So... My big day is over and it's nothing compared to what you see in movies, magazines or on the Instagram accounts of influencers. The day of my wedding was pretty stressful, but it wasn't Marshall Eriksen level type of drama either. Although American sitcoms have warned me that weddings consist of crises (plural), I thought that these shows were exaggerating and being dramatic because that's how TV shows were, and that there was nothing much to be worried about except for the fact that I had lip eczema and my lips would look ugly on the day of the wedding.
Well, I was wrong.
THE FIRST CRISIS
John and I arrived at the venue and the vendors we hired were already setting up. I was so glad to see that all the tables and pretty white Tiffany chairs were already in place. This was done by a vendor, which shall not be named because they caused crisis number one. The guy-in-charge came up to me while John was busy taking out more stuff from his car, and told me that everything was being done. He showed me the bouquet of flowers that I'd be holding and floral hair pieces that my makeup artist could use. Then he gestured to the multi-purpose hall and said that everything was already set up as planned: 10 tables on the left and 10 on the right. And I swear to God, that's what he actually said. I didn't make it up. I listened carefully and acknowledged that everything seemed fine, so he informed me that the food would arrive later and left.
It took us a while to realise that he was wrong. There were ELEVEN tables on the left and NINE tables on the right. And this was because there was a sound booth at the back of the room, which took up space. But this was very strange because this particular vendor had done weddings at Hort Park before, and it was one of the reasons why we chose them as one of the vendors for our wedding in the first place. They were the ones who gave us the floor plan, which consisted of ten tables on the left and ten on the right. They even included the sound booth in the floor plan! But nope, somehow this guy lied to me straight to my face and thought that it was OK.
Obviously it wasn't OK because we had already drawn up our guest-list based on the layout that was provided to us. We had already arranged for certain relatives and friends to sit at specific tables so that everyone would be happy. For example, tables 1-10 were supposed to be on the left and 11-20 on the right, with 11 at the front to appease a table of relatives. But now, table 11 is suddenly all the way at the back! Ugh. That wasn't the only thing I had to change, of course. You can imagine my frustration when we finally realised that we were blind to their mistake. At the same time, the makeup artist had arrived. She and the photographer are probably the only two people I'm going to mention in a positive light because they did their jobs well and helped out.
I was stressing out since I was supposed to get my makeup done but I had to settle this stupid crisis first. John and I had already printed out hard copies of the guestlist. I also sent softcopies via WhatsApp to my mum so that she could tell relatives where to go in case they were confused for some reason. And of course, I sent the list to my friends who were helping out at the reception. This meant that after figuring out a new arrangement that would make everyone happy, we had to take pictures of it and send it to everyone again, and we'd also need to change all the physical copies of the guest list. This also meant that the guest list, which was once arranged in numerical order (obviously), looked disorganised because the numbers were now jumbled up.
On top of that, something else happened. OK, I wouldn't call it a crisis, so I would call it...
ANNOYANCE #1
While I was rearranging table numbers irritatedly while Klarissa from Autelier Makeup waited patiently for me to finish settling the first crisis, my mother WhatsApped me to say that this aunt of mine (goodness knows how she's related to me), who initially said that eleven people in her family were coming, had told her that only five of them could make it.
Wow... just, wow. How can she tell me that on the day of the wedding itself? Therefore, since I was already quite angry, I decided to rearrange the numbers once more and place these relatives all the way at the back. Ugh!
Not to mention, there were some people who RSVPed "yes" but didn't show up. Without any explanation whatsoever. Ughhhh.
OK, that kind of concludes the first crisis. This post is getting so lengthy already.
Anyway, I no longer have a good impression of this particular vendor and so I wouldn't recommend it to other couples. Even before the day of the wedding, there were already some red flags. For instance, when they first gave us a quote, we decided not to have them decorate the reception because it was too costly, so they took it out of the quote and gave us a revised quote. Yet at the food tasting session, they printed out the original quote and discussed the decorations at the reception with us. We had to point out to them that that was the old version and we had a new version. Jeez. Then when they heard that we liaised with a different vendor, they told us that they could do it well and at a cheaper price. Um, ok? So are you trying to say that if we had told you that we would go to another vendor, you would have lowered the price? What kind of business are you running here? Why are the prices so flexible?
Sigh. Anyway, back to the story.
ANNOYANCE #2
Instead of relying solely on the vendor mentioned above, we had another vendor to decorate the reception, put a green carpet in the middle of the multi-purpose hall so that we would have an aisle, and last but not least, decorate the stage with a garden themed backdrop which came with fairy lights. It was super pretty. But the thing is, we didn't realise that the backdrop would be covering the screen of the projector, which meant that we couldn't show the video that I had prepared. It was basically a photo montage but not the cliche kind with baby pictures. Somehow, I remembered the floor plan to consist of a screen that was at the side and not in the middle of the stage.
In the end, John and I settled for playing the video on the smaller screens that were at the side of the hall. But apparently, some unobservant people (my mother) didn't even realise that there was a video playing above their heads.
THE SECOND CRISIS
While Klarissa was making me look pretty, I was constantly distracted by my phone because of all these annoyances. Then, I suddenly received a message from my friend. This friend who also shall not be named had previously agreed to help out at the reception. Telling me a mere two hours before the wedding that he could not make it for said wedding almost caused me to panic and smudge my mascara, but I held it all in. I think my subconscious mind had already prepared myself for this, because I had already asked another friend to help out, thinking that the reception area might become too busy for just two people to handle. Well, instead of three, there were now only two people again. Thinking that I could still get three people to help out, I messaged two other friends but they weren't able to come down at the last minute.
And I wasn't expecting them to. It was too last minute and I hate last minute stuff too.
ANNOYANCE #3
Before the wedding, I told my mother that she would have to be a good host. But on the day of the wedding, she didn't seem to know what to do. During the tea ceremony, she acted like she was one of the guests. Instead of helping out, she was standing around with the guests. She didn't have to prepare or pour the tea (John's family was doing that), but she could have at least helped by calling over the next aunt or uncle. She could have helped by standing near me and putting the red packets safely in a corner. But nope, she stood with the guests as if she was one. *facepalm*
Since my mother was no help at all, the photographer (from J Still Motion) stepped in to help. Yes, of all people, the PHOTOGRAPHER had to be the one telling people where to go and what to do during the tea ceremony. You would think that these traditional old people would know what to do. Isn't it their job to boss young people around? But nope, the photographer, who doesn't know who's related to who, steps in. This was the weirdest thing ever but we were so grateful that he helped.
The next annoying thing my parents did was when we went around the hall to take pictures at each table. Yes, this time, both my parents were annoying. At the first table, everyone stood up, gathered around, and posed for a picture, right? But instead of trying to be inside the picture, my mother stood to the side while my dad tried to take a picture of the group with his digital camera. I was like, "Omg don't you know that you're the parents of the bride?" You would think that, after all the weddings they've attended, they would know that the parents of the bride and groom would accompany the couple to every single table to take pictures. Jeez. And trust me, they have attended A LOT of weddings. My dad is the youngest of nine siblings, which means that he has attended the weddings of his siblings and also my older cousins.
Finally, my dad didn't bring a cashcard so he was unable to drive out of the carpark. John had to run over there to save him with his cashcard. Oh and parking tickets would be the next crisis, but we would be getting ahead of ourselves.
ANNOYANCE #4
We were supposed to have our wedding march in at 7.30pm, but we went over the time limit a little bit. This was fine because the people at the multi-purpose hall weren't ready in the end. When we walked there, we had to wait outside for them to get ready. I cannot say for certain what caused the delay, but I heard that the dry ice was delivered late, and John's friends (aka the band) had to instruct my friends on what to do with the dry ice. Anyway, the annoying thing was it was awkward to walk to the door of the hall and wait there awkwardly, because the doors and panels of the hall were transparent and everyone was staring at us.
Some people (like my mother -.-) didn't even realise that there was dry ice when we walked into the hall because the effect wasn't that great. I don't know what went wrong. There was nothing I could do about it anyway.
ANNOYANCE #5
OK, this isn't really that incredibly annoying, but it still annoyed me somewhat. Most of our relatives sat in front. They started to leave because they had to arrive at the multi-purpose hall earlier for the tea ceremony, and well, you know, most of them are old and wanted to go home because it was almost bed-time or whatever. Somehow, other guests took that as a cue to leave too, making me feel like my wedding was the shortest one ever.
It's like some ofthe guests didn't even listen to the emcee, Mark, who's the lead singer of The MadHatter Project. He told them about the parking tickets and he told them that there would be a second set. But did they listen? Nooo. So a lot of people left and didn't stay for the second set, and in the end the band didn't have to play a second set after their break. I find this sad because the music was good but I doubt it was appreciated very much. Thankfully, some of John's friends and my friends stayed behind, and it was like an afterparty I guess. And in a way, it was a good thing that many people left early, and we didn't have to shoo them out before the place was closed for the night.
THE THIRD CRISIS
During the wedding, some relatives came up to us and claimed that there were no more parking tickets and that there was no one at the reception. This made me irritated because these relatives had been around since the tea ceremony. They had all the time in the world to get the parking tickets, yet they choose to only get their tickets when everyone, including the people who helped at the recept, was eating dinner. Come on! Be reasonable. People have to eat! How can you expect them to stay at the reception area forever?
At the end of the wedding, the photographer helped us scoop the angpaos out of the pretty wishing well that the vendor (which oddly didn't give us any trouble on the day of the wedding itself) provided for the recept, and made sure that we didn't leave any angpao behind (lol). Since we thought that there weren't any more parking tickets left, we packed up and drove home. We paid quite a bit for parking. When we got back home, we found an envelope that contained -- you guessed it -- PARKING TICKETS.
I don't know why the hell idiotic guests were spreading rumours claiming that there were no more tickets, just because there wasn't a PHYSICAL PERSON at the recept. 14 tickets were left behind even though my friends had left the tickets out in a bowl on the recept table for people to claim. I felt so angry because we paid for parking even though we had already paid for parking by paying for the parking tickets, so by right we shouldn't be paying anything at all.
But here's the real kicker: guests started to complain to us that the complimentary parking tickets didn't provide complimentary parking at all. If you had received a half day ticket, you'd get $2 off your parking. A full day ticket? $5 deducted. This made zero sense because they sold the tickets to us as complimentary tickets. And I'm sure you don't need an English tutor to tell you what complimentary means.
So John fired off an angry email to the parking company that shall not be named. Not only had we been cheated, but we also looked like fools in front of our guests. They replied in broken English and I didn't understand what they were trying to say. Anyway, John emailed them again to clarify some stuff. Surely some form of compensation must be made for ruining our big day, right? But nope, they didn't reply even after we came back from our honeymoon. When they finally replied, they claimed, in broken English, that they had checked their records and gave us very specific number, saying that that was the amount that they would reimburse us. Erm, ok? But that doesn't make me less angry because I still looked stupid, you know?
ANNOYANCE #6
You probably thought that was all, but actually, before we drove off, someone from Hort Park came up to us while we were at our car and told us that stuff had not yet been cleared out. Erm, hello? It's not our fault that the vendors are slow? And what do you expect us to do? Carry the tables and chairs home ah? Anyway, John tried calling the guy who lied to my face, but there was no answer.
When we were about to leave, a random foreign worker came up to us. So apparently, the company that screwed up our table numbers rented tables and chairs from another company. This smaller company was trying to keep the tables and chairs but Hort Park was telling them to hurry up because they had to close soon. Again, is this our problem? Why didn't they keep the stuff earlier? Or employ more people to help them keep the stuff?
And guess what? The guy who lied to my face wasn't even there at Hort Park! He had the cheek to message John to say that he didn't pick up the call because he was in the shower. Wow. Just wow. How fucking professional.
All in all, here's a rundown of vendors we had.
AWESOME VENDORS
- Klarissa from Autelier Makeup (She could sense that I was stressed and told me to relax. She also helped me with my dress and I know it's probably damn hard to apply eye makeup for me because I have very specific phobias)
- Photographer from J Still Motion (Sorry, I forgot his name. Maybe I'll find out and give him full credit after I actually receive the wedding photos. We were told that we'd have to wait a month, so no awesome professional photos yet)
- Balloons from PartyShop SG (We kept one of the balloons bouquets and it's still floating about in my house right now)
- Shake Affinity (for Alcohol)
- The MadHatter Project (An awesome band, duh)
- Taobao (My wedding gowns, high heels, John's suit and my dad's suit were all from Taobao! Super affordable and worth every penny. People were shocked to hear that my dresses were from Taobao lol I loved seeing those reactions)
SHITTY VENDORS
- The vendor who screwed up table numbers with the guy who lied to my face (unforgivable)
- The vendor who decorated the recept and stage and aisle (they didn't cause us any trouble on the day of the wedding itself, but they took forever to reply our messages, which made me feel that they had taken my money and ran off. We tried calling them incessantly but it was no use. We messaged them and it was no use. We left a comment on their Instagram page and they had the audacity to reply John by saying, "Sorry Ma'am, we didn't receive your message". WTF)
- The parking company that shall not be named even though you can probably guess its name because they own many parking spaces in Singapore
Sorry just thought of one more.
ANNOYANCE #7
I heard from my mum that my uncle told my father that he looked weird in a suit. Omg just shut up dude, I know you don't like my dad but it's my wedding and you're insulting the bride's father. STFU.
Obviously good stuff happened during the wedding too. For instance, my ah ma actually gave me a gold necklace (this surprises me because we aren't close. My mother says it's a bracelet so I'm confused and I guess I'm not girly enough to know these things?), my dad wore a suit and my mum wore a dress (rarely happens), my cousins said I was pretty, so many of my friends came, wished me well, assured me that they were having a good time and enjoying the food etc etc. But this is a rant so yeah. If you want happy stuff, look at my Instagram pictures.
