Time really flies! Although I haven’t really mentioned about this, but Shawn and I have been married for exactly a month now! Many things have happened this past 1 year from engagement to wedding preparations and I really hope to be able to find the time and energy to be blogging and sharing more about my experiences!
Basically, we got together on 13 July, he proposed on 14 July and we got married on 15 July 😛
Got together : 13 July 2010
Engaged: 14 July 2014
Church Wedding: 15 July 2015
He really knows how to choose his dates! Maybe we’ll have our banquet on 16 July 2016? Yes, we haven’t had our photo shoot, banquet and tea ceremony yet, and I am excited nuts about my photo shoot. Will reveal why at the end of this post!
For this part 1 post, I would like to share how I DIY-ed my church wedding in chronological time order just to give you readers a good idea of how much time you’ll probably need too. We went for a simple, budget and fuss-free style, using materials mainly from: – Daiso – Fake flowers that I’ve collected over many years for my Instagram photos (@qiyunz) and new ones that we got during our Suzhou Wedding Market trip – My personal wares collection like candles and teapots-for-one. If you have a special collection, flaunt it during your wedding! I amazed all my guests at the dining area with my personal collection, I was told some guests even went around to take photos of them!
Let’s start!
1 – 2 Month before the wedding – Set the colour theme.
I have always wanted a white wedding but after scouring through the internet for wedding decoration ideas, I decided against it as it was too monotone and solemn for me. I love colours. Fortunately, I was in China buying my wedding dresses when I found out that I could also cover all my wedding decorations need there. After having a good look at the possibilities available, I decided on a white and green theme instead – my 2 favourite colours!
Flowers, ring bearers & flower stands from China – Total S$261
The White and Green theme also complemented the Yellow and Gold theme of our beautiful Church’s main sanctuary.
Even when having a theme colour, I decided to play around with other complementing tones too such as pink, purple and blue just to spice up the other areas of the church where guests would pass by.
For example, Pink and Blue for the reception area….
and fusion of colours for the dining area where they will be ending off – a colourful ending I’ll put it that way!
3 days before the wedding – Do a full wedding rehearsal with program flow and eagle eye on places where you can place your decorations and areas that need spicing up. We were really blessed with extremely helpful church fellows and elder to help with the rehearsal. Thank God for that!
After that, brainstorm and sweep up all other materials you think you will need. The idea is to buy extras and more than enough so that you don’t run out of supplies and find the need to run out to get more materials or regret not getting enough in the first place!
We went IMM Daiso to get all the stationary type of materials we think we will need. Items include 8 rolls of Ribbons, a pack of 5 rolls of Scotch tape, cable ties, 2 extra scissors (buy extras and big ones, they ALWAYS go missing) , 6 white ceramic vases for decorations, 5 packets of dried flowers, coloured cards as well as 2 packs of plastic bags to pack love gifts and chocolates for our helpers.
Spent: S$58
Also at IMM at a clearance store, we got awesome buy 1 get 1 free After Eight Chocolates and Swiss Chocolates as goodies for our helpers. Got 2 sets at $38 each.
Spent: S$76
Silver Satin cloth from mama-shops just outside Clementi mall, where the round coffee shop is located. This cloth is used to wrap the 2 important chairs on stage. We got 6 meters, 3 meters for each chair.
Spent: S$16.70
The night before the wedding – Did my own nails 😛 Pretty last minute eh?
Used Victoria Beckham VVB x NailsInc in Bamboo as base and added crystal stickers which I got from Japan Beauty Show more than a year back – They are really good quality! I wouldn’t consider spending a single cent on this set of nails as those were not bought specially for the wedding. Rather, I had to come up with something myself last minute and grabbed what I had!
Too bad I forgot to do my toe nails… >.<
Spent: S$0
Actual day
10.20am – Meet up with my lovely sister/ helper Yina with quick breakfast at Jurong East MRT before heading to Church via bus. Thank you darling for taking a precious off-day from work just to help me out with my wedding decorations! We had to settle down and shift some items up to the main sanctuary where the wedding will be held. By the time we were done with the shifts, it was already…
11.00am – We started off with the most important part, decorating the aisle. The concept here is to prioritise and work from the most decoration to the least important as fast as we can. 3 of us ( me, Yina and Shawn) tied up these white long drop-down supposed-to-be-orchids-immitation fake flowers from China using cable ties, ribbons and scotch tapes.
12.30pm – Full dress rehearsal We did a full-dress rehearsal just to make sure that my huge dress will not hit and cause the flowers to fall 😛 Yina is also my personal gown coordinator. Her job during the wedding was to make sure that as I move and turn while walking down the aisle, the tail of the wedding gown is still well spread out. Tough job that needed practise and when you see my white gown and it’s gorgeous sparkling well spread tail, always remember that it was only possible with her! Sneak peek of the gown! (Will post more photos in part 2)
![W S _ Q-1092 E]](http://flyingpistachios.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/W-S-_-Q-1092-E.jpg)
1.20pm – Lunch and disperse, Shawn and I to get the fresh flowers bouquet and Yina to touch up her hair at non-other than Vast Hair Clementi!
Yina dyed her hair a gorgeous blue and green at Vast Hair a week before my wedding and the lovely peps at Vast Hair, knowing that it is for my wedding, generously offered to do a free touch up right before my wedding so that she can look her best! Lots of Hugs and Kisses to Xavier and his team! Thank you so so so much!!!!
At the same time, we went out to grab some fresh flowers. I did not manage to book any pre-made bouquet because:
1. I was adamant until the last minute that I could hold fake flowers and walk down the aisle. No one was for my idea 😛
2. They were super expensive, cheapest at $85 or more 0.o So I did it myself! Glad I did!
Went to the nearest Cold Storage at Jem to pick a bunch of light pink roses and huge leaves as side and bottom finishes. There was no baby’s breath so we stormed off to XpressFlorist at West Gate and bought down ALL the baby’s breaths they have that day, just to push the price down haha! I knew I could have gotten the baby’s breath at a much cheaper price from Cold Storage if I had went earlier. Oh well. Florists will have the fresher ones!
Champaign Pink Roses from Cold Storage – $8.50
Huge long leaves from Cold Storage – $3.80
Baby Breaths from XpressFlowers- $30.80
2.45pm – Shawn and I returned to church to put the bouquet together and finish the rest of the decorations. The final result of a $42.10 DIY bouquet half an hour later.
3.15pm – Vinna arrived! She’s my makeup artist and sister and she rushed here to help me out with my wedding decorations too! Thank you Vinna!!!!!
I took a rest while Shawn and Vinna helped to do up the main stairway up from the entrance to the reception area. While I never saw the stairway below, from this photo I must say they did a really awesome job! I wouldn’t have been able to churn out something like this!
Spent: S$0
3.30pm – Doing up the chairs for the solemnisation. This proved to be the toughest and mind draining. There was no way the heavy and smooth satin cloth was going to stick to the chairs, neither did I had thread and needles to fasten them into place! Thankfully, the 3m cloth was super long, enough to wrap the chairs 2 rounds thus I had enough length to cable tie the ends of the cloth tightly together to the back so they held up and acted as part of the decorations. We also plaster on loads of masking tapes I found in my stationary box so that the cloth stays in place even when we sat and stood up.
The next challenge was to hanget the heavy metal framed flowers. We almost have up until I figured out I could pull up some cloth to reveal the U-shaped hole at the back of the chair. Used ribbons to hook into the U-shape hole and tied the ends to the flower frames. Looked unsightly on close up but from far, the shine of the silver saton cloth and contrasting vibrance of the green and white flowers made it look unbelievably good!
Also added the finishing touches to the main table.
Meanwhile, Kindergarten school had ended and the brothers (my brother, Shawn’s brother and Brother Arthur) have arrived. Together with Shawn, they helped to shift in the tables and chairs according to the way we have envisioned during the rehearsal. White table cloth borrowed from church were laid on top and the rest of the dining area decorations were carefully brought down from the storage area (since they contained my precious wares )
4.15pm – We needed to work faster as makeup needs to start by 5.15pm and I needed to shower first! Thank God my church has shower facilities! I proceeded down to tell everyone how the dining area should be like. Basically we first unboxed the wares and place them according to themes along the 4 tables – some of them where more of a set of wares, thus they were placed along the same table. The row for our immediate families were the most obvious, with the brightest flowers and the most intricate wares.
Porcelain, Metal and Glass wares, Personal collection : S$0
After which, flowers and my white daiso vases where randomly and evenly placed to fill up the spaces in between the wares. Some smaller ones were placed in the wares as touch ups. Some vases were also laid flat on the table to fill up space and give the whimsical x quizzical effect.
Then, brown tones of dried flowers were scattered into the rest of the little spaces to create and complete the obvious straight lines along the tables. Some were also scared on the wares so they blended into the look elegantly.
There you go! This set up was completed in less than an hour with the help of Shawn, our brothers, Yina and Vinna.
5.00pm – Rushed up to put the reception table into place. Less than 5 minutes as it was just put, put, adjust, finish! The ang bao box came with the ribbons tied. I hurried to shower after that and was makeup and hairdo time!
PhotoFrame with photos – Gift S$0
Ang Bao Box from Printz – S$42
5.30pm – Make up by Instagram @Vinvola, Hair do by Instagram @makeupbylouiseluan
6.50pm – Change into gown, add touches of ribbon to the back of my gown tail & final adjustments
7.20pm – Ready to go!
Total material costs including hand bouquet : $495.80 😀
Stay tuned for part 2 where I post more photos & the part where we all FORGOT something VERY IMPORTANT!!!!!
hey … pretty ^^
fall in love with ur wedding decoration … a alot DIY idea …
Thank you darling!
where did u get your shoe?
From Anna Nucci!