Wedding Planning : Taobao, the platform to getting some of your wedding essential items.

Hello readers! I am here to share my experience to purchasing some of the logistics items that i bought for my wedding. Majority of the items is bought online on Taobao. If you know how to read chinese and have no difficulties communicating in chinese texts, Taobao will be a good platform for you to purchase all the essential items you need for your wedding!

As i started my wedding planning way ahead, i had lots of time and i am absolutely a taobao queen. I bought almost everything from Taobao because there are so many sellers in Taobao, you just need to make sure you find the right seller that is selling what you are looking for.

I bought all my wedding stickers in Taobao, and they are really cheap, for smaller stickers, the price do not go beyond $2. When you shop online, it usually has more nicer designs compare to those you will find in retail store and cheaper too!

I bought these Tissue paper box that fit the 'wedding' theme. Haha i bought it but forgot to display it out on the wedding day.

These was the brother's bow tie that i bought it from Taobao, matching with the sister's dress and each of this bow tie cost after conversion cost probably about S$4 only! Each of this bow tie come well packed in a box.

For my sister's bridesmaid dress, many brides may spend up to $200 plus on bridesmaid dress, especially if you are planning to have many sisters,be prepared to spend even more! Super kiasu me start searching bridesmaid dress in May, initially i wanted to get them pink color as dress code since my whole wedding theme color is pink. But i couldn't find any nice design until i saw this purple bridesmaid design, they comes in different design so i could check with the sisters to choose the design they like. So it doesn't have to be the same because everyone has different figures, some might not like to wear sleeveless, some might like to wear different design. So i went to show them and they told me their sizing, the design they prefer before i proceed to order!

 Limei choose this halter neck since she was so skinny and she could show off her pretty arm.

 PC choose this design which the others sisters actually thought this is nice too after they saw her trying it on!

Both Jieying & Kangrui choose this design, which i myself love it too! Haha, not too revealing and elegant at the same time!

This is how it look like at the back, since its adjustable strap, it was quite easy to put it on. As a bride-to-be, i focus more on the overall appeal especially during phototaking and not just having the attention on me, so i do really splurge alot on all these misc items that i will be talking more as we go along.

For the bridesmaid dress, each dress excluding shipping cost only $12! (i excluded shipping cost because i usually purchase many items on bulk, so its hard for me to add shipping cost per item)

I had 4 sisters in total so i only incur less than $50 for their dresses. I had my dog outfit to take care of too! Since they are wearing purple, i try to find a purple dress for Duffy too! This was what she wore on the actual day! 

 Even Duffy dress is specially carefully selected by me! When you pay attention to details, there are moments the photographer could capture during the wedding day. I was surprised when i receive this photo from our photographer. Super glad to have engage him as our actual day photographer as he really takes nice photo but i shall talk about this in my other post next time. Oh and Duffy went for grooming as well just days before my wedding day so that she look neat and pretty!

In my other post, i did mentioned about the chinese wedding shop Guo Da Li packages, beside having those package, they do sell other kind of wedding essential items and the pajamas was one of the item they have, but i didn't bought from them because one pc cost about $49.90 so per set will cost almost $100 if i don't remember wrongly, Eventually, i bought it on taobao at $18 per pc.and that cost only $36 per set!

You can't really find these designs in Singapore, even if you really manage to find, the selling price might be double the price than if you get it through Taobao.

It can get really addicting when you start shopping for the wedding stickers because everything is so cheap, and i had no idea how much exactly i need as i am buying to get Jeremy to paste at his house too since its cheaper to buy online, so i purchase those wedding stickers whenever i saw nice design in multiple months. Haha, this sticker below is really useful especially to paste on your wardrobe, windows and even the dressing table mirror, you can just take one piece and it will stick, doesn't require any tape etc, if you want it to be paste firmly, you can spray some water on its surface before pasting it. Super easy and convenient! This cost less than $1.

Initially I order one of this giant size wedding poster first, because i do not really go and measure the size, i usually purchase based on the photos they provide as reference, as i hate to look at measurements. When we unpack and i thought it was suitable to be the main backdrop, i ordered the second one to put at Jeremy's house as well.

Duffy being kaypoh whenever i start to unpack my taobao stuffs.

I bought super cute angbaos from Taobao too, these will meant to be distributed to all brother,sisters, and those who need to receive angbao from us. Haha

Subsequently i bought alot more but i didn't take photos of everything, those that you see above was items that i bought super early but i was worried later i will forget what i had buy so i take photos to keep track as i had all these kept in a carton box and it was troublesome to take down to refer what i have not bought each time.

Besides that, i bought my wedding heels at Taobao too! I bought the shoes quite early too as i used it for my wedding photoshoot, but i went on to buy another new set to be wore on wedding day, it was the same silver color &i bought another red one to match with my kua. It cost only $10 per pair. 

I try to buy baby breath as well! They are actually real but dried baby breath, but it's not as nice as i first receive it when i kept it till my wedding day. Eventually, its those fresh baby breath that are still nicer! 

I bought this plain white vase that were meant to hold those baby breath. But luckily, these vases had its uses on the actual day when i bought fresh roses instead and my aunt came to my house the day before and help me with the floral decoration.

I bought these cute packaging boxes in all different sizes! i bought the top one that i thought of putting some chocolates & sweets, but ended up it become just props for my Guo da li & actual day because i was too busy to pack chocolates & sweets inside.

When we ordered our guo da li package, the teacup set is inclusive as well, and usually is to be used at the groom side only. But we decided to get additional one tea cup set to be used at my house, so I went to taobao to purchase another teacup set, it cost $14 which is still cheaper than the one we ordered inside the Guo Da Li package.

I prepared for Jeremy 2 set of actual day bow tie (grey and navy blue) and its from taobao as well even though the bridal studio will provide, but i guess the variety is usually limited, so i bought 2 set for him to match his 2 set of suits.

This was the navy blue one, it even comes with a hankerchief. $4 per set as well.

Few month before my wedding day, my mum told me she would like to do a table full of foods upon our return from groom side during the morning ceremony. Traditionally, last time people do prepare a feast 3 days after the bride returned from groom family to welcome them back and meant for son in law as well but nowadays many don't do as they got no time or they doesn't know how to do it like banquet style.

So.. i bought tablecloth on taobao too! I know this is getting exaggerating but i bought many different kind of tablecloth. Haha, i bought maroon red, beige, pink. My first purchase, i bought one to try first, the material was good as shown below, so i purchase a few more. For the dimension, i told the seller my table dimension and ask for their recommendation which option to select, thus there was not much issue when the tablecloth arrived and it fit well the table.

Besides that, i bought bowls, saucer, chopsticks & spoons in white to match what i visual on my mind. For white plates, i bought it from ikea as it was super cheap like 90cent for one plate.
This is the actual presentation of the foods they prepared on our wedding day! All the foods were prepared by my mum & my aunt. They are awesome! Just a pity our photographer left so no high resolution for this photo. This was taken using phone. hurhur.
Looking back at this photo with all these food makes me feel hungry again.

Till then.

To read more on my wedding planning posts, click according to the post you would like to read below,

*Wedding Gown Selection Click HERE

*Tips before your wedding photoshoot and during photoshoot. Click HERE

*Our Wedding Banquet Dinner Venue  Click HERE

*Our Wedding Invitation Card, Bridal Furniture & Ordering of GUO DA LI Click HERE

*Food Tasting at Orchid Country Club, Peach Garden Click HERE

*Selection of Wedding Photoshoot Photos Click HERE

*Why Taobao is the best place to buy your wedding essential items. Click HERE 

*Filing for notice of Marriage/ Trial Hairdo & Makeup/Manicure Click HERE

*Errands to complete before actual day Click HERE

*Wedding Planning (Checklist of items to take note) Click HERE

*Actual Day Wedding (Morning Ceremony) Click HERE

*Wedding Banquet dinner celebration at Orchid Country Club, Grand Ballroom Click HERE

Wedding Planning : Ready to be publish wedding photos after selection of materials, layout etc

Hello readers! So i have dedicated a post to selection of our wedding photos that will be printed on the wedding album. Usually, this is the part where you will be tempted to have all the photos and ending up paying more for the additional photos.

We make an appointment through our wedding coordinator to arrange a date to go down and browse through the photos and start selecting those photos using the elimination method first.

This is the time where you really had to ensure you are not hungry when you head down as you will spend quite awhile in the bridal studio deciding the photos that is entitled to you in your package, if you are hungry, you might not make the wise decision as your hunger pang influence you to make the most irrational decision like us which we bought everything after sitting 4 hour in the bridal studio.

For us, we had only 35 photos and its really hard to choose, isn't it? Actually i think i could really delete to those photos if i was not hungry and i had more time. The lady boss was giving us the promotion price after she probably see that i had delete so many photos and if i don't stop, maybe i won't even need to pay extra. Haha. ( I was left with remaining 65 photos after deleting the photos in the desktop)

But, I swear this is not easy, as long as it's not too ugly, any girl would want to buy back all the additional photos, and the reason why we eventually paid a huge sum was, all soft copies will be returned to us. I could edit those original photos even though they are not in the album and because we paid additional 4k for it, i had to better utilise my photos that i bought so i post on my social media platforms as and when i like, which i did by doing a 50 days to wedding photo marathon on my Instagram profile, showing everyday counting towards the actual day. I went on to do a photoshoot slideshow that was meant to be play during our wedding dinner, but i was too busy nearing the wedding date so olm help me to do as those photos are all high resolution and its take longer time to compile and its not easy as it may take 1 day to fully import everything on the video editor.

Another reason for me to display those photos beside paying a huge price for it and to better utilise it was to attract the guests to be seated on time inside the ballroom. When the doors is open for them to be seated, at least there is some photos to attract their attention to WANT to automatically being seated without being asked to and since i doubt not everyone will goes to the wedding album table and start flipping our wedding photos. This was another way to making sure everyone get to see our wedding photos! Haha.

We was lucky that the orchids were blooming when we went to botanic gardens! We had outdoor and indoor shoot, and my favorite was the ones taken at Botanic Gardens! We was lucky as the weather was good on that day.

 This is one of my favorite that i selected it to be printed out as A0. I just find this will be good to hang it as a painting when our house is ready!

For our indoor shoot, it was sweet and simple.

Initially, i thought after we had select the photos, paid for the additional photos, we can come back another day to collect the ready album. But, i was wrong. They had to do some editing on those that i had selected into the 65 poses that will be printed on the wedding album, and we had to come back another day, to look at the edited photos, which those that you see above has all been edited before and to see if the sequence and layout that the designer has done is up to our expectations.

So, we went down the second time, this time round with Jieying and with her bf joining us afterthat as we went down after work and we didn't had our dinner again. The staff show us the photos after editing for me to go through and write down any photos that require further editing etc.

It was another long tedious process again, but i think its always good to get some of your friends to go along with you because they might observe in another perspective view that you might not realise.

Just when i thought after we highlight some of the photos that require further editing and that's it.
But no! We had to select 2 A0 poster photo, 1 8R Photo, and since we had two big wedding album, and the cover page is acrylic which means we need to choose another two photos. And, it's not just the photos, we had to choose the materials, color that we want. (Which i was tired by then and get Jeremy to choose instead)

This is what i am referring the layout that will be printed on the wedding album for the photos below. It do looks different when it is being placed together in a collage. And most of the times, 35 photos is actually not enough.
So, i would advise everyone to just set aside a sum of money that many will definitely spend to buy additional photos, but just make sure you get back the soft copy as well!

After we had finished selecting everything, they will inform us once the album has been completed etc. Once this was settled, we could focus on other stuffs for the wedding.

Shall end this post for now, next post will be tips to purchasing all the essential items and decor for wedding.
Till then!

To read more on my wedding planning posts, click according to the post you would like to read below,

To read more on my wedding planning posts, click according to the post you would like to read below,

*Wedding Gown Selection Click HERE

*Tips before your wedding photoshoot and during photoshoot. Click HERE

*Our Wedding Banquet Dinner Venue  Click HERE

*Our Wedding Invitation Card, Bridal Furniture & Ordering of GUO DA LI Click HERE

*Food Tasting at Orchid Country Club, Peach Garden Click HERE

*Why Taobao is the best place to buy your wedding essential items. Click HERE 

*Filing for notice of Marriage/ Trial Hairdo & Makeup/Manicure Click HERE

*Errands to complete before actual day Click HERE

*Wedding Planning (Checklist of items to take note) Click HERE

*Actual Day Wedding (Morning Ceremony) Click HERE

*Wedding Banquet dinner celebration at Orchid Country Club, Grand Ballroom Click HERE