Little joys of wedding planning

Distributing hundreds of invitations has its pros and cons. The eeky side to it is, of course having to gather everyone's contacts and plan the logistics of sending it out. But I must admit that one of the nicer aspects of it is being able to catch up with old friends and people who have played a significant role in your life while growing up.

In my case, one of the people whom I looked forward to personally handing out our invitation is my dear aunty Dot -- my nanny when I was 4 :) It is really very heart-warming to have people share the joy of our pending union when they receive our invitation -- especially so, when they are special people! It personally encourages me to continue 'working' on our preps eventhough we are really quite exhausted at this point.

Our 31-day countdown has begun!!! I can't believe I am getting married in less than a month... HAHA!

Wedding Invitations

FINALLY!!! Our invitation cards are ready. Its taken us 2 months from design phase to production and delivery -- In fact, we missed our targeted dead line by a week because we returned the first batch of prints. Its truly been one of the more challenging wedding prep items thus far.

That being said, the delay and wait have definitely been outweighed by the joy of seeing the end product. The cards have turned out exactly the way we envisioned it to be. For some, it might be an overkill. HAHA. But we absolutely LOVE it and can't wait to send it out.

This is Acai, the creative brains behind our invitations.

Here is what it is like at our printers' :) 700 cards in the making...

^ This is the final stage of production where you will see about 6 girls gluing and folding the cards.

Now... writing all the names and distribution is the next headache!!! :P I brought out my jelly-pens to help keep me happy throughout this tedious process...

The Beginning of Crunch Time...

The time has arrived for us to start designing our invitation cards. This is perhaps the trickiest part of wedding planning aside from table arrangements (which will be handled by our parents) because essentially, we will need to get 6 people to be in agreement before we send the final design to print -- Irwin, myself, and both sides of our parents :P

SATURDAY -- we made our ways back to Jalan Brunei Selatan; where we last visited Mr. Z back in September!!! Surprisingly, he still remembers us; and most importantly remembers promising us that he would take our orders for a minimum quantity of 400 pieces. He usually doesn't take personal orders for Chinese weddings; unless you go through a certain popular Malaysian wedding planner. Anyhow, we hit it off with him right away, discussing our ideas and budget $$$. We especially loved him for being very straightforward in his pricing and rather easy-going with the extras he will throw in altogether.

As with the whole wedding planning process, WAITING for quotes, designs, proposals and final outcome is the thing that kills me most :P We now have to wait for 2 weeks till we see the first draft of his design. After which, we will start discussion and finalizing with both sides of our parents. We have estimated that we will see the finished product in at least 6 weeks; if not more. Hopefully, the cards will be ready by mid-May so that we will all have ample time to fill it up, post some and hand-deliver others.

A Saturday Spent in the City

We were 'summoned' by Stephen (our wedding planner) to go down to the Marriott to meet him today :P He was doing a wedding there tonight, and wanted me to check out its decor because I onced emailed him a picture of lights in ball-like shapes suspended from the ceiling. He wanted me to see it in person... but also then to tell me that this type of decor will not be suitable for our wedding venue at Sime Darby Convention Center because our grand ballroom will be much BIGGER -- the light-balls won't create too much of a wow-factor. I totally agreed -- I personally didn't like the light-balls after all.

The hall was also decorated using champagne&white-color floral arrangements -- which I also now realize that I don't quite fancy. It didn't seem as striking as how I have 'envisioned' our hall to be. Keke! So I'm happy that I have made some 'progress' in the floral & decor department because up until this afternoon, I hadn't put much thought into it!

Since we were in the city, I decided to ask Irwin to drive us to Jalan Brunei -- a small area just off Jalan Pudu. Someone had recommended I go there to source for vendors to custom-make our wedding invitations... and I'm so glad that I checked out that area (although its located in quite a dodgy part of town). 85% of the shops on Jalan Brunei Selatan are printing vendors who specially design and mass print literally anything you want -- from highly decorated boxes to wedding cards and paper bags :D We managed to source a ball-park costing for our SURPRISE invitation card idea. Again, I can't let the cat out of the bag... yet :P ... although I'm dying to share the idea! HAHA!

For soon to be married couples, do check out Jalan Brunei Selatan when sourcing for wedding invitations. You won't regret it especially if you're planning to print in high quantities of at least 500 pieces and above :)