Dinner Venue Decorations

I was quite particular about the wedding dinner decorations at Bankers. I didn’t want to overdo the deco but yet, I wanted something with style. Fortunately, Sze left the deco all up to me, so I had the freedom to decide on what I wanted the place to look like.

I had done some research and I already had several ideas in mind. 1st of all, I wanted our theme color to match the classic wood environment in Bankers. We saw some photos of a few previous wedding dinners there and found that light purple blended in very well with the Bankers interior. The color was very unintrusive and gave me a nice, warm feeling. Even Shangkar, the Bankers event manager, loved that color.

Now, wedding without flowers would be no wedding at all. I wanted a floral centerpiece with a pillar candle and 2 bouquets at the base of the staircase railing with netting to cover the spotlight.



(Nobody could imagine what I wanted, so I did the centerpiece myself. Bought the flowers 1 day before our wedding and DIY the bouquet myself. But that was not such a great idea as I did not have time to relax at all.)

Shangkar would also scatter rose petals and place tealight candles on the stairs, window ledges and tables.



We saw from some photos that too much deco could crowd out the classic and elegant environment in Bankers (which would then defeat the purpose of choosing this venue). Hence, we decided to keep our deco relatively simple (when compared to those photos… hehe).

Although Bankers did provide chair tiebacks, we did not take up that offer as they did not match our theme color. So we sourced for the tiebacks ourselves. We went to meet Hassim at one of his wedding events. We chose the tieback color we wanted from his color palette but we missed each other and did not get to meet. Everything was done through the phone and we would then bank in the money for him after our dinner event was over. Unbelievable as it may sound, this business deal was all based on trust!

More photos of our dinner venue decorations at Bankers can be viewed at:
http://www.zenetlife.com/wedding/dinnerrec/dinnerrec.asp
http://www.zenetlife.com/wedding/AddDinner/adddinner.asp

Makeup Artist

Looking for a makeup artist (MUA) did not take too long. Although I had been monitoring the forum for contacts, I did not really need to check them out. This was because I already had several contacts of my own.

When I went for our pre-wedding photo shoot, I enquired about hiring Ivory Romance for their makeup services but that arrangement did not suit me. Ivory’s MUA would give me a makeover in the morning at my place but in the evening, I would have to go to their studio to get my face colored, which would be quite inconvenient on such a busy day.

A friend of mine then recommended her MUA, Vivien, to me. I checked out her pre-wedding photos and I thought the makeup was very natural. I also checked out a few other MUAs but they were all not suitable. So I decided to hire Vivien as my MUA. She was charging a standard rate of RM600 (in 2007) and we made arrangements to meet up to show her the way to my place.

I found Vivien to be a petite and nice lady. She would do the makeup in the morning at my place while she would come to Bankers for the evening makeup session. I explained to her that she could do the usual natural makeup in the morning but I wanted bolder makeup for the evening as that would look more prominent in the dim Bankers environment. Vivien was quite receptive to my request as she never really had much of a chance to apply more daring makeup until this. I paid her a deposit before she left.

(Btw, Viven did a great job with my makeup on the wedding day. She also did some makeup for Mom on that day. Mom, Godmom and Sis were all very impressed with her skills. They even thought of taking makeup lessons from her!)

Photos of the evening and morning wedding events can be viewed at:
http://www.zenetlife.com/wedding/dinnerrec/dinnerrec.asp
http://www.zenetlife.com/wedding/TRADC/tradc.asp

Photographer and Videographer

Our wedding was getting closer each day. Everything and everybody were being booked fast for the year-end wedding peak season. We really need to confirm a photographer soon before it’s too late.

I had been checking the malaysiabrides forum everyday in my search for a decent photographer. I read about Jim Liaw and was quite impressed by his portfolio, but his quote was a little too high for us. I also contacted Louis Pang from Sabah but it was a similar problem. In addition, we would have to pay for his flights, accommodation and allowance too, which would add up to a big sum. By the way, both photographers’ fees range from around RM4,000 to much higher amounts.

Soon after, I short-listed another 3 photographers, whose rates were closer to our budget and their styles to our liking too:
Kok Weng RM1,100
Aivee RM1,000
Kevin Han RM1,300

It took us several days to decide on the most suitable photographer. But in the end, we decided to opt for Kevin. So, what made us choose him? Although Kevin had the highest rate, we still picked him over the others because of his very natural lighting and nice photography. And especially in a dimmer environment like Bankers (our wedding dinner venue), his wonderful lighting would be crucial, and that made the decision quite easy when we compared their photos side-by-side.

(Btw, Kevin did a great job on our wedding day. 2 of our photo albums taken by him can be viewed at:
http://www.zenetlife.com/wedding/dinnerrec/dinnerrec.asp
http://www.zenetlife.com/wedding/TRADC/tradc.asp
We also heard that he has already increased his fees.)

We would not hesitate to hire a photographer for our wedding but a videographer was optional. Fortunately for us, Sze’s brother from Canada, Kin Yuen would be attending our wedding, and he would be bringing a brand new video camera along with him… yay!

(Turned out that Kin Yuen was too busy to be the videographer on the wedding day as he was also the best man. So Sze’s cousin Boon took over the job instead. We were very impressed with his commitment as he was working like a full-time videographer! We had not expected this kind of dedication from someone who was just doing it for free. We were quite thankful but at the same time, we also wanted him to have time to sit down and enjoy the dinner. That was one of the reasons why we hired a photographer, whereby Kevin was an equally committed professional.)

Bridal Room Furniture

We needed a new set of bedroom furniture as the number of “residents” in the room would increase to 2 (single upgraded to double… hehe). We looked around the Cheras and Puchong areas for a reasonable bedroom set.

Our room isn’t that big, so we decided not to get a king-sized bed. A queen-sized bed would probably be a more practical option. My sis, Fiona, had previously suggested that we get the bigger king-sized bed so that we could share the bed with our baby too when we have one. I thought it wasn’t such a great idea as a big bed would make our room more cramped. When baby comes along, we’ll see what we can do then.

As we were looking around, we came across a bed set manufactured by Batu Emas. Apparently, it was made of solid wood and looked good. Of course, it was also a little more expensive.

We continued to look around and found this shop called UMI Furnishing Design near Sze’s house in Puchong. The shop owner, Francis Chew, was a funny guy. He seemed quite honest and recommended several bedroom sets to us. We felt comfortable and our confidence in him grew which led to trust.

After thinking it over, we went back to the shop the next day and paid a deposit for a bed set which we mixed and matched from the catalog. In the end, we were quite happy and satisfied with the choice of bedroom furniture that we purchased.

Guest List, Card Distribution, RSVP and Seating Arrangement

It wasn’t too difficult for us to come up with our guest lists. Sze had been wondering how to get started and fortunately got his cousin Su to fax us the relatives guest list which she used for her sister’s wedding just a year earlier. It made a great reference as we were also inviting the same people (i.e. relatives).

As for me, I already knew exactly who I needed to invite, so I had no problems in coming up with my guest list. The only other question was to decide on which of our friends and office colleagues to invite.

The most tiring part was the distribution of invitation cards. Most of my relatives’ cards were distributed by hand one month before the wedding dinner, so we had to go from house to house to invite our honorable guests. Sze had the advantage of having his Muslim cousin Harris, organize a Hari Raya open house party at around the same time, so he took the opportunity to distribute most of his relatives’ cards at that gathering (which saved us many trips). Of course, colleagues were the easiest as we were all working in the same office while we also had to meet up or visit some old friends in order to “summon” them. ;)

After the card distribution, we had to find out if our invited guests would be able to make it for our wedding reception. Although some did call to confirm their attendance/non-attendance, not many would RSVP. So one week before the wedding, we would call most of them for confirmation.

Seating arrangement wasn’t that difficult either. We just seated our guests according to their relationships. Most of the juggling was to fit into each table, 10 people who got along the best. As we had used MS Excel spreadsheet program to help keep track of our guest list and RSVP status, cutting and pasting their names to slot into each table ensured that we didn’t miss out on anyone.

Wedding Favor Ideas

We first thought of giving each of our guests a pair of chopsticks as a wedding favor. The varieties of Thai-style chopsticks were quite popular and were becoming increasingly common as wedding favor items. However, we would rather source for more unique chopsticks directly from Thailand (instead of the commonly imported varieties sold locally) but since no one was going there, we looked around and found another suitable wedding favor – heart-shaped soaps.

My sis told me that no one was going to cherish our wedding favor. Her boyfriend took home a pair of chopsticks from a wedding dinner and it had been left lying in a corner ever since. When I imagined my own chopsticks being treated that way, I felt that would be such a waste.

The little pieces of soap came in multiple colors and since they were more likely to be used than chopsticks, we decided to change our wedding favor to the heart-shaped soap instead.

I like organza bags as they look classy. Since I had some maroon organza ribbon left over from our DIY invitation cards, I thought we could make bags out of that. My Mom helped me sew the ribbon into little bags. We then inserted the soap into the organza bags and tied each bag with thin, pink satin ribbon.


Good idea? We just hope our maroon organza bags will complement the light purple theme of our wedding dinner reception (more photos available in the Photo Gallery).

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!