My Singapore Summer Garden Wedding - Page 2
Hi Sveta, you'll have to stay in tune for my wedding gown! Haha! I'm leaving the best for the last. But I did find my gown pretty last minute, only 1 - 2 weeks prior to my wedding. Crazy, right?
Talking about having a godsend-wedding planner, Melissa. I know I need my girls with me. The thing is with bridesmaids, many people who don’t realize until they are planning their wedding is that it is so hard to choose who to be the bridesmaid. Especially if you have a lot of friends (real life friends, Social Media Friends don’t count). If I asked Anne and I don’t asked Betty, Betty will get mad that I didn’t include her in my most important day in my life. And it’s so hard to choose.
I want to be fair and I also don’t want to be the bride with a trillion bridesmaids.
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I don’t think my husband wants to have an army of best men either. Further more, we decided to pick the ones closest to our hearts and for the most practical reasons.
So I came up with a list of potential bridesmaids, and I started to strike based on the following practical reasons.
1. Have the person kept in touch with me while I was located overseas?
No? Off the list, you go.
2. Have the person flew over to visit me?
No? Off the list, you go. (Of course, I understand that not everyone could afford to fly however, I offered free accommodations and free tour and free meals. Nevertheless, I did take that into considerations. Nope, Polly who reward herself with a Chanel handbag with her bonus without visiting me is off the list.)
3. Do I want the person’s most honest slap-in-your-face opinions?
No? Off the list, you go.
4. If I have my bridezilla moments, could I count on the person to slap me in my face instead of sugar coating me until I’m in sugary heaven?
No? Off the list, you go.
5. If I am upset with something, could I count on the person to take me seriously and know instantly what I want even I am just thinking about it?
No? Off the list, you go. (This is a bit harsh as the two people could fulfill this are my sister and my husband. But I’ll give some leeway.)
So I narrowed down to 3 bridesmaids. I have some really close male buddies and they would don a skirt and a long hair wig for me if I dictate them to be my bridesmaids (but I wouldn’t want them to upstage me on my wedding day). Haha!
1, my one and only sister – enough said!
2, my good friend Ly – who flew 6 hours to visit me when I was down
3, my good friend Jackie – who I had a pinky promise with to be each other’s bridesmaid whoever got married first (a promise is a promise)
To match my number of bridesmaids, my husband has his own criteria, which he is too petty to share with me (hmmph!).
Besides the above, we’ll have his sister as our wedding coordinator or I like to call her the Wedding Director who has the final approval of anything so the vendors does not have to check with my husband or me for anything. I anticipate I’ll be super nervous and out of wits that day – so no disturbance unless you want me to unleash the bridezilla on you!
So how did you choose whom to be in your bridal entourage?
Amidst of planning our wedding, we also have to find a home. It’s stressful, having to plan our wedding over FaceTime, my husband who was traveling a lot more than I was, was really hard to pin down. During that period, I traveled once a week, every week. He travelled twice or thrice a week which was nerve wrecking and tiring. Before he could recover from his jet lag, off he goes again. All hotels did his laundry during that period because he didn’t have enough time to load the washing machine and dryer – all precious time is for catching 40 winks.
I’ll be relocating from Shanghai to Malaysia after the wedding; we want to make sure I have somewhere to move to! His current bachelor pad is way too small, consisting only a living room and a bedroom. We were thinking of a 2 bedroom with a study room apartment, somewhere family friendly environment, near amenities like a medical center and a grocer.
We thought it would be easy, him looking at apartments after work, me looking through videos and photos that he sent over after inspections. Here is some of it:
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Seriously, that's a study room?! More like a closet to me.
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OMG! Look at the floor tiles!
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It was horrible. Its either the price is way over our budget or the bedroom looks dark and dingy or the house looks suspiciously unoccupied for many years, I don’t want to stay in a haunted place! Imagine with my husband’s frequent travels, I likely to be the one home alone most of the time. I don’t want to be afraid of the shadows lurking round the corner.
So finally, I am able to get some quick time off from my generous boss whom by the way, I am grateful for, to fly to Malaysia (another 6 hours and an expensive ticket – a round ticket cost me almost USD700), this time round to narrow down a home for us.
I was demanding over the housing agents who are showing apartments to us. Given my short fuse and overreacting as a stressed out bride cum career woman, I don’t have much room for leniency and patience.
So finally, we managed to find our perfect house (not yet a home since I wasn’t moved in yet), after 18 freaking viewings!!!! I think our housing agents were about to give up on us and some might be coming at the jugular vein at our throats specifically mine.
Here are some photos of our darling place:
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Having our house settled put me greatly at ease, phew! Comes another important details in our wedding planning, what else but the wedding rings? I know you’ll think for a bride-to-be, the most important thing is the dress but I’m the practical girl, you see. In my rational belief, a gown I’ll wear only once, the ring I’ll wear it forever til death do us part. I think that’s why my husband fell for me. Haha!
I had so many ideas on searching for the dream wedding band and it also have to compliment my engagement ring, not taking it away from its shine. So back to the drawing board and trusty websites. Let me share some beautiful rings I have found..
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I wanted to go Gold.. Its rhymes with Something Old with something Gold. But my husband doesn’t like the color so it’s back to other choices. I know what I wanted is simple and chic, something that last forever, a classic piece just like our love, simple and classic.
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Sometimes, too much referring to beautiful photos online can delude you and raise your expectations higher. I couldn’t find what I was looking in the stores and I don’t have much time before I had to fly off again. :( Sigh! Woes to an overseas bride.
I turned to my trusty instinct and hunt for my husband’s ring first. Within 3 shops, we found his, a plain simple rounded matt ring.
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Then instantly, it was easier for me because all I want to do is to match his. I finally found what I am looking for! (http://www.pohkong.com.my)
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PS. I found the below ring really special and quirky but my husband think it is a dirt trapper. My sister thinks it is inauspicious because it looks like cracks in the marriage. My mother-in-law hates it as it is black. What do you think?
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Upon receiving our ordered rings, we were asked if we want engraving on the inner side of the rings. We hemmed and hawed; the sales personal was sweet enough and provides some suggestions on the spot but we needed time to think. We haven’t thought about our engraving! Panicky panicky!
So it’s a trip back to the drawing board again to find inspirations. We didn’t want to follow what most people engraved: Each other’s name and their marriage date. As if we won’t remember who we marry to and I’ll knock the air out of my husband if he forgets our wedding anniversaries. I think an iCal reminder on his iPhone reminding him is much more productive.
As I am flying off the next day, we need to quickly find a word, a phase, anything to engrave in. Both of us immersed in our deepest thoughts as we troll through websites after websites for some ideas. As the space is limited, so we couldn’t have our favorite quote or verse engraved onto our rings. So we need to think up of something with a deeper meaning, a message that hold true to our hearts.
These are some of the suggestions:
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I really like this message :)
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My husband found this but I think its too cheesy for me.. Gives me the goosebumps.
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I would love to reference the Beauty and The Beast's quote but husband complains that I called him the Beast. Haha!
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And…. Drums roll please, we have decided that we want to wear the below message next to our skin forever and more.
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In the mad rush of searching for our perfect wedding rings, a smile brought upon my face as I recalled a fond memory of my husband proposing on one knee as my plane take off after a teary goodbye. I always have teary goodbyes with my husband, no matter how long we have been together or how long we are going to be apart. As much as I know I am going to enter a new journey soon, I just can’t keep the tears to myself. So if you ever sat next to a girl who is crying as if the world is going end tomorrow, that’s probably me and I apologized if I disturbed your sleep.
In the midst of my subduing sobs, the lovely proposal popped up in my mind as a gentle smile creep along my face. My then fiancé took months to prepare for the proposal; I’ll share more about my engagement ring in my next post. Him knowing full well I am an avid diver bought me out to the Underwater World (http://www.underwaterworld.com.sg) on 8 August 2013.
While I am fully enchanted by the different corals and marine life, I did not notice that he gave the slip away. By the time, I noticed he is not by my side, I naturally assumed that he might have taken off to a toilet break. Suddenly, I heard commotions at one of the huge panel tanks. Out of curiosity, I strolled over to peek above the heads of the crowd, I saw someone in the diver’s suit holding a piece of sign “Kylie, Please Marry Me?”
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was shocked, wide-eyed, rooted on the spot until a staff of the Underwater World walked up to me and cheerfully informed me that is my fiancé holding the sign. I squeezed past the crowd and placed my hand on the glass panel and nodded in tears. I couldn’t see anything else with my tears overflowing down my cheeks. He placed his hand correspondence to mine on the glass panel and gave a thumb up.
The only regret we had was that we didn’t take photo of the proposal as he was too nervous and anxiety overcame him. He didn’t know how I would react to the proposal as we have only dated less than a year and most of it is apart from each other. The dive master was apprehensive to let him into the water in the first place as my fiancé was looking pale and kept biting his lower lip.
All well, ends well. I didn’t know he has a romantic side of him until that very moment.
Although all the photos that day were of fishes, I’ll keep this memory dear to my heart.
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My husband told me that he had a hard time looking for the perfect ring because I am such a perfectionist and also I have vast knowledge about diamonds, namely due to the fact, I am in my mid thirties and I have a lot of my girlfriends’ fiancé come looking for me to help them out. Never did I know one day it will be my turn. Haha!
He did approach some of his friends for advice and one advice was to choose the style below:
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I am simple girl and immediately he knows he has to get me the solitaire. But now come to think of it, I don’t mind having the vintage as well since I’m so old school.
With the style pretty much taken care of, my husband needs to decide on the shape of the diamond. Fortunately, he did not have me to ask because I would have been undecided. I am in love with the round yet princess cuts diamond is so special and emerald cut diamonds are so for the queen and all three of them just after my heart. Yet the round cut shone the most brilliantly of all due to its equal cut all around.
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He dared not approach any of my friends because he knows girls gossip and he wanted to be a huge surprise to me. And also deep down inside, I’m guessing he has a fear of me rejecting him. Shhh… But don’t tell him that.
So armed with a simple guide he found on the web, he head down to some of the jewelers, which succeed in confusing him, further. Fortunately for him, he brought along his sister who was instrumental in getting the right ring.
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So here is my beautiful stunning solitaire!
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Enough on remising the past, time to get back to present. I need to find a cake. To me, food is very important and beside my entrance as a bride, I think food leave lasting impressions on my guests especially the Chinese guests.
I used to grimace at how tacky wedding cakes look like and rumor has it that only the bottom tier is edible and the rest of the top tiers are made out of Styrofoam. Ewww..! I don’t want a cake like that.
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My wedding planner has an in-house baker who is able to bake the cake we want, provided we give him the design. Husband has no objections to whatever cake designs I choose and since we both have settled on the color theme hence decorations he will leave the decisions to me. In addition to that, he had to travel extensively again, preparing for a major project that means he has no time on his hands to do much research. Sigh!
So keeping my color theme in mind, I found several pretty cake designs below:
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This is very gorgeous and it is one of my top pick. However, my baker don't think he could come up with the effect. It looks so rich!
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This is definitely very cutesy but my sister thinks it is too adorable for my husband. And too adorable to cut it up too!
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This cake reminds me of Japanese garden, very oriental which is us. Sadly to say, it needs 3 tiers to work beautifully and we only want 2 tiers.
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This is interesting. I can't put my finger to it but somehow it is creepy yet intriguing.
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I looooooooove cupcakes! Everything I walked pass a cupcake shop, I'll jump right in and buy a dozen. I'm crazy about cupcakes but I don't think everyone shares the same passion as me. And it will not be as dramatic as I would like to on our wedding.
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This simple cake is pretty on its own, I'm not sure about the flowers though, whether we can get it right here in Singapore or do we have to import them from elsewhere. With such a short time, we couldn't take the risk to find out.
I couldn’t find one I was satisfied with so I came up with a design of my own, piecing two different cake designs from above selections and after numerous Skyping with the baker and my wedding planner, we came up with this:
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It looks like a big Tiffany present!
Looks dreamy enough to eat! The top tier is vanilla and the bottom tier is chocolate. As we are having a small wedding, so it makes no sense to do anything higher than two tiers as we have a dessert corner and an ice-cream cart too! I just love my ice-cream! After my wedding, I had some many positive comments on the cake. It was not overly sweet that causes sugar overdose and it wasn’t dry and cakey. But I know nothing compares to the cakes I had in Vienna, which is to die for.