It might be a good idea for me to write up some tips for those brides who are also planning the biggest event of their life.
1. Spend most of your money on your food, photography and flower. People know how to entertain themselves at the reception, it’s the food that make them unforgettable for the evening.
2. If you are having a small wedding like mine, and just go by traditional type like mine, make sure you bring out the dessert table EARLY. A lot of people were waiting for Alex and I cutting the wedding cake, and a lot of my guests left after that, if the dessert table comes out too late, it will be a waste. I would recommend to come out the same time as the last course.
3. If you are planning to have a wedding at Old Mill Inn, if it’s popular wedding days.. you might find the garden completely packed!! Either have the ceremony just before the reception, and have your photos taken earlier in the day. Or have your ceremony early in the day so you can have time to take photos in between.
4. Bring a dancing shoe. I took some wedding photos earlier in the day with my dress shoes. Boy, it really hurts my feet after couple hours of wearing. I changed to a white walking shoe for reception. It worked perfect! No one can see it because your dress will be covering it.
5. Speech? Please write down your speech in point form. If you are a type of person who gets nervous making speech in front of people, then I am sure you will forget half of the stuff you suppose to say as well. Write them down in point form and remind what you suppose to say. Oh, and R–E–L–A–X, it’s just a speech 
6. Appoint someone to help you out with the schedule. The only reason why my schedule of my wedding was behind is because i didn’t have anyone who can coordinate with the DJ and the Kitchen. We were toasting with water cuz we JUST realize that we need to do a toast, and no one went to grab a glass of wine to do the toast. *sigh*
Remember, you will be the center of the attention on your wedding day, and you will be in your beautiful dress for the whole night. You won’t be able to do everything, so plan ahead and ask someone to help you out before hand.
Stay tuned!
Tags: toronto wedding blog, wedding, wedding resources
13.Aug.08 
wedding 
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Friday turned out to be a shinny day in the afternoon. We got to Old Mill around 5:15pm, and we started to take some wedding photos at the garden.
The only problem is that, there were too many people in the garden taking photos!! All the nice spot had been taken, and we have to end up taking some indoor shots as well.
The guests slowly showed up around 6:30 and 7:00pm. The cocktail hour suppose to end around 8..but we end up missing the whole 8pm and 8min speech because we were running behind schedule.
(table setting: my orchid centre piece and each person has a Polariod name card (made from Fuji Instax mini 20) on a mini easel. I also gave everyone a little tadpole tea strainer and mini tea can to bring home)
Alex’s bestman -Eric started the welcoming toast, but because we are behind schedule, we didn’t even have wineglass in our hands!! We have to use our water to do the toast!! lol.
After that, the dinner starts, everyone had their soup, and then salad, and then the main course. Eric did another speech, and Linda did a speech as well.
After dessert, Alex gave his speech, he’s so nervous that he forgets half of what he suppose to say. As for me, I briefly talked about our story, thank all the guests who came, and all the people who had helped to make this event happen.
After the dinner, we have our centrepiece games, people can bring home the beautiful flower arrangement done by Parist Florist. After that, we have our first dance. Literally, it’s our “First Dance”. We have never rehearsed. The song that I picked was from this Japanese artist-Utada Hikaru’s song “Fly Me to the Moon”. I find this song gives a kick than Frank Sinatra’s original “Fly Me to the Moon”
And after the dance, we had our bouquet toss and garter toss.
(notice my shoes? I changed to walking shoes for better dancing performance!)
At around 11:15pm.. the dessert table came out, and we get to cut our wedding cake
Even though everything runs behind schedule.. but we still manage to have a fun time. This is the biggest day and event I ever planned. I don’t think it was perfect, but at the end everyone had fun and that’s all that matters.
There were lots of things and details that I could have made the event better, but I’ve tried my best, and everyone keep complimenting on the food, the venue, the music, and everything. I have nothing but to say “Thanks” to everyone who came.
Tags: toronto wedding blog, wedding, wedding resources
12.Aug.08 wedding Comments (0)
The day had came and done, it was so fast and so tiring that it took me over a day to recover myself.
The morning preparation was basically getting my bridesmaid, my mom and my hair & makeup done. We have to make sure we brought our rings and our marriage license to the CityHall to get married!
(my final hair/makeup, and here’s my brother and I took a picture in my condo)
When we arrived in CityHall wedding chamber, there were two couple lined up before us to get married as well. So it got us an hour late to get married!
Click here to see our Ceremony video
Click here to see we signing our wedding register
There was around 20 people who came to witness the Ceremony. Alex prepared his own vows, and I didn’t have one because I thought we would be using the standard one from the cityhall. lol
It was an exciting moment especially when the minister pronounced us “Husband & Wife”. We exchanged our rings and we signed the marriage register. The whole process took less than 30 min. It was short and sweet.
After the Ceremony, we brought everyone to Osgoode Hall to take some group photos. We didn’t like the background setting at the Toronto CityHall itself.
After the group shots, Kevin took us around Osgoode Hall and University Ave for some wedding shot.
It will take another months before Kevin can process all the photos, but stay tuned for Reception details…
Tags: toronto wedding blog, wedding, wedding resources
11.Aug.08 wedding Comments (0)
After these 6 months of planning.. the day is coming on Friday. Many people had asked me that if I am nervious or excited, believe me, it’s more like “I-just-want-this-to-be-over-with”.
I am anxious of details that I might miss.
Photographer - I had Kevin Lam to take my wedding photo. My company had used him for several events, we love his photos!
Florist - Paris Florist, Raida from Paris Florist is very easy to work with. She will sort out all my flower needs.
Wedding Cake - Cindy from The Wedding Cake Shoppe will make my wonderful 2-tier chocolate cake with mango filling and strawberry filling
Wedding DJ - Brian from High Five Entertainment will provide my music for the night.
Fidelia Makeup - Fidelia will do her magic for my hair and make up.
Wedding Favor - I got those mini tea can and tea strainer for each guest, and also they get to bring home their polaroid photo name card as gift as well.
Wedding Ceremony at CityHall - yep! we got the marriage license and cash!
I think the only thing that we didn’t do is to practice our First Dance. I guess now it’s literally “First Dance” for me and Alex for sure.
Tags: toronto wedding blog, wedding, wedding resources
06.Aug.08 wedding Comments (0)
Alright, after realizing that I really only need to make 5 special invitations for those who don’t use computer, so I might as well just make them myself.
I decided to make a photo wedding invitation, so hopefully people who received it will want to keep it afterwards.
You need:
a) Blank cards and paper
b) Scissors and tapes
c) A nice friend who can take you nice photos
d) Digital photo print outs
e) A bridesmaid who can print out your invitation with her home inkjet paper
f) ribbons
g) …and some patience~
TO GET STARTED…
1. Photo frame blank card - I got those from Aboveground art supplies, but I am sure you can get those any craft stores. They are a bit pricy. 10 cards for around 13 bucks.
2. Printed invitation on special paper - I got some special paper while shopping at abovegrounds, so I asked Linda to print the invitation out on her inkjet printer, and then I trimmed them with a paper trimmer.
3. Scissors, tapes, and ribbon - I got the ribbon from this store called “B&J trading” in chinatown. I don’t know how long in a roll, but I know it’s 7 bucks for a big roll.
4. Digital photo print outs - I had my friend - Byron took us photos at 6:30am at Harbourfront with -15 degree temperature. And the photo turned out nicely so I used them on the invitation. I just go to Shoppers Drug mart and they have a self-serve machine to print out your own digital prints. It’s pretty fast and not bad of a quality.
5. Putting the cards together
a) insert the photo to the photoframe card
b) put double sided tape at the back of the invitation insert
c) stick the insert to the photoframe card
6. Attaching ribbons - I want to add a ribbon to wrap around the card to add abit of kick to the look.
a) Put the double-sided tape at the edge of the ribbon and trim the ribbon to fit around the card
b) Make sure the edge matches
c) to hide the connecting part, I am going to tie a little knot.
7. Final Product - Viola!! Nice and Unique wedding invitation in few hours!
a) inside
b) outside
I am not a super crafty person, but I think I did a good job. lol
Tags: home made, invitation, wedding
13.May.08 wedding Comments (3)
