She says: When We Dance..

I have posted almost all the items featured during our banquet in the previous post. We have a Breakfast at Tiffany’s theme video montage, Special Pre-Wed montage, Wedding Highlight and touching MoH speech.

I mentioned in the previous blog that our wedding highlight is the second highest compliment received on the banquet. Somebody asked me what’s the highest?

This is the highest compliment received on that night..

Our First Dance.

I blogged about the process here.

Bride-to-be and Groom-to-be, please consider this item. It is not as hard as you think. You might think you don’t have any ounce of dancing muscle, but believe me, it’s worth the try. We learned our routine for 3 months (10 classes and 2 extra private lessons) and we are quite confident with it. The gown was quite challenging, as it was long and a bit heavy. But once you hit the floor, you will just flow. I was very nervous, but once we start, the world just turn into silence and it was just us two.

Everybody was raving about it. Most of them said, it reminds them of the dancing scene in Beauty and the Beast, especially the yellow gown. Honestly, it wasn’t intentional at all! I am not that cheesy and mean (imagine what Winston would feel as being compared with the Beast!).

Turns out, we did the right choice by doing the first dance.

You can go to Arca Dance (where we learned our step) or other dancing school.

She says: Behind the Scene

I realize, I put a lot of nice, beautiful pictures of my wedding, but not the unsightly pictures (wth??!). So when all the pictures finally arrived, I decided to share some of the not-so-glams, but it’s still memorable.

By the way, no decoration involved….

The Haggling Session begins..

It was a guaranteed fun session with the cheeky and creative bridesmaids and jie meis.

Heart Breaking Moments Caught on Camera

My mom couldn't hold her tears anymore when I whispered, "This song is for you" while Serene sang "Mother How Are You Today". It was her favorite song. Priceless.

My mother is not the emo type. She is one of the most independent women I’ve met in my life. She detests crying in public, so she always avoid sensitive topics. But this moment caught her off-guard.

Thank you, Wansheng for your good instinct. That’s why we hired him.

We had our little "sister-conflict" and was resolved as soon as usual.

Drama!! Where's the ribbon???Just use this one!

No wedding is perfect without the drama behind it.

FUNNY – CANDID – MOMENTS

2 Generations of Lie Sunaryo

this is a good contrast...

Wow.. so many good pictures! I will slowly post by their category..

She says: INSPIRED ME sections

I just finished my first post on the “INSPIRED ME” section of our Diary & Design Wedding’s blog. Since we have officially launched our wedding design + planning services, we wanted to share our tips and inspiration in that blog. We will still keep this lovely blog, but will be mostly on my reflection or thoughts regarding wedding. So if you are waiting for my DIY tips and tutorial, I will post it on D&D blog. We aim to keep our D&D blog alive and to help BTB and HTB in professional and insightful manner. Anyway, enough of the hard sell! (Geez.. I guess I really can’t make it as a sales person.)

This blog has been a documentary of our wedding planning and we will keep it alive with our client’s stories. Don’t worry, we still love, laugh and kiss!

Enjoy this new segment : INSPIRED ME and many other categories to come (P.S.: the first post is one of my fave part of wedding planning!)

She says: Meet The Stylist ~ She does Wonders!

Ever wonder why the spreads in Martha Stewart Weddings magazine are so pretty? Even the image for corner articles look gorgeous! The lighting, the choice of items, the models, the background color, the layout, the item placement. All the elements come together to tell a story with high aesthetic style.

The answer lies on this individual : the Stylist.

I drool over fashion spread and decoration spread on Martha Stewart Weddings every season. Hence I am very inspired to read Holly’s (from decor8blog.com) interview with Shana Faust, freelance stylist and ex-Martha Stewart Weddings deputy style editor.  I love her works and am so inspired to know how she started and how she worked each photoshoot.

Since I decided to take a plunge into this industry, her story become more relevant to my passion. Being an awesome stylist like her is my long time goal. Every wedding that I style, will be aiming at magazine’s photoshoot quality. Not just any magazine, but Martha-Stewart-Weddings-kind-of-magazine. Toast to that!

Here is the excerpt of her interview at Decor8 :

Holly: And can you please tell us about the brainstorming and collaborating bit… More, more, more!

Shana: Styling is so much more than arranging everything you see in a aesthetically pleasing way. It’s more like communicating a story using things like color, lighting, texture, people, places and objects. I like to think of it like a movie, when you break it down into frames, each shot communicates something to the viewer, and an atmosphere and mood is created over the course. It requires a lot of imagination and hard work. The process for me as the stylist almost always starts with research — seeing what else has been done and thinking about new ways to present material. After that I’d start making some inspiration boards to help give the shoot some early direction. These boards often hold pantone chips, fabric swatches, swipe, and sketches. Next comes creating a “story board”. Loose sketches of what I imagine each shot to look like… what it contains, its palate, etc. etc.

Check out the full interview in Holly’s popular design blog. Don’t forget to check out Shana’s website too! You might need some inspiration for your wedding!

She says: What does a Beautiful Wedding Means to You?

Being so excited for the past 1.5 years for our own wedding and finally doing it according to what we have envisioned, getting over it and moving on to create somebody else’s dream, makes me wonder: What does a Beautiful Wedding Means to Us [Winston's Edit: This is so Carrie Bradshaw]?

We can be super excited when we see a great inspiration board on Snippet and Ink or Style Me Pretty or over a luscious pearl hand-tied bouquet pictures, thinking, “That’s my bouquet!”

Planning and looking for references are the best part of the wedding. It’s all good while it last and before the obstacle come and crushed our dream. Yet it is the dream of a beautiful wedding that keeps us going. For me, the excitement of having a beautiful wedding last a longer time than I expected, since I am still excited when I see a great wedding theme. After all, we want our wedding to be beautiful, one-of-a-kind and very “me”. Who doesn’t?

But I realized, after the great show ended, it’s the moments of the event that lingers in your heart and sometimes still bring tears to our eyes. Not your gorgeous centerpieces or the vintage-ish chandelier. It’s the moment when you exchanged the vows and you struggled to hold your tears to finish your vow, or your first dance as a couple. Those moments are precious.

So why am I putting so much effort on the details and decoration for my own wedding and now even become a wedding decorator?

Because your wedding speaks of your personality and style. It is the extension of your taste and it shows how passionate you are in something so special in your life. I’m pretty sure I only will get  married once. So I better put my best effort to make it the best, or at least in my own eyes.

There was one comment from my dear friend that made my heart ached. She got married a few years ago and she was showing me her actual day pictures. She said, she wanted a nice-color-synchronized balloons for aisle decoration, and when she first entered the aisle, her heart sank. The church room looks like a children party with mixed color balloons. That’s her first impression of her wedding ceremony. From what I know, she’s not even a design-conscious type. Yet that thought bothers her till now. She had asked her friends to help decorate the room but the friends are not professional and they didn’t ask what kind of balloons she wanted.

I swore that day, I wouldn’t have any regret of my wedding day. Although I need to make compromises here and there because of the budget, but I make sure it’s something that I can tolerate. Beautiful decoration and detailed design lay the foundation of a great wedding. When you enter that room or the aisle, your stage or altar decoration better be stunning!

I truly believe in holistic design in wedding and professional coordination for wedding and every girl deserves these. Not because I am offering that service, but because I was once a bride too. because of that belief, I dare to commit myself for this cause. For me beautiful wedding means one that you truly love, and you can say without a shadow of a doubt, ” I LOVE MY WEDDING!”

Talking about memorable moments, Katryn’s wedding is the true example of a beautiful wedding coupled with tear-jerker moments. The decoration is perfect, the moments are perfect, the weather is perfect.

What does a beautiful wedding means to you?

She says: Destination Wedding is Awesome!

I just came back from my best friend’s (Katryn and Arie) wedding. In my humble opinion, their wedding is the one of the most well-thought and detailed wedding I’ve ever seen. The bride is one of the OCD species, which translate to compulsively detailed and orderly. She is the most well-planned bride I have ever encountered. Making the job of her decorator and wedding organizer supposedly easier, but  turns out to be more pressurizing. Her demand for perfection is high, and the vendors need to at least meet her expectation. Since it is held in Surabaya, East Java, 670 kilometres from Jakarta, we have to turn to the local vendors for logistic and decoration. It was a tough decision but with the right direction and references, the vendors managed to do a great job.

Katryn is one of the founder of Pemberley Paperie, together with me and Ricadonna. Hence, her paper products are done by Pemberley in extremely crafty manner. Including the place card, menu card, thank you gift, additional favors, fantastic program book and signages. Katryn is the mastermind of the whole design.Three of us have different taste, Rica is modern and graphical, mine being whimsical and fun and Katryn is classic and a traditionalist, which is depicted well in her wedding.

Hotel Majapahit was chosen as the venue because of the authenticity and historic value. This hotel was build on 1910 and has survived the first World War to second World War. It was built during the Dutch occupancy as Oranje Hotel and was well-preserved by the various owners, including Mandarin Oriental. This hotel held many historic moments in Indonesia’s journey for independence.

They found this hotel from the magazine and fell in love with the big raintree in the middle of the garden. However, tragedy befell on this majestic tree in one fateful storm. It fell and crushed the fountain beside it. They wanted to get married under that tree.

That didn’t stop them from getting married in this gorgeous hotel. With the help of our decorator and strict direction from Katryn, we managed to pull out the backdrop setting that was just perfect for the holy matrimony. With hanging lights and old vintage chandelier among the cluster of leaves, the altar looks rustic yet bore the vintage mark with the wooden table in the middle. Kudos to Veronica and the team from Surabaya!

If you can spot the grand piano beside the altar, you know you are in for a romantic treat. Maria, one of the bridesmaids, is a talented pianist who doubled up as the serenader for the ceremony. One thing I must comment is the flexibility and the can-do attitude from the hotel, which really helped us to achieve our dream wedding.

The bridesmaids wore apple green long dress and carry flowers in rattan umbrella. Very Classy.

I won’t give out most of the pictures in this post. The day photographer will provide much better pictures of the detail in the decor. As he did to my wedding, Andrian from Ian Photography will do justice to this ultra-chic wedding. He is like our family photographer.

The fantastic garden. You can only see the ceremony site from this angle. Wait till you see the rest of the section. Prepare to sigh… in the next post.

Winston posed with my flowers in the presidential suite.

She says: Best of Outdoor Wedding

We had 2 photographers for our actual day, Feldberyl and Ian Photography. It was meant for different purposes based according to their strength. Both have strong aesthetic values and softer feel that I like, yet they churned out different style of pictures.I love the spontaneity that Wansheng (Feldberyl) captured, he basically recorded the mood of the moments as it is. He has eye for great unnoticed moments. But Ian from Ian Photography shot most of my money shots. Thanks to his advertising background, he naturally captured each picture with commercial added value.You can see his work for Pemberley here

Now, this is the last outdoor pictures of my wedding. After this, we will move on to new and exciting topics with Diary & Design Wedding. This wedding is one of the projects of Diary & Design under the category of Full Planning (Chapter THREE) or if you are interested just for the design look and coordination, look for Chapter ONE.

Enjoy!

If you interested in renting the typewwriter or the LOVE plates, go to the SALE AND RENTAL page!

We danced the night away and ended with row of sparkles. Best night ever….

She says: Honeymoon Route

We were so excited for our honeymoon in Europe on September, until we received news that our tour is canceled! Although they will give us a full refund, I am still upset that we couldn’t go to the designated places we have planned! That’s the downside of choosing a tour for honeymoon, instead of free and easy. Initially we were lazy to plan our own itinerary, but looks like we are forced to do  it. Suddenly we have unlimited options of places to go. I always love the idea of honeymoon in old cities in Europe, bed and breakfast in Edinburgh, lavender field in Provence, Mont St-Michel in Normandy. So I guess we’ll stick to Europe.

I love this dreamy picture of Luxembourg, feels like the scene from 18th century. via Axioo

Depending on your personality and preference, here are different destination for honeymooners (pictures by Axioo)

Urban Couple can visit New York, Paris, London, Tokyo.

This was shot in New York by Axioo, and the guy in the picture is my ex-housemates’ brother.

The beachy couple often choose Maldives, Bali, Hawaii. One more place to consider is Raja Ampat, Irian Jaya in Indonesia. Voted as the best diving site in the world, these islands secretly owned the most preserved coral reef in the world. Although this place is located in Indonesia, most of the visitor are foreigners.

I would love to visit urban city and historical places like in Barcelona, where Gaudi build his Gothic masterpiece…

Or kissing in Versailles…

Or clowning around under cherry blossom in Japan.

No matter where we go for honeymoon, as long as we are together, it’s enough…

She says: The Finishing Touch

Finally, the final sets of AD pictures have arrived at our doors. Ian Photography always put aesthetic value above others and his pictures are always beautiful and beautifying. I love it. Simply love his depth of field and graphical composition.

Here are the pictures! Once again, Andrian, you amazed me!

You can see all the pics here.