Finally have some time to blog about my
Journey of Our Wedding Preparations Part 5!
In this post, I would like to cover on the next stage after our ROM, which is the super busy part, the preparation for our Actual Wedding Day (AD)!
- The Wedding Banquet Agreement (Cost payment, Red packet collection fund)
- Invitation Cards
- Confirmation of Guest
- Looking for a Actual Day Videographer
- Rental of Bridal Car
- Hiring / DIY Instant Phoot Booth/Roving (Optional)
The Wedding Banquet Agreement (Cost payment, Red packet collection fund)
This is something which has to be agreed by both sides of the family. Traditionally, the Groom side of the family will give the Bride side of the family a number of tables for the wedding banquet.
Don't understand what I mean?
Basically, it means that an agreed number of tables would be paid by the Groom's family for the Bride's family.
So if the Groom's family gives the Bride's family 8 tables, and the total number of tables that the Bride's family needs is 18 tables, the Bride 's family will only have to pay for the 10 remaining tables they need, BUT they can collect the Red Packet (Ang Bao) given by the people from all 18 tables.
Well traditionally that's how it works. Now not every family or couples practice this.
In some cases, the Groom's family or the Groom himself, is very rich and decides to pay for the whole wedding banquet event, and still allow the Bride's family to keep the red packets (angbaos) given to them by their family, relatives and friends.
In some cases, the Groom's family or the Groom himself pays for the whole wedding banquet event and keeps all the red packet (angbaos) collected from the whole event.
In other cases, the Bride and Groom are financially doing well, and chose to share the cost of the wedding banquet and give the parents all the red packets collected from the event.
In recent modern days, the Bride and Groom pays for the deposit of the wedding banquet, and on the actual day, they will quickly open all the red packets (angbaos) and count the amount of money collected and hope that the amount is sufficient to cover the cost of the wedding banquet!
If you choose to follow the last scenerio used by modern days couples, do make sure you at least have some buffer cash on hand just in case the amount collected is not enough to collect the cost! Of course I am sure most people would hope they can cover cost or at least get a little back from the amount collect to cover the cost of their other expenses, but never be too sure! =)
For us, our family have decided to follow the traditional method which I am really thankful for, as they are helping us shoulder the heavy cost incurred which I honestly don't think my husband or myself are able to afford with our minimal savings. So, hereby THANKS to my parents as well as my parents-in-law!
LOVE YOU ALL LOTS!
Invitation Cards
This is probably one of the simpler things we need to do during this preparation stage as our cards are included in our wedding banquet package, all we needed to do was to head down to the Card Printing company that the hotel outsource to, choose our preferred card design (they allow us to choose 2 designs for our cards), ensure that the names, details and information we provide them of our wedding day and venue are all accurate in both English and Chinese. We can also choose to includes some pictures or even request for customization of the cards instead of doing standard invitation cards. But we felt there was no need to as most people would just open the card, check the venue, time and date and that's it! So honestly don't need to waste money to add on for customization or get expensive cards! We just simply add on a small picture in the printouts so make it look a little more lively instead of being very wordy, and that only cost us $10 for each picture to add into the printings. And the other thing we bought to add on was the gold strings to tie the cards with the inserts printout as we thought it would look nicer instead of glue-ing it to the cards and make a mess!
After that is done, wait a few days for the artwork to be send to us, check through thoroughly to make sure there is no mistakes or typo errors, and send them a confirmation to commence printing, then wait for them to call you to go down to pick it up! Simple!
Here is the 2 designs that we chose! Both in Ivory to match the cream inserts as well as the envelops!
The simple and more modern design~
We wanted something a little oriental but yet but tooo red and traditional. So we ended up choosing this which I personally prefer more than the other design~
And we added a little sweet yet simple icon in our inserts to brighten up and lighten up the card as we did not want it to be too wordy to look at!
$10 / picture icon to be added
Confirmation of Guest
This is seriously where my headache started. Like SERIOUSLY! Easier said than done.
This is also the part where you know who are your true friends, who are sincere, who are the people whom you can call friends, or simply treat them as acquaintance or even neither.
A true Reality Check indeed!
Both my husband and myself encountered almost similar situations, and after speaking with some friends that has gotten married, they shared the same sentiment too.
- Friends (or so called good friends) whom you thought would definitely turn up, are sometimes the ones who would disappoint you the most.
- Friends whom you thought would push everything away just for you, are sometimes the ones who comes up with the most excuses.
- Friends whom you thought would turn up just because they casually mentioned before to us to REMEMBER to invite them when we get married, does not guarantee that they will turn up when you do eventually invite them.
BUT, on the flip side....
- Friends whom you didn't have high hopes for to turn up, are sometimes the ones who are most "ON" and agreed to your invitation right away without hesitation
- Friends whom you are not as close to (compared to those so called good friends), are sometimes the ones who eventually take leave for you just to attend your special day
Therefore here is my SINCERE thanks to those of you are specially make time for me just to be there to attend my special once in a lifetime day and share the joy with us! Truly appreciate it and I will definitely treasure this friendship we share!
Some lesson learnt and something to share with all of you Bride-and-Groom-To-Be.
- ALWAYS have more buffer.
- Plans more tables of people to invite cause life is never smooth sailing and sweet, not everyone you plan to invite will eventually turn up.
- Plan and book lesser number of tables instead of your actual initial planned tables
- Not everyone who says they will turn up will eventually turn up.
- Not everyone you thought were your close friends and will definitely turn up, will turn up.
- Not everyone can turn up, cause everyone is busy and have their own lives, and as much as they may want to attend, sometimes circumstances don't allow due to many reasons such as holiday travel trips that had been booked before you told them about your wedding, last minutes business trips, or even possibly because something happened in their family (example: someone pass away, someone is really ill at home, need to stay home take care of kids on weekends as no one else is free to do so, they are getting married themselves or giving birth soon, thus due to superstitions they are not able to attend you wedding)
We made a mistake choosing a ballroom which requires quite a substantial number of minimum tables thinking the people whom we projected to turn up would definitely meet the minimum required tables. But things were just not as smooth as we thought, and we are not worrying about meeting the minimum required or risk wasting money for empty tables that cant be filled since we need to pay for the minimum number of tables no matter what.
So we hope you guys out there would not encounter this same problem too!!
Looking for a Actual Day Videographer
After sourcing around for quite awhile, making comparisons and looking at different video samples from different companies, and had some friends offering their services, we finally manage to decide on our AD Videographer!
What I did to gather quotations?
Simple! I simply posted in Wedding and Singapore Brides Forum indicating that I am looking for a actual day videographer and stated my wedding date with my email address. Subsequently my email was bombarded by many many quotations for me to do your comparison!
What to look out for?
Services included
Video Hours
Express highlights available? Express morning highlights able to be done in time for lunch banquet to display?
No. of videographer included? 1 or 2?
Any Extra Specials that they are able to include or do for you?
Any Extra Surcharge and how much it would cost for Early hours? (Before 7am)
Video Samples? Does it meet your expectation?
**
Most important**-
TOTAL NETT PRICE? Is it within your budget? If not, you can simply strike it off your list, no point looking for finding out more unless you are able to stretch your budget further.
Rental of Bridal Car
First off, you must know what you want.
What kind of style of cars you would like for your big day?
Posh? Cute? Sports Car? Super Car? Simple Budget Car? Retro Vintage? Unique? Big MPV? Mini Van?
Do you have any specific brand preference?
BMW? Mercedes? Volkswagen? Volvo? Mini? Etc.?
Again, Most Importantly - Budget?
With a budget in mind, it would be easier to strike off those that you don't even need to consider, and what kind of cars you can consider. And it would be easier to look around and ask for quotations too!
Where to find?
Wedding and Bride forums are useful. Google is best as always. Aside from these search engines, you can also try searching through your Carousell Application on your mobile as there are people posting up wedding cars or cars for rent at cheaper rates too! But that is something you will need to judge for yourself how reliable.
For US, we have a tight budget as I always mentioned. Thus we were not able to look for posh or super cars which I had initially wanted. Well we have to be practical at times like this. As much as we do have dreams and expectations, we don't want to get ourselves into major debts and suffer later on after our wedding!
My ideal was a White BMW Z4 or Black Maserati. But since it ain't possible we decided to go with our 2nd option -
CUTE Theme!
And so we chose a
Volkswagen Beetle Cabriolet in
White!
It's a Cute 2 Seater Convertible! Great for photos, looks good and most importantly it fits our budget! =)
Hiring / DIY Instant Photobooth / Roving
This is something optional, not mandatory. Though nowadays most couple have it at their weddings to keep their guest entertained while waiting for everyone to arrive and start the actual banquet. It is also great for your friends, relatives and yourself to take more photos for memories sake!
If you have the budget, simply hire people to do it for you, to save your time and hassle!
BUT if you are on a tight budget and dont wish to spend tooo much money on hiring (since it wont be very cheap) but still like to have this done, here are some suggestions you could consider!
Set up your own DIY photobooth!!
1) Use a poloroid (instant camera)
2) Use a digital camera
Get a friend or relative to go around or set up your own DIY simple backdrop or photo booth with DIY photo props to snap photos for your guest! The DIY may be fun, but it could be time consuming. Get your friends to help or if you have the free time you could just do it too!
If using a digital camera, photos would probably just be in soft copy and tagging them in Facebook / Instagram, or sending the soft copy photos to them via email.
Alternatively you could bring a photo printer and have it printed on the spot (just make sure to have enough ink/toner refills and photo paper!)
OR you could probably just get the photos printed at a later time at the photo shop which would be easier and faster with better photo quality.
