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.

Music & Entertainment for the Reception

We just placed a deposit to book a DJ and music equipment for the reception! Tubbs(Darling) and I found them when we attended the Ultimate Bridal Event in May last year. Their sales reps are nice and friendly and they have good testimonials on their website too. We could have just gone with an iPod package - which is just music playing the whole ceremony, but of course we opted to have a DJ instead to liven up the atmosphere.

Tubbs and I weren't a fan of having a live band playing. If there were to be any live singing, it would most definitely have to come from me (the singing wannabe), my bridesmaids/groomsmen and guests. Afterall it's our special day and we don't really need some outsiders performing for us! Tubbs is a bit shy singing in front of an audience and would only do it in the lounge room with me on our gaming consoles. :p

Anyway, we went with their standed 5-hour wedding package. Details below:
Name: Pro Mobile DJs
Website: http://www.promobiledjs.com.au/

Standard Wedding Package = $445 for up to 5 hours
* Professional, fun and experienced DJ for up to 5 hours
* Suitable for up to 150 people
* MASSIVE music collection covering all genres from 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and today
* 2x Powered 15 inch speakers on stands
* Dual CD player with mixer
* 2x Intelligent LED lights
* Microphone for speeches (on wire)
* Complete customer service 24/7

Oh and they also provide setup and rental of data projectors. I think it's about $100 for the whole event. We definitely need one because we plan to do a slide-show of our pre-wedding photos that night so guests can see while awaiting our arrival. I'll also be picking up my pre-shoot gown tomorrow from the seamstress! Can't wait! :D

Booking our Reception Venue: Brighton Savoy, what's left on the list and receptions back home in SG/MY.

I'm so happy that the blog posts are all finally up to date. But most importantly the other happier thing is that we finally placed a deposit on the reception venue a couple of weeks ago on Tues 14 Dec. That's another tick off the list and one less thing to worry about. Since hearing that 2011 was a favourite year for couples to get married (I mean, come on Prince William and Kate at that!), having the most important things on top of the list sorted out certainly placed our hearts a little more at ease.

As you might recall, we went to inspect the Brighton Savoy a few months ago in July. They have been really good in holding the date for us for 5 months and only requesting a deposit to be made after another couple expressed interest as well. Throughout that period, they have constantly kept in touch with us to find out if we were still interested in holding our reception there. And so that's a good indication of customer service. :) The other venues that we visited made no contact at all, except for a couple who checked back a day or two after the visit and simply forgotten us after that.

Ticks on lists so far:	Next on the list:
Ceremony Venue Reception Venue Celebrants Photographer & Videographer	Flowers and Cake Bridemaid's Dresses Actual day gown Hair and makeup Artist

Not forgetting to mention that I have asked my uncle and auntie if I can leave from their very beautiful bungalow on our wedding day and they have happily said yes. And as you can guess coussy Kayla (their daughter) is extremely elated too. We'll most probably borrow my uncle's Merc for the bridal car and save on the hire car. I would really like to decorate it as well, hoping we can find a shop here that does it.

For the moment, we're still in holiday mood for the rest of the plans. We're having discussion about the reception lunch/dinners back in Singapore and Malaysia for year end with our parents though. Apparently as in the chinese lunar calendar, this year (the year of the Rabbit) is a popular for weddings back home as well because couples want to conceive and have a "Dragon" baby in the following year. LOL. So we have to be pretty fast in booking the venues for Dec 2011 and Jan 2012 too.

Till then Happy New Years 2011 everyone and may this year be a good one for everyone too!