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Wedding book printed with Blurb arrived!

My wedding book arrived earlier than I expected! I am definitely loving it!

Wedding book printed with blurb

Using imagewrap style, so it’s wrapped around.. sweet! I chose the wedding day footage for the front cover. This is one of my favorite! I don’t know why, but this photo seems to have many stories to tell, evoking imagination.

Wedding book (back)

At the back cover, I merely included the vows (extracted from the marriage certificate cover). Simple is nice.

Wedding book title page

Our wedding was pretty much a cartoony theme. This image (copyright to me) was used on our wedding invites; wedding favors; and direction signboard etc. I thought it would be nice to print this on the title page as an opening.

Inside the wedding book

Inside the book: I have a full page of my parents and I; while the other page is divided into 2 images page.

Inside the wedding book

Inside the book: The pages are arranged in such a way that it all started from getting ready; to the groom’s place; to venue; to airport.

These were taken in Mike’s place. On the right, would be Joycez, Mike’s sister, who is also my buddy! Well, I have to give her a full page feature, so that she wouldn’t nag at me when she next sees me (I have gone MIA for a loooooooong time, I’ve been really busy)

The opposite page shows a highlight of us paying our respects to the ancestors; while the smaller images on the side are photos in relevance to the highlight, but mainly to enhance the highlight photo.

Inside the wedding book

Inside the book: I like the irregular mosaic layout. It gives the versatility to highlight one or two photos, while the rest gives a really nice touch to the entire layout.

On the right, would be standard mosaic layout which I super cropped the images. It’s really simple to do with Blurb application software. You know how some of the photos would show just the backs of the groom or bride, when the friends reached the venue etc. I decided that I had enough of our ‘backs’ and just zoom in the photo, just so that the faces of friends are more visible and cropped out the other stuffs.

Inside the wedding book

For the left of the page, I wanted to show some ‘emotions’ here; perhaps anxiety? (top left, where Mike was playing with his finger) perhaps anticipation? (top bottom, where I was looking out) Both photos were candid takes. Nice work, Wayne.

On the left, I blow up the photo, which I took with my baby niece, Mindy. This, is really to please my parents. Mindy is their favorite pet!

Inside the wedding book

This would be the page of love. We said our ‘I Dos’; and when rings were exchanged. The process was of course sealed with a kiss.

Inside the wedding book

I tried to layout the pages in such a way that, if I have a full bleed page (left) I would like to have a gapped page on the opposite page, so that the pages wouldn’t appear too cluttered.

Oh, the page on the left, I actually cropped away our solemnizer. LOL.. Seriously, we didn’t have many photos with just the 2 of us, we were really busy entertaining our own friends, so we were always apart.

Inside the wedding book

Sure, Wayne followed me most of the time, (who wants to see the groom as much as they want to see the bride!) Don’t you just love the layout options?

Last page of the wedding book

Our last page… We had our footage taken at the airport, not just for the sake of it you know. We really did had a flight to catch right after the photography session!

I am a half day gal, friends who know me, know this too. I can’t manage a full day event, so we had long planned the festivity to end latest by 3pm, and we took off to the airport. My parents and relatives were more than pleased to stick around at the venue, and helped with tying the loose ends. My mum is the greatest!!!

It was really fun though, that day, was MY DAY, for once, I felt most special and didn’t feel a bit of shyness crept up to me while we walked around the airport while eyes were all over us. We were enjoying the moment completely!

Last page of the wedding

Wedding is most fun and enjoyable when we are able to do it the way we want. Do we really think that the guests who may wag their nasty tongues over the petty things such as dessert, chairs, location etc, would really remember this day for their lives?

IMO, this day belongs to us, and will always be. It is important that we get to do it the way we have always wanted, Mike and I gets to grow old together to reminisce the good old moments. I couldn’t bring myself to thinking that we may end up complaining and regretting what we ‘could’ have done on our wedding.

I sure hope all parents get to understand this though. I didn’t had it all that easy too, but I am very fortunate to have a crazy sister who happens to understands me very well. hahahaha. It’s easier when there is a ‘bridge of communication’ at home, so that my mum gets to hear another voice apart from mine which she had set to ‘filter off’.

Going through the pages of my wedding book, brings back the desire of getting married all over again.. hahaha. We had so much fun, we never had enough of it.

The book turns out so well, I am ready to print my annual travel book with blurb now. I may want to print my product catalogue too, after all, it’s so affordable to print, and the shipping is lightning fast!

Wedding book in print…

wedding book - back coverwedding book - front cover

I have probably talked about this for ages! When I first bumped into Blurb website, it was newly launched. I had set my mind into using their printing service for my wedding book, in bookstore quality, how cool!

Back then, they were not shipping to Singapore yet, and I had sought for my friend’s help in advance, she is from USA, so I could arrange to have the book printed and shipped to her, and she will send it to me. 

I took ages to get this done, because I had been kept busy with work, and with the incident of PC crash wasn’t helpful either. 

Everything happened for a reason, and I am glad it’s a good one. In the hindsight, blurb has been growing rapid into a really fine class of their services; and taken the printing industry by storm! They now ship to many countries and the software is constantly upgrading with more features! 

I am ordering the book in imagewrap style. I never really like the dustcover, it’s just a personal preference, really. I am printing a smaller book, 10″ x 8″ landscape layout, I don’t want something too bulky. 

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It’s a breeze to use the software, a no-brainer one, yet so sophisticated. There are tons of layouts, backgrounds, ornaments, borders etc to choose from, to assist user to design a professional looking book. 

I want to include many details in my wedding book, which in time time to come, helps me with remembering the small little things that happened on that special day. 

If I were to print with the standard studio, I would probably have to let some pictures go, due to pages constraint, layout restrictions, or price consideration. I need to have the small little nothings in my book, so this is probably the best option for me. 

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Some silly takes using my cell phone camera while waiting for the photographer. These images are precious!

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Being able to do my own layout, I can arrange the pictures anyway I like. It’s like being able to let the photos express a story on its own, and in my own. 

It doesn’t matter so much if they may turn out to be amateurish, it’s my wedding story I am telling here, and it feels great to be able to tell that story in my own way. I have nothing against professional photographers’ layout and presentation, but, being a terribly expressive person, I have my needs to meet, and my wedding is about Mike and I, I want to be able to keep a story that is uniquely mine, through my eyes.

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I played around with various layout, I get to highlight what is important to me, and layout other photos in small mosaic layout. Oh well, to be honest, our immediate family members get the privilege to take a larger space, while other friends and relatives (especially the tea ceremony and group photos) take a smaller space..heee.. Yet, with blurb, I am able to include all the photos if I want to, it’s so affordable to print, I can print several copies to give out to our parents and relatives. 

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For some special moments, I feature them in a full page bleed or just one image page format. Pretty nice. 

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Apart from blurb, I love my photographer, Wayne too. He managed to capture the candidly strange expressions of me. Well, they may not be the most pretty pose, but they are priceless, for sure. Each has a story to tell you know. Like the one on the top left, Mike’s colleagues and boss was telling me something, and really, my mind was reaching out for the food! 

peek into the wedding bookwedding book closing..

I don’t even have to crack my brain on which photo to ‘kill’, I just put them all in! I don’t really have to choose the best pictures, to me, they are all precious. 

peek into the wedding bookpeek into the wedding book

Lastly, Mike asked why our plush pet, meow meow wasn’t in the book. Oh well, she is a very important creature in our home, you just have no idea. I bring her to our travel trips you know. Meow meow is a gift from Mike during our holiday in Genting. It was our first anniversary together. I gave her a full page feature, and on the left, is the copyright page. I use a photo of us taken when we were dating. 

I am so excited about the book. It will take about 2 weeks to arrive. Meanwhile, I am obsessed with it already, I am doing a travel books for the trips we had taken. It would be wonderful to be able to print our trips into book. 

I will give my 2-cents worth when the book finally arrive eh. I don’t know, I have a feeling I am going to love it.

special thanks to our wedding vendors

This post is specially dedicated to the people who made our wedding a dream come true.
(we have set up a resources page in this blog, on the right panel: wedding resources; you may also find another directory of wedding resources page hosted in my webstore at saplanet wedding resources

Photographer – Wayne Ng from Jon Keng
In prior to engaging Wayne as our photograher, I consulted another well known photograher who also adopts jounalistic style photography. (I am not mentioning name here, as this is not meant to call out on someone) The entire correspondence was communicated over email, with the first email reply to me on my inquiry on rates and packages. Unfortunately and disppointedly, this photographer had poor business manners who didn’t reply to my further questions after I had indicated that I was working on a tight budget, and need to work on the wedding fund carefully.

Despite my several emails to him, he simply ingored them. Frankly, I was almost about to engage him for our wedding, and cut back on other expenses instead, however, he lost our business due to poor attitude.

I then started to research more on the internet for other photographer, and I chanced upon Jon Keng, and started to establish contact, and was promptly attended by Wayne. We scheduled an appointment to meet, Mike and I were greatly impressed with Wayne’s presentation, and the sincere approach when attending to us. We decided with going with Wayne for photography the following day after the meeting.

The communication with Wayne had been wondefully fantastic. Wayne came to me as a very thoughtful and attentive photographer. He took note of my concern which I breifly mention once that I was going to do my own makeup, as I didn’t like elaborated bridal makeup which I had seen a little tad too often; when he was doing a wedding photography with one of his clients, he noticed a pretty cool makeup artiste whom he thought her style of makeup suited me, he then contacted me to provide the makeup artiste’s contact. (I did not take up the recommendation eventually, as I had decided to DIY my own makeup, but Wayne’s effort was greatly appreciated)

When the big day approached Wayne initiated contact with me to discuss further on the schedule for the wedding day. I suggested communication via email/sms as I was starting to get busy with the small things days before wedding, although Wayne didn’t mind to meet up before the actual day arrived.

On the special day, Wayne was unquestionably professional in his work. Throughout the event, he was very alert on the details of the people involved in the wedding. These people were like his ‘props’ in the arts of photography, without this alertness, there would be no stories, no laughter, no emotions in our wedding pictures. From his work (Yes, we had just collected the soft copy of our wedding photo, and we are more than pleased when we viewed them, be patient though, I have yet uploaded them, but I am sure you would agree with me on his works, when you see the pictures), we knew instantly he takes great pride in the work he does.

Wayne was very dedicated to his work. The only complaint I have about him would probably his dedication to his work? We really wanted him to have a proper meal on our wedding, and didn’t require him to be working without food. He simply couldn’t sit down and finish his plate of food, but always looking out for immediate action, which he sprang away from his food, and armed with the camera and started snapping away. Sigh, Wayne, we really hope you had your fill first though.

I am thankful to the photographer who has such poor business manners, and chosen to lose my business. I could not imagine what our wedding pictures would show with a man with such poor attitude behind the lens.

We are also thankful that we met Wayne, and his pleasant composition in his personality and his job attitude helped us froze moments of joy, happiness and laughter into lasting memories. Thank you, Wayne.

Caterer – Richie Ling of Lavish Dine
We met up with Richie the first time at the venue where our wedding event was to be hosted at. He was attentive, flexible, thoughtful, and pleasant to work with. The fact the he took an extra mile to custom-design our wedding packages, allowed us to work better and more effectively with the wedding fund planning.

The professional advices he provided helped us did just all the right things. His patience is to be greatly hightlighted here. The many changes I required along the way, was very pleasantly accomodated by Richie, with no complaints or any sense of dissatisfaction expressed on his part. He was always ready to change anything or propose alternatives to meet our ever-changing needs.

We had always been certain that Richie was the best caterer we could ever engaged, but this certainty was further affirmed when the guests started to feedback to us very positive comments on the food, service and buffet line set-up. By upholding such good quality in his service, Richie did us a great favor, by making us proud in front of our guests.

I have several relatives who are really strict connoisseurs of fine dining and food, were so pleasantly pleased with the food and service, they feedback positively to my parents. Ahh.. that really made my parents swell!

You won’t believe that Richie and his colleague actually helped me with the music, would you? He was always on the lookout to see if we would need any help. He was very sweet and attentive to offer me special service to pick some food from the buffet so that I could at least get something to eat, when he noticed that I was too busy to entertain the guests and had not chance for food.

One big plus point to Richie would be his understanding rendered to us. He knew that we were flying off right after the reception, he offered to accept a post-dated cheque as long as 10 days from our event, so that we wouldn’t need to rush to prepare for the fund.

I was so pleased with the continual compliments I received even after we returned from our honeymoon, I wrote him a compliment letter.

Thank you, Richie, our event wouldn’t be half successful as it did, without your warm assistance.

Dress Designer, Prisia from Dressing Room Media
Prisia is a personal acquiantance of Mike. When I first met her, I was greeted warmly with her warm personality and fun character. I liked her candidness, yet tactful with her words. The dress was made perfectly matched to what I had in mind.

She had been very patient and considerate towards a fussy customer like myself. I had requested to make alteration the first time to loosen the waistline to A-line cut, which I had decided to revert the change after the alteration was made. Mike preferred the first fitting, and she had no words of complaint, but gladly took the request.

What impressed me most of Prisia, would be her commitment to her work and towards the clients. I had worried unduly that I may only collect the dress on the eve of the event, given the very short time notice I provided to Prisia, however, she eased me off that worry, and rushed the sewing of diamonte strip for me within a day.

Thank you Prisia, for making me a very happy and satisfied bride. (I am sure I must have looked good too!)

Florist, Naserimah N. and Kelly Poh from Far East Flora
Although we had only met Nas once to discuss about our wedding floral needs, she gave very professional and sound advices and suggestions. She tried to work our needs within our budget and accomodated to provide alternatives which we could afford and still able to make the wedding a beautiful one.

Kelly on the other hand, corresponded with me frequently (whenever needed) to discuss on various details. When she spoke with me on the phone, you could literally hear her smiles. What a cheerful and friendly person! Thumbs up!

We were very pleased with their initiatives to contact us to remind us of the car decoration and flowers collection which was to be done the day before the event. Trust me, a couple ready to get wedded would be crazily busy with many things, anything, and everything just 2 days before the event. This reminder was a small act but very significantly important.

Thank you Nas and Kelly, for the relentless effort to make sure everything went smoothly for us.

I take this chance to thank Mike for his patience, consideration, and loving understanding throughout the planning of our wedding. I am thankful to his positive mindset, which sync well with mine, that we are able to enjoy every minute of the event.