So I have finally screened through our wedding photos and uploaded them to Facebook. Going through these photos surely brought back a lot of memories of that night, as well as the many nights (and late nights) to prepare for the best night of our love story (yet).
While these thoughts are flying in my mind, let’s pen them down before they fly away! So here are the few things I miss about our DIY wedding planning.
Shopping for Anything Hexagon, Yellow and Lights
I think one of the most fun decisions I made was choosing a wedding theme. Not just any wedding theme but one that I felt very strongly about, to represent our love story.
It started off as mustard yellow colour and quickly transformed to include hexagon shape, and later some bees! I’ve also always dreamed about a backyard wedding with a lot of string lights so warm lights started to come into the picture too, which made the theme even more perfect ultimately.
It was a lot of fun pinning wedding ideas around yellow, hexagon and lights on Pinterest actually. Because they turned out really fun, bright, happy and unique!
For months, everything I saw around me was hexagon: tiles in malls, mirrors in shops, make up holder on Shopee, wine holder on Pinterest, signage on Lazada, and more. In fact, months after the wedding, I have friends sending me hexagon shaped items because they can’t help but to be reminded of the wedding when they see hexagon. Aww. “Branding” game done right!
Dreaming About The Wedding
Months after the wedding now, I can use the word “dream”. But during the process of preparing for the wedding, I saw it more as “visualize”, “design”, “brainstorm”, “plan”, “prepare” — nothing dreamy but more hardwork and stress.
There were a lot of jitters, not about the fact that we’re professing our love to our closest friends and families but anxiety about pulling off a meaningful and fun event that would celebrate our love for each other and our appreciation for everyone we handpicked to share this special night with us. Not gonna lie, I have my own set of expectations that I wanted to meet as well, adding to the stress.
But it was all exciting. In fact, it was very much enjoyable because I felt like I was bringing my vision to life. It’s not often that I have such a clear vision about something you see — from the decor to activities. That’s the beauty of DIY wedding planning, I guess?
Have I said that I was also very thrilled that RK was onboard pretty much for all the crazy ideas that I had about our unconventional wedding reception (quiz, Wasabi game, toast, etc)? On top of that, he was actually a very dependable and detailed planner and executor on the items that he was in charge of. #bravo
Co-Creating Personalized Coaster Wedding Door Gift
Honestly, door gift was not at the top of my list when I started wedding planning because I labeled it as an unnecessary cost that no one will miss…unless I make it meaningful and useful. That’s the rule of the thumb for me when I planned the wedding anyway: is it special and is it necessary?
So while I didn’t even budget for door gift from the beginning, quite a few guests kept asking me what I’m preparing for door gift. I was surely surprised by the interest but still didn’t wanna go against my guiding principle.
Instead, I started thinking deeper about creating personalized coasters that don’t scream us (the newlywed) but them (the guests).
P/s Coaster because I have a thing about coaster actually; my favourite souvenir to buy when I travel because it’s easy to put to use, especially in office.
Trust me, that simple-looking coaster door gift that everyone got was the biggest project I embarked on for this wedding. It was so tedious and nerve-wracking! I recruited my sister to DIY the coaster after failing to find any ready-made that fitted my bill.
Photo credit: Khai
And even after she agreed to “join the fun”, there was a lot of head-scratching and frowning. I don’t even want to start counting how many designs we tried, tested and failed before we finally settled on the final product that I was really happy and nervous to share with the world. In fact, I deliberately kept it a secret from guests who asked about door gifts because I wanted it to be a big reveal aka surprise for the guests at the wedding.
And I’m glad many guests appreciated the personal touch to the door gift ❤️.
My sister is personalizing gifts as a legit hobby business now so if you’d like to create something personalized for an individual or a group of people, do buzz her on Instagram @paperscissorscrafts
I should really blog more about our wedding before I forget all the details that we worked so hard to put together; DIY wedding preparation even felt like a part-time job nearing the wedding.