I think its about time to have a post action report and talk about what as happened before, during and after the wedding, the good points and not so good points. Hopefully those gettin' married will get something out of this :)
Now a typical wedding is usually broken up into 3 major parts and then subsequently these parts have their own sub-parts.
First is PLANNING, then comes EXECUTION and finally POSTMORTEM..
Lets start with Planning.
For us i think originally we just wanted to see what else is available since we had all of about a couple of months (abt 6+) to plan, book and all that jazz for a wedding. First thing we did was to attend a wedding convention (since the timing was just nice when we got back from the proposal holiday in HK). However at that time we din really have a plan or idea where to have our wedding. My initial intention was to book a bridal studio first and then go about finding a place. At the convention we happen to stumble onto the studio that Serene's cousin had engaged before. She loved the wedding pics that they took then and it was rather good. So after talking with them and well, being inexperienced that i am with weddings (D-UH), we decided to go with them and their standard package and on the hope that they will deliver what they promised. We din really bargain as much cos... well... we're the sort that do not really like to bargain (surprised? :P) Some advice here....
[ADVICE] Wedding conventions are actually quite good as they bring most of the bridal studios together and you can then compare and look etc and bargain. Remember to compare and then bargain your heart out! NO MERCY!
[ADVICE] It would be extremely helpful to have a plan of what you want. Things to look out for would be:
1) how many changes of clothing do you need (Made to Measure dresses r usually more expensive than off the shelf)
2) studio photography and albums (i.e. how many albums you require. how many standing portraits you require or would like to have)
3) wedding car + deco
4) actual day photography
5) deco for following cars
6) whether they provide changes for your bestmen and bridesmaids and even the parents
7) some form of gurantee would be good
8) what happens if you do not require all the bells and whistles of the package
After getting the studio down (we thought it was a big step), we went about looking for a nice place. Now we did look at a few places like raffles hotel and marina mandrain but wifey was looking for something more special. So we were looking at Sentosa (beaufort) but it was majorly expensive and a little bit inconvenient. Bargaining wasnt that good either ("oh we are exclusive and on sentosa thus we do not give any other discounts..."). There was a very nice lawn which we could have had our wedding ceremony outdoors BUT the little patch of greenery cost us another $2k+ if i remember correctly. *FAINT* I brought my parents over to take a look at the place and they weren't that receptive. Then one day wifey had a moment of inspiration and mentioned "The Arts House". I was like "oh yea ! lets go today and take a look". So we did and immediately loved the place. Now the wedding day (is a very very popular day) was kinda booked but luckily for us the in-charge from Arts House mentioned they still have the morning. So we grabbed at the chance and BOOM.. Arts house it is. I can't tell you how ecstatic we were that evening after i booked for the place :). Now we had to settle the other things and luckily here, wifey has a few aces up her sleeves....:p
[ADVICE] Keep looking out for places for your wedding. If you want unconventional, there are several interesting options in Singapore. Namely the Asian Civilisation Museum, Arts Museum, National Museum and even the Arts house which can offer unique alternatives to the tradditional hotels. Even fort canning and those wine places at Dempsey are wonderful cosy alternatives.
[ADVICE] Remember to bargain and ask for stuff. Usually things like projector and projector screens and mics etc they will charge. HOWEVER they can also provide for you FOC. All depends on your bargaining power. What you can probably bargain for:
1) Extra hotel night stay
2) Free mics
3) Free use of projector and projector screen
4) Better cutlery used
5) Lower liquor charges
6) Free barrel of beer or tranlate into a few bottles of wine
7) Late check out, early check in
8) Better menu (if you are in a hotel)
9) Wedding cake / champagne pouring.
10) For deco, insist on fresh flowers and sample pics so you have an idea how it will turn out
So since the Arts House do not provide fanciful deco and the default caterer is from the restaurant 1827 (and was sinfully expensive), we had to look elsewhere for our deco and stuff. Luckily wifey knows someone who can do deco. So we roped him in, got him to take a look at our wedding venue and suggest and quote us. So that's done. Food wise we were looking at a few caterers and the food they were serving. My salsa friend Pauline (thanks yous!) gave a few very good suggestions, like where to have wedding venue, where to get good wedding cakes and good caterers. So if you are ever dry for ideas, can ask Pauline if she has any good ones to share :) So we contacted the caterer and setup for a paid sample testing. We had the sample testing with our MCs and it was really good food. Good service and good food so we went ahead with them. From the post-wedding reports, the food was really good so we are glad that panned out :)
What's next? Informing ROM. This is rather simple procedure and all you have to do is go to the URL and follow instructions. Basically it involves applying online and then waiting till about 1 month till the wedding date? They will then ask you to go down to ROM. There, you and your spouse will sign stuff, say oaths to ensure you aren't bluffing the ROM or each other etc :p and viola, you got your Certs. Before this however you must already have a JP/Priest and have approached them to ask for their concent in marrying you 2. JP for us was a rather easy decision and we were requested to meet up with him about 3 times for him to get to know us better before he concents to presiding over the proceedings. Yay!
[ADVICE] Do taste test the food and to ensure that they will be acceptable by most of your guests. We are lucky in that the food we liked we are pretty sure most pple will like as, well, wifey and me, we eat almost anything (k she more than me since i dun do chilli stuff heehehe)
[ADVICE] If you are doing caterer, check out how many attendants there will be, what cutlery they will be providing and setup and cleanup time they require. Even here you can bargain i suspect but well, we chose not to piss off those that will be serving us food (you never know and you wouldn't want that longan to start moving now right?)
[ADVICE] Get a JP early especially if you are getting married on a busy day. Helps if you know the JP personally as it will make things easier and more personable.
Now with most of the things running quite smoothly, were there any issues you might ask.
Yes. There most definitely was. And surprisingly, it comes from our bridal studio.
~SIGH~
First time we went there we had a good notion of what the wedding gown would look like. Wifey had bought a magazine the last time she was in states and fell in love with an advertorial of a gown. So when we brought the magazine over to our designer, he immediately had a similar sample for us to try. This is because previously someone else had seen the same ad and had approached them to design the dress based on the ad too. Wifey tried the dress and was excited and happy. Yay. I tried on a couple of stuff and settled on a white china collar as i looked best in that. Yay.
Then came the wedding dress "incident" which i shall not get into now....so we went back and tweaked the designs around. Ultimately though the outcome was much better than the ad and we are still happy. The designer, i think, should be given the Most valuable employee award. Throughout this whole... ordeal.. he was patient and attentive and you can tell he wanted to make sure the customer is happy. I can't say the same for some of the other pple that handled us there. Nothing much else to say about the clothing because we only had 1 set and the designer did a good job with wife's gown.
[ADVICE] Make sure you go and try your suit/gown at least 3 times and at least 1 time just a week before wedding for any alterations and stomach growing (heeehee).
[ADVICE] make sure your suit buttons are attached firmly and that the gown and suit is comfortable for whole day wear.
Now by this time we know that we don't need a lot of the bells and whistles that they provided us. So we tried to bargain them away. Not much leeway they can give us. Mostly they gave the reason that the stuff we din want comes at no cost from the studio anyway, so can't give us much discount. The bridal studio was kinda a bit too specialised. They din have inhouse Actual day photogs but they recommended someone to us. The sample photos they showed us wasn't too inspiring but well, since we wanted to have a bargain with the studio on the stuff we din want, we just went ahead. Besides we had our good frens there who can cover for the ad photog if things screw up (More on this in Part 2). Even the wedding car they din discount for us and was rather expensive. In the end we decided to go with Elaine's Mini cooper which was nice cream colored and I could drive the wifey myself! :)
[ADVICE] Same as what i suggested before when choosing a bridal package, ask them about their actual day photog and ask to see samples of their work. If you have the time, meet up and talk to them to get a grasp on how they are and their skillsets.
[ADVICE] Look around, even online for cars that you want to make into your bridal car. Most bridal studios provide the standard cars so boring.... Friends are a lot of help in this too. Originally we would have had a vintage jaguar but then there was some issues. Luckily i had other friends with nice cars too :)
Then comes studio photography. Oh.. one thing to note, throughout the process, we were always compelled to call them to ask when is the fitting, when is the meeting with their photog etc because information wasn't forthcoming and we were worried. When the package was sold on us, they assured us that they will be proactive and all that but often we had to call back to ask and see if they were still alive. When they sold us the package, they told us their chief photog was someone that will sit with you and understand who you are and then able to suggest shots based on what you are like or would prefer. NOPE. This din happen. Mostly we just suggested stuff and he just went "Ok" "Sure" "no problem"..... We must have been the easiest customer they ever had since we did most of the thinking for them...More importantly, we weren't demanding at all i reckon. We din ask for change of clothing, din need clothing for our bridesmaids and best men and basically din ask for too much. Yet the service standard we got was truely disappointing. During our photoshoot itself, the photog did suggest poses etc but nothing creatively fantastic or got us excited. All those pics you see of our album? we did most of the good ones ourselves (i.e. the toys, the back shot etc). We din ask for very far flung places and the photog din suggest any new places other than the ones we suggested to go to.
[ADVICE] During choosing of package stage, see if you can talk to the photog to get a sense of what he/she can/cannot do. Test him and see if he can suggest places that you wouldn't normally have thought of. Being anal now would help later :p
Then came time to look at the pics he took. Mostly? it was.... ok. Nothing WOWy or wet-my-pants good.. just .... ok. Now here is the point where you may end up adding more $$ to your package. Bargain and push. Then we went back again to look at the post-processing of the pics. Initially we were quite disappointed with the "creativeness" of the whole album. Its not like we are demanding or reaching for the stars, but his whole concept and all that din do it for us. So we ended up going back for 2 days and sitting down with his assistant do go over the photoshopping, placements of the pics and even adding in the words of the song "Grow Old with you" by Adam Sandler. 2 WHOLE DAYS. OMG.. i think i got a summon also for parking there.... %^&$%^#$%@#$%..... When it came to collecting the pics, the album itself was fantastic. But of cos since WE were the creative geniuses behind the thing. The coffeetable albums he promised us was... disappointing. He just slotted the pics into an album and that was it. Well we din ask / specify so bummer on us :( We are so glad though that at least the album turned out ok....
~SIGH~
[ADVICE] Make sure you ask specifically what each photo item in the package is. I.e. coffeetable book? what does that look like?
[ADVICE] For the addition of stuff to your package, make sure you bargain. There are some things like sample pics they printed out for you to choose those for your album, request for those. I mean what are they gonna do with it?
[ADVICE] usually they need like a week or so for printing and binding and stuff. We initially thought they won't be able to make it and pass it back to us by the deadline HE specified. But apaprently it doesn't take all that long to print and bind. STILL we wasted a weekend sitting there and going thru all that shit....
Lets see... what else is there?.... Ah... the last 2 things before our wedding day. The car deco and bouquet of flowers. This is another sore point. We asked for a simple deco for the car because we felt that it was quite a nice car already. When we came back to look at the deco.. it was TRUELY..... simple. I had to ask for flowers on the door handles and ask for MORE else it looks just too plain. I mean COME ON... we aren't asking for much but those we ask for at least do it swee swee for us ma....And even those flowers he used on the car was fake. I seen some really nice live ones but apparently... "that's all we have for props in our shop....".......
[ADVICE] Ask for sample pics of car deco. Live flowers look really nice. Ask them what props or ideas they have for the car. The "Just Married' sign we have was suggested by them. BUT they did not have it. So we made one ourselves....
The flowers.. the flowers. When i first received it, we both realised that some of the roses were burnt.. or looked bad! I asked our photog (cos he's apparently the creative genius of the shop D-UH) why it is like this. He was rather flippant about it and mentioned he can trim it for us. THAT IS NOT THE POINT!!! So we can't be bothered with him and i went in to ask someone else about the flowers. The lady who serviced us (she's another employee i would reward) was very apologetic and shocked at the state and tried to get the floral shop for us before suggesting if its ok to trim the roses. NOW at least she tried and was really concerned for us. She seemed perturbed by the photog's response also when she asked him about it. Ultimately she had to go to the floral shop and then took a cab down herself to my place and hand me the bouquet with more apologies. THIS is service above and beyond what I expected from the place after a few months of interacting with them and I am really grateful for her for taking us seriously.
[ADVICE] Make sure you check the flowers. They shouldn't be handing you a bouquet of flowers that look burnt or dirty or bad!
[ADVICE] Try to pin the corsages the night before so that you won't panic and waste time the next morning :)
So the end of part 1 and as you can tell, what is the first to confirm and supposedly the one that will cause you the least grief end up giving us the MOST concern and unhappiness. It made us think that we probably could have done it better if we ran everything ourselves. Might be more work and maybe a bit more $$ but, judging from the other adhoc stuff we pulled together, we would have been more than JUST satisfied.
Part 2 when i have more time :)
