Pre-wed shoot with theredshutter

The day started with the Make Up Artiste coming at 6am to do the make up and hair for Lynne. Derrick came at 7am, prepared. He brought props like a vintage camera, umbrellas, funky sunglasses and his dad's suitcase! Thanks Derrick for the efforts!
He asked for a pen and paper and started writing the sequence of the shoot. Botanic Gardens, Portsdown Rd, Old Parliment House, my house, Botanic Gardens and Fullerton. Seems like a packed schedule!
Thank god we had 2 unexpected helpers that day too! Eunice and my eldest brother! Thank you brother, thank you Eunice! We didn't expect that we needed so much assistance that day. From tissue paper, to carrying our make up, clothes, water, tissue paper, etc...
Well, the event was fun! We did a lunch stop at Ben and Jerry's, and kinda did an unexpected shoot at the place as well! We are both looking forward to see the pictures once Derrick is done editing it. Go go goopapipi!

Ala Carte Wedding

As Lynne's mum is making her wedding gown, we can save on cost. But that also mean we will not be getting any package from any bridal studio. This means, almost everything will have to be ala carte... thus, the headache begins!

As of 13 Sept 2010, the ala carte items are as follows :

Champagne Brunch for Friends - Hyatt Mezza9
Wedding Lunch for Relatives - Peony Jade
Engagement Ring - Derocks
Wedding Bands - Fairy's Inc
Pre-wed Photography - theredshutter.com
AD Phorography - theredshutter.com
Wedding Gown - Lynne's Mum
Tuxedo - The Suit Factory
MUA - TBD
Videographer - Sunny Yip
Wedding Shoes - TBD
Wedding Flowers - TBD
Bridal Car - Jaguar XF (borrow from Daniel Wong)
Strollers / Musicians for AD - Dawn Toh to provide
Wedding cakes for relatives - TBD

The Suffer RING process

Buying the engagement ring is easy. Girls always like it big. The diamond that is. But how big? Girls being girls, they usually benchmark it amongst their friends. I secretly think that they would hope to have their diamond bigger than their gf's.

The real challenge is when we pick our wedding bands. There's 101 designs to choose from. You will be wearing it for life. It has to withstand you growing fat next time, or if you decide to be a homemaker and do lots of housework and face abuse from the broomsticks and washing powder. And it also has to look nice...

We went to Piaget, because we saw a friend's ring, and thought that the rotating feature was interesting. We also went to a friend's family jeweller who helps replicate jewellery from the brands like cartier and tiffany. We also went to Lee Hwa, Poh Heng, and of cos Love & Co. But at the back of my head, I always remembered Fairy's Inc. One of my first couple friend to get married got their wedding band customised from there. So we decided to go down to take a look. We went to both Ling Jewellery and Fairy's Inc. Lynne preferred the stuff at Ling's, but I felt that Ling's was over priced. After almost 3 months of looking around and contemplating, we finally decided on Fairy's Inc. One of the distinct differences in price was my plain, no diamond wedding band. Fairy's is only charging me around $900 for it while Ling's was almost double the price. And it was just a very plain ring, no special rotating parts or encrusted stones. So it was decided... We started our 3 mth wait for our rings to be done...

When it was time to collect, I called up Eve to schedule a time for us to go down to take a look. To Lynne's horror, they did her ring wrongly. The size of the diamonds on the band weren't what she had told them. However, Eve was very nice, and agreed to change it for us, 3 weeks turnaround. 3 weeks later, we turned up again. This time, not only did she get it right, in order to satisfy us, the customer, she actually took the liberty to use slightly bigger diamonds so that the ring looks better! This was at no extra cost. All in all, the 2 rings cost us $3,600. For something that you wear for life... it is a good price and good value. I will strongly recommend Fairy's Inc to all my friends looking for wedding bands.

Fun Shoot

After pulling some favours from Jassica and Genny, we managed to execute a fun shoot! The original idea was to have an outing to just take pictures on a DSLR for the fun of it, hoping that some of the pictures will turn out nice and we'll put it on our wedding website.

At first, the idea was to go to Little India, and Lynne will be in a Sari and we will go around Little India and do some Bollywood poses... But the weather proved to be too challenging, especially after Genny applied all the make up. We can't risk Genny's hard work melting away. So on the day itself, during lunch, we decided on Haji Lane instead, and to quickly adjourn to Fullerton Bay Hotel where it's nicely airconditioned and not too crowded...

Outstanding items

The benefit of being a Brother for friends' weddings means that you have lots of experience. And experience kinda tells me that for a wedding, there is alot more things on the bride side than on the groom's side. Or at least I tend to think that way. To date (06 Sep 10), the things we have outstanding are :
Sign contract with Mezza9
AD Gown for Lynne
Wedding Shoes
Flowers
Guest List
Invitation Cards
Wedding Website
Accessories for Bride like Necklace
MUA / Hair Stylist
Videographer
AD Timetable
Guo Da Li details
AD Helper briefing list
Emcee for Champagne Brunch
Confirm Chia Swee Tin as Solemnizer
And the list goes on...

Realizing the competiveness spirit in us

So we, or rather, me, has decided to start on our own blog to detail the important events of our lives. The important event for us now, is the "BIG!" day, 15 Jan 2011. The "BIG!" day that will change our marital status forever....