Wedding Decoration

Decoration is the most important part in my wedding preparation list. Where should I start? Maybe I should start from a little story before I begin the decorations.

At first, we were trying to find a wedding planner, which usually provides decoration service. We talked to one company one year ago when we were looking for bridal photography, and the service fee(exclude all other costs) is S$3000. We were overwhelmed by this high price so there is no then...

Two month before our wedding, we started thinking looking for a wedding planner again, and this time we founded Butterfly and Cakes on the magazine. This is a more well known wedding planner company, and this time when we hear the four digit service charge, we were already prepared, so not so shocked this time. 

Butterfly and Cakes used to do be a props rental company, which means they used to do wedding decorations. And they still provide props rental service now. What a coincidence! We thought we had found the right one, so we had some serious meetings and emails discussing about our wedding decoration issues. During our discussion, we realised again that, price for a Singapore wedding is again--overwhelming. Let me give you some examples, the rental fee for one table centerpiece or one isle stand is S$100. Assuming we have 20 tables and the cost would be S$2000 only for my decorations on table!

But their props are nice isn't it?

One special demand for my wedding is the lighting. The idea came from some photos I saw online. And I was so happy to know that B&C do have such lightings, and they call it "fairy lights". But the next I was told that fairy lights are pricy, guess how much? For an area of 25 square feet of fairy lights, the price is S$800... it can easily shoot up to four digits. The girl we talked to is frank and honest, it's not the lights that are pricy, but the labour fee is high. 

 A photo that I found online, and the warm and romantic lighting attracted me.

The price made me started thinking of any other options, maybe a DIY wedding? which seems more economical. I searched online and there are all the materials you need, even fairy lights. Although we are concerned about the time, but the price helped us settle our mind: no more wedding planner, no more props rental. We are going to DIY our wedding, and we are going to do all the decoration ourselves!

Our Wedding Vendors

Despite the head-scratching details of online searching, appointment making, I think my overall impression for this experience is fun and surprising. This should thank our tentage coordinator as well as food catering people. They are both helpful people and my wedding wouldn't be so perfect without them.

So I think I should start with our vendor searching journey with food caterer first. We have tried one randomly picked from an advertise we encountered for our ROM before, and that one proved to be a wrong choice. This time we went to the more reliable website-Singapore wedding forum, trying to find a well rating caterer, and we got two candidates which ranked top of the list. We have arranged appointments with both caterers as well. Finally we chose Orange Clove and they didn't let us down. Their buffet table decoration is just what I was looking for! Also their sales person Jaslyn is very friendly and contactable, we can feel her sincerity and effort in meeting us during lunch hours or off-work hours. Arranging an appointment is not so easy when you are trying to get things down in such a short time, and that's why I wish we could have had more time. Ps we didn't got a chance for food tasting since there is really no time! not their fault.

PS: Orange Clove only provide Halal food, so we have to order alchol and wine glasses from a sub company of Orange Clove.

Service staff from Orange Clove are arranging buffet table and porcelains for the table. 

(Wedding favours, chairs, round tables and decorations are not from Orange Clove)

The second important part of our wedding is tents, tables and chairs. There are many tentage companies online when you search, but most of their products seems to serve community events. What's more defeating, asking for tentage service in such a near date, most of them are already booked. Luckily, during our appointment with first caterer, they provided us with this tentage company-Nanyang Inc. As a result, this tentage company do specialize in outdoor wedding and they provide round tables, long tables, tiffany chairs, etc. Their types of tents are also very diverse and romantic. Despite a little unhapy issue at the beginning, I really enjoyed the overal planning and I'm very satisfied with the final set-up. My dream wedding wouldn't become true without Nanyang Inc. Their staff are very very helpful, thanks to Jia Hui, and the site staff.

We rented 4 tents, dance floor, tables and tiffany chairs from Nanyang Inc.

(Nanyang Inc offered us spotlights, Steel skeleton for fairy lights around dance floor, etc for free!)

Having settled the two most important vendors really released my stress a lot. For the other vendors, my thought was it would be better if we have more service, but my wedding can still carry on without other vendors. Then gradually we managed to get the following vendors to make our wedding more dreamy. I feel very glad that I have get this cinematography, Enya Mareine Vision Studio for my wedding. At first I felt it's too pricy, but after comparison with other studios, their videos won my heart. Turns out that my choice was so right! Their cinematographer are really professional and their products too. I have been watching my wedding trailer for many times and still love it. They got the high resolution cameras taking from three different views, they can edit the movies so well that they go with the music like it's telling a wedding story. Let me say no more, you can see their works from their website. Their actual day cinematography is really impressive.

Videoing...

Photography is a local studio that my husband found online, their photography is fine, there were some nice shots, but not as much as I expected. I think it is necessary to have at least two photographer for your wedding. The photographer we hired is from Visioworkz, you can check out their works from their website.


As for make up artist, I have been getting all these contacts from my friends, and I have contacted them one by one. The good thing is that I got reliable feedbacks from my friends' past experience. Price wise, local make up artists ask for similar prices, but we can bargain a bit with them, the nearer to the date, the lesser chance for them to find other business. My make up artist did make up for me and two mothers at an reasonable price.

What do you think of the make up and hair do?

My husband also contacted a live band from Love Notes to perform during our wedding dinner. They provide sound system and light music for our wedding on top of the singer and guitar player. With the live band, the air was full of sweet and romantic ambien throughout our wedding dinner. Our vocalist is Ywenna, we liked her voice.

You can see her videos from this link--Ywenna.

Outdoor Wedding Venues-Fort Canning Park

There are several nice spot in Singapore that can engage in some green or sea view for your wedding. Since we have already had our ROM by the sea, this time we are aiming at gardens!

We had preference in mind before we pick a spot, which would be Fort Canning Park. Fort Green Lawn is a meaningful place to us, I guess girls love these coincidences, wouldn't it be nice to have our wedding at the very meaningful place to us? Thus we set our foot in Fort Canning, where we were very luckily welcomed by a retired officer Jennifer from the park office. She showed us around several venues in Fort Canning park that has been popular spots for weddings.

First of all, she brought us to Raffles House. This is an English colonial style house, which is nicely located at the top of hill which can overview of the city line. There is a lovely lawn outside the house and a grand old tree where you can host your solemnisation ceremony. The indoor area is bright and can be air-conditioned, you can place long tables in it and there are sound system and lightings all provided(Of course all the chairs and tables and decorations are rented from vendors, what you rent from N-parks is only the venue). I really loved this house, but too bad, the place can only hold 80 pax seated, which is way not enough for our wedding. (Rental price, S$1200)

Next stop Jennifer lead us to is the Former Married Soldier's house, this venue also got an indoor area but smaller and a much larger outdoor lawn. The house is less English colonial taste than Raffles house. The rooftop is lower and there are no glasses on every door, thus if you want air-conditioner, you need to trade in nature lighting, and it is darker even if you keep all doors open. Although the indoor area can only hold 60 pax seated guests, the lawn is large enough to host 200 pax seats. However I don't suggest using the lawn for tables and chairs, because there are two huge trees standing in the middle of the lawn, and the whole place seems like to be cut into two areas. The further away from the house lawn is nice to host solemnisation ceremony, there are also trees as your solemnisation background. (Rental Price, S$600)

the lawn near house is not so nice, and you can see the two huge trees in the middle of lawn.

The corner further away from the house is lovely and there is a nice tree.

Opposite the OMSQ, Jennifer pointed us a huge lawn with nothing on it but grand huge trees at four sides. This lawn is another spot, which link with a grand gate, known as the Fort Gate. The lawn is huge and flat compared to the previous two venues we visited, but there are no indoor space at all! If we are going to have our wedding here, we need to really worry about the weather. But who knows, after visiting all the other venues, we came back to this place and had my dream wedding here. (Rental Price, S$600)

This amazing tree is where we had our ceremony

Fort Gate lawn is at the other side of Fort Gate

We also take a look at the Fort Green Lawn, which is the huge area of lawn in front of the white house. This place is popular for concerts, and this is exactly the romantic spot where we started our relationship. I can imagine the bride walking down the stairs of the white house and say the vows in front of the white house. However, truth is, the lawn is too huge for 200 pax guests, it can host 3000-5000 guests. Plus the venue is a slope, that's why it is popular for concerts, where audience can have a picnic mat and sit on the lawn. I even thought about through a picnic wedding, where I can provide picnic mats and just let my guests sit on the lawn, but back then the lawn was under renovation and is not available for rent.

Last but not the least, we discovered that there is a hidden colonial restaurant inside the park, the Flutes at the Fort. This place is romantic and quite for couples but not really for our wedding. The majority area is indoor area and narrow deck outdoor space among trees. The place can hold up to 110 guests. If you would like to have an intimate wedding party at Fort Canning and you want to pass all the headache of getting different vendors to provide food and facilities, then this might be the right place. (Wedding package for 100 pax is S$18999 for dinner, S$12500 for lunch)