Wedding Vendors: An Honest Review

Now for reviews of the vendors we hired.

Note: In no way am I affiliated to any of these vendors, my reviews are based on nothing but my true opinion!

Venue: Marina Bay Sands (MBS) Hotel

I'd have mentioned already the drawbacks of holding any event at MBS in my Part I post (very open to the public, heaps of tourists streaming in and out, the lack of privacy etc..). The staff were great though! Our banquet manager, Andrew, was very experienced and very polite. I like him so much! He made us feel like we could trust him and he also made us feel very relaxed. He directed the entire banquet and it went with nary a hoot. Now, I read many reviews about the food at MBS banquet being not quite on par, but honestly, the Husband and I beg to differ. I thought everything was really good. I think they must have improved since then and by leaps and bounds. Every dish was fantastic. I had a few guests comment on the 1st dish especially, the whole roasted suckling pig. That was really yummy and very different indeed. We were asked if we specially requested for that to be served at every table. It's part of the MBS menu, but we did select the more expensive one. The price per table was very reasonable, given the location. We also got a 10% discount because my Dad managed to negotiate with Jeremy, the salesman, and got us the roadshow price despite us having already missed the roadshow itself. He also threw in things like free flow of beer, 2 bottles of wine per table, 3 nights at the bridal suite etc. I thought the whole package was absolutely fantastic. Jeremy is very hopeless at replying texts though, so calling him would be better if you have anything you need to discuss with him. He was very kind to lend us an extra angpow box and trusted us to return it to him after the banquet, which we did of course.

A few things to note about holding your banquet at MBS:

(1)  The banquet area is outside of the hotel itself, it's at the expo hall across the road. It is quite far to walk (~10-15 min) so if you forget to bring anything along to the banquet hall from the hotel, you will need to double back or just forget about having that item altogether (like us and our wedding portrait).

(2) They will provide you with a powder room near your banquet hall where you can change between gowns. Ours was just next door so it was very convenient.

(3)The original lighting of MBS is yellow. Like. VERY. Yellow. Wedding photos will turn out quite fugly especially when all the lights are turned out (during the table-to-table shots).

Gown rental and makeup: The Feline Bridal (at River Valley Road)

We signed up with Feline on impulse, when they were having a roadshow at NEX shopping centre. Given that we were planning our wedding and were very excited, it wasn't difficult to tip us over the edge to sign up almost anything. Bobo, their sales assistant was very, very pushy but charismatic. We first signed up with their Japan photoshoot package, it was for about $7,000 but we paid a $1,000 in deposit. We regretted that after awhile, but the studio manager, Rachel, allowed us to change our package to a local shoot + actual day gown rental and makeup instead which was about $3,200. Rachel was polite throughout our time with them and she replied to my emails almost instantaneously.

The gowns however, I really did not like. The designs that Bobo promoted (and claimed Feline had) during the roadshow were nowhere to be seen in their studio. It was just a way to reel us in, and we were stupid/naive enough to believe her. Feline has a very, very small range of gowns available and most of them are the puffy, princess-type gowns that I dislike very much. I'm sure many other girls like such gowns (as they are the typical ballgown style) but I preferred something a little more fitting and would not make me look like a ridiculous, giant cupcake. The assistant in the shop even agreed that I did not fit the ballgown look. The gowns, especially the white ones, were all quite worn and yellow. I spent hours in the studio and still could not find any suitable! I felt very dejected and kind of cheated. Anything remotely suitable was simply too long for me (I'm a standard 1.6m Asian girl) and Feline would not alter the length for me either. After looking through all my friends' wedding pictures, I realized that all their gowns seemed to fit them just nicely, length-wise. I'm not sure whether the "no-altering-of-length" clause is universal across all bridal studios but Feline sure didn't offer that option to me.

Although their staff were patient and polite, I could not help but feel that they just couldn't be bothered to find me a good fit. I should've visited more bridal studios to check out their gowns before signing up for anything, I just didn't realize that I could do that until only recently.

Anyway, we first did our local pre-wedding shoot with them. The experience wasn't great. Rex, our photographer, started out really friendly in the studio but as the day went by, he began to become more impatient. To make things worse, it started to rain heavily and someone stole his umbrella! He had to buy a new one. Anyway, we were walking to the Toy Museum from the car park and I was full-on in my gown and everything, he was walking so fast and so far ahead, we had to literally skip/run after him! I was really quite pissed off. To be fair, he was kind enough to drop us (although quite grumpily) to our Hotel where we had to go for our rehearsal dinner at 8pm. We chose to go to 3 outdoor places (on top of our earlier studio session) but due to the damn rain, we could only go to 1. Anyway long story short, the studio shots turned out super ugly (mainly because of the styling). Everything was over-photoshopped! Even the Husband looked like a pre-pubescent child who experimented with his mother's makeup in the photos. Everything was so cheesy and smoothed over. The outdoor shots were okay but we only liked really like probably 4 out of the 30 selected ones.

I chose 2 gowns from Feline for our actual day but I didn't use them in the end. I bought my gowns from Taobao instead, for ~$70 each. They were heaps better than whatever Feline had to offer. My makeup artiste was Landy, from China. She is a petite girl, quite pretty and quite nice but we had a bit of a communication breakdown- she wasn't able to deliver the look I was after and that made me quite sad because a wedding is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. She only managed to nail one look right- and that was my final hairstyle, the one I had while in the blue velvet gown.

All in all, our experience with Feline was not a positive one. I would've saved more money if I hadn't went with them in the first place. So brides, if you are after a very artificial style, go with them. But if you are into something more classy/vintage or contemporary, spend your money elsewhere.

Most importantly, try before you buy. In this case, check out your bridal studio thoroughly and try out all the gowns they have before you commit to them. *slaps self*

Photography: 2ofusphotography by Cole Kor

I engaged Cole quite early and he was supposed to do our Australia pre-wedding shoot but I changed my mind as it would cost too much to fly him over. He agreed to put our deposit towards our actual day photography instead. I'm quite glad he didn't do our Australia shots because otherwise, I wouldn't have the wonderful photos that Anthony Hoang took for us here in Brisbane! 

Cole is quite a nice, personable guy but he has his own style of shooting. Personally, I think he better off taking pre-wedding photos rather than actual day photos. My sister saw the actual day photos he took and she was like, meh. He also took AGES to return our photos. Our wedding was at the end of January, but he returned us the photos in mid-April and that was only because I was rushing him! I don't know about other photographers but taking what would be more than 2.5 months is just crazy. He cited the reason that the delay was because of the Chinese New Year but we didn't feel that that was a good reason at all. From his Facebook page, I could see that he was away on many other pre-wedding shoots around the world. I just thought that perhaps he was taking on more than he could handle. Again, I'm not an insider, I don't know how these photography things work, perhaps this is the way things are but I'm the sort who likes to finish projects as soon as I start them. When we met him in January before the wedding, he told us he had only just started on the weddings he took in October the year before! That is severely backlogged! Anyway, when he returned our banquet photos, I was sorely disappointed as the photos he took, especially the ones in the banquet hall, were so SUPER YELLOW despite me making it extremely clear to him that those kinds were not the ones we were after. I even showed him samples of what we wanted but clearly that slipped his mind. I had to edit them myself to remove some of that horrific yellowish tinge. I spoke to him about it and he said he would get back to me about them but I have yet to hear back from him. His package of 10 hours cost us $3,600 I think. Some photos were really great but most were just so-so.

Videography: The Forever Films

I heard about The Forever Films from another blogger. We also got a further $200 off by quoting her name. The cost for 10 hours of filming was only $1600 or round about! Totally worth it. I really loved their video of us. We paid an additional $50 to get a "full day highlights" video on top of the "morning highlights" but that turned out to be a waste of a good $50. It was almost exactly the same as the morning video with the exception of maybe a few shots of the banquet hall. The videographers, Terry and Howard, were very friendly guys although their method of shooting was SUPER INTRUSIVE. During the march-in, they were RIGHT IN FRONT of me the whole time! See photo below for illustration:

Our photographer, Cole, was visibly irritated by this and I can understand why.

Even during the exhortation, they plonked their video cameras on tripods right infront of where we were seated and he just stood there, arms akimbo, in front of the entire audience as the Pastor was delivering his message. I had a few comments from guests about that. 

Nevertheless, I enjoyed their morning video immensely and was very impressed with the speed at which they worked at to put that video together. Overall, they were great for the price we paid and I would hire them again if I had the chance to. I'm sure they would be receptive to feedback. After all, it is to improve their service and reputation as a company.

Wedding Cards: American Wedding Treasures (Banquet) and The Card Room (Church)

American Wedding Treasures is the card company that MBS teams up with. I love their cards, I absolutely love them all! They have an extensive range of cards and they are all of very good quality.

They also delivered on time and Shirley replied to emails lightning fast. Very fuss-free. Super positive experience, 2 thumbs up!

The Card Room is located in Kovan, more specifically, a unit within a short, unassuming block of flats. They were equally awesome. The sales girl, Shi Ling, was very friendly, helpful, and totally not pushy at all. I went to a few other card companies before deciding on The Card Room, and boy oh boy, those other ones were horrible. There was one at Peninsular Plaza had cards that looked like they were made for the 60s'. In contrast, The Card Room had such a wide variety of modern yet classic cards to choose from, and all of different sizes! They are a little on the expensive side but their quality is exceptional. They gave me free stickers to seal our envelopes too! I love those stickers, they were printed in gold filigree with our names on them. Oh, and if you have a friend that printed with them before, just quote their names and you will get 5% off your total bill! 

Lunch Reception: Mum's Kitchen

We decided on Mum's Kitchen very simply because they have a great reputation and their prices are very reasonable. My friend recommended them to me as well. They have like a star reward points system where every $10 your spend, you get 1 star and you can use that star to redeem other things like reception table flowers, different kinds of cutlery, stand tables and more. We had 20 star points to redeem and we used them all. They were very reliable too, everything was set up early (tentage the night before) and on time (the food). I loved their champagne colored decor, it went very well with the rest of the decor we had. Guests said the food was pretty good too. We didn't have anything to eat, regrettably.

Florist for Banquet Hall: Sing See Soon (SSS)

SSS is a very huge florist company situated in Punggol. They are pretty popular and pretty expensive too. MBS gave us a choice between 3 florists and we chose SSS because they had a better portfolio. Woodsville Florist had very, very cheap and cheesy looking designs. Almost tacky, so we didn't go with them despite the lady boss being very nice. Jingyi, the sales attendant of SSS, was a young girl, and she was very affable and easy to work with. There was some disparity in her price quotations though. Overall, I loved how they did up our banquet hall apart from the fact that they got all our guest table arrangements wrong. Note to all you brides-to-be out there, it won't hurt to double check with your florist again regarding your arrangements closer to the day of your wedding!

Florist for Church Hall: Fleur D'sign

I googled for a florist for my Church and found Fleur D'sign. Their office is located in an industrial area and it was not very convenient to get to. However, Christina, the owner, was a complete DREAM to work with. I love her and her work so much. She was friendly, replied to my messages fast, and was very patient. She understood what I had in mind and turned my dream into reality. I was just blown away when I saw her final set-up. I gave her hug. Her price range was very reasonable too and she was not pushy at all. I think I paid $950 for arrangements on all 34 pews, arrangements on the bride and groom solemnization chairs and the solemnization table itself. She's very open to negotiations too and will work around your price range with no judgement at all. 

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I think that's all the vendors we used. We only had issues with the bigger ticket items such as the gown rental place and the photographer. I think we kind of expected a little bit more for the price that we were paying.

Moral of the story? Don't decide on getting any vendors on impulse! Check everything out and know what you are in for before committing. And remember, no one can force you if you don't want to.  Remain strong and don't cave in to pushy sales people! In fact, the moment they are pushy, just leave. Because pushy sales people speaks volumes about their company ethics already. 

Hopefully my post will help all you girls out there who are looking for reviews on certain vendors as I certainly couldn't find much information on these vendors before. Feel free to drop me a message if you want more information!

Saying "Hello" to Forever (The Evening)

So this is a very delayed entry, Part II of our wedding. Read all about Part I here. A list of my vendors will be provided at the end of this post.

Our church wedding ended at about 1pm and we left at about 1.30pm but our bridal car driver (from minibug.sg) didn't get us back to the hotel till about 2.30pm almost 3pm! Our bridal party made it back in under 20 min. I remember feeling super nauseous in the car because it was so warm inside, and also because the driver was making about a gazillion turns! I was quite pissed off because he was wasting our time, and we didn't have much of it to waste as we still had heaps to prepare for the evening. We were also hoping to take a cat nap back at the hotel before it got busy but we didn't manage to catch a break.

Landy came about 1 hour before the banquet to touch-up my hair and makeup. The Husband left the suite first to have a run-through of the program with our co-ordinators and wait staff.

We hire this giant "double happiness" prop from IM.Perfection. The person-in-charge, James, was very polite and efficient at responding to my queries. I was being quite wishy-washy about the prop because it was quite expensive to hire, about $300 (negotiated down from $500) for the duration of the dinner. I decided to hire this because I knew our reception set-up would be quite bare (I had totally forgotten about this aspect of the banquet!). The giant prop was quite cute! I liked it a lot and was sad when they took it away. The picture below also features Jones, my high school buddy and also our emcee for the night. I was really touched when he agreed to emcee our banquet, and when I heard about his efforts in setting up the reception area and also the throwing of flower petals when we did our initial march-in. He went beyond the call of duty to improve things for us so we were really appreciative of it! To be honest, everyone involved went beyond the call of duty, we'll be forever grateful to them!

Our cute little clay figurine in the foreground, our mini-me's doing the victory sign! It's super cute! I paid like AUD$150 for it I think, got it off Etsy from a guy named Max in Hong Kong. I think it's very unique and also very representative of us- kooky individuals who like doing silly things together. The figurine is now sitting atop my piano at home. 

In the background is our "love contract" drawn up by Shups! I know it's a cheesy notion but I really, really like it! I requested for a rustic theme and I think she did a great job at it. I will also remember the Husband shouting out those promises on the list to me through the walls and me yelling back, "SURE OR NOT?!". One of the promises was to bring me on a yearly holiday and a month or two ago when I asked him if he meant it, he said, with a poker face, "yes, we go back to Singapore once a year". Zzz...!! 

This is why lawyers go to school and undergo intensive training to learn to draw up contracts that have minimal loopholes.

Our minimalistic set-up lovingly arranged by our co-ordinators. I had only brought along a small number of props so they had to work around them. I think they did a great job with the limited number of things that I had given them! I love it! The background overlooks the Singapore River. It's really pretty and is even more so in the night! Guests can also go out onto the wooden boardwalk outside. This was one of the factors that made me decide on holding our banquet at MBS. By the way, this balcony is only accessible for guests who attend weddings on the 4th floor.

Our photographer, Cole, took the photo below of our rings. He brought along a whole strand of fairy lights and used them for the bokeh effect. Quite creative, I must say.

Our lovely ladies at reception- Germie and Angie, and Mindy and Robynne!

This was our banquet set-up. Our florist, Sing See Soon did a pretty good job with the exception that all our guest tables had the wrong floral arrangements! I only got a brief apology from them which I wasn't sure was sincere at all. She got a little defensive, only to realize that it really was her mistake.

Love the fairy lights in the background which we had to pay an extra SGD$300 for. I am such a sucker for pretty, dainty lights. There were 15 strands and the initial quote was SGD$600! I didn't negotiate with them and was actually prepared to pay the price but somehow, their final quotation was SGD$300 so we were quite pleased with that and so didn't check further.

Our wedding favours for our guests were crystal pens (like the ones from Swarovski). We were so busy we forgot to take some home for ourselves as keepsakes! I was quite sad. The staff at MBS said they couldn't spare us any either!

Image from http://www.flybeshopping.com

The pens came in a nice gold, textured box.

We had the traditional tea ceremony about 45 min before the banquet started. I was wearing a "kua", a traditional outfit worn for tea ceremonies. This kua belonged to the Husband's mother (second woman from the right), who wore it at her wedding. The kua was ordered by the Husband's paternal grandmother (woman on the extreme right). It is made of 100% silk and is hand embroidered. They said it cost over SGD$200, which is a lot of money 30+ years ago. I didn't plan on wearing this initially as a I wanted something more modern but I couldn't find anything suitable so I chose to wear this in the end. It turned out to be a pretty good choice! Seen below are the Husband's mother, grandmother and two aunts, helping me put on my gold jewellery that I had received from his mother as dowry. I received a pretty set of gold jewellery that consisted of a necklace, a bangle, a ring and a pair of earrings. It's a simple but elegant set, each piece has very intricate detailing (especially the bangle which is detailed even on the inside), which makes them quite special indeed.

Serving tea to my new in-laws! I addressed my new father-in-law as "uncle" (which was what I have always called him during the time the Husband and I were dating), by accident and he laughed at me. The Husband did the same thing with my Dad.

My beloved parents! Mad love this photo of them. I rarely see them smiling this wide, they're not very smiley people at all, so it makes this photo super precious.

The Husband's paternal grandmother. She too gave me a piece of gold jewellery which I particularly love because it used to be her own. I'm sentimental like that.

My sister and brother-in-law, Doug. I could tell that he was quite nervous, his face was all red! It's because this was his first time going through such a ceremony, with everyone staring and all.

A rare picture with my little nephew! He is soooo cute, especially in his wee Scottish Kilt!

My beloved friends! From left to right, Joel, Jones and Shups (all three are my high school buddies) and YF, Shups' significant other. Everyone was looking fab!

Our guests starting to flow in....

A very beautiful picture of my BBFF (new word I learnt from her today- it means "best best friend forever" apparently):

Our lovely emcees, Jones and Jolene (the Husband's childhood friend)! A few of our guests commented that these two were great emcees and were very eloquent and entertaining.

Our march-in! This was pretty cool, albeit nerve wrecking. It wasn't as scary as the march-in for the church though! I'm not sure why but I think it was because I was so knackered by the evening, and also because I was completely blinded by the spot lights in the banquet hall so I couldn't see all 270 of our guests, haha.

There was supposed to be some standard dry ice effect for the march-in but I specifically told them NO DRY ICE. So so so cheesy.

The Husband's dad saying grace on stage before the partaking of our meal.

The first course (and my most favorite course) was the whole roasted suckling pig! I think it's quite different from the norm which would be a standard mixed cold dish platter of sorts. This was also another factor that MBS won me over with. Yum! I remember wolfing down like 3 or 4 pieces of this haha! I couldn't eat too much because my next gown was the most form-fitting of all my outfits.

This was just before the 2nd march-in. Our morning highlights were being screens and we had a little peak from the outside! I was soooo afraid that the video wouldn't be good but it turned out really, really, really fab and I'm not saying it just because we are the main stars in it. I am the biggest critic of myself, in fact.#selfloathing

I thought the video was really well put together! It was touching and it showed all the right parts. There was even a surprise message from my parents at the end! I loved it so much. Our videographers from The Forever Films did a really good job! Everyone was so impressed with their work and the speed at which they worked at to produce that video in such a short time.

All that for SGD$1,650? Totally worth it. Many other videographers quoted me $2500 and above.

MAD LOVE MY GOWN! Blue velvet with such intricate beading! And only AUD$70! I got in online from taobao.com! It is however, a very unforgiving gown because it shows every fat bulge on your body no matter how small.

I love the lighting in this photo below but the Husband and I were mid-way in changing expressions so we look kinda weird! What a waste of a good photo!

Us pouring the champagne over the wine glasses. I can't remember what it is supposed  to signify. Love overflowing and everlasting I think? I don't know. It's some cheesy shit that we have to do at Chinese weddings.

The "yum seng" toast! Again, some cheesy shit we were made to do.

I was seriously blinded by the lights, so my eyes were closed! I have very sensitive eyes and they hurt very badly, like stabbing pains, when I am faced with bright lights.

That's the Husband's littlest brother, he looks like he was having a good time, hehe!

And endearing shot of us. I'm sure I was just telling him about the light in my eye because it was really bothering me hahaha!

We gave a really short and sweet thank you speech. Dad said we could've done better haha but seriously,  I was so knackered by then that I just wanted to lie down. The effects of having little to no sleep after an entire week of running about.

We then had to go round to each table to take photos! We went round to all 27 tables in slightly under an hour I think. I do regret flitting between tables so quickly though, I would've loved to have more time to interact with all my friends. Everything was just happening so fast and we were told to move on. So anyway, below are just 2 out the 27 tables. These were our VIP tables for the very reason that they are our immediate family + 2 grandmothers.

Very coincidentally, both grandmothers (mine and the Husband's), were donned in the same top purchased from OG! Haha! I didn't even notice it until after the wedding, when Mum pointed it out to me. Then, I still had no recollection until I saw the photo below:

Another nice pic of Shups and I, this was when the banquet was over and everyone was leaving. Of course my BBFF and other good friends stayed behind to disturb me after haha.

The "after party" started when everyone else had left! A group of about 8-10 of us came up to our suite and we sat around chatting. It was really great fun and I enjoyed this part of the entire day the most!

Yes I was so shagged by that hour that I was just slouching on the couch doing something weird to my face. I was having a really good time but my body was beginning to shut down.

My friends decided to 闹洞房 (disturb the wedding night) before they left. And yes it involved some less-than-clean-but-still-PG "games"!

After everyone left, the Husband and I took a quick shower, I spent half that time washing the thick gunk (makeup) off my face and the hairspray out of my hair. I reckon I lost at least 1/5 of my hair whilst trying to smooth out the crazy tangles caused by all that back-combing Landy did in order to create my bouffant.

Overall, our wedding went very smoothly. I was expecting some time delay in between each activity, at the very least, but there was none whatsoever! I was so amazed! We were completely on schedule for everything. We did feel that our banquet ended a tad too early (10.30pm) though, and a friend of mine commented on that as well. Also, I'd forgotten to invite a few of my friends to the wedding! I was so mad busy with everything else, it just slipped my mind. We also made the mistake of leaving the preparation of our thank you speeches to the very last minute. There were some other minor hiccups too like how we forgot to bring our wedding portrait down to the banquet hall for display, leaving the easel very bare etc. But all in all, we were quite happy with how everything went! My bridesmaids were really awesome and supported me very well throughout the day. I was quite high strung from all my nerves and also from my severe lack of sleep. We had an excellent team of workers, everyone was so effective and efficient! I prefer to work on my own and I have severe trust issues, so this whole project opened my eyes to how much better life can be when you have an effective team working with you!

On a side note, we managed to "break even" for the entire wedding, AKA, the wedding paid for itself. We were a little worried about going over budget (parents' wanted a big wedding, not us), but I guess all that worry was for naught. Thank God for giving us such generous guests!

Okay I've reached the end of recounting our entire wedding experience! I will next blog, in detail, about our experiences with our various vendors hired for our big day.