Tick-tock: Timing is Everything

On a Saturday morning, June 29, I woke up and came downstairs, seeing Mr Big bent over a writing pad and planning out the day-of timeline. A little early for that, doncha think? So I asked what that was about, and found out something that made my heart sink.

Apparently, Chinese tradition states that Mr Big needed to lead me out of my parents’ house at 11AM. Now this meant, at 11AM, Mr Big needed to get to my parents’ house and lead me out. There were initial problems to this.

The first problem is fixable. Let’s say Mr Big is at the door to my parent’s villa. If he leads me out, he’ll see me in all my white-dressed-glory, which ruins the whole “first-seeing-each-other-when-I-walk-down-the-aisle” thing. GP says that he can blindfold himself before he knocks on the door and we can do both traditions (not seeing each other before the aisle-walk, AND the Chinese tradition of Mr Big letting me out of the house). So… this problem is fixed, but the BIGGEST issue was the second one.

The second, and MAIN, problem was timing

Our civil ceremony was initially supposed to start at 11AM and we’ve told our guests this. This meant guests would be arriving at the Waterfall Outlook before 11AM. Now, if Mr Big lead me out of my parents’ house at 11AM, we’d ultimately get to the Hunter Valley Gardens by about 11:15AM. Which meant our guests would be sitting down  waiting around for about 15-20 minutes.

I didn’t want that to happen.

Not to mention that pushed back the civil ceremony, the official family photos, and the amount of time we get for the Chinese tea ceremony. However, like all problems, we found a fix, which meant being approximately 15 minutes late to the ceremony. We made our celebrant aware, and hopefully, guests will be ok with it. According to a number of our married guests and friends, it’s okay for the bride and groom to be a little bit “fashionably late”.

‘But what, pray tell, is this post about?’, I hear you guys asking. Well, guys, we’re counting down the days to the wedding, and I’m glad to tell you that we’ve got the day-of timeline tightened and neat. With the help of Microsoft Project, information from our vendors, and working throughout all of November and December to get this baby all set, I think we’ve definitely got a workable day-of run sheet.

So for those who want a few tips on how to construct what seems like a massive venture in the beginning, let me give you a few tips:

• Get in touch with your vendors as soon as possible: I know this is an obvious one, guys, but seriously, this vastly helped in constructing our day-of run sheet. Our reception coordinators actually gave us the run sheet that they normally work off of, and that gave me a good idea on how to get started. I basically extrapolated this and then overlaid it with our own plans.
• Communicate with your FI/partner: Another obvious one, but the amount of times I’ve put a plan into action and had Mr Big either improve on it or add details I didn’t know about are amazing. Mr Big and I are pretty good at communicating, and when it came to the timeline, it’s amazing what sitting down and going through it can do.
• Durations are your friend: I know it’s not really easy to get things down to the finest minute, but I found that giving events a duration of time (1 min, 30 mins, 1hr, 3hrs, etc.) allows for a much easier “block” to work around. For example, I know the ceremony will start at 11AM to 1115AM and go for approximately 30 minutes. I made note of that in the run sheet.
• Try and go through your run sheet as early as possible with important members of the “wedding team”: I’m not just talking about bridesmaids and groomsmen – remember that your ushers, parents of flower girls or page boys, DJ, MC, florist, and all other special attendants need to know what’s happening too. I sent my preliminary run sheet to all of my vendors and asked them to have a look over it. They were able to tell me where to tweak it and also give me their timings! This then assisted me in improving where particular things flowed in the run sheet. I also went through the run sheet a week early with other attendants (ushers, bridesmaids, etc.) in order for them to understand what I needed of them.
•  If at all possible, print out and give copies to bridal party members: This is particularly important if you have a big group (like we do!).

I hope these tips help you all in planning your own run sheet! If you need any tips (or would like to see a copy of my own run sheet), please do PM me! 🙂 I’d post a template up on here, but I need to get cracking to last-minute wedding stuff!

Who else had some issues formulating their day-of run sheet?

As I’m typing this, I can barely feel my fingers…

It is well and truly winter here in Sydney…

So, how the HECK am I going to feel in Christchurch!?

My hands are freezing!! I know for a fact it gets much colder over there.

I’m looking forward to it otherwise. 🙂 We’re getting closer and closer to the e-session and I’m SUPER excited! So is GP! We’ve been thinking about what to do there and we’re left scratching our heads. GP suggested the Antarctic Centre, which would be awesome since we’ve… well I’ve… never been there. And also, GP loves penguins 😀

Thing is, that means we won’t be doing the “co-op of a lifetime” idea. Logistically, it was going to be pretty hard, but I love the idea and am pretty bummed we can’t do it.

Talking about gaming, we’ve officially ordered our first “DIY’ project. I know – how can you ‘order’ a DIY project? Simple really – make it in Photoshop, put it in Vistaprint, and then get them to print it, hahah! I had a coupon for $20 off the cart price, so my order went from $40 to $20, YAYYYYY!

Pretty much how I felt. (Image (c) http://gifstumblr.com/)

When it comes in, I’ll have to cut it to size and then alter it with the blackboard paint. Then we officially have a writeable Xbox sign!! More on that later, promise.

In other news, this Wednesday I’ll be shopping with Mandy! Which means I’m one step closer to getting my dress. DOUBLE YAY!

Cue Disney gif!

 

Anyway… this post was pointless. I just though I’d give you guys an update.

Who has two thumbs and just got fitted for her wedding dress?

THIS GIRL!

And before I launch into a wedding-dress-related rant…

MR GP – AVERT YOUR EYES!!!

You must not gaze upon this post!

Okay!

So on June 18, I finally went to see the incredible Mandy Heng and got fitted for the bodice on my dress! I was super excited getting this done and she was impressed – apparently I’ve lost a VISIBLE amount of weight. I intend to keep going with the weight loss, so I’m a little paranoid the dress will have to be majorly altered, but fingers crossed it’ll all work out!

We also went through other key things about my dress design.

Mandy’ll be making my veil from scratch using fabrics she owns. It’ll have a lace border on the fringe which sits on top of my head and drape down, longer than my train. The cost isn’t excessive (not cheap either, but hey – you win some, you lose some). My ma is wholeheartedly agreeing with the whole idea, so that’s a plus right there I guess!

We’re shopping for laces next Wednesday. The lace is an additional cost to the dress, but I expected this. Laces can be a pretty addition to the dress, but they’re certainly not cheap. I don’t need a lot of lace on my dress, so I’m pretty happy with this arrangement. 🙂

And finally, she saw my shoes and measured ’em. This’ll give her a good idea on how long the skirt will need to be. I also wore shapers, so hopefully I lose so much weight I won’t need the body shaper and I’ll just fit into my dress naturally (since I’m still in the weight loss journey).

Now, talking about the weight loss journey…

GP, you can come back now ❤

GP has recently come into a position where he now needs to work in the city on a project. This means that, instead of going to the gym at 2PM and then coming back home and having a protein shake, we need to wake up at 5AM.

In the words of Junior BM Qin: CRY

I’m NOT a morning person, and I certainly am not a morning person in winter! I struggle to get up at 9AM, but 5AM! SOB! In the first week we managed 2 out of 5 days because the other three we struggled to get up.

We’ll certainly try harder this week, but I hope this doesn’t affect our weight loss 😦

Wish us luck people!

Dressing the parteh people!

Good afternooooooooooooooooon people!

I woke up at 5AM this morning to go to the gym and I. am. exhausted. Realistically, I should’ve had a power nap this afternoon, but got caught up playing Dragon Age: Origins. Now that my exam is done and all my assignments have been handed in, I should be focusing on my thesis work, but no.

I’m playing Xbox games.

Tomorrow I’ll have to buckle down and get to writing my Introduction and Lit Review as well as finally getting an ENTIRE month to code those gorramn interviews.

As for wedding news, we’ve got (most) of the guest list sorted, which is GREAT. We sent out our invitations early, purely because we have guests who may be coming from overseas (Canada, the UK, Indonesia, and NZ). It’s still 7 months until the wedding, but that’s ok! GP and I were happy that our invitations were out of the way and we don’t need to worry about them! I’ll have to have a full-fledged “making of” the invitations later on, but right now, this post will talk about wedding clothing.

We have succeeded in getting most of the clothes for the important members of the bridal party!

• Bride – Check! (deposit paid, getting fitted tomorrow, feeling fabulous!)
• Groom – Check! (and looking so. very. suave in his suit, may I add)
• Groomsmen – Check! (and we’ll [hopefully] be seeing them in these suits later on in July!)
• Bridesmaids – Almost… (got to get one more set of measurements and then we can buy ’em)
• Mother-of-the-bride – Check! (my ma is altering her own dress and it’s looking really good – now all we need to do is buy her that necklace and we’re done!)
• Mother-of-the-groom – Not yet, I think (I haven’t asked her about her search in a while, but seeing as we’ll be in NZ in July, I’m hoping we can find something together 🙂 )
• Father-of-the-bride – Check! (we got one for my pa when we were getting groom and groomsmen suits – his suit is a more dark slate grey and looks dashing on my daddy)
• Father-of-the-groom – Check! (I haven’t seen him in his suit personally, but as I said – NZ in July, hopefully he can put the suit on for us to have a look!)

We just need to get a few more things to complete the ensembles (double-cuff/French-cuff shirts for the men, the necklace for my ma, accessories and shoes for the girls) and then we’re set. I’m super excited to know we finally have a look for these very important people! 🙂

Take that exam!

Hello all!

I’ve been absent recently because of one thing: exams.

You see, I’m a full-time Masters student – I’m doing both coursework and an Honours degree, so effectively I have a full-time job that doesn’t stop. Luckily I get to study from home, but one of my subjects had an exam which I’ve been studying copiously since the beginning of last week. I’m happy to say that I have finally done it and I am FREE! It wasn’t too hard, but I know if I hadn’t have studied, I wouldn’t be feeling as calm as I do now.

Now, onto wedding things!

Since GP and I have completed about 80% of the big ticket items, the one thing we need to settle is the clothes for the wedding party. Well, I’m happy to say that we’ve officially got the suits for the men! 🙂 Connor, a men’s store here in Australia, were having a sale on suits – and may I mention, snazzy looking suits! Because GP and I will be buying the bridal party’s attire, this was just the BEST time to be buying it.

The particular suit we wanted for the handsome groom and his groomsmen was called the Grand. It’s a slate-grey suit with a sleek maroon lining and nice black lapels. GP tried it on and he looks GOOOOD (I could be biased…). At the same time, my daddy bought his suit! His suit is called the Berwick. It’s a darker gray than the Grand and the suit that GP’ s dad is wearing. My dad tried it on with a waistcoat and the pants and it’s AMAZING on him. I can’t wait to see him all fully-duded out.

Now all we need is to get double-cuff (French cuff) shirts for the men in the colours we want and we’re set for the guys!

As for my girls, I’ve got my measurements for my two sisters and I’m awaiting the rest of the measurements from my girls. I’ve given them the rough guide on getting these measurements and am hoping to get something ordered before June 20. There’s a sale going on right now which will be great for my wallet, hahah! My own first dress fitting will be this coming Monday, so I’m ecstatic about that!

All of it is finally coming together and I’m getting super excited!

Bubbles, bubbles, I wish my name was bubbles~

(Who got the title reference?)

During the planning process of this wedding, Mr Big and I thought through a lot of things. One of these was the “exit” for the bride and groom during both ceremony (recessional!) and reception (send off!). I’ll get to the send off later, because that’s a longer story, but our recessional exit was an easy one.

Upon visiting the place where we’d get married, our former ceremony coordinator turned to us and said politely, “we unfortunately can’t have rice or confetti thrown on the Garden grounds, but most people do rose petals”. Mr Big and I nodded in understanding, and kept looking around. After a pause, our ceremony coordinator turned to us and said these game-changing words:

“Bubbles are my favourite though.”

I had never heard of such a thing, but it sounded fantastic.

I love bubbles. One of my fondest childhood memories was grabbing a bowl, pouring in a mixture of dishwashing liquid and water, grabbing my self-made bubble blower (made out of a coat hanger of course!) and then going out onto the balcony and blowing the bubbles. Seeing them bob up and down in the air, floating into the air, was wonderful.

This was only emphasised by the gorgeous images of bubbles being blown at newlyweds.

Bubble exit! / Image via A Southern Soiree, photography by Exum Photography.

So of course, when bubbles were proposed as an alternative to confetti and rose petals, I was set. So was Mr Big. He seemed even more excited than me, hahah! 😀

So after that visit, I started the search for wedding bubbles, and promptly found out how overpriced they were. Eighty cents per blower!? Over $100 for about 150 bubble blowers!? Are you serious!? I stopped searching when all I could find was overpriced wedding merchandise after overpriced wedding merchandise. It was also too early to settle on buying these things.

A few months later, I found a pretty good deal on a website selling twin heart bubble blowers. However, after contacting them, we weren’t given the kindness of a response and gave up. I was annoyed, because it would’ve been a great deal.

Oh well, back to the drawing board…

Fast forward to 1 June 2013.

We were in the city to go to a Tour de Dance at the Metro Theatre to support two friends and their dance troupe. The night was AMAZING and they’re SO good at dancing! While we were there though, we had about two to one-and-a-half hours to go. We shopped around, finding some wedding guest book options (which I’ll get to when we finally get around to buying everything). We also visited a discount dollar store (you know, those ones which sell cheap stuff). And inside that store, we, or more correctly, Mr Big found bubbles!

And the cost: fifty cents per bubble blower.

EFF YEAH!

They had two designs, a twin heart design and a bride and groom design:

Left: The twin heart design from Swish Wedding Invitations, and right: The bride and groom design from La Occasion Wedding & Events Coordinators.

We originally ordered 6 boxes of the combined designs, but at the end, we got about 6 boxes of the bride and groom bubbles. It was all good thought, because we got the bubbles for a combined total of $72!

Question is, should we leave them as is, or should I add some nice ribbon?