I'm starting to get worried about the seeds. Diane definitely sent them out, but no news so far and it's been 2 weeks! If, by the end of next week, I still don't get anything in the post, it's time for drastic measures.
Anyway, we're fretting about the music now. Weijian's keyboard is too soft, and the club won't let us plug it into their sound system. I'll see if we can get a mic or something, but there's still the issue of interference. And that silly woman at RSYC takes FOREVER to reply to emails.
On something more positive, I've finally done up the prototype for the penstand! Not that it's a big deal, since it's an extremely simple thing to do, but I just had to test it out.
And I had the chance to use my new light tent. =)
Yanxian is also almost done with her wedding vows, and once again I've got the rough thing in my head, but just need to write it down on paper.
Yes, the meet-up with Sylvia was most fruitful. I like her, just about everything we asked for, she was ok with it. It's rare to see administrators who are so decisive and spontaneous about guests' requests. Now, we just need her confirmation about things. One thing abt her though, she doesn't seem to like replying to emails. Argh. It'll be easier if we have a written record about things. Oh well, nobody's perfect.
Finally met up with Sylvia, the sales manager at RSYC yesterday, to discuss some of the finer and final details. We fixed up the outdoors seating arrangement, and she'll be sending us the indoor blueprint so we can finalise the table arrangement too. It seems like we'll be taking up most of the restaurant, oops. We'll need to decide on the bouquet throw though - she said that doing a re-entry would actually be weird. Haha .. Ying Kai!! Where did you come up with that??
Another sneak preview time!!
Yanxian and I did a DIY pre-wedding photography session yesterday, and I am pleased with the results. There were only 5-6 keepers, but these are great IMHO. By the way, I nicked the hydrangeas from my garden. =) Not too bad for a non-pro wedding photographer eh?
Still waiting for the seeds to arrive - should be here any day now. The good thing is, the vermiculite has almost finished drying. Now I'm starting to wonder if I should have spiked the vermiculite with low dose gibberallic acid - it'll do wonders for germination, but people will end up with lanky plants.
Feeling somewhat annoyed too by the slow response on the RSYC side - I've been bugging them for a meet-up so that I can finalise the decor with Peng Tze. Heck, I'll just go ahead today and settle it with Peng Tze anyway.
As an aside, we're going to have a break this weekend!! =) Really looking forward to it - thanks for the suggestion, Yanxian. We'll see if we can take the chance to do a couple of shots!
Got a few things done over the weekend! After getting the vermiculite, I thought of soaking them in something to coat the stuff with goodies so that they can behave as slow-release fertilisers. So I dumped a batch into a solution of 30-5-5 nitrogen fertiliser and a vitamin B solution, and now they are in the process of drying out. I dug out a store of seeds as well, and to my surprise I actually have quite a bit of viable seeds stashed away. Most were collected through the years, including a few memorables ones which I bought from Morrison's in Glasgow. Now I'm just waiting for the real batch of seeds to arrive from Diane's, and we'll be packing the vermiculite-and-seed mix into the bottles as gifts.
I'm just hoping that people will actually grow them. I realise not everyone likes growing plants. But hey - it beats giving stuff like keychains right?
Yay, finally got hold of the vermiculite! I don't know why, but it was extremely difficult getting hold of any. I repeatedly visited several nurseries at Thomson, Ang Mo Kio, even at Sembawang, but to no avail. Finally I just bit the bullet and went straight to a hydroponics supplier and got a gigantic bag of the stuff today.
Now I'm just waiting on my seed order to arrive. Unfortunately, Singapore has suddenly become a major crop-producing hub in SE Asia - or you would otherwise be led to believe, given the amount of NEW red tape that our dear AVA has installed to prevent people from tending plants and saving the earth. I realised that I had to pay S$120 for a phytosanitary certificate for some packets of seeds from a reputable nursery in the US (which I suppose in AVA's eyes harbours copious amounts of Fusarium wilt fungus, aflatoxin, colorado beetles, aphids and bacterial blight). Bleargh. Anyway, I ordered from a new source, which should arrive in a week or so (fingers crossed).
Oh yeah - we've decided that other than our Bali photos, we might venture into doing a little photography ourselves. What we're doing now is scouting around for venues etc and doing some test shots, then we'll rent some equipment and do a shoot - should be fun! It might not be in time for our ROM, but it'll be fun nonetheless. So last weekend, other than my mushroom thingy, we headed down to Kent Ridge Park and took a few test shots.
It's nowhere as professional as the pros, but hey, it's all about the fun! This session was kind of impromptu though, so we didn't go prepared with insect spray and quickly became mosquito fodder.
Ah hah, I've got quite a few updates here. We had our engagement party last Friday at Attica, which was really quite fun - if only I wasn't in a state of near-fainting from the stummy ache!!
Anyway, on Saturday Yanxian and I went on yet another romp at Pearl Centre. The place is an absolute gem for what we set out to do. Just months ago, Yanxian's favourite haunt for Swarovski crystal beads and beading supplies were Arab Street and Beads@Work respectively. Now, we found out that Pearl Centre has at least 4 very well-stocked shops selling these crystal beads at (if you'll believe it) even better prices than Arab Street. We went home with more of these hot-fix rhinestones by Swarovski at bulk prices.
Better yet (for me, the poor fiance-turned-tailor) I managed to lay my paws on this inexpensive rhinetone applicator.
The freaking applicator sped me up by more than 10x, and swiftly paid for itself simply for the convenience of it. As a result, I completed Yanxian's dress that evening! Hahahaha. Feeling very proud of myself. I'm not really sure what Yanxian was doing at that time though ... some belt or hair thing I think.
I also managed to buy the pen stand on Sunday at Bras Besah. That'll still need a little working on.
And finally, we have met with the 2 shortlisted florists, and decided to go with Peng Tze. He's actually this ice sculptor who also manages an events-decor company, and a real easy-going chap who's good to work with. I like the fact that he's not pushy about getting us to get more flowers or whatever - more of the contrary actually. He was giving suggestions like we don't need certain centrepieces (which the other florist was charging at $80), and even gave tips on the chair arrangement. The downside to it however, is that his style is really quite classic. I don't mean in the cheena sense, but just classic. Like what you'd expect at a company dinner, not at a DKNY runway show or something - i.e. staples, rather than chic. That's perfectly fine with me, however, since we weren't budgeting for extravagant decor anyway. The only problem came for Yanxian's hand bouquet - I'm sure Peng Tze would have provided a lovely bouquet, but I was really looking for something a little different and a little more fun for that one. I guess I'll somehow come up with doing it myself.
Update time! (I'm shuttling between 2 blogs, so pardon me if I get confused sometimes.)
We went back to Chinatown yesterday to pick up several things - Yanxian's waist ribbon, more ribbon for our informal photoshoot (photographer being yours truly), beads and some hot-fix crystals for the dress. I actually suspect that Yanxian is using the wedding adornments as an excuse to buy more beads. Hah.
We decided to adorn Yanxian's dress on our own! Got our hands on some inexpensive Swarovski crystals which we'll be placing on the dress. I went onto Youtube to find out how exactly to do it, since the auntie at the beads shop sounded really iffy about how to go about doing it. So this morning I did a prototype - first on a scrap of tulle material, which worked really well. So I did 2 more on the dress itself, and oooh, it's actually quite nice. Shall post before- and after- pics soon.
Oh, and we picked up a tux for the naughty boy. He looked so totally endearing in it! Shame that he can't come though, he would have made such a cute ring-bearer. =)
OH YES. WE RECEIVED OUR PHOTOSHOOT ALBUMS!! Our thanks once again goes to Mario, Thea, Lennie and everyone at Aditi Niranjan for doing such a fantastic job. I keep hearing how my friends hated the pre-wedding shoot sessions, but these people really made it quite an enjoyable affair. Previews, anyone?
These are the raw photos - unedited shots, and they sent a total of 2 albums totaling 80 edited shots, 1 large canvas print, and a 30 minute behind-the-scenes video which was really awesome. Not that the videography was fantastic or anything, but it captured a lot of funny stuff that went on, such as the 2 failed attempts before we got that shot above (I appeared to be eating boobs at one point in time ...) and of the horse going wild at the beach. Mario also knew I'm kinda into photography, so he very nicely obliged and sent me 2 DVDs containing all the original shots (some 600 of them, I believe) in TIFF format so I can edit and print as I want to - which is very professional and kind of him, as most of the local photographers I know only return you a selection of shots.
Finally, the invites are completed! Many thanks to HY's mum, Wei, Xuan and last but not least, HY! Everybody chipped in, and they couldn't have been done so nicely and so quickly if not for everyone's efforts. Haha, I finally realised yesterday, what a klutz HY is at handicraft. Can't even cut in a straight line even though I already printed out the line for him to follow! Wow. Hey, but he made up for it with his lovely handwriting, which is exactly what I lack.
Met up with our photographer, Chris Lim from Coffeestains photography, tonight over some Tully's coffee at West Coast Plaza. We looked through some of his works (which was partly unnecessary, given that we've more or less sieved through about a dozen photographers' works) and filled him in on the program. His style is just what we like - I suppose you could call it photojournalistic portraiture, but personally I dislike the word "photojournalism" and what many of these photographers claim to be doing. In addition, photojournalism seems to be the hip thing nowadays, much to the chargrin of certain groups of photographers. True, they tend to capture candid shots, but candid does not necessarily translate to flattering.
The total cost seemed a little alarming, but once you break it down I suppose it's actually quite reasonable. (Heck, tuition costs $60 an hour nowadays, and all they do is to sit there and talk!) We decided to do away with getting him to do an album for us, which would cost an additional $400 (!!). Instead, I'll probably do the touching up myself and if we ever decide to, I know just the place to get books printed. It's exactly where all the wedding photographers go to print their stuff anyway.
He's an interesting guy alright - as Yanxian puts it, a bit of the artistic sort. A little eccentric, a little autistic, and just not the normal sort of people we hang out with. I'll just have to email him tomorrow to let him know we would like to have him for 4 hours, and without the photo book. He'll go scouting at the venue himself beforehand, and I was favourably impressed that he bothered to turn up a little earlier tonight than he was supposed to.
Went to visit some of the girly forums (i.e. Cozycot) and came across some people who did wedding blogs too! But oooh ... theirs are much nicer, lol.
Anyway, we'll be meeting our photographer tonight just to discuss the details. I'm thinking of getting a relative to do the video, it'll be amateurish but heck. Or maybe I'll shop around again on ClubSnap.
We're bursting the invites list!! OMG. It was planned for 50, and currently the list stands at 62.
I'm finding things a little more manageable as the day draws closer - thankfully, most of the nasty things have already been done!
I had to go in to work this morning, but right after that we met up with my parents at Chinatown for a lovely lunch of frog's porridge, and went basket-shopping. We were fretting over the bridesmaids' floral baskets, and finally settled on 3 lovely-looking ones. We passed by a makeshift stall selling some seashells too, and I was really, really tempted to get tonnes of them. But alas! (and thankfully!) I didn't have any cash on me. We later got down to buying some lace for Yanxian's ROM dress, and also went to Ocean to get a load of erm ... facial products for me. Remember I bought the men's range from L'oreal? It certainly worked, so I got more today! Cheap and good. And pampered myself with some Kerastase hair products.
We rounded up the evening by finishing the invites (yay!) together with Xuan and Wei, and Yanxian did something extremely nasty to me. Yes, they decided my eyebrows were too unruly for me to be wed, so they did a trial eyebrow-shaping for me. OUCH.
Well, there's been a lull in updates for the last week, so I thought I'd better do something about it.
OK, I've been less-than-hardworking at updating this site. We managed to finish up doing the entire batch of bombonieres, so now all I'm left with for them is to get the vermiculite and seeds. Oooooh fun!!
Made a prototype of the invites tonight. It looked quite nice, but still lacks a woman's touch (hint hint) - it looks quite coarse.
Ah, something interesting. We went down for some bridal fair at Suntec last Saturday, together with Min Er and her beau. It was a useful experience. Firstly, those people are VULTURES. I absolutely detest them, if only for the fact that they are pushy, and untruthful. Like Bliss Bridal, these guys seriously dissed me. The effeminate man was going on and on and on, and pretended to give us extras on top of what the package offers. I glanced to the table next to us, and behold! They too received these apparent "extras"!
Also - maybe it's just me - but the photography services there were seriously not worth the money at all. They look like they were taken by an amateur with a DSLR and a rented studio.
To top it all, the gowns there were absolutely hideous. Why would anyone want to wear a dress that looks like it came out of "The Creepy Ballerina of Xmas Eve"? Anyway, I said it was a useful experience, as it at last convinced us that we don't need no package. We may (or may not) end up spending more dough, but I think a la carte is the way to go. BTW, Min Er signed up for a Taiwan photoshoot - I'm happy for her!
Made some progress today with the bombonieres, or what is more commonly known locally as favours. Although not common in solemnization ceremonies, we thought it would be sweet to give people a gift to thank them for the attendance. Not that we're spending a bomb on them - on the contrary, but I think our wedding is gearing towards as little wastage as possible. How many times have you brought one of those silly salt-and-pepper shakers home and dumped them in a corner (or in the bin)? And I still have a fruitcake-in-a-box rotting away after several months (I think. Could easily have been a year.)
We're making invites that can be re-used as bookmarks, and bombonieres that are fun - a spruced up bottle of seeds! Initially we wanted to use love-in-a-puff, but I only have 300 seeds which amounts to 6 per person - it'll only look silly - and it's a pretty uncommon plant so buying them will cost a bomb. Yanxian got hold of a hundred of these nice glass bottles, and she and my mom spent the evening tying pretty blue bows on them. I'm in charge of doing the seed mix, which will be mixed with vermiculite. Apart from looking pretty, the vermiculite will be soaked first in a concoction of vitamins etc so they can act as slow-release fertilisers. Right now I'm thinking of a whole list of stuff to mix, including balsam, love-in-a-puff, cosmos, zinnia, marigold, sunflower and a few surprises. Will be fun for people to grow them and see what comes up!
I just realised that this blog does not state the author who writes the entries. Ouch. An oversight on my part, it shall be fixed.
Spent yesterday at Ngee Ann City doing several things:
1) Collecting my suit
It finally fits!
We passed by G2K Black Label (essentially the same thing except apparently better materials) and saw some very, very nice cufflinks, and suits going at a steal - $130! Didn't have the luxury of time to browse though, so I'm not sure if they are just left with the odd sizes. Still .. the workmanship is quite decent, surprisingly.
2) Invites
Finally got hold of the materials for the invites, and we spent most of our time choosing and matching the things. Bear in mind though, that these are just the raw materials - making them into something usable is another thing altogether.
3) Shoes
Yanxian finally found some very nice shoes, at a very nice price! Yes, despite the common perception (I'm not even going to say "misperception") that Taka's shoes are expensive. There was a range though, that used real Swarovski crystals on the shoes - now THAT's expensive. Pics to come soon - I didn't manage to do them justice.
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