Sunday, December 28, 2014

Wedding talk : Banquet at Concorde Hotel (Part 1)

As the title suggests, my wedding banquet was held at Concorde Hotel. 
Before we went to Concorde Hotel for consultation, the husband was telling me he was gonna "minus marks" for Concorde Hotel for its old exterior and the sleazy pubs/clubs and massage parlors located at the basement of Concorde Hotel. I agreed too, but wanted to reserve my judgement only after I saw the ballroom.

We made the biggest mistake of judging the book by its covers, because it was love at first sight for us when we saw the ballroom. It was beautiful and classy, with its high ceiling, lovely chandeliers and a straight aisle from the door to the stage. What made the ballroom better was that there was only 1 ballroom in the entire hotel and we did not have to risk sharing the reception area with other weddings/events or risk guests going into the wrong wedding ballroom. Our wedding was exclusive. Our sales consultant, Valerie was really pleasant to work with, giving us all the perks and discounts even before we had asked for it. Thumbs up for her service and initiative! 

Here was the reception/cocktail area before the start of the banquet. Quoting a guest who attended, she said that the wedding was special as there were so many desserts, before the banquet and after the banquet. The cocktail desserts included strawberry cheesecake, truffles chocolates, mini cupcakes, and sugar cookies and rocky road. There were done by an intern, Elizabeth who used to intern at my workplace. When she was interning, she often made many delicious bakes and that was when i decided that I should use her for my wedding ( she could give me discounts too! Friendship price!) 

On the dessert table, there were also many candies and tidbits that we thought guests might liked, which we purchased from Teck Leong Lee Kee Wholesales . They were selling these tidbits in boxes and were cheaper than what was retailing outside. We spent about $80 in purchasing the tidbits, which was well-spent in my opinion because ALL, I mean EVERY SINGLE PIECE of the dessert and tidbit was gone by the end of the cocktail. I did not manage to eat a single piece of it. 

Oh, and on the dessert table as well, we also engaged Coolgurt. They specialize in providing Yogurt during events or weddings! They do not do retail hence you won't be able to get it outside. The husband is not a fan of yoghurt and the only yogurt he eats is from Coolgurt. They have many different flavours and you would be able to taste them before you engage them. We got a total of 100 cups of yogurt of the wedding and they were all wiped clean before the end of the cocktail. I was still pretty worried that we might have wasted our money of the yogurt because I thought nobody would want to eat the yogurt before dinner. But my worries were proven unnecessary!

We also engaged Mirage Flowers to do the decorations of mainly the reception area, the dessert table, and the phot album area. So the flowers, props and decorations that you see here, are nicely done up by Mirage Flowers. 






Our photobooth was a special one. It only came with the props that you see below, and a printer. Guests were supposed to download the application Cloudstaprint on their smartphone and they would be able to start taking photos with their smartphone and then edit the photos on their smartphone and print it out using the printer that was provided. 

The pictures that were being uploaded would be flashed on livefeed during the dinner, and guests are able to comment on the photos. 

I provided a photo album as well (if you can see it on the picture) for guests to share their moments with us! 


This was the photobooth backdrop and Yellowsplatz was the vendor I had engaged in. I had randomly found them on Instagram. As we had already engaged cloudstaprint, we did not want to have any conventional photobooth service. Thus it was hard to find someone that would only provide the photobooth backdrop and I was glad I managed to find one after much hurdles. 

Initially I was a little worried about using them because they had never done any set up in hotels before and mine would be the first. I was afraid that they might not deliver what they had promised but I was glad that I engaged them, because the final set up was beautiful! So vibrant and colourful just like how I had always imagined it to be!


And this, was our photo album area. We had a total of 2 wedding albums, from Digio and Z'wedding and also our engagement pictures that were pegged on the lines. Our engagement photos were taken by The Synchronal Photography.


We had also engaged Im perfection for the props to decor the entire areas. 

Props we got included the floral arch as you see below. Totally matched the linen colour of our tables. 

Love Marquee sign that was placed on the stage. 

2 lamp poles where our engagement pictures were pegged to, and finally 2 road signs. 

They were really affordable and it made made the banquet even more beautiful! 







So here's a conclusion/summary picture of how the entire wedding banquet looked like that night. 


Hope I've provided enough details and review about the vendor which I have used!









Wednesday, December 10, 2014

09 November 2014


No idea where to start the Actual Day wedding post. Because there are simply too many pictures to post, and I hope I have enough recollection of the day, as we were really rushing throughout the day.

1 week plus  (edit: more than 1 week plus already since I procrastinated in drafting this post) since the wedding has gone so quickly gone by.
It was a really tiring day, with us having to wake up at 3am in the morning and could only get to rest at 2am the next day. That's like being awake for 23 hours!

Pardon the blurred quality of the photos that I would be posting up, because most of the pictures were taken using iphones, and we haven't received the pictures from our photographer yet!

So like I said, I woke up at 3am to wash up and eat my "mian xian" noodles (vermicelli), then wait for my makeup artist to arrive at 430am. 

Here's my makeup artist, Cleo Chang working her magic on me! I liked her works the most, out of the few other makeup artist that I have tried. Her charges are on the high side, but I cannot afford to look meh on my wedding day! Hence, I made the decision to splurge, and burned a pocket in my hole. But trust me, she's really good! And the best thing about her is, she uses airbrush to do the foundation, so its really hygienic, and more even. The foundation would not look like layers and layers of powder. 


I was just finishing up the makeup when the boys arrived! And then there was a short period of chaos in the house. Ha Ha..

Everyone got so anxious and frantic. Even my cousin, who was supposed to go down to open the car door for the groom forgot about his duty, and thus there was a delay in the groom coming up to the house!

And then, came the gatecrash! Not sure of what happened outside the house, but definitely not anything pleasant for the boys!

The poor boys were subjected to the sisters' abuse, one of which was applying cheap mask and make up on the face. I hope their face does not rot after all the "grooming".







And then the husband reading his promises to me (I came up with the promises by the way.) before he could enter the room. Thus far I think he has been fulfilling those promises, except fetching me back from outing with friends (humph!).


Before the husband bent over to give me our first kiss, he had prepared a little surprise for me. And I was really caught by surprise when his friend handed over a violin to him! He IS NOT musically inclined and cannot play any musical instruments, maybe except recorder. 

And he started playing on the violin. His fingers were shaking, but he still managed to play Love Me Tender very nicely on the violin. 

Thank you for the pleasant surprise! :) 




    Us preparing to leave the house back to his house!




Back to his house. Before we entered his house, his family members have to retreat back to the rooms and were only allowed after we entered our rooms. This is done as a tradition to prevent direct clashes between the bride and the groom's family. 

A picture of us outside our room. 



We were then served a bowl of tangyuan each and we had to feed each other with the tangyuan. I think this practice has something to do with uniting the couple together (my guess!)

Thereafter it was  tea ceremony to his relatives and photo taking.




And then I changed into my Kua (Chinese traditional wedding costume) to proceed to his grandmother's place and then subsequently back to my home for another round of tea-ceremony. 

Initially I was quite afraid that I would look too cheena in Kua, but suprisingly, some of the photos which I liked the most are actually those of me in Kua. 





Here's me with my grandmother at my house, preparing for tea ceremony!




And lastly, photo taking session again!

Totally loving how the bridesmaid outfit looked in photos. So colourful and vibrant!









Alright! That's about it for the morning session! By then, both of us were really really tired, but were looking forward to the night banquet! : )