No. 59

Checklist

2009-09-06T21:09:00.000-07:00

Making it official: Checked, 21 Aug 09.

Am now officially married, and no, it feels about exactly the same :P We went all Bollywood crazy and turned up at the Putrajaya JPN in full sari and maharaja costume, headgear and all included. We had lunch at Saffron in Desa Hartamas after (they serve super yummy north indian food!).

with mum

mr & mrs arvin!

bridesmaid & witness, Jo

Thanks George for all the lovely pics! :)

Wedding Favours: Checked.

Since the wedding will be outdoors, I thought it'll be nice to hand out some hand fans as wedding favours so the guests can use them if it gets too hot. I bought the prettiest rattan fans when I was in Siem Reap a couple of years ago and I've been searching high and low for someone to supply these from Cambodia. Luckily, a good friend had a friend in Cambodia who had a friend who as it turns out, actually produces these fans! I was going to fly out to Cambodia and pick up these fans myself but I have a serious phobia sleeping alone in hotels and I couldn't get flights to get in and get out of Siem Reap on the same day. So, I sent my brother in law on the mission instead. He was more than willing to go (free trip!) and he came back yesterday with a giant bag full of these fans!

Pretty, no? They cost about USD0.50 cents each and I bought 300 of them in total, super excellent deal in my opinion :)

Invitation Cards: Checked, and sent!

We ended up having to do two versions of the invites, one which is more formal (bleh) for the older folks and another version for our friends. Of course, I wouldn't bother showing the formal ones - but if you're looking for not bad looking and affordable customised wedding cards, go to: www.weddinghouse.com.my, they've got a pretty decent selection.

For our less formal invites, we grabbed my camera, got Jo and Jamie to take some pics of us, we found this small green hill near Sri Hartamas and started snapping away.

my photogs: Jamie & Jo, and subject: Arvin

not reciprocative at all, hmph.

no idea what's so funny, really

and my girls

I went through a few versions of the design but I knew I wanted something bright and cheery (and flowery too!)

Finally settled on this one:

Most have been signed, sealed and delivered! It's a little late by normal standards but I'm always late for everything by normal standards anyway.

Flowers: Checked.

It has just occured to me that planning an outdoors wedding from scratch could actually cost more than having it in a hotel ballroom etc. Normally when you book hotels etc, they would at least already provide the ambience, centerpiece deco etc etc, your costs are mainly the food and it can be between a hundred or more per head. Though our choice of location would not cost as much for food, seriously, we were first given a menu of RM20 per head! As much as I'd rather eat nasi minyak and rendang for my wedding (hate hate hate chinese 8 course dinners, like, serve them all at once already and where's my rice??!), I had the guests to think about. So after adding a whole lot of other stuff to the menu, it still comes up to about RM80+ per head. Anyway, the point is that, I now have to find a way to dress up all 30 tables and create other ambient decoration from scratch. So it's DIY or nothing, I can't afford a florist for this one. Have already booked about RM900 worth of flowers from the flower wholesalers in Petaling Street.

And am planning to use various glass jars with very simple and rustic flower arrangements, am hoping it wouldn't be too much of a hassle to do. So I bougth a few bunches of flower to test out the arrangements, don't think it looks half bad thought it's mostly mums, I actually kinda like mums. I think it should look nice and cheery with my colourful tablecloths.

anyone wants to donate used glass jars? i need more, moorree!!

my favorite table cloth print + centerpiece!

Got various other tin buckets and cute vases as well from secondhand shops to use as centerpieces for the dessert buffet, reception table centerpiece etc.

love the rustic tin buckets, got this from this shop selling chicken farm supplies in Klang, don't ask.

love these aqua vases, from kaki lelong for RM5 each!

Am also making my own bridal bouquets, also for all the bridesmaids and boutaineers as well.

I got tons of ribbons from my China trip last week, their wholesale prices are crazy! Rm3 per huge ass roll!

for the bridesmaids

boutaineers

Dessert Buffet: WIP!

Am also planning to have a dessert buffet with sinful yummy goodies and have got a friend Val on board to help with the cakes and cupcakes! She's super excellent and makes the cutest cupcakes, her blog is here. She actually lives in Sydney but she'll be back for our wedding and have volunteered to be our cake maker! Managed to get this cute tiered cake stand from this nauseatingly adorable shop in Amcorp mall, RM29.

got these little garden birds and birdhouse from the same shop in Amcorp Mall as well. Couldn't help myself, it is just too cute and only RM3 each!

All in all, I'm not as busy or stressed as I should be, am I doing something wrong?

Tastes Like Lemonade and Sunshine!

2009-07-17T01:51:00.000-07:00

Am hoping to recreate very bright summery outdoor wedding and finally got around to going downtown to the 'cloth' district to buy these swatches of cloth. The idea is to have a slightly different patterned table cloth for every table at the wedding in bright summery colours but sticking to one colour theme, in this case, ranging from sunshine yellow to bright red.

Walked around abit in KL and finally settled for Kamdar, still seemed to be the cheapest with most variety and managed to dig up quite a few RM2/metre cloths! It looked like it's been sitting there at the bottom of the pile for decades and I think, really, it might have been the case cause they look like the kind of vintage prints my grandma would use for making samfu's. Hey, all the better cause it's exactly the prints I wanted!

I don't know why but I just feel happier everytime I see the stacks of bright, cheery cloth lying at the corner of the room :)

Shoes, Checked!

2009-07-15T09:21:00.000-07:00

Shoes? Checked.
Aldo, RM138 after discount, oh yeah.

I know, it's hard to believe, am actually opting to wear flats on the big day. Expect a very well balanced and klutz free bride! (this is a challenge, really, even with flats.)

Breathtaking

2009-07-02T07:55:00.000-07:00

We do too much pointless internet surfing, but is this not the most gorgeous dress, say, for a sunset beach wedding?

Dress & pic from www.maurieandeve.com. The entire collection's breathtaking, go look and die.

Damn Size 0!

2009-06-19T04:29:00.001-07:00

So upon trying on the dress, I realised I shoulda gone one size smaller. I guess it was my bad as I thought I should have been a size zero when I checked the sizing charts on the website but the brain's thinking to self, no way! No freaking person alive should be a size zero! So I bought a size 2. Don't get me wrong, I think the fit is still fantastic and I love love love the dress and the superbly effortless fit and I'm probably more a size 2, really, if not for the boobs. The only thing even the best super maximer bras won't save, so I guess I gotta go get it somewhat altered to fit so I can bend down on my wedding day with some modesty. Neways, I needed to tweak up the back, add a sash at the waist, maybe a flower and some serious ironing, me thinks it's all good! Here's a pic:

Oh wait, is that bad luck?

It's Here!

2009-06-15T21:58:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it arrived so fast! My dress, signed sealed delivered, all mine! Am a little nervous to try it on but will gather the strength. In a while.

Boy oh Boy

2009-06-11T23:20:00.000-07:00

What a sad state this blog's in. It started off really promising (hey, 2 posts in 6 months! *pat on the back!*). So now that the house stuff's pretty much done, I don't wanna be talking about our boring kitchen nomore, well, at least not this time. I'mma talk about me wedding planning!

I know most brides would already have like picked out, confirmed and deposit paid and paid for wedding venues, dresses, invitations and everything else probably 12 months too early. Should I be worried that I've only got three things ticked off my to do list? Venue, ticked. Wedding cake figurines, ticked. Dress, just about ticked.

Venue: Booked it right before we left for Melbourne for a holiday which was like 3 weeks back. RM500 deposit and it's done. Can you believe it? RM500? Deposit?

Wedding Cake Figurines: Checked and checked! Bought it on Etsy.com, like super priority right to get wedding cake figurines when we're not even sure we were going to have wedding cakes? Neways, I ordered it online and had it sent to Chan Heng Joon in Oregon and he's (finally) picked it up from the post office. Saw it on webcam and it looks pretty cute (despite Chan Heng Joon claiming he could have done the same thing for me for five bucks!)

Of course ours will look slightly different being that Arvin's pretty 'tanned' , so I chose the tan suit with a Yellow tie and dark brown skin for Arvin and mine's pretty much like the one here if I remember correctly, maybe with black hair or something. Phew, I'm so glad the wedding cake figurines are done with! Can you believe I waited till 3 months before the wedding to get these? Atrocious.

Now the dress: I initially wanted to have a dress tailor made by my partner Violet's mum, she made the wedding dresses of all my sisters' and her group of friends and friends' friends and they are seriously gorgeous. I had the Monique Lhuillier 'Scarlet' dress in mind and was pretty set to go ahead with making that one. The budget was to try to do it below RM1500 which was quite unrealistic since you've got to spend at least that amount just to buy the lace cloth.

So another idea I was playing around with was to buy a vintage 50's prom/wedding dress, you know the kind with all the fluff and the big skirts which would be pretty cute for an outdoor wedding. Striked this option out in the end cause these dresses normally fall just below the shin and I didn't wanna show off my chunky legs for the wedding. My pre-wedding excercise goal was to tone up the flabby arms and covering every other part up so doing both arms and legs would be too much work obviously. So strike 2.

Option 3 was to just buy a dress retail. Since all you can find in Malaysia are either gawdy organza dresses or cutout backless tartlet bridal dresses, among others (I mean seriously, why anyone would want to look like Scarlett O'hara on their wedding day is beyond me!), I thought I'll just buy it, where else, online! Of course it did occur to me I haven't tried the dress, how to buy, etc etc. but I think I'm pretty confident with this buy from J. Crew. Behold the Silk Tricotine Robin Dress:

And then, I browsed the Fall 09 season catalogue which hasn't been released yet and I saw this!!:

Too gorgeous! So my plan is to have the back altered, remove the cross straps at the back, sew it back on straight and add the lace portion peeking out from under the cowl neckline! Should be quite simple, I think. Ahem.

Of course me being the bargain hunter queen, I didn't buy the dress directly off J. Crew, it was retailing for USD325 so a quick search on Ebay and I found the exact same dress in size 2 for USD129! (go me!) So including shipping to Malaysia for an extra USD20, the total would probably be about RM500! I just love a bargain! Considering that my first first first choice of dress was a satin sheath dress very similar to this J.Crew one I bought while doing my usual shopping for ShopU for RM29, five hundred bucks is a big big trade up. Let's just hope it arrives, if not the next dress I buy has got to be at least RM500 bucks cheaper.

So there, with the rate I'm going, I'll be done with the wedding planning in no time! *faint*

Where Does 4 Months Go?

2009-01-19T06:50:00.000-08:00

I thought I was going to do this whole thing were there will be like updates every other day, minute details of our progress with the house, the day by day transformations. Quite obviously, we've fast forwarded, skipped and hopped over a couple of months to arrive here now. All I can think right now is, where the heck did those 4 months go? It can't be fair to feel like only a day has past in my head but outside it, days and months have speeded past. I doubt my head will ever catch up with real time (explains alot, really, my friends would testify to this).

Does this account for 4 months' work when there are still 80% of things I wanted done before we moved in still undone? Let's talk kitchen (obviously my favourite spot :P) cause, urm, that's all the pictures I have right now. :)

So this was before:

About 60% through with the kitchen:

And right about now:

*Loves* my kitchen! Have used it approximately:
3 times - for baking
2 times - for cooking
10,000 times - for...toasting bread. Hehe..

The Before

2008-10-10T04:07:00.000-07:00

It'll probably be a couple more months, maybe years even to get to 'The After' post, but in the meantime, baby steps.

I guess some would say we're having it easy since the whole place is pretty much post-ID, post major reno etc etc and I would generally agree. We have it shitloads easier. Easier in the sense that we're just taking someone else's idea lock stock barrel. The hard part am thinking, is trying to make our half complete abode completely ours.

So when we do finally get to that 'The After' post one day, I would like to pull up this first post and see just how far we've come to making No. 59 ours, and ours only.

So, the before:

View from outside. The hallmark of true Malaysian homes, the double storrey terrace link house!

A red wall to greet our guests as they step in, not our idea (previous owners'), but we like it anyhow.

I quite obviously am very very excited about the super duper spacious kitchen.

Will get more before pics once we have em keys tomorrow.