill my tummy for the busy morning ahead. My selfless mother had been scurrying around the kitchen since 2 a.m. to make sure I get fed the moment I’m up.

As I was eating, I received a message from my cousin Michelle, “May today be everything that you’ve dreamed of and more”. It was so sweet it almost made me cry. My make-up artist arrived as I was finishing up and we chatted for a bit. Then my mum handed him a cup of coffee and we proceeded back to my room to get started on the day’s look.

Everything happened very quickly from here. The rest of the family started getting ready, my bridesmaids turned up obligingly in their pink dresses, relatives started arriving and popped into my room to sneak peeks and take photos. Then before I knew it, my girls were telling me the boys had arrived and I could hear L’s voice at the door.

We made the decision to do away with the usual gate-crashing activities because we, quite simply, didn’t see the point. L didn’t want to make his groomsmen go through the degradation (boy, were they relieved) and I didn’t want my bridesmaids to have to plan the activities because it means more work for them. I know some couples think it’s fun but we both agreed that it wasn’t our idea of fun and wanted to keep things classy.

So back to the day. L entered my room with the loveliest pink bouquet, still looking a little sleepy, and passed me the bouquet on one knee. He helped me out of my room and we greeted everyone who came. The groomsmen were lined up on both sides of my tiny living room, it felt like a procession as we made our way out of the house, heh. Then we moved on to his place for the first part of the tea ceremony. My Maid of Honour, Sammi, stuffed me into the wedding car skilfully and off we went. If you’re wondering why I’m seated at the front, it’s because we used our own car and L drove it on his own.

We were greeted by his cute youngest cousin, bearing oranges at the gate. His relatives were spilling out of the house, pointing cameras at us from all directions. We greeted everyone and went up to his room because we were so ahead of our planned schedule we had time to chill out!

The tea ceremony was pretty much routine and we dished out red packets to the younger, single cousins after. I had fun doing that. Right after, his aunt (the ‘matchmaker’) made us do this little deed where our foreheads, noses and chins had to meet while she recited some Chinese ‘poem’ of well-wishes. It was hilarious and made everyone in the room burst into rambunctious laughter.

Then I went back up to change into my – in L’s words and he penned this in the schedule – “obiang kua” for part two of the tea ceremony.

The tea ceremony at my place was also routine and relaxed. It was filled with noise and laughter by relatives from both sides of the family. There was the usual buffet set-up so after the tea ceremony, everyone mingled and tucked into the food. The merriment continued even after we left to head back to L’s place to change back into my wedding gown.

The weather that morning was splendid. Sunny and hot, hot, hot. I was beyond relieved when the first major part of the day ended. Even though we did away with the gatecrashing and weren’t planning for an outdoor wedding, it would have been pretty inconvenient and uncomfortable to have to manoeuvre my pouffy tulle gown in wet weather, so I was truly glad it held up. In fact, I was all, “Okay, I’m very thankful already. You can rain now”, in my head. But the weather remained just as perfect for our bridal party shoot and throughout the day. So blessed.

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Full set of photos from the morning’s affairs have been uploaded here.