After Chris surrendered the engagement ring to me in January, the ball
finally got rolling…
I placed my thinking cap on and the first things I thought of were the timing,
the wedding venue, makeup artist, wedding gown, and photographer! Chris’ work
project is still in Melbourne and only comes back one weekend a fortnight, so I
did most of the initial organising.
Timing:
I like the KISS principle (keep it simple), and thought a simple
wedding in April will do. However, Chris intended to invite guests from
interstate, and wanted a “proper” wedding so that the guests find it worthwhile
flying in. April would be too rushed. Winter was out of the question because I
am afraid of cold weather. Furthermore, Chris thinks things die in fall (falling
leaves), and things grow in spring (flowers blossoming), so spring is better
than fall. Therefore we decided on September as the timing.
Venue:
I thought somewhere centralised and close to the train station will be
the best for the guests, but Chris thought the city is too crowded and messy, so
North Sydney popped into my head. Some friends told me Anglican churches are
pretty, so I googled for Anglican churches close to North Sydney train station
and found Christ Church Lavender Bay and St Thomas. Considering that Chris and
I aren’t the most social people in the world, St Thomas seemed too big.
Therefore, the decision to book Christ Church Lavender Bay was pretty easy to
make. Rev Lachlan Edwards kindly went through the paperwork with us, eg. the notice
of intention to marry, and invited us to “the Gathering” fellowship group. We
had another meeting closer to the wedding date and the wedding rehearsal on the
eve before the wedding.
We decided to have our reception in a Chinese restaurant because it is
great value for money and very tasty. We chose Bondi Zilver because the venue
looks nicer than the city restaurants, parking is free for the whole evening
after 6pm, and it’s a touristy spot good for guests from interstate and overseas.
Roy, the friendly general manager, met with us twice to organise things related
to the reception.
Chris and I have many relatives living in Taiwan. Furthermore, my
paternal relatives have to take turns caring for my grandfather, who has
dementia and cannot live independently, so they cannot fly to Sydney for the
ceremony. We picked the Good Day Restaurant in Linko because it is close to
where my mom lives in Taiwan, and will be holding this reception on Sunday 29Dec, 2019.
Make up:
In terms of make-up, I came across the works of Martha several years
ago when I was randomly browsing the internet and thought her skills are pretty
amazing. Therefore, I booked for trial make up and was very satisfied. Another
easy decision made: I decided to book her for the whole day. She had an
assistant with her named Joey on the wedding day.
Wedding dress:
On the day of the make-up trial, I looked at some of the sample wedding
dresses Martha had which were on sale. This is where things become very
subjective. When I tried a few dresses on, I felt ball gowns made me look
pregnant and generally wide, mermaid dresses made my hips look wide, and
semi-transparent materials in the belly area doesn’t seem appropriate for
weddings. A-line dresses seemed the best. Although there were several pretty
dresses, none seemed suitable for me.
Then, I googled up another wedding dress store called Emerald Bridal,
which was very close to my home. The dresses were gorgeous there. The store
lady is a lovely Taiwanese lady called Sandra who knew instinctively what
suited me and what didn’t. My broad shoulders look worse when I wear anything
with sleeves and a neckline that goes straight across. The sweetheart neckline
looked the best. In terms of the silhouette, A-line and layered skirts seemed
best. There was one dress I felt almost certain that I will buy.
However, I am someone who works by “the rule of 3s” and thought I’d
better go to a third shop. Furthermore, when I asked Chris what his preferences
are, he said he doesn’t like anything that’s glittery, fungus-like in pattern,
or puffy. Therefore, I brought him along to the third shop so we can make a joint
decision and he won’t get the chance to grumble about the dress in the future. We
went to the Brides of Sydney in Sydney CBD. The shop had so many dresses that I
got totally confused. The store lady saw how confused I was and picked five
dresses for me to try. Out of these dresses, there was one I liked which Chris
had no objection to. It was slightly champagne coloured, not glittery, not
puffy, with sheath silhouette in the inner layer and A-line silhouette in the
semi-transparent outer layer. The neckline was very similar in style to my
favourite dress at Emerald Bridal but much cheaper, so I ended up buying this
dress. This dress was being sold $600 lower than the original market price
because it was custom-made for someone but the stores person accidentally
ordered in the wrong colour!
Photography:
When I was doing an educational exchange program in the Mackay Memorial
Hospital in 2016, I browsed through some of the Family Medicine trainee
doctors’ Facebook profiles and saw the works of a Taiwanese photographer called
Sixpence. This was the first time I realised how fantastic wedding photos can
look when they are taken by great photographers!
I mentioned about wedding photography to Chris and he said he’s got a
friend called Alex who is a professional photographer and won many awards. I
clicked into Alex’s website and another easy decision was made. The photos are
simply breathtaking!
Chris was adamant that he did not want professional pre-wedding
photography and he did not want any photos of me wearing the wedding dress
before the actual wedding. Therefore, any professional photos in a wedding
dress had to be taken on the day of the wedding or after.
Rewind to 2010: I was walking around North Zhongshan Road in Taipei, looking for an artistic photo shop so I could have some pretty photos taken while I was still in my 20s. I went into a bridal dress shop which had second hand dresses on sale. I bought quite a few dresses there at bargain price, including a wedding dress and a pink layered-skirt silhouette dress. The artistic photo shop I went to, called Dreamworks, lets me have photos taken in the wedding dress at “artistic photos price” (much cheaper than pre-wedding photos price). So whoa-la, professional photos in the wedding dress already taken in 2010! Chris can’t grumble about it because it had already happened (but he didn't want me to wear that wedding dress for our wedding because he thought it's "glittery, fungus-like in pattern, and puffy")!
And I thought the pink layered skirt dress would be great for the reception, so one reception dress sorted!
Deborah, our wonderful bridesmaid, ended up being the one taking most
of our pre-wedding photos.
Since we got such an amazing photographer on our wedding day, we
obviously wanted lots of time for photos. Therefore we decided on a morning
wedding ceremony and an evening reception so we can take many photos in
between. The route was: McMahon’s point (to capture some great Sydney
landmarks), Glebe (the longest time where Chris had lived in one place), RPA
(where I used to work), then La Perouse (I like the amazing rocks and sea, and
the sunset can be seen).
(Photo by Alex Huang)
It was great having a friend as a photographer, and he took some pretty fun photos such as this:
It was great having a friend as a photographer, and he took some pretty fun photos such as this:
I saw Alex taking this photo as our car was entering into the church
driveway and knew it will turn out fun! Chris looked like an adorable caged animal
there, but a beast of the night was lurking behind him in “the cage”!
Since Chris did not object to post-wedding photography, we will also
get some photos taken at major Taipei landmarks when we have our reception there.
I looked through some internet reviews and decided to have “Hawk” as our
photographer. His photo images look crisp (that’s why he got nicknamed “Hawk”),
and I like hawks very much.
Wedding cake:
It seemed like most of the weddings I have attended had cake-cutting. Sugar
artist Mio sculps the most amazing figures. We used to attend the same church and
I am very grateful she agreed to help, because she doesn’t actually do wedding
cakes commercially. Chris didn’t want a wedding cake, but when I mentioned that
I really wanted one, he became bossy about it and insisted on a square cake so
each piece can be divided evenly for the guests. I wanted a round cake and didn’t
bother listening to Chris’ grumblings when it came to this decision.
Recruiting the bridal party:
Deborah was the obvious choice, since we’ve been through a lot together.
There were a few other good friends but I didn’t really want to have married
people as bridesmaids. I’d rather help “advertise” my single friends. For
Chris, John was the obvious choice. Tony was another one. My childhood friend
Judy wanted to fly in from Taiwan to attend my wedding so this was another
obvious choice. I got a young family flying in from Brisbane and their cute
little daughter Iris asked if I was looking for a flower girl. It was so sweet
of her to ask! However, the poor girl had a stage fright during the wedding ceremony
and didn’t end up walking down the aisle.
Accessories:
I ordered most of my accessories (for hair, jewelleries) from Taiwan or
Taobao. I also ordered a red Chinese style (qipao) toasting dress, the veil, shoulder
wrap and bridesmaids’ dress from Taobao. It took two goes with the veil and the
shoulder wrap before I got something that worked well. I liked the shoulder
wrap, which had a qipao style neckline to it, and the flower pattern actually
matched the wedding dress flower pattern. Not bad for something ordered over
the internet! There’s quite an element of luck to this! Chris’ clothes were
easy to sort out: we just went to Myers and Lowes for the suit, shirt, and bow
tie.
Help from family and friends:
Chris wanted to stay in his church after getting married, so I am the one
who has to make the switch. Therefore, most of the helpers are from his church,
CP10. Rev Chadd Hafer did two premarital counselling sessions with us. He also
did the address and prayer in the ceremony. Rev Gloria Fu also did two premarital counselling sessions with us. Cerise, who worked as a wedding
planner previously, helped us out a lot. She gave us a spread sheet which
helped us get more organised, and we met at her place twice. She attended the
rehearsal and oversaw everything on the wedding day. A team of people, Bismark,
Kit, Parisa, Ruth and Liling, helped out with wedding ceremony refreshments.
The music team consisted of Jonathan, Vivian, Sam Yip and Margret. Arthur was
our chauffer on the wedding day. Ben, Lecter, Vivien and Philip helped us transport
some relatives and friends in their cars. Leon, Liz, Jimmy, Feng and my cousin
Danis were ushers. Jacque did the bible reading. Ray, Chris’ cousin, who is
highly talented in music, sang and played the piano during the signing of the registry.
I thought he was the most suitable person for this, not only because of his
musical talent, but he was actually the one who said to me, “this is my cousin
Chris” in 2008, when Chris and I first met. Jason and Ruth helped us out with
the wedding video, and hopefully we can play the video to the reception guests
in Taiwan at the end of the year. Des took many great photos for us (as a
guest, not official). Sam Yick helped with the announcements. Ben helped with
the audio-visuals. Wayne was our reception MC. Auguste, Chris’ uncle in law,
helped us pick the wine for the reception. Mr Hsu, a visitor from Taiwan, and
my mom both helped out a lot with cleaning up the house.
Invites and program sheet:
The wedding invite was a rush job designed by Chris and I. I got
invited to the church plant celebration service of the 1503 Mission Network in
May and saw that as the opportunity to catch up with some friends there, so we
had to get the invites ready before then.
Now, the program sheet had to look better than the invite. Charlene,
Ray’s wife, kindly helped us design a very beautiful program sheet. She also
asked us about the theme colours for the wedding and that was when I decided on
pink and light blue.
Wedding expo:
It was fun attending the wedding expo at Rouse Hill on 14April. Wedding
fireworks and dry ice looked fantastic but was too extravagant for us. The 360o
glam booth video was fun, but then we didn’t know how to pose, and looked
pretty awkward. We think the same thing can happen to the guests and decided
not to use them.
What really caught our eyes was the magnetic shots stall. They take
photos for guests and print them out as magnets. It looks fun and the photos
themselves can count as the small take-home gift. We decided to book them for
the reception. We used the beautiful flowers from Charlene’s program sheet as part
of the photo frame.
Seating arrangements:
This was something which Chris and I debated a lot about. I thought people
should be given the flexibility of talking to people they know well as well as
strangers. So, for each table, we tried placing some people who knew each other
together, and also placing people who don’t know each other but might have some
common topic to talk about, eg. people with similar occupations or in a similar
life stage (singles, newly married, family with children, etc). We tried to placing
at least one person with some theological training on each table as well, just
in case if some people got interested about Christianity.
Flowers:
The church florist, Litsa Flowers, supplies flowers at the communion
table for weddings.
We got Lucy’s Florist for our bouquets, corsage, and rose petals. Competition
was fierce during the bouquet throw!
Cosmetic stuff:
I was advised by Martha to get my hair coloured by May from Show Salon,
eyelashes permed, and wear circle contact lenses. I only ended up colouring my
hair, so that my hair will look more “3D” on the wedding day. At the end of May,
I got May to colour my hair. As soon as Chris saw my hair he grumbled non-stop
saying he didn’t like dyed hair. So I didn’t touch up my roots and allowed my
hair to grow out into a “shadow root” type of effect (after 3 months, there is
no longer a sharp demarcation between the dyed and undyed hair because each
individual hair grows at different rates). Personally, I liked it: I got an
element of my own hair colour plus an element of enhanced colour. We also got
the salon to cut Chris’ hair and he looked much better as a result.
In 2012, I was highly traumatised after trying on eyelash extensions
for the first time in my life because my own eyelashes fell out with the
extensions and it took a few years before my eyelash grew normal again! I will
never get anything done to my eyelashes again! I looked at some of the photos
of Asians with permed eyelashes and it looked weird, so no way was I getting
that.
I had one experience of wearing circle contact lenses in 2011 on a TV show. It was
very uncomfortable and I thought my eyes looked like fake doll eyes. Furthermore,
these contact lenses irritated my eyes and made my eyes bloodshot. So that was
out of the question. And thank God I didn’t wear those contact lenses for the
wedding, because it was very windy on the day of our wedding and my eyes got
very irritated. In fact, Martha had a difficult time applying my eye makeup because
my eyes kept watering! I was lucky that Joyce, Chris’ aunt, gave me a pair of sunglasses
the day before the wedding, because that helped block the wind.
A month before the wedding, I noticed had a massive volume loss to my
cheeks. I didn’t know if it was stress or a natural part of ageing. I felt a bit
tempted to do something about it. I knew that skin microneedling can stimulate
collagen growth, so I shot an email to Eastwood dermatologist Philip Tong. He
mentioned that me that medical grade devices work better than home devices.
However, he does not do Dermapen. This meant that I had to buy the Dermapen and
not some other home devices that could simply be ordered over the internet for
a hundred dollars. I thought that was too troublesome and did not bother. Although
Philip mentioned that laser and injectables work more instantaneously, I’ve
never had injectables in my life and do not intend to get it in the future
either. Furthermore, the downtime for Dermapen and lasers meant it was too risky
for me to get these things done a month before the wedding anyway. So I didn’t
end up having any cosmetic medicine treatment done at all.
I thought the nails are quite important because of the exchange of
rings during the wedding ceremony. My friend Vivien recommended Athvenus nails
in Eastwood, so I had the first manicure in my life done at that place and got
gel nails. It was beautiful. However, I think this manicure will be a once in a
lifetime thing only, because I was so horrified about my cuticles being cut off
and them filing the sides of my nails... these ways of cutting increases the
risk of paronychia and ingrown nails!
Chris and I aren’t exactly the best at keeping in touch with people and
we are very thankful that so many people had taken time off their busy
schedules to attend the wedding, and many people have helped us out even though
we didn’t really help them out before! This special day will always be a great
memory for us!
For more photos, please see:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/
