Malaysia Pre-Wedding Photoshoot: Thu 21 Apr 2011

We booked our Malaysia pre-wedding photoshoot since last year. I think that was one of the first things that I did when we first got engaged. I always admired all the beautiful albums of friends and relatives in the past. And so a studio photoshoot was a "must-have" for me; plus this was a norm in the Asian culture because you have the album ready for viewing at the reception place on the wedding day.

We chose Venus Bridal because it was recommended on forums and also one of the top two bridal photography studios in town. Thanks to my dear "Maid-of-Honour" Len who came down from Ipoh to spend 2 days with me and do some girly and wedding stuff together. She and mum came with me to choose my gowns a couple of days before the photoshoot. Below are some of the more boombastic gowns that I didn't pick. They were just way too much for me. The last one really looked like some sort of coral.


The photoshoot took us the whole day from 10.30am to around 7pm in the evening (with an hour's break in the arvo for lunch)! Thanks to darling who had quite a bit of patience though he was quite grumpy already towards the end. But we made it through make-up, 7 gowns, 7 hair styles and countless poses; not to forget the numb cheeks after all the smiling to get some really great shots!

Some shots below that darling took for me on our own camera. I wanted some of my own photos so I had more photos to keep and also to look back on in the future. Two girls from make-up schools who were there to learn that day also took some snaps for me.

1st gown: A white and really long one with black beads and embroidery on the chest area.	2nd gown: A red satin-like number with black embroidery. Tradional with modern touch
Su Lee, the fantastic make-up and hair stylist for the day doing my hair for the 3rd gown.	3rd gown: Another white one with silver embroidery but this was a two piece corset type.
4th gown: Old Victoria English green gown with black corset top and gold embroidery.	5th gown: Mum suggested a Cheong Sam and so I picked this which was quite revealing on the right side!
Su Lee at the back again changing my hairstyle for the 6th gown. This was not my fav one.	6th gown: A fully black number, quite popular nowdaysas  people are no longer so superstitious
Su Lee again doing the hairstyle for my last gown. This has got to be my fav gown and hairstyle	7th gown: White silky gown which I only got to pick on that day for outdoor shoot.

The photos were ready for selection the next day. We had to select 30 poses (photos) out of the few hundred odd photos that we took the day before! Some were easy to pass on but mostly it was no easy feat. His royal tubbyness had to leave and go back to Singapore that arvo and so Mum and I landed up going back to the shop again after church to continue choosing.

Here are some of the shots that day. Apart from the last one, these were all poses that we didn't choose. Because the ones we chose were cut off and given to the designers who will be doing some photoshop editing and album design. Mum and I figured it was such a waste as they will probably throw away the rest of the wallet size preview photos anyway and so we cut them out and took them instead.

Vertical poses above with the horizontal poses below. Darling's gonna "killed me" for posting up this cheesy, playful one below. But I don't care, it was all for the fun of it! :p Majority of the photoshoot was done indoor. The studio had quite a few different backdrops and decorations. We were a little skeptical about the outdoor shoot because of the heat and humidity and so we only went out for a bit in the evening.

Even though I was bitten like hell from so many mosquitos at the garden, I've gotta say some of the favourite shots were from the outdoor shoot. Plus like I've said, the outdoor gown was the favourite for the day. It had just finished raining around 5pm-ish in the evening and that's why the garden / park was swarming with mozzis! We had to force out a smile even though I was itching and scratching all over.

But the long and tiring day ended with a yummy dinner treat from dad, together with mum. And we were quite happy with the photos; that are going to be special keepsafe with us forever, so all the "pain" and effort was worth it, not to forget the experience.

Checking out a couple of Wedding Cake Suppliers

We had two appointments last Saturday with cake suppliers for some tasting and discussion on our wedding cupcake / cake. We are of course, considering prices, flavours, taste, delivery and set-up charges and anything else they provide. The first appointment was in Oakleigh, just in the surrounding suburbs. Their building was a little hard to find, but lucky they said that they will be moving to a proper shop in Glenhuntly in a few weeks time.

Cake Supplier: Three Sweeties
Website: http://www.threesweeties.com.au/
Prices: Cupcakes start from $3.50 each and top tier cakes start from $75. Cake toppers of a Couple with simple designs start from $100.

They hire out cupcake stands at a $30 rental fee and set-up and delivery fee was $75 to our reception place. The lady suggested that we could get some cupcake boxes so that if guests couldn't eat them on that night, they could bring them home.

The next appoinment was in Knox. They were recommended by Ammie, whose colleague had her very pretty and tasty birthday cake made by them. I don't deny their cakes tasted good as Darling went on trying one after another, though I don't think we would go with them.

Cake Supplier: Special Treats By Carolyn
Website: http://www.specialtreatsbycarolyn.com/
Prices: Cupcakes start from $4.00 each and top tier cakes start from $110. Cake toppers of a Couple with some extra small flowers start from $190.

The cupcake stand hire was $50 here and they require a $200 refundable bond. Set up and delivery was slightly cheaper here, $50 to our reception place. But somehow the prices of everything else was certainly more pricey as compared to the first shop. The cake toppers at that, were almost doubled the price here! And no I wasn't too happy about the $200 bond for the stand hire too.

Plue we didn't really feel too comfortable with the lady that chatted to us. She was nice but rather pushy and sort of wanted us to put a deposit there and then. We don't want to make a decision yet as there's still time for us to look around a little bit more. But I'm glad we had these two appointments as we learnt some things; that the cupcake/cake can actually be packaged and given away and was better served as a dessert after the main meals.

We plan to make an appointment with a couple more cake shops when we return from our Singapore/Malaysia trip after Easter. But at least we have decided on having a cupcake/cake, and the theme is still rather debatable. :p

Australia Pre-Wedding Photoshoot: Sat 19 Feb 2011

Silly blogger did a maintenance and all my writing was lost, I'll have to find the time to re-write the post again. Hopefully they restore my previous post soon. Otherwise enjoy the photos first. :p

Wedding Cake thoughts and Limousine Transport

With the months going by quickly, I started browsing around for cake suppliers and emailed a few of them for quotes. Darling was actually quite pleased with the idea of a cake and cupcake combination. We figured it was something different from the usual and also much easier for guests to just pick up a cupcake and eat instead needing to cut and serve them.

Here are a couple of designs below which I found on google. Basically the top most tier will be a single layered cake and you can have up about 4-7 tiers below of cupcakes decorated in circles around the stand. We haven't finalised the theme and colours and I really hope to come to a decision soon as my bridesmaids have also been asking me about our wedding theme.

And so based on pricing and email communications, I have shortlisted about 4 cake suppliers:
1) Special Treats by Carolyn, Knoxfield
2) Three Sweeties, Oakleigh
3) Sweet by Nature, Heidelberg
4) Wild Holly Cakes, Brighton

Special Treats by Carolyn was recommended by Ammie whose colleague had a very lovely and delicious Tiffany styled birthday cake made by them. The first of our appointments is in early April and so I'll update about the cake later on.

Getting on to transport, initially we thought of using my uncle's Merc. But then I just realised that the bride and groom are not supposed to travel to the ceremony venue together. The groom needs to be standing at the alter waiting for the bride already when she arrives. And so we would now need to go in seperate cars.

Thus I thought we could get a limo so my bridesmaids and I and possibly even my parents can get to the church in style. ;) I only emailed one company so far as transport one thats later down the list. But I'm really loving the Chrysler 300C limo and 1300Limo gave us a quote of $1155 for around 5 hours.

Looking at a black coloured Chrysler 300c which can sit up to 10 passengers.

The interior of the Chrysler 300c, all pimped up with lights and leather seats.

Now that I found out the limo doesn't have to do a pick-up for darling at our place, that means we might not need the vehicle for the 5 hours at all and could possibly save some money. So we're keeping this company in mind and will contact others later on.
We're personally not a fan of the old vintage vehicles for some reason and so are not interested in looking into those at all. Till then fingers crossed that we can make a final decision on the wedding theme!

Decorations for the Ceremony Venue and possibly the Reception Venue and Transportation

We just ticked off another item off the list by placing a deposit to book our wedding decorator. Getting my contact when I signed up at Australian Bridal Service (ABS) website, Nicole the Director herself emailed me and informed us that she was decorating the Scotch College Chapel for a wedding in April last year and invited us to drop by to have a look. That was when we took photos of the church and looked at the church interior for the first time.

Name: Your Knight Events and Delightful Occasions
Website: http://www.yourknight.com.au/ and http://www.delightfuloccasions.com.au/

Nicole actually owns both companies and they sort of both deal with the same stuff so I'm not really sure why she chose to have two websites. But I think Your Knight Events deals in corporate stuff and travel whereas Delightful Occasions is more on wedding.

Anyway we chose them because we thought her prices for decorations were quite reasonable based on the decos she had done for the church that day and the testimonials on the websites. And I was also impressed with her professionalism; the fact that the Director herself, was dealing and communicating with us.

Here are some of my favourite picks from the website:
I was also really happy to know that Nicole is actually a florist by trade and does the flower arrangements herself and they do make flower bouquet decos for putting on top the car bonnets as well. Being something that was only common in the Asian cultures, I was really glad to hear that as I didn't want having only a plain boring white ribbon. I can't wait to make an appointment to drop by their Carrum Downs show room to look at their decorative displays as well as to discuss further the decoration needs for the ceremony.

We haven't really decided if the reception places needed other decorations as well because chair sash and table centre pieces are already provided. And so that might be something we'll consider later. These event companies also actually does flowers and cakes and so I'll get a quote from Nicole when I have more information on what type of flowers/colours/cake types I'd like to match our theme. And so the next thing on the list will be the cake!

The finally complete Melbourne Pre-Wedding photoshoot gown with accessories and shoes to match. :)

I collected my gown for our pre-wedding(engagement) photoshoot a couple of weeks ago. If you had previously read, this gown had gone through two different seamstress before it was finally perfected. It wasn't that the I was asking too much, the first seamstress (a wedding shop at that), just did a bad job.

Anyway I was glad to get it back after so long. I tried it on last Monday and showed it to mum on Skpye. She was happy to see her "work"(the maroon coloured sash with sequins and beads sewn) on it. Initially we thought we couldn't use it, but the seamstress (the 2nd one) had this brilliant idea of using buttons to secure parts of the sash onto the gown because it was covering a portion of the zip on the back.

The gown - finally with all alterations and designs completed. Nine West Nuncio Heels Pumps - in Strawberry colour	Flower fascinator to clip on the right side of gown where the ribbon hangs down.
	Crystal and pearl hair comb possibly for the side of the hair
	Crystal and rhinestone hair pins for other parts of the hair.
	Stretchable rhinestone fashion ring for the other hand. ;)

I got on to buying my shoes and accessories to match thereafter. All of those were bought online at much cheaper prices, yet not off setting the quality. The accessories were all from eBay while the shoes were from this fabulous shoe shop in New York - http://www.shopnewyork.com.au/ that sells and ships to Australia at great prices!

And so we have finally scheduled our Melbourne photo shoot for next Saturday! There will be sort of "an entourage" of 4 others including the photographers coming along. We're looking at places like the Botanic Gardens, Melbourne Park, Docklands, Tennis Courts(of course) and anywhere else if more recommendations come along then. Really looking forward to it! :)

P.S: Friends out there who know about "Tubby's shoe incident", can you imagine his face when he saw my shoes!? LOL.