She says: Outdoor Invitation Design (finally)

As I have posted in a previous post, I run a small wedding and event invitation business with my girlfriends, called Pemberley Paperie. Ironically, I am too busy doing other people’s invitation that I almost neglected my own invitation! It is very hard for me to narrow down to a certain style of design, so I created 2 distinctive designs for holy matrimony and wedding banquet. One is cheerful and fun while the other is classy and understated chic.

Currently both is ongoing production and both will be letterpressed! I am so excited about it.

Let me share with you a sneak peek of my invitation and the maps.. I love cute maps!

It is inspired by the pinwheel rosettes decoration that I made. Currently I am planning to make 50-100 rosettes to be hang on the white tiffany chairs. I’ll talk about it next time. Here is the samples of the rosette:

Here is the map of OMSQ. I did all the drawings and the cute buildings. It looks a bit complicated.. i tried my best to simplify it!

Our lovely envelopes are almost ready!

She says: Reception Decor Challenge

I am having a centerpiece meltdown. When we decided to book Conrad Hotel, we didn’t look into the importance of table setting, decoration and lighting. Table setting didn’t concern us as much as the service attitude, food taste, and ambience. But nearer to the date, I face a big challenge to  decorate the table setting according to my theme. I’m still learning about table setting, so it’s trial and error until I get the right feel.

There is a perfect solution for my dilemma. Hire a good wedding planner to do a venue decoration, but it cost us minimal 10.000 SGD. Currently, we are in no position to spend that much, since our budget is pretty much fixed. Maybe if we have considered this option earlier, we can adjust our priorities, but now is too late.

So the solution is me and my creative brain.

Here are some of Conrad’s table setting:

How to transform to a White-Black-Tiffany-theme? The answers are research and trial, and keep trying! I am so fortunate my coordinator understands the challenge I am facing, Catheryn is very patient and helpful with me. She know my case is different. I neither use their standard theme nor I hire a professional decorator. Pweehhhh…..I am up to the challenge!

She says: Introducing Pemberley Paperie

As some of you already knew, my bestfriends and I started a bespoke paperie-wedding stationery company named Pemberley Paperie, a year ago. The response was good and we are planning to go full force this year. We just had our first photo shoot with our portfolio.

This year we are launching our letterpress series, starting with two of our members’ wedding, Katryn and I.

Please feel free to drop us an email if you are interested. We are more than happy to create a gorgeous enticing invitation with friendly price!

Courtesy of Ian Photography and Summer Home, Jakarta

He says: Wedding Favors Galore!!

Wedding favors are a little appreciation from the couple for the guest’s attendance of their wedding, in the form of inexpensive gifts. For every hotel and restaurant where the banquet is held, there is always some form of favors that the couple can have. However the default wedding favors do not deviate too much from chocolates, fruit cakes, etc.  For Conrad, one of their signature favors is their ‘Conrad Bear’.

Well… apologies but we are not going to give the Conrad Bear as our wedding favor, in case you are looking for it. As per what we feel about everything, our wedding favor is not going to be conventional as well. Instead, Hellen being so involved in her wedding research, found the premium wedding favor vendor: Wedding Star! There is an equivalent vendor in Singapore who carries their goods. The next few pics will show some of the more interesting wedding favors. BUT none of them is what we have chosen. We will leave the exact wedding favor we have chosen as a secret. Rest assured that it is practical (I’m amazed by its practicality actually!). 4 more months to my wedding!    

(Clockwise to Center from Top Left Corner) Wooden Blackboard, Wedding Car Minicandle, Lovebird Salt and Pepper Shaker, “Love in the Air” Air Glider, Bendable Comical Bride and Groom Magnets, Pink Mini Grater, Mini Treasure Chest, Mini Classic Gumball Dispenser, Mini Travel Trolley

 Countdown to Wedding Day (19-06-10): 124 days

She says: OMSQ – Hidden Treasure

Our outdoor venue is really a hidden treasure in the heart of the city. I really like our venue, not only the place itself but also the location. My office is in Dhoby Ghaut and sometimes I will visit OMSQ during lunch time to visualize, measure the space and to familiarize myself with the place.

I am inspired by Jung Lee, the founder of Fête New York, one of the hottest wedding planner in New York. In her book, she disclosed her habit of spending time in the venue for a few hours to observe and visualize it. I think that’s a great trade secret.

In our church, our pastor taught us the power of visualizing. You must see it in your imagination before it comes to past. If you can see it, you can have it. I need this practice to put my creative mind to work. I am no wedding planner, this is the first time I am doing it, so I need a lot of preparation. I often hear my friends complained about their wedding after it happened. While I do know, there will be a lot of things beyond my control on the actual day, I can rest assured I have done my best and have no regret.. what if I have done this or that.. Winston can testify that I often laments, ” I’ve should done this.. if only…” So on my big day, I’ll do my best not to say that….

Today, I went there again. This time to measure the traveling time from MRT and to determine where to put the wedding sign. So these are the proposed location:

(Winston’s note: However we are contemplating whether to minimize the traveling of the guests by foot… well, I am thinking about it)

She says: Wedding Planner, do I need one?

Wedding Planner is often viewed as an extra cost in wedding budget. For some people, wedding planner is a life saver, for some it is an unnecessary spending  on top of the enormous money spent.

For me, I don’t need a wedding planner. I want to be one.

Sounds scary!! Honestly the reason why I don’t engage wedding planner is that my wedding is too precious to be planned by somebody else. Also I have so much fun while planning it, I don’t want to give it up to other people! *bridezilla.. GRoarrr!!!!

Bear with me, let me indulge myself in the “I” zone :

For people who knows me, I am super energetic when I’m into something, I can research about anything I want to know. Google is my partner in crime! I want to do everything! Ideas flows like waterfalls. When I am excited about certain things, I will be like an energizer bunny on steroid!! I know what I want, how I want it, when I want it.

I am a sanguine dominant. According to Personality Plus: This is the social-type. They enjoy fun, socialising, chatting, telling stories. (To learn more about Four Temperament, here is the link)

Thank God for my other side, which is a phlegmatic. I am a non-threating person, who love peace. So I have the tendency to avoid conflict. So in some case, I can’t say, ” your ideas sucks!” or “your work is not what I paid for!” So I will try to maneuver the rejection to something else, without directly offending the person. In the end, maybe I am gonna bite my vendors or push them. Still tame..

So given these characteristic of mine, I pity the wedding planner whom I will engage.My ideas are too overwhelming. My wedding file is gonna burst with magazine cut-outs or notes. As a designer, it is so natural to be drawn to a beautiful visual and to averse any bad design. Having a typically cluttered album photo hurt my design eyes, etc. I guess I am too meticulous in this area. For fashion, I am easy-peasy, very easily pleased. I am not a fashion bride, as long as it matches my theme I am happy.

End of  “I” zone. (can you count how many ” I..” in there)

Another consideration is we know who we are as a couple, and what we want. So does every couple in the world right?

Wrong!

Most of the times couples don’t know what they want, or they don’t have time to figure what they want. I have the advantage of being trained in the creative industry. But what if you don’t? You know nothing about wedding and flowers, etc..

I do complain when I attended a bare-basic wedding, eat-smile-clap-where’s the last meal!- go home. But I think I can’t assume everybody is into their own wedding as much as I do. I hope they do.. but if they don’t…

That’s when they need a wedding planner. To help couples discover what they want and how to turn into reality.

I got so excited when I saw the advertisement for a Wedding Planner course. I think my adrenaline rush prompt me to sign on. I am constantly looking for opportunity to discover my true passion, so wedding planning could be the answer to channel my new-found passion.

So I have not fully decided on my next step, but I will do what I can, and let God do the rest..

Disclaimer: this is the most lengthy post I did without any picture on it. So bear with me!

He says: Treasure Trove from Blue-Bay

Finally!.. (in actual fact, we did not wait toooo long)… We have our albums from Blue-Bay! It was courier-ed to us a couple of days ago, and we were excited to see the final product!!

So without further delays, here’s what we got!!

We got these stuffs and more!!

We got a guest book scroll of one of our photos (for guests to leave their congrats in), a framed copy of our chosen photo, a DVD of our photo’s softcopy, 2 small photo album of our chosen photos, our pre-wedding photo album and a suit-case carrier for our album. But if you notice the centre picture, there are 2 suitcases! Why??? (Eh… I am going to answer my own question… ) We have an extra behind-the-scenes album!!!

This behind-the-scene album contains pictures that was taken outside our normal pre-wed photos, that showed what happened behind the scene in our shoot. Our shoot was plagued by rain and mud, and in this album you can see how we struggle through the rain, with great help from the Taiwan team, as well as how some of the ‘effects’ like flowing gown was made. Here’s a sneak peek!

Behind-the-Scene!!!

Notice the mud on our legs in the right pic? Well, we will keep the rest secret for now, our guests will see them during our banquet!

All in all, I guess it was money well-spent with Blue-Bay. We were excited seeing the final product and they did make things happen. Not only did we get the photos we wanted, we received the memory of the experience in Taiwan too. So thumbs-up for Blue-Bay and we highly recommend them to any couple seeking an unique photo-taking experience in Taiwan.

We like what we got!

Countdown to Wedding Day (19-06-10): 133 days

She says: Pre-Wedding Pictures by Ian Photography

Some of you might remember Andrian, the photographer from our previous posts. He was an award-winning art director in one of the multinational ads agency. He is young, talented, and tired of the demanding nature of advertising industry. So when I asked him to take my pre-wedding pictures, he took it by heart and run with it.

He created a detailed shoot board for us, with the same treatment of a commercial shoot. I posted it here and fate took its course. A like-minded couple saw our blog and engaged Andrian for their pre-wedding shoot. With much confidence, Andrian decided to drop his stressful-high-paid job and go fulltime as a wedding photographer. I heard a similar case from Wansheng (aka Feldberyl ), but Andrian is a young and ambitious risk-taker. He didn’t wait for long before securing more jobs and collecting gorgeous portfolios.

I trusted him, knowing he has similar taste with me and my fondness for Max Wanger’s style. He really has the eyes and gesture as professional photographer. Who knew he just did this for few months!

I am proud to present you our second pre-wedding shoot by Ian Photography.

Love the color and the angles!

Please go to his website to view his other gorgeous works!