Post Wedding 3: Families & Friends (Part One)

I know by now so many of you are itching to see the photos and I cannot release them on Facebook yet because I haven't post them here.

So perhaps I shall do a post on the guest list now.

This was the hardest part of planning a wedding.

It does not matter if you have paid RM20,000 for a team of wedding planners to plan the perfect wedding for you because this is the one thing that both you and your partner has to do.

First, you will sit with your parents respectively and discuss on the family side invitations. Which tier and which generation are you to choose to draw that line? How many tables do you actually need to accommodate just your family members?

Then, you move onto your colleagues, friends and et cetera.

The headache for us is that we want to invite as many family members and friends that we can because we value each and everyone of you. Having all of you with us on the biggest day of our lives means so much but due to budget, we can only have so many.

So, here's an apology if you did not make it to the list and know that it's not because we don't like you. It's just we don't have enough seats for all. We're sorry. Please don't stop talking to us okay.

As much as I love being with little humans, we would not afford to invite them to our dinner because the cost is just way too much and since we'll be serving wine all night, we also thought that it will be a good night for all parents to have some sort of 'date-night' :)

With that being said, please know that for those who made it to the list, you all are very special and important to the both of us so cherish that. Hah.

We had two sessions - church ceremony in the morning and wedding reception dinner at night.

Most of those who were not in the dinner list were invited to our ceremony in the morning and some of those on the dinner list made it to the morning list too.

Perfecting the guest list was an ongoing effort, right till the night before the big day.

I remembered we came home from a family + bridesmen hangout at Macallum and mom sat down st the dining table and checked through the guest list again to only notice that 2 people who were already invited not seen in the table listing!

I STRAIGHT PANICKED BECAUSE THE TABLE LISTING WAS ALREADY COMPLETE AND PERFECT.

 I may have let our a short scream. Hah.

So, at 12am on Friday (wedding next day morning), I sat down with Vanessa at the dining room and brainstormed on the seating plan. I was not willing to open another table just to slot 2 people in. Then again, it was my mistake for overlooking the list.

Somehow, we managed to arrange and everything seemed perfect again and I had like 5-hours sleep. Adrenalin already started to pump in that time. I was going to marry my best friend please. Forever stuck with him. Hah.

Ultimately, we really want all our guests to enjoy the wedding and have fun. That's why we decided to pay RM6,000 for Jazzhats to play 3 sets of 45 minutes that night. It was way over our 'entertainment' budget but after a lot of debates and discussion, we realized now that it was worth every cent. Too bad Jazzhats didn't want to extend their time that night considering all our guests were having so much fun on the dance-floor.

So yes, here's all the photos that was captured during the morning church ceremony and wedding reception dinner at night. They are all placed randomly okay and there's a lot of them so take your time :)

Thank you all for coming and being a part of our happily ever after. For those who have wished us on Facebook and Snapchat, thank you for your well-wishes all your congratulations! We're very blessed to be surrounded by all you humans :)

Part two will come soon with all the group photos.

Bye now. 

Post-Wedding 2: Flowers.

I realized now that I have so many posts that is overdue and happened like more than 2 months ago, so here I am trying my best to squeeze all the brain juice that's left to speed it all up. Heh. 

I will admit that for the first time in my life, I pinterest-ed "perfect wedding flowers" just about less than 3 months before the wedding. I am not a flower kind of girl and if everything were up to me, there would be no flowers seen on the bid day. Hah. But Koay wants some flowers so okay. 

There are so many great photos on Pinterest but I only had my eyes on roses and baby breaths. 

I didn't really like how the combination of both flowers are like, so that means I had to choose one. 

I really like roses, and I really like baby breaths and I really don't want to combine both, not separately or together in a bouquet. 

After quick thinking (since flowers could cost a bomb in weddings), I decided to go for baby breaths. Roses are expensive but I've learnt through this wedding that baby breaths are equally as expensive, if not more. They are apparently seasonal, so yay to us that we're in their season! 

For other flowers-decoration-purpose, I left that decision with Uncle Phillip because his eyes is far better than mine. So, what he says, we'll go for it. 

My flower-related-decision was only on my main bouquet, flower-girls headpiece and what my maids were going to hold as they walked down the aisle before me. Once upon a time, I pictured each of them holding one KFC drumstick instead of mini bouquet of baby breaths, serious I kid you not. 

But I really like roses too okay seriously and I would need some kind of 'things' to be thrown at the newlyweds after they till death do us part and walk down the aisle together. 

Why not rose petals then, the brain thought. Heh. 

So yes, in the end, I managed to have both roses and baby breaths on our big day. Win all. 

All my baby breaths bouquet were handmade by a dear friend of Uncle Phillip who is no longer an active florist as she's now a proud and busy grandmother of 2 :) Thank you Aunty Louisa! She also gave us one (1) big bag of different colored rose petals that I feel have helped soften the wedding decoration :)

The way the baby breaths were tied together was inspired by Pinterest of course and it was perfect :)

Here are some photos of the baby breaths and rose petals that were captured beautifully :)

Here's a quick tip on how you can save cost on flowers. I always feel that spending so much on flowers very useless because they will die at the end of the day and they are just a one-day-thing for the decor. There are so many other things that you can use to substitute the flowers, like umm.. Okay, maybe you cannot really replace flowers with anything else that gives the similar feel, but you can strategically choose/use them. Here's what I learn from my wedding. 

Choose flowers that you can use for the lunch/dinner reception. 

For me, it was easy because I re-used all the baby breaths' bouquet. I did not want to carry my bridal bouquet anymore so we transformed that into a headpiece that my amazing makeup artist, Sam used and did for my hair. 

For the mini bouquets, we took out bits and pieces of it and lay it on the reception tables. Same goes with the petals. 

Write down on a paper

For my case, I bought too little. Heh. I missed out one baby breaths head-piece for Vanessa, so if you see properly right, instead of a headpiece, she only had a few pieces of baby breaths on the side of her head. Heh. 

I should have written down all the names of those who will be involved with the flowers and what they are supposed to receive, but lazy me just remember all in the head. Padan muka I. 

In your case, you could end up paying extra for the 'too much' so be more hardworking than me okay. 

Discuss with the groom-to-be

This one helps a lot. 

I feel men with their "MONEY IS FIRST PRIORITY" focus, they are someow able to talk us into getting flowers only when its necessary. 

Like the whole idea of not having roses and baby breaths together was his idea actually. He thought that it would save a lot of $$ and he was indeed right. 

He would asked me questions like, "You really want them together?" or "Do you think that maybe you actually just like one?"

Questions that made me think deeply. Heh. 

So ladies if I may, discuss this with your huz-to-be for they may say something that made sense once in a while. Hah. Thank you Hun :) 

I hope you will have a great time planning your big day, be it a wedding, 21st birthday or a get-together party. It's all good :)

Bye now.