My bridesmaids' dresses, lhy's and Gabriel's (my ring bearer) suits were less of an emotional affair.
What i regret though, is that we didn't carve out time to take much photos together in our outfits.
My bridesmaids were super relaxed and we didn't have to go shopping cos I just picked their dresses from Taobao. Most of the stuff there were ugly and I decided to go for a sweet heart neckline since it was supposed to be flattering for most body types. I wanted them to look chio and not puffy!
Gorgeous girls
There was still my sister and Zel but they were so busy with the church prep. For Cass, Juls and Hui Yi, I didn't give them much to do. Their objective was just to look pretty. Ha.
Anyway, the Taobao dresses were pretty cheap - all in with shipping worked out to be around $28 per dress. But most needed pretty simple length alterations and we paid additional $10 per dress.
Gabriel's spiffy suit was also from Taobao and cost about $35 all in. He looked so smart! I also bought him new shoes for about $25 but they were too small for him!
As for han yang's suits, we procrastinated for so long! He wanted to tailor make and I went to enquire rates with CYC (which is kind of my dream gift for him, with a monogram shirt) but they were so expensive (1k up per suit). My colleague also recommended a thai tailor who would make trips to Singapore for tailoring appointments but I wasn't very impressed with their quality.
Went online to search for some good tailors in Singapore but they all didn't fit the budget. I found out there were a few tailors in JB and one of them was Men's Focus in Holiday Plaza. Even though I knew Holiday Plaza as a lok-kok, run down shopping centre in the middle of JB, I liked that they took photos of the suits they tailored and posted them online cos you can actually inspect the cut and quality and also get a sense of the tailor's style. Overall I was impressed as the suits looked extremely fitted and smart. There was also a sense of the price range from some of the comments online (his prices started from S$250 and up), and this made me feel safe knowing the tailor was not going to overcharge me if he knew I was from Singapore. With that we took a trip down!
Haha before we went into the shop we pakat to speak Mandarin with malaysian accent. But in the end fail cos tak practice. Anyway I was very impressed when we met the shop owner Lawrence Chia (i think). He is this no nonsense sartorial-nazi who couldn't be bothered to upsell stuff.
We requested for a bunch of fabrics and he handed the swatches to us, and just rattled off the pros and cons of the different qualities. The prices were all written at the back of the swatch booklets.
lhy and I decided to go with 2 suits with quality that was mid-range:
1) Tweed like dark blue with hints of black (for dinner). We paired this with a brown inner vest.
2) Teal, for the church wedding. This was really a 20 second gamble cos after 20 minutes of looking, we were so set on boring brown, and suddenly came across this colour, and because lhy has a red skin tone and so fair, it looked pretty good when we held the swatch against his skin
Lawrence proceeded to take lhy's measurements and I was so impressed because he spent almost 20 minutes on it. lhy told me that usually his tailors take much less time. He was very meticulous and kept asking about his preferences - whether pants should be tapered, whether button should be 2 holes or 3, whether collar should be thinner. He took great pains to explain which was more traditional and which was more in fashion.
I took this time to explore his work space and noticed that he was extremely neat too! Things were really in order, and his own shirt didn't have crinkles and his hair flopped neatly in place. In my mind chided myself for being such a mess whenever I sew. My workspace is perpetually full of thread, pins, loose cloth and I could go hours without eating and washing up. I almost always look like a monster when I emerge from my room. Much to learn! For Lawrence, I think he's the one that does the drawing and cutting, and he probably sends them to a factory to get them sewn.
If i'm not wrong, we paid about S$400 for each suit, and an additional S$100 for the vest. we probably could have gotten something within that range in Singapore for lousier quality materials, but it was extremely satisfying to pay the same for much better workmanship and quality of cloth. And much to learn from Master Chia!
Men's Focus Branded Taste Tailor
G59, Holiday Plaza, Jalan Dato Sulaiman,
80250 Taman Century, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia
Went online to search for some good tailors in Singapore but they all didn't fit the budget. I found out there were a few tailors in JB and one of them was Men's Focus in Holiday Plaza. Even though I knew Holiday Plaza as a lok-kok, run down shopping centre in the middle of JB, I liked that they took photos of the suits they tailored and posted them online cos you can actually inspect the cut and quality and also get a sense of the tailor's style. Overall I was impressed as the suits looked extremely fitted and smart. There was also a sense of the price range from some of the comments online (his prices started from S$250 and up), and this made me feel safe knowing the tailor was not going to overcharge me if he knew I was from Singapore. With that we took a trip down!
Haha before we went into the shop we pakat to speak Mandarin with malaysian accent. But in the end fail cos tak practice. Anyway I was very impressed when we met the shop owner Lawrence Chia (i think). He is this no nonsense sartorial-nazi who couldn't be bothered to upsell stuff.
We requested for a bunch of fabrics and he handed the swatches to us, and just rattled off the pros and cons of the different qualities. The prices were all written at the back of the swatch booklets.
1) Tweed like dark blue with hints of black (for dinner). We paired this with a brown inner vest.
2) Teal, for the church wedding. This was really a 20 second gamble cos after 20 minutes of looking, we were so set on boring brown, and suddenly came across this colour, and because lhy has a red skin tone and so fair, it looked pretty good when we held the swatch against his skin
Lawrence proceeded to take lhy's measurements and I was so impressed because he spent almost 20 minutes on it. lhy told me that usually his tailors take much less time. He was very meticulous and kept asking about his preferences - whether pants should be tapered, whether button should be 2 holes or 3, whether collar should be thinner. He took great pains to explain which was more traditional and which was more in fashion.
A happy us having settled everything in a day!
And this was how his suits turned out! My extremely handsome husband.
If i'm not wrong, we paid about S$400 for each suit, and an additional S$100 for the vest. we probably could have gotten something within that range in Singapore for lousier quality materials, but it was extremely satisfying to pay the same for much better workmanship and quality of cloth. And much to learn from Master Chia!
Men's Focus Branded Taste Tailor
G59, Holiday Plaza, Jalan Dato Sulaiman,
80250 Taman Century, Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia
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