Dance Practice

Oh dear… this was the most difficult task of all in our wedding preparations – practicing our first dance. Neither of us were dancers but we wanted to make our dinner reception a fun event. So, we decided to provide a little surprise “entertainment” by having our first dance at the end of the dinner and then have the audience join us on the dance floor soon after.

We didn’t want to have a proper ballroom dance because if we got our steps wrong, it would be quite obvious. We wanted something more “freestyle” whereby even if we made mistakes, they wouldn’t be too noticeable… hehe. We also wanted a faster song as it would sound more lively, fun and different from a typically slow first dance. Besides, it would probably be easier to get the crowd to join in too later. So, in the end, we went for the song, “(I've Had) The Time Of My Life” by Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes.

We started practicing our dance steps in early August 2007. Although we tried to work on it everyday, that was easier said than done. We missed practice every now and then ‘coz we were sometimes too tired or just didn’t have the time.

Being unskilled dancers, we had to take it slowly and choreographed the dance steps to fit our limited ability… hehe. The main thing was that the steps had to feel natural to us as we learnt them from a couple of videos that we found online.

As the wedding approached, we became even busier and missed practice for extended periods… we would forget our steps every now and then, so we would try to squeeze in a short practice session occasionally. Anyway, we just did our best and tried to have fun too!

Photo Selection

On Thursday, 26 July 2007, we went to Ivory Romance to see the result of our photo shoot. We were attended to by our photographer, Ah Mun. His job was to help us select matching shots to fit into our photo album and to also convince us to upgrade our album into a fully digital design album. Personally, I thought their digital designs were decent, not impressive, but on the other hand, we would also get more poses in the album. Hmm…

Cost was not the main issue in not buying his sales pitch. I believe that if the digital designs made the album look truly extraordinary, then it would automatically become a must-have, a necessity that no matter what, we would still want to upgrade our package for that awesome result. But that was not the case… and moreover, I don’t really like indoor photos that much.

As for Sze, he let me decide as he didn’t have a preference. Fiona was also with us to help in selecting the photos. We wanted more poses but didn’t want the digital designs. So, we came up with the idea of upgrading our mini album from identical poses (which was redundant anyway) to different poses, with a digital copy of all the photos (no touch-up) on CD-ROM. Poof! There goes the fat commission for Ah Mun - he wasn’t thrilled but helped us to finish up the process. Our album would be ready on 28 September 2007.

The physical mini album was not impressive but that was less important – the crucial point was that we would get the digital copy of the photos in JPEG format. That was like getting the film negative in the old days and we could then do anything we wanted from there. We didn’t want the bridal studio’s slideshow either as we wanted to do our own - the video slideshow of our Pre-Wedding Album has been posted earlier in the Video Gallery.

Pre-wedding Photo Shoot

It was Sunday, 8 July 2007. Our appointment for the photo shoot was at 11am. Even though lunch would be provided, we were afraid we might get hungry (oops… you now know that we’re both big eaters)! So, we prepared some food and drinks to bring along for tea time.

By the time we arrived at the bridal studio, it was already 11.30am. Risley, our make-up artist, took an hour to get us (actually, it was mostly me) ready for the first session – our outdoor shoot.

We went to Muzium Telekom and its surrounding area at the Jalan Gereja-Jalan Raja Chulan junction for our photo session.


We were afraid there would be many people staring at us during the shooting. But it was a Sunday and thankfully the area was quite deserted. A few girls staying up in a nearby apartment block were watching us and waved when we looked up. A short while later, someone looked out from a passing car and said, “Hello!” We waved back. Well, guess it wasn’t so bad after all to be watched by others during our outdoor shoot. :)

In the midst of our photo session, it started to rain. So we didn’t get to take as many outdoor shots as I would have liked. We then proceeded back to the studio and had lunch there.

Next, we continued with the indoor studio photos. We had many different poses in various settings till we lost track of what we did.


We ended the photo session with the Rococo Rose backdrop, the traditional Chinese and the Japanese costumes. The entire session finished at around 9.30pm. It had been a long and tiring day for us.

Buying Shoes

A few weeks before the pre-wedding photo shoot, we went shopping for Sze’s shoes. His old shoes were already scratched and worn out. Being as fussy as he is, it was not easy to find a suitable pair. For weeks, we went around to many places but just didn’t find anything that both of us liked.

One day, we took my 6th Uncle from Kedah out for shopping as well as to meet with Naomi, my younger sis who was working at The Curve at that time. 6th Uncle wanted to enjoy relaxing in a massage chair, so we left him at Ogawa.

We continued our window shopping and wandered into Metrojaya. While looking around, we came across a black pair of long and unique-looking shoes. It was a Valentino Rudy of Italy. Sze thought it looked quite nice and different while I thought it looked much better than the other shoes in the store. Ah, agreement at last… so that was how we settled on Sze’s Valentino Rudy.

As we continued window shopping, I also found a pair of shoes for myself at Edward Forrest. I wanted a pair of silver shoes as they would easily match any dress. But unfortunately, they didn’t have my size… as usual :(

Before long, the weekend of our photo shoot was already approaching. I had totally forgotten about my shoes. When Sze reminded me about it, I panicked as there was only one weekend left!

Fiona, Naomi and me then went to Sungei Wang Plaza to look for my shoes. While we were looking around, we went into an evening/wedding gown shop called SA Creative. So instead of a pair of shoes, I bought a knee-length dress for my wedding dinner. Many brides might not accept the idea of having a short dress for their dinner reception, but I really liked it, more so when I think of how the skirt will float when I make a turn during the dance… hehe.

Time was running out fast for me. I started going into almost every shoe shop in Sg. Wang and finally found a pair which was quite decent. I took it immediately to get it over with. Moreover, Naomi was already complaining of feeling hungry, so we ended our shopping trip with lunch at Kim Gary.

Selecting Dresses for the Pre-Wedding Photo Shoot and Wedding Day

On 14 June 2007, we went to Ivory Romance to choose our dresses and coats for the photo shoot and wedding. It was 3 weeks before our photo session.

I tried on a number of dresses in various colors. I chose a cream colored wedding gown and a beige evening gown as I prefer creamy colors instead of plain white for the wedding. The rest of the dresses for the photo shoot needed striking colors to stand out better, so I had a variety of white, cream, blue, red and pink. (The dresses can be viewed in the “Choosing a Bridal Studio” blog, Video Gallery and Photo Gallery).

Meanwhile, Sze chose a single-breasted black coat as they didn’t have the double-breasted coat in his size (it was either too big or too small). He would then buy a white tuxedo shirt from them on the day of the photo shoot and change his clothing to match whatever I would be wearing during the photo session.

Choosing the Butterworth Dinner Venue

We had already booked Bankers for our KL wedding dinner. It would be jointly hosted by both Sze and me for any of our family members, relatives, friends and colleagues who were in the Klang Valley.

However, I also have many relatives who were in the Butterworth area. As such, my family decided to host a separate wedding dinner for them there. I’m not familiar with the area and don’t really know what‘s good over there. Thus, we asked my Mom to help out.

Mom and Dad were staying in Sitiawan. So it was not so convenient for them either. Now, 8th Uncle was a Butterworth resident and knew the town better than any of us did. So, he recommended Hock Mun Restaurant, a more popular venue for wedding dinners over there.

Since many of my relatives also had their wedding dinners at that restaurant, Mom agreed and he booked the place for us on 27 October 2007 (2 weeks earlier than our Bankers dinner). With that, the search for our Butterworth dinner venue was completed.

Invitation Cards

What kind of cards should we go for? Wanting to be different, our dinner invitation card would need to have an extraordinary design. So we decided to have a DIY card instead.

Another reason for having a DIY wedding invite is to make it more personal. The effort that we put into the card would give a different feeling to the invitation if the recipients know how to appreciate it.

So what kind of extraordinary design should we go for? Since we would be doing it ourselves, it had to be simple to make yet special. We bought plain A4 paper, red A4 cards, thin maroon satin ribbon, tracing paper and 2.5” burgundy organza ribbon.

The most important part of our DIY card was of course, the invitation message. We designed that first and made it simple and easy to read, bearing in mind that there would also be older Uncles and Aunties who might have difficulty reading more fancy cards.

I printed the invitation details with a color laser printer onto the plain A4 paper and used the red A4 card for backing (each A4 sheet fits 3). I then tied a thin maroon satin ribbon through a hole punched at the top to hold both the paper and red card together. Next, tracing paper was folded over the paper and card to act as a semi-transparent cover, much like an envelope. Lastly, a wide 2.5” burgundy organza ribbon was tied around the tracing paper to hold it and make the recipient feel like he/she was getting a “present” (instead of a “summons”… he he).

 

Of all the stationeries that we bought, the most difficult to find was the organza ribbon. But after a hard search, we finally found it for a bargain price at Bunga Reben in Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman. This shop sold all kinds of wedding stuff and I enjoyed looking at the many other items on display even though I did not buy them. On the other hand, we got the tracing paper from a large art shop nearby Central Market.

Choosing a Bridal Studio

Our next mission was to look for a bridal studio to take pre-wedding photos. I like the idea of having 100% outdoor photos, like how it’s done overseas. But in Malaysia, people expect to see studio photos as well. So, we decided to follow the norm.

We went to a few bridal studios to compare their photo packages. The 1st studio that we went to was Touch Wedding Studio in Jalan Loke Yew. Even though they had good quality photos, I didn’t like the way they categorized their dresses. They separated the wedding gowns and evening dresses into a few categories: Normal, VIP and SVIP. Depending on the selected package, I could only choose dresses from certain racks. This made me feel rather limited in the choices that were available.

Next, we went to Classic Bridal & Photo Studio at the other end of the block. The photo samples were not that impressive while the sales girl was too long-winded and turned us off.

We also checked out San Diego Bridal Studio in Jalan Ipoh. The dresses didn’t impress me at all. They tried to close the deal by throwing in many freebies but we just said that we didn’t want to be rushed into making a decision.

We had earlier gone to Ivory Romance Bridal Gallery, which is also at Jalan Loke Yew. Having compared several bridal studios, we felt that most of them offered similar photo packages - the main differences being the dresses and the photos. I was attracted to Ivory Romance’s wide selection of dresses, which although were categorized into new and old, nevertheless still offered a pretty good range. In addition, Sze also liked their photos the best.

We didn’t want to waste too much time checking out similar packages elsewhere, so we went back to Ivory Romance with my sis Fiona to help us negotiate a better deal as she is pretty good in that. She managed to help us get some extra freebies with additional 4R photos to give away to family and friends. In the end, we signed up with them after a long evening at the studio.

Later on, I read on a forum that Ivory Romance has a bad reputation. I got a little scared but we had paid quite a high deposit. Then I thought, “What difference would it make if we chose another studio?” I believe the other studios are no better either as they all have the same attitude problem. Since we are only supposed to get married once, we are just one-time customers to them. As such, good customer service is not important. We would just have to keep our fingers crossed that everything turns out well when the time comes. (More stories on how it went for us in the coming blogs.)

Choosing a Dinner Venue

We looked everywhere in our search for a suitable dinner venue. This was definitely not an easy job. We spent weeks calling the hotels and club restaurants to enquire about their wedding dinner packages.

A few places that we were initially interested in include Concorde Hotel, Equatorial Hotel and Royale Bintang Damansara (RBD). But of the three, only RBD was available on our wedding date. I tried making arrangements to meet with Angeline, who was RBD’s sales manager, but we couldn’t meet on any of our available times. This was because we could only visit her after work and she was only willing to wait till 7pm. Both our working places were not near to RBD, so we’re pretty sure we wouldn’t be able to make it there before 7pm. In addition, Angeline also doesn’t work on weekends, so that’s not helpful either.

We decided to drop by RBD to have a look anyway, even without meeting her. We checked out the banquet hall, which was beautifully grand and new but there were 2 big pillars blocking the view in the middle. We also got to try the food at the restaurant and even met the friendly Chef Tony.

I continued to check the malaysiabrides forum for possible dinner venues and found Saujana Subang. Despite my friend Stephanie’s bad review (which she told me when I was previously working in ICOM), I still called up their sales person, Jackie. She gave me the package details and it seemed rather attractive but alas, it was not available on the date that we wanted. We also visited the Legend Hotel but the function rooms were just too small and old too. We’ve been coming up against all the BUTs, but that’s just the way things have gone for us…

And that’s not it either… I ended up asking for quotations from almost all the hotels in Kuala Lumpur. I then removed those that were not available or not suitable to narrow down the choices, which makes the selection process easier.

Later, we somehow came across Bankers Club. Not knowing that it is strictly for club members only, we dropped by to meet Shangkar one evening without an appointment. He was not in and the receptionist advised us to make an appointment first. We asked to see the place and she showed us around the club premises a little. Fortunately, we were satisfied with what we saw in terms of environment and concept.

The following day, I called Shangkar again to make an appointment and after talking to him, our interest in selecting Bankers as our dinner venue grew even more. We found that the attitude of the sales person mattered a lot - we were not too happy with RBD as Angeline wasn’t flexible enough to even meet us but Shangkar was very accommodating in person (although he’s quite unresponsive to emails).

I must admit that Renaissance Hotel’s Jeffryn also gave me a very good impression but we chose Bankers Club in the end for several reasons:

1. Concept (neither a typical Chinese restaurant nor a hotel banquet)
2. Flexibility (I can even personalize my own cake!)
3. Environment (real classy and cozy ambience too)

Of course, there was always a negative side to everything - we would have to purchase the wine from Bankers as they do impose corkage. However, we were willing to accept that condition as everything else was to our satisfaction.

Choosing the Date

Sze had already proposed and so, what’s next? We didn’t discuss about when to tie the knot for a while, for about 2 months. Definitely, both of us have thought about it but didn’t really bring it up for a serious table talk.

I don’t remember how exactly we started the topic but we planned to get married in either end of 2007 or middle 2008. Why? These timings were actually chosen to accommodate Sze’s brothers. 2nd brother from Toronto might be able to attend in Nov 2007 while eldest bro from Ottawa might be able to come in May 2008.

After a few discussions, and taking into consideration Mom’s reluctance in waiting for too long, we decided on the earlier time of November.

It is a Chinese custom to see a Sifu (Master) to pick an auspicious date for marriage, especially for the traditional ceremonies. It doesn’t really bother us if we didn’t see a Sifu to choose a suitable date (from calculating our Chinese birthdates for a good match). However, Sze’s parents are keen to do that.

We needed an auspicious Saturday in November and we even checked Lilian Too’s website for a suitable date. However, the Sifu could only come up with various dates in December, October or weekdays and Sundays in November… there were just no Saturdays! Dissatisfied, we suggested, “How about 10 November?” He said that would be ok though not amazingly good. Well, it was settled then - 10 November 2007 was a good date for us as it’s a Saturday, convenient for the guests and a reasonably auspicious date too.

Informing the Families

What do you do before you even start to plan? We need to inform our families. My Darling Sze informed his family first and they suggested that we get a date chosen. Our preference was for either November 2007 or May 2008.

One morning, before taking my shower, I had a chat with Fiona, my elder sis. Somehow, I managed to blurb out the wedding news. She was surprised and discouraged me from getting married now (she wanted me to wait till after 2 years). However, I informed her that the decision had already been made.

I called my Mom the same day and gave her the news too. Mom thought that a year-end wedding was way too long to wait for (it was April when I told her then). This was because she said that she could arrange a wedding in just a few months time! I didn’t believe that and I’m glad I didn’t listen to her as it was not easy just to find a suitable dinner venue.

My Mom then informed my Godmother. Thankfully, Godmom was pretty excited upon hearing the wedding news.

The Wedding Plan

Planning a wedding has been the biggest ever task in our lives so far. It was a once-in-a-lifetime event, which must be executed smoothly, without any major problems. This also meant that we needed to have proper event planning and management. But with very little experience, as with most couples, we started our wedding plan with much enthusiasm and excitement.

For starters, a checklist is a definite must. Below is a to-do list that we went through in planning for our wedding event. We will post a blog about each item in the following list every weekday, for the benefit of anyone who needs a reference in planning for a wedding, or for anyone who simply just wants to read about what we went through.

1. Informing the Families
2. Choosing the Date
3. Choosing a Dinner Venue
4. Choosing a Bridal Studio
5. Invitation Cards
6. Choosing the Butterworth Dinner Venue
7. Selecting Dresses for the Pre-wedding Photo Shoot and Wedding Day
8. Buying Shoes
9. Pre-wedding Photo Shoot
10. Photo Selection
11. Dance Practice
12. Wedding Favor Ideas
13. Guest List, Card Distribution, RSVP and Seating Arrangement
14. Bridal Room Furniture
15. Photographer and Videographer
16. Makeup Artist
17. Dinner Venue Decorations
18. Dinner Program
19. Wedding Music
20. LCD Projector
21. Catering
22. Canopy and Furniture Rentals
23. Traditional Wedding Items
24. Guo Dai Lai
25. Planning for the Tea Ceremony
26. Planning the Wedding Door Games