Save the Date! Have you?

Yeah, practically I hope I can follow all the western's custom and ritual for my wedding solely because I'm so seriously poisoned by all bridal magazines, wedding blogs and sites. I'd love to have the "something old something new, something borrowed something blue" but well, let's put that aside first.

The very one and only ritual that I've no doubt to carry out is my Save The Date! I have this in mind for the longest time already ever since our engagement last December. The idea evolved from a Save The Date lollipop cookie to..... a Save The Date Cupcake!

(Alright cupcakes is sooo "in" now that sometimes I'd very much like to scrap off from the wedding, but well... that's something I'm really good at!:p)

So my simple and oh-so-pretty cupcakes. Rich chocolate cupcakes with gooey chocolate ganache centre, top with fluffly swiss butter cream. I love the soft and pastel swirl.

I ordered some clear PVC boxes for the cupcakes and printed out the label myself. It's indeed a thorough DIY project! I love that!

The calendar for the month of December, the day falls on a Thursday but fear not! The following Friday is a Public Holiday! How can I ask for more? I've also tied a sticker of our monogram to the cupcakes for our friends to stick on their calendar (but I seriously wonder how many of them actually do it!)

So we totally send out about 25 Save The Dates, not much, but enough to make us tired explaining what is Save The Date! Some even thought that this is our wedding invites! Some says what the heck is this and why you waste money like this!

Well, clearly, I do these for myself and to please myself. :D I'm happy with the result though. It's like a milestone that we made our wedding public!

I also made these cupcakes for my Pre-Wedding session with Jenny Sun!

Bits and Pieces to Update

I am not saying that I do not know that I've not been updating for almost 6 months. I knew. But I just couldn't bring myself to write. A good 6 months so let's see what did I do:

1. Pick up my dress. Was a little disappointed with the gown-maker as they did not take my measurement properly resulted that I need to bring my gown for alteration in Kuching. But it is almost exactly like what I wanted. and yup. it came out a little short for me.

2. Bought our wedding band. and Nope. it's not the rose gold ring I blogged about.

3. Had our Pre-Wed pictures / Engagement pictures taken and so far only see a teaser picture my photographer posted on Twitter. *waiting patiently for the rest*

4. Sent out my Save The Date cupcakes. I got to talk about this more next.

5. Done my invitation mock-up. I felt something wasn't that right but couldn't tell where.

6. Been spending time on Etsy and Ebay, scouting for some wedding merchandise. and bought some.

7. My thoughts have been on the bridemaids' and bestmen gift lately.

8. and also the children activity pack. mazes, puzzles & etc.

9. Confirmed the actual day photographers. Yes i have more than one.

10. Confirmed the Jazz Band for the dinner.

Well, is that achievements of some sort?

There's still 114 days to the wedding. I hope i can update religiously as i really want to.

THE Ring

Talking about the wedding band, I always always wanted a simple white gold wedding band, plain, simple, no diamond no nothing... But as usual the Mr prefers something more feminine for me, with a little bit of diamonds which shows the bling but is versatile for daily wears.

Thanks to my bad habits of buying any bridal magazine off the markets, I spotted one rose gold ring in one of the Chinese bridal magazine that at one points I thought it's a waste of my money.

I showed it to the Mr and surprisingly that he likes it as well. The rose gold is a little more pinkish then the traditional yellow gold and is more muted. (We are thankful that our parents did not step in and ask us to get a yellow gold wedding rings at any point.) I actually preferred the first ring without any diamond and it is more classic and simple as I want in the first place.

We are almost convinced to bring this picture to the shops and ask them to custom made this for us if we cannot find the similar rings around town. But one day when we casually walked into a goldsmith's, we saw this:-

Of course this is not the exact ring but a random image that I got from the net to represent the ring that we saw. It is almost a love at first sight and the price is within our budget as well. Trying to stop the spontaneous shopper in both of us, we decided not to get it on the spot.

When we referred back to the first rose gold ring, we are both thinking why not get the shop to custom made the ring for us, so mine will be the rose gold ring with diamonds, I wanted the diamonds to be half of the circle only (like the white gold ring); and the Mr will get the simple rose gold band which we initially wanted.

Hah... Perfect.

Bridesmaids' Gifts

You've seen my effort of making my Maid of Honour a "Will U Be..." card and I am thinking of something for my bridesmaids. (Yes I said I am a loner but I still a few friends and cousins...)

I bought a fresh water pearl ring together with the bracelet last time and I wanted to give something similar to the bridesmaids on my wedding day! Yep you read me right. For the wedding day as a thank you gift!

So....

It is actually inspired by a ring bearer bowl which I spotted at Etsy.com, I want it so much but the seller said she no longer ship to Malaysia.

The ring bearer bowl, so simple and yet speaks for itself. (image source)

Be Loving, Be Happy, Be True.... That's all I want the girls to be on my wedding day! It would be nice is all of them wear the same ring right? Another form of corsage?

Close-up of the peach-colour fresh water pearl ring. So sweeeeeet....

Now the problem is, I have to know the ring size of each and every one of my bridesmaids to order the ring. Not like I am going to ask them for their ring sizes, and I gotta say I ordered the ring above for myself and I got the wrong size!

My Maid of Honour

I am actually very much of a loner, I can go shopping alone, I can sit in Starbucks for hours alone, I can stay at home and not utter a single words for the whole day; hence, I do not have a lot of friends in my life. But this Maid of Honour of mine is an exception. We've known each other for almost 15 years. We may not meet so often, we may not have any sleepover together, we never travel together before but I can say she shares most of my emotions throughout my life. I still keep most (if not all) of the letters that she wrote to me in the uni days. : )

Though it is no doubt that she will be my Maid of Honour or Bridesmaid but I wish I can handmade something for her so my first DIY project (which I hope there's a lot more to come), the "Will You Be My Maid of Honour" card!

A sweet and simple dress, I cut out the dress, add the ribbon sash, and I know I had to add some sequins at the chest area but the lace hem is a spontaneous touch.

I thought it might be a little messy for me to glue the sequins and lace but I swear it feel like a cooling breeze! And I totally love the subtle, sweet and girly feel reflected here.

The inside of the card. I jotted down all the reasons I need this bff of mine to be my maid of honour. Look at the chandelier behind the layer of wordings!

The fresh water pearl bracelet that I include in the card as a gift. I bought this off an online blogshop. It is a pretty mild peach colour which is one of my theme colour. Look at the monogram, it feels so right, doesn't it?

I hope this card does reflect the classic vintage wedding theme. And most importantly, it meant so much to me to have this young lady beside me along the wedding planning journey and on the wedding day.

ps. The Mr was so impressed by the card and he said he wants something similar for his bestmen too! So let's see what can I come up with!

The Monogram

I fell in love with Wedding Monogram since day 1 I am in the world of wedding planning. It's such an simple and affordable approach to "brand" and "theme" the wedding. It can appears in the wedding invitations, the guest book, the reception backdrop, the menu, the thank you cards and all over the wedding. It's like your symbol!

To be honest, I've been drafting out the monogram since last year (yes, even before he officially proposed :p). I like how people incorporate the initial for the surename to the monogram also, apart from the couple's initials. Perhaps in the western culture, the wife will most likely change her surename to her husband's; by incorporating the husband's surename's initial symbolise the new begining of them as a family.

Though for me, I am not going to change my surename to his but coincidently we both share the same initial for our surenames. Hence, having a 3-letters monogram is stapled in my mind ever after.

#1

To suit to my theme of a vintage classic, I decided to go for a more antique, old english font. The more I look at it, the more I like it and feel like "me". Yeah but the Mr doesn't really like it and claimed that it is a little macho for a wedding.

#2

So the #2, without the initial "T". This, I suppose is more feminine, more wedding, and more typical, which I don't like. But the Mr likes it, as I predicted.

#3

This is the same monogram as #1 except the damask design, the so-called improved version after the Mr's comment. He always like some damask patterns. But I think it is a little to overpowering, don't you think so?

(I have used #1 in one of my wedding projects, and suprisingly the Mr said it looks nice when assembled with wordings and printed on paper. *big grins*)

ps. It is now officially 9 months away from our wedding day.

THE theme

As long as my venture as a wedding planner & decorator, I stressed to my customer the importance of a Wedding Theme. It helps enormously to guide both the couple and vendors to have a clearer direction towards the wedding and deliver a cohesive wedding image.

Way before my engagement, I've been pondering on my wedding theme. I do not want the very common Oriental theme, although to an extend I believe a "Shanghai's 30s" can be a very good wedding theme and the impact will be strong. Imagine, red fabrics, red round lantern, cheongsam, peonies prints... And, for sure, it will be a big hit among the elders (whereby 65% of our guests will be elders).

However, I always wanted a bespoke, understated yet romantic, whimsical, loving and warmth wedding. So one day when I was browsing the internet, it just suddenly hit me, the English Vintage!

Among the tons and tons of images I've collected over time, I pulled them together into the followings inspiration boards:

Lace details, eyelets, chandeliers, vintage typewritter, fluffy peonies, calligraphy... I am so head over heels with all these. It also more or less outlined my theme colour, dark brown, broze, champagne, ivory, and a slight touch of peach.

In order to devote my passion towards baking and love towards my cupcakes, I'd definietly want some cupcakes at my wedding (but who's gonna bake for me?). I especially love the middle picture on the top row, it's a printed traditional vows on a canvas. As we are not going to exchange vows during the dinner, I'd want something similar to honour the wedding vows.

Candles are able to create the heartwarming and magical atmosphere at any occasion, something which the Mr really like and stressed on. Everyone around me will know that I am a coffee addict and if I am allowed to do so, yeah... I like to have some coffee beans somewhere in the reception. Oh ya.. I adore adore adore the flower balls made of white daisy, maybe something for the flower girls to carry?

I do not have a extra clear image of how I am going to incorporate all the things I love into one single reception which lasted for 3 hours. But, let's see.

I hope that I'll stick to this wedding theme :p though I seen something that made my heart stopped for 3 seconds recently. The Marie Antoinette wedding....