wedding invites, and how i did it again

continuing on with the wedding series, just so many things to blog about!


for wedding invites, i didn't want to use invites that looked like that:

 this was 1 of 2 of the better designs offered by SICC.

anyway, I originally wanted to do some brush lettering + painting, then convert to digital. but after then as the date drew closer and i had a whole pile of tasks left to complete and it was the end of july..

i decided to go the easy way ;)

i downloaded some free water colour flower/ brush stroke digital packs from online and searched for some nice fonts, used illustrator (which is my major LOVE, i love vector art) to shift things around and went through so many iterations! Lost count of the many and i won't show them but here's the end product:

front of church invite in english: was going for the slightly raw + simple look. i like caps fonts with slight spacings

back of church invite in english

front of church invite in chinese

back of church invite in chinese: thank God for a lovely papa who is fluent in chinese!

front cover of dinner invite

flip open invite, left side of dinner invite: used illustrator to draw the maps! <3

flip open invite, right side of dinner invite

 and this is the chinese insert (1 card, 1 side) that we slotted into invites of chinese-speaking relatives

i really wanted to print it on pale pink coloured cards like that:

 don't you think it looks modern, yet traditional (like those pink wedding cards back in the olden days?!!?) alas, as it was an insert, it needed to match the english card, and i didn't want everything to be too pinkish.

whilst i got all these cards ready, han yang and i were trying to find cheap printers that could print on good quality cards at the price we wanted. we went to sunshine plaza, which was our best bet, but printing was pretty ex. not only that, they charged separately for cutting, and so cards worked out to be something like high $1++ to $2++ a piece (can't remember exactly). moreover, none of them sold the measurement of envelopes we wanted! they all suggested going to popular or taobao :( we were looking for square envelopes to fit our 140mm x 140mm cards.

anyway, it was end of beginning of august already and i had to go on taobao for 1 last batch of logs, which included this! bought some 148mm x 148mm, 80gsm (or sthng like that) envelopes at S$0.06 a piece, which is much much cheaper than retail cost in Singapore. and considering i couldn't even find this measurement, it was a steal. the colour was a bit more crimson, and less burgundy-ish than i expected, but it worked out pretty well!

anyway, after some time, we were suddenly reminded that fiona's family did printing (they supply all the event cards/ materials for church). she told us that they stopped doing printing for wedding a while back, but for us they would make an exception. yay for friends who are sweet hearts! michelle (the lady who handled the printing) was really helpful when i went down to pick the paper (snuck away during lunch time). their selection wasn't super comprehensive, but it was good enough to pick out something of quality. i was actually looking for some type of matte paper for the dinner invites, like the kind they use for certificate printing?

they didn't have those, so i ended up picking 250gsm pearl paper (slightly shimmery) in cream for the dinner invites, and white pearl paper for the church invites. the quotation was super reasonable, i felt bad and wasn't sure whether they were profiting from this.

the correspondence was quick! we started on 25 jul, confirmed the designs on 29th, and by 2 aug (5 days), the cards were ready! it would have been even earlier, had we not done overlay printing halfway through cos of some minor edits:

here it is! the print quality was extremely sharp and true to colour.

with my favourite card of all the designs. received many compliments too!

<3

one thing, however, we WAY over-estimated! so many cards leftover :(

diy decor!

this was the case of planning so much, but in the end everything boiled down to whatever happened the day before!

i had an idea to focus the decor on the reception table and an arch, which my mum had kindly agreed to do up for her daughter, and spent such a long time on!

i actually had a colour palette planned:

but we didn't really stick to the theme in the end cos we ended up picking flowers with all sorts of colours! in the end it was really more like vibrant summer colours, which i didn't mind as well. only my flower bouquet stuck to the theme. haha!

anyway, i was a planner:

i went to sketch out the reception table on illustrator. i know, what?!?! i like to see things visually. unfortunately my planning kinda stopped here and i passed it on to my sis.

i will feature some prominent projects!

THE ARCH:

ok... she took apart an old shelf.. what?

this is the base.

she used an old tin to create this metallic hollow so that the arch could sit nicely.

half way through..

this was before the leaves came about and the flowers looked a little awkward. we toyed with using a combi of fresh flowers and fake flowers but decided to stick to the latter cos there was no time the day before.

tah dah! she was really proud of it and i was really proud of her! she spent such a long time on it you know. though, i must admit, when i saw it in the huge church i thought it looked much smaller than it actually was. but lhy and i have agreed that after we lend the arch to friends who've expressed interest, we will restore it back to its former glory as a book shelf while maintaining elements of my mum's arch. yeah, i will find a way to refurbish it so it fits in the house!

ANGBAO BOX:

after countless weddings, one thing i feel people spend alot of time on is the angbao box but it becomes trash after the wedding. alot of them use shoe boxes/paper boxes to create something with cardboard paper and wrap them up, but i really wanted something more timeless and reusable.

i got the inspiration from one of my friend's wedding, in which she engaged commonhands to custom make her angbao box:

A post shared by Common Hands (@commonhands) on Jun 12, 2015 at 9:49pm PDT

ok this is not her angbao box, but it was something like that. she said it was about $100, but the box was so small it fell apart with too many angbaos and they had to fix it.

like the resourceful person i am again (not sure whether this is a boon or bane, really. it has gotten me into many hours of fixing/wasting time so far, but yet, so satisfying), i decided to find out how to do lettering on wood. i figured from the photos that they posted that everything was hand crafted (?!?!). obviously i couldnt reach that standard within such a short time. further research led me to this amazing technique called wood burning.

YEAH.

how issit that i DIY-ed all my life and never knew of its existence?!?!?! i've been trying to find ways to personalise crafts (eg. monogram my sewing, etc), and wood burning seriously brings personalisation to a new level!

wood burning needed some kinda soldering pen. i had a soldering iron but it was too long to be used for writing, so i decided to hop by ArtFriend (never mind the premium i had to pay, but this was urgent!) to get them:

the most beautiful pen tips i've ever set my eyes on. i hugged them to sleep.

after that, i went to my carpenter, a stone's throw away from my office, to get the wooden planks. despite supplying wood to big establishments, the guys there are really friendly and have always entertained me since i was a poor soul buying cheap wood from their scrap wood section. but ok this time i got them to cut legit (but cheap, soft) wood to my measurements. i basically needed a wooden box with 2 flaps on top, but with a 1 cm slit in the middle for the angbaos. they did it real quick and i only paid about $15 including the brackets and screws. i love ban heng long!

anyway i fixed them together, but i wont really touch on that since it was pretty straight forward:

i wanted something personalised so lhy and i came up with a haiku! i printed it out in the font i wanted, shaded the mirror image with pencil and transferred it onto the wood:

and then the fun began! i was a little wobbly at the start, switching between the tips to find the most steady one, and gradually settled for the smooth tip. i love the smell of burnt wood!

all done! doesn't look too shabby right?

i also added in our initials on the top of the box for a touch of personalisation.

anyway, it's now sitting in our wardrobe and i'm wondering how we can use it in the new house next time too.

the rest of the decorations all boiled down to the last few days really.

my sis spray painted these gold glitter bottles:

they looked AMAZING but totally not scalable. i think she used 1 can of paint on 4 bottles.

--

meanwhile, it was 1 day before the wedding and i had still not done the brush lettering for:

- "God is LOVE"

- description for wedding favours

- the sign for our hashtag and wedding

- the 'here comes the bride''

AGAIN, if i had the time, i would have done wood burning for everything so they looked professional. but yea, no time.

it was the day after i altered my wedding dress and i was an absolute zombie. after i stayed up and saw the daylight, i went to have breakfast with lhy and his friend, who flew in for the wedding. after which i still needed to do my nails + transport stuff from home to the church/SICC. i was dead tired.

but my angel of a dad actually took leave and availed himself to help me out. i was so touched, and thought since his chinese calligraphy is amazing, english words shouldnt be a problem too. hence i got him to help write everything.

hehe:

i guess it wasn't the standard that i had expected, but i love my dad to bits for trying his best! <3

--

anyway, rewinding back to a few months back, i had foreseen that we were gonna use lotsa glass bottles for flowers, and started collecting so many of them. i got my colleagues and friends to save soft drink/ beer/ fruit juice bottles and they were super cooperative and i managed to get like 80 bottles lol.

a few days before, my sis and i pick out an insane amount of flowers. i think she spent 2-300 bucks, and she gifted them to me! 

the day before, she went to collect the flowers, and initially the plan was for her and my mum to decorate the church. but we were all so tired with everything that i rallied my lovely LG who was on call to make sure that i had enough help! i love them all to bits. my sis did her electrotherapy that afternoon and was suffering from super dry body parts and looked like she was gonna fall sick any moment. my mum spent the whole evening decorating the stair way.

look at these angels:

a formidable task ahead of them. this was like 8 plus i think! i was rather shocked when i dropped by to say hi, and there was still so much to do. but they helped out my mum and sis so so much <3

 and they even celebrated my birthday!!!

 it was really TONS OF FLOWERS! we left the church at around 1am :'(, but the flowers were so amazing, as were everything else:

at home! the corsages on wooden plate:

the lovely bouquet that my sister did up. and look at the candles (fake flickering, from taobao) and the pretty flowers on the floor :)

reception table:

 

church aisle:

some of the stair way. i wished we could have captured more of the pretty flowers/greens!!:

 omg my friends were still helping out with flower arrangements in the morning!:

caught snippets of this on the raw footage:

haha, my sis and i were trying to understand what was behind my dad and his inspiration with the E at the end of BRIDE. 

Dinner time!:

everything was so gorgeous! i was so thankful to my lovely family and friends for helping me with the setting up and the tearing down.

anyway, if there was things i could have done differently:

top on my list would have been to burn letterings on ALL the planks of wood

also, arrange the flowers 2 days, instead of a day before, and get even more friends to help!

also, the aisle was a little bare as i didn't want to spend too much resources doing it up. originally, i toyed with the idea of putting up branches along the aisle like that, together with some fairylights:

eventually we scrapped the idea cos i felt we didnt have enough time the day before to setup. but it would have added an interesting touch to the decor!

<3