we . love . laugh . kiss

She Says: We are Still Around Because Love is All Around

Winston Hellen — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:31:39 +0000

Finally! After non-stop wedding weekends for 2 months consecutively, we have reached the end of our high peak wedding season.

It was a roller-coaster ride which is full of ups and downs, especially during this rainy season! I will one day write about having to manage your expectation when weather and acts of God is involved in your wedding. We had our painful share of the wettest scenario during a full outdoor wedding and trust me, it wasn’t easy to swallow the reality that you can’t have your dream outdoor wedding. In fact it can haunt you back if you don’t prepare to let go in the first place.

Many lessons and experiences we gained during this peak season, some amazingly fond memories and some was so traumatizing that it shook our passion of wedding planning and design to our core. Our patience and passion was being tested again and again. Despite all these, we are still standing here and marching forward. These are most valuable lessons that will be a strong foundation going forward. I may one day share with you about it.

One of the florists who has years of experience, told me that when the couple is nice, the flower will turn out to be better and looks nicer. Knowing that flower shipment is unstable, sometimes the flower blooms beautifuly and sometimes it looks dull, I took it with a pinch of salt. But after doing so many weddings, I couldn’t denied the facts that it was rather true! I wouldn’t say much about the characters, but rather the attitude towards marriage and to each other. Wedding shouldn’t be bigger than the act of marriage. Sometimes we can be too consumed with the wedding, the decor, the DIY stuff that we forget the reason we are having this wedding!

I can unapologetically say, that in my opinion, the best part of the wedding is the picture perfect, gorgeous decoration setup, before any guest steps in and anything starts. The perfect looking color coordinated dessert bar, tall glittery centerpiece, fun and creative props for photo booth. But that’s because I am very passionate about decoration and design. Wedding should mean much more than that!

At the end of the day, it’s not really that flower decoration that you remember, but the memorable moments in the wedding, the faces you see, the romantic moments with your chosen one.

The wedding will be perfectly wrapped in Love. As the Good Book said, Love Covers All.

To sum it up, LOVE should be the main focus of a wedding. And don’t forget to let go and let God.. especially if you are doing an outdoor wedding in October- December. You will need a lot of that…

She says: Uber Chic Wedding @ Yacht

Winston Hellen — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 19:13:46 +0000

Some of you might know that I am closely linked to Ian Photography. This creative and fast growing company grew together with this blog as we were his first client back then. Of course it doesn’t hurt that Ian was one of my disciples in church and Irene is my sister. I took credit for matchmaking them at the earlier stage. Now the link is further deepened with their marriage! Check out the pics here at Diary & Design Wedding’s gallery

I am really proud of this uber creative couple. Seeing them grow and blossomed as a couple and as business partners is a privilege. Nothing short of drama, sometimes thrilling, inspiring yet challenging. Mixing love and business can be a real pain in the marriage. Theirs wasn’t immune to it either. However, thank God that despite all the drama, they decided to put business and differences aside. Love conquers all.

Always a fan of their works, I knew their wedding will be picture perfect! Shoot by their second line, Bunny&Co, their wedding is ultra chic. Salute to the couple who always dares to be themselves and not confined by tradition & pressures. Love every bits of the details, starting from their wedding e-invite.

Irene & Ian came up with the theme Sail Away, with white & Navy blue as the main color. The decor & design is super chic! The wedding favor is sailor hat for female and bow tie for male. All the guests followed the color theme closely. The result was picture perfect wedding!

Winston & I, Dad, Mom, Ian, Irene, Imelda, Trisia & Bro Will

She says: Rekindle my Fire

Winston Hellen — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 10:22:56 +0000

With all these weddings coming up in October, November and December, sometimes I feel numb and a lack of excitement. Too much of a good stuff can backfire on you. It’s hard to keep the fire and passion going, and it might fall into the dangerous area of dead routine. I detest doing something without passion and inspiration. I almost forget how anxious I was preparing my own wedding, how delightful it was to find an amazing deal online for my wedding favor, or when I finally found the vendor for my tiffany box. Every wedding is immensely special. I will try my best not to fall into the cycle of vendor-client related complacency.

That’s why I’m so thankful when I saw this wedding video of Danni & Chris from one of my favorite blog, Oh, Hello Friends. One year after their wedding and it still takes my breath away.

I always love personalized, laid back weddings and where the couple’s love takes center-stage. That’s what wedding is all about.

One advice I can’t stressed enough is, invest in a good videographer & photographer! The moments can easily pass you by, but the feeling come back rushing everytime I watched my own video.

Thank God we splurged on Alvinadeline.

We say: (Secret) Dream Comes True!

Winston Hellen — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 17:31:50 +0000

We have been waiting for Style Wedding magazine’s September issue for a month after our interview. In the initial stage of our wedding preparation, we secretly wishing that our wedding will be featured in a magazine one day. It didn’t happen on the year we got married, only a year after that, our vendor called us asking if we are interested to be featured, since the theme of the issue is vintage. Yay!

For those of you who wonder how to get featured in bridal magazine, it is actually more complicated than having a very nice looking wedding. It also has to do with whom you engage. Anyway, we are really happy that 2 of our vendors approached us at the same time, without knowing each other’s intention.

A big shout out to Jasmine, who wrote the article so descriptively and positively. Also Adeline from Alvinadeline Weddings & Wansheng from Feldberyl for their referral.

Although there’s a small hiccup (but with big impact!) of our blog address, instead of welovelaughkiss.wordpress.com, it written as welaughwekiss.wordpress.com, we managed to salvage the situation by creating a page with the wrong blog address and direct it to this one! Problem solved!

For you who didn’t have access to Spore’s Bridal magazine, here you go!

She says: Deja Vu in our Paper Year

Winston Hellen — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 12:03:36 +0000

Can’t believe that we have passed our 1st year wedding anniversary! Seems like yesterday, we are still preparing our wedding and folding those rosettes. Now, one year later, we are still preparing a wedding and folding those rosettes. Under Diary & Design Wedding, we were designing & coordinating a wedding which uncannily bear resemblance to our wedding. The date is exactly the same: 19 June 2011, and the venue is also the same, except that it was in Fort Gate instead of shady OMSQ. The bride is also a really hands-on one, the night before the wedding, she decided to make flower wrist corsage for the bridesmaids. The color theme was also somehow similar, tiffany blue, pink & peach.

However, as always, no wedding is the same.

The couple really go all out with the decoration & personalized item. When the bride spoke to me about having handmade wedding arch as part of the decor, I knew we are unto something creative and fun! Under our direction and tutorial, the couple opted to do the paper flower themselves, which saved us a lot of time and saved them money too! We arranged the flowers and styled it on our white arch. That’s what I called perfect collaboration.

You might have seen the sneak preview here. More pictures of behind the scene to be posted (hopefully).

Here’s the inspiration board of the creative couple. I really love this color combination.

and this is how the actual wedding was! I’m so thrilled with the actual floral arch. It’s a perfect photo backdrop for outdoor wedding. Enjoy the pictures!

Check out our tips to do a creative wedding here

He says: R-E-N-O-V-A-T-E!!

Winston Hellen — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 05:38:02 +0000

It seems the change in lifestyle with Diary and Design Wedding has made it harder to blog regularly (which I see from other wedding associated vendors as well). In addition, my new toy (Xbox 360) is really taking up my time [Xbox Live Gamertag is 'Kiongster', add me!]. But stay tuned as we try to upload the photos of the weddings we have done recently: the colorful wedding at Batam, the romantic musical wedding in Fullerton, the deja-vu wedding in OMSQ and the dreamy wedding in Burkill Hall.

But while we are preparing for other people’s wedding, we are meeting different contractors and IDs for our dream home as well. It is renovation time!! As we await our keys to come from HDB (what’s taking them so long!), we are sourcing the right vendor. I am surfing around at the various forums such as Renotalk and Punggol.org to see what others are doing and the various tips available out there. One thing’s for sure, there is much MORE renovation blogs than wedding blogs out there. Guess a lot of Singaporeans like to share on the ideas they have of their humble abode.

Again, Hellen is not your typical Singaporean gal (well, she’s Indonesian for a start) and her ideas are different. That’s what I loved about her: not conforming and having the ability to dream and make the dream come to pass. She’s like the Asian version of Martha Stewart…. And of course you can find her Interior Design Board here.

And if you are a tru-blu Singaporean who is looking for a renovation blog that is informative and useful, here’s one I want to recommend: “All you need to know about Renovation“. They really provide quite a lot of useful info (especially in the Popular Posts section) for transforming your little HDB flat into a space you absolutely adore!

We promise the next post to be full of pics!

He says: Wedding and the Social Media

Winston Hellen — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 06:45:35 +0000

After seeing how Hellen is helping the various couples who engage her, I do see a general desire for a couple to do something creative for their wedding. I guess it’s not about couples not wanting a special wedding, but couples generally have problems conceptualizing and executing their wedding. With the recent General Election in Singapore, it seems that social media is playing a huge part in the outcome. A recent website that was given to us by a couple gives me further ideas of how we can do wedding the ‘Social Media’ way. Using this website as an example, I will propose some ideas that couples can integrate in their own wedding!

[Some disclaimer here though: As this is a US wedding with overseas guests, some of the ideas here may not be applicable for all.]

Welcome to the Wedding of Adam and Kari Smith!

Welcome one and all!

Idea #1: Webpage as your invite

Rather than paying for envelopes and printers for the official invite, why not make your webpage the invite itself? Of course the limiting factor will be the less tech-savvy relatives and friends you may have… The more traditional guests will definitely prefer something more solid, but I believed in a few years’ time, this will become more popular with (almost) everyone going online.

Idea #2: Programmes and Itinerary

This is especially useful for overseas guests, who may not be familiar with what to do in town when the wedding is not the focus anymore. In this example, the couple proposed different options for the accomodation, food, shopping, leisure activities and nightlife. Another suggestion will be putting the actual programme in there (if it is not too much of a surprise).

Idea #3: Directions

Thank God for Google Maps and all the other map websites out there! After going through a wedding myself, I know that other than hotels and famous landmarks, some outdoor wedding venues are quite hard to get to (ok, I admit… including mine). Having the online map such as in this example, makes it much easier for the guests to find how to get to the place.

Idea #4: RSVP

Having a form online to do your RSVP is both convenient and easy. Of course we cannot depend on just the online aspect for RSVP, as normally, a vast majority of the guests still need the phone to prompt them. Websites such as evite is popular in garnering online RSVP as well.

Idea #5: Well Wishes

It is also possible to provide a space on the webpage for the guests to send in their well-wishes. Contemporary ideas nowadays include the always-reliable guest scroll and wishing trees. We can make full use of the internet by letting the guests add in their comments of well-wishes and even video wishes. Well, we still have all these, don’t we…

The Whole Social Media Gang

A wedding is still one of the most beautiful day of your life, don’t let social media take away the intimacy!

She says: Wedding Fever – Handmade Arch

Winston Hellen — Sun, 22 May 2011 17:55:16 +0000

It has been almost a year since our wedding, yet the wedding fever hasn’t seemed to go away. From a bride’s point of view to a planner’s point of view, I covered more grounds in this wedding field. Our first anniversary will be celebrated in the almost-exact spot and timing of our wedding one year earlier. Except that we are not the one getting married.

This lovely couple shares the same love for handmade items and craft. One of the main feature for their wedding will be a handmade wedding arch filled with various paper flowers. It will be marvelous sight to behold, especially during your first march in.

Another story of a creative DIY bride getting married in the romantic garden. I am so thrilled to be able to make one dream wedding come true.

I will share more details after the wedding. Meanwhile here’s some of the plan for the arch.

For some useful tutorials, click here!

She says: Inspired Me!

Winston Hellen — Sat, 14 May 2011 18:53:55 +0000

I haven’t blog for a while now and I know I should do it more often. Juggling many tasks and wearing many hats has been a routine now. Although I might sound like a workaholic, I enjoyed the busyness and long working hours I have to put up with. Torn between 2 worlds, I need to stay afloat. It is the desire for beauty and it is the eagerness to transform dream into reality that keeps me going. Currently I am doing a few weddings that involved creative juice and handiworks.

I blogged in Diary & Design Wedding and put up the boards there. Check out the full post here.

These are some of the boards for projects I am working on. March- April have been a peaceful months and soon it will be the bustling seasons again.

Fancy solemnisation at a hip bar

Lovely theme for an overseas couple

Grandeur Islander for lavish dinner

Whimsical Paper Flower in Turquoise Tone

I always love to engage non-wedding color and I am so happy to find couples who are game to do it!

She says: It was all worth it..

Winston Hellen — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 18:34:10 +0000

Today Lily and I met a lovely couple who has a beautiful idea of having their wedding solemnization and dinner outdoors and indoors. They chose the path of what seems to be a rising popularity in Singapore’s wedding scene, a non-typical Chinese wedding dinner. We have met many couples, who have the similar interest. I would say, most of our couples prefer this path. I couldn’t agree with them more, that wedding should be representing their love and their personality. They still honor their elders and follow tradition in the morning and tea ceremony. I think that is great, preserving your tradition is the way to go. Yet, when the sun goes down, it’s show time!

Back to the lovely couple, they mentioned that they loved my wedding, read my blog and found out about us, Diary & Design Wedding.. (You probably also came to our shore the same way as them..) We had a great time talking and they showed strong interest in engaging us. At the end of the conversation, I asked them for their last question or comments. The groom-to-be paused, and said, “Your wedding is amazing”.

I might not get the wedding magazine coverage I always wanted, nor being known as “The Best DIY Wedding Ever!”, Singapore might not remember my wedding last year, but I can honestly tell you, when he said that, I know in my heart, it was all worth it..

I may not inspire thousands of couple to love their wedding as much as I do, but if I can inspire one more couple to have the wedding they always wanted, I will do it all over again.

Please, bride-to-be and groom-to-be, if you are already going to spend a lot of money on your big day, be passionate on your wedding day so you can look back and say, it was all worth it..

worth every penny..