Photography

The question from day one –

1. Do you want to have pre wedding photography? No.
2. What kind of photographer you are looking for? Good one.
3. How much do you willing to spend on the photographer? Ermmm…………….

Ferdinand

On Christmas Eve, we went to see Ferdinand. Ferdinand is a professional photographer base in Kuching. Apparently he came back from US and apparently he is very good.

So we went to see him after communicated on the phone and found his shop and he was late. He made us wait for about 15 minutes. His reason was it was his son 1 year old birthday.

Ok. He led us to his studio and straight away we fall in love with his work.

Excellent!!!! Was our only word to describe his work…

Ferdinand does all the photography, so does his wife – Janice. All the post production work is done by the Janice.

They are all perfect!

We checked out some album, chatted for a while… both parties would love to work with each other.

Alvin and I left with great hope…

We hope they are affordable…

Next morning, we received a quotation…

His charges are fair and are realistic.

Very KL standard

He is too expensive...

Check him out at http://www.ferdinandphotography.com

Mr. Ting

We went to see him on a rainy day. He owns an old school photo studio and his son is helping him running the business.

When I step inside the studio, I was like… hmmm… are you sure we are looking for the right person?

Becky told us he is a good photographer.

“He does a lot of wild life photography.” Becky said.

And true enough, he doesn’t just do wild life photography; he is also a bird watcher.
I’m not quite convinced.

And he is also very cheap.

Hmmm… ok…

When I saw him I was really… hmmmmm…

He looks like the typical old school uncle.

Alvin brief him what we want and he seems to know what Alvin is talking about… he doesn’t have portfolio though…

“I just give everything to my client and I don’t keep any of them.” He said.

Being a typical bride I wasn’t sure about this… so I… hmmmmm…

Ok. Alright! I shouldn’t judge the book by its cover.

When we are leaving, Becky told us of all the wild life photographer she knows, Mr. Ting is the only one who would think outside the box.

Ok…

Tony jokingly said: “he won’t be presence at your wedding but you will eventually get your photos.”

Because he does wild life photograph with telescope, from far far away...

Andy Khor

We got his quotation today… pretty standard, at least something to consider also… but he didn’t say if we need to pay for his flights and accommodation…

We should meet up soon.

Crisis

The quest is to find the perfect place for the reception…

27th December…

After breakfast, Becky took us to Merdeka Palace before Alvin and I head for the day’s plan.

Merdeka Palace is not in the central of Kuching and yet it is not very far from town center. About 10 minute walk. Becky insists we should check out the place. We have very little hope as the one and only ballroom is already booked by another couple.

The banquet manager, Jesselina is the best hotel manager I’d ever encountered. She treated us like friends.

She showed us the ballroom which they are doing some preparation for the night wedding. We were so attracted by it.

It was not very big. It has a balcony like the PJ Civic Hall which you can put a few tables up there or have the cocktail party before the dinner start.

The backdrop was elegant. Jesselina told us it was the standard backdrop… the table setting was so beautiful, and the lighting was also very very nice…

Oh dear, I must have my reception here! I thought.

“You may change your date…” Jesselina suggested cheekily.

She must love her job very much.

Ok… crisis!!!

Should we change the date so we can have this place for our reception? Or, should we change our plan so we can have this ballroom for the reception?

Ok… reception venue was just a small crisis. When Jesselina told us the room rate for wedding package, I almost fainted. It was quite cheap! Really! It was the best deal I could ever dream about.

So now how?

Right! We have to think about it.

We love the place so much that we desperately want it no matter what. So we thought if we could change the date that would be perfect.

I don’t mind changing the date because that would give me time to do more things. But Alvin only concern about it because parents chooses the date. Remember what happen to the star?

So he called his mom and the mom said NO WAY for us to change the date. Well when he told me we can’t change the date without giving any valid reason I was pissed off.

“We only get married once and we want it to be perfect and what is the possibility for it to be so difficult to just change the date?” was my reaction to him.

After we sort things out only he told me parents already announced to their friends the date of the wedding.

Anyway, his mom suggested us to either do lunch and push the church early… which is possible but we will suffer because it has to be very early and we have to go to another church and we might have to change priest and it will be very rush…

Another suggestion was to push reception to the next day which is not possible for out station guests because Sunday is never a good idea.

So we came out to the agreement of same church same time, tea ceremony after lunch, crazy party in the evening for out station guests somewhere else and lunch for family, parents’ friends and VVVIP (bosses and bosses’ bosses).

The end

We are Back from the Cat City

Alvin and I went to Kuching for Christmas, and at the same time, we were also checking things out for wedding. That was our little project.

Basically we sorted out most things except for the hair and makeup artist as we don’t have much time. So I guess I have to start practicing with Sue or get someone from here to do the job.

Entries will be broken down in date, so today we shall start on…

26th of December…

Since dinner seems to play the big part in parent’s life, we should look for the cheap possible hotel for the wedding dinner. So as soon as Christmas finished, we visited Holiday Inn, Crown Plaza and Hilton… basically these are the hotels Kuching can offer.

We already waved Hilton because they are expensive, for one, and they only have one menu for us to choose from. The worst part was the Banquet manager’s has bad attitude that made Becky wrote complaint letter to Hilton office and the Hotel and resort association.

Anyhow, no harm checking their room out to give us more reason to totally wave them off, right?

First stop, Holiday Inn...

3 stars hotel. The first hotel in Kuching, so it is very old and they have construction going on in the swimming pool area. According to the banquet manager we spoke to, she can’t promise the construction can be finish on time.

The ballroom was very big but it is booked on 09/06/07, so the second option is the function room which could fit about 120 – 200 peoples.

It was old but full of character.

The menu was quite good.

Prices are not very far from KL too.

They have special rate for room but… they are very old.

My on question is will this place fit our image?

Anyway, we KIVed Holiday Inn because the corkage is free.

I was still hoping for the very best.

Second stop, Crown Plaza…

4 stars hotel, old, the ballroom is huge, you can split it to 2 for 2 different functions. Since the banquet manager is not around, we just help ourselves to check out the ballroom.

It was so huge… and feels dirty…

We weren’t so keen so we left.

Third stop, Hilton...

Actually we weren’t checking them out at first. We were checking out the florist.

I didn’t get the lady’s name but she seems to know her flowers. This is that kind of vendor I like. When I told her I want Calla Lily for hand bouquet, she knows exactly what I want and how I want it. I love her already. And then we made a few request and she also gave me some suggestion on the alternative flower just in case it is not the season, so Magnolia Lily is the next best flower on the list.

Since we are there already, we might as well check Hilton out and see what else they can offer.

Wow! Very grand!

We checked out the ballroom, ok only. And then we went to check out the Toh Yuen restaurant. It is perfect for family luncheon after church. We like it very much.

We also checked out Senso Bar for potential after dinner party… it was great!!!

So we waved the ballroom for reception and KIVed Toh Yuen Restaurant for lunch and Senso Bar for after dinner party.

That’s it for the finding on the 26th. Flower checked and we are still on the quest to find somewhere for the reception.

Irritating

As we know I was the bridesmaid to a bride last weekend. It turned out quite ok.

I went there very early and got some fun talking and chatting with her, Hannah the makeup artist (she is really good) and Hui Ling.

I saved them with my hair curler since Hannah’s hair curler was not working then.

I like the photographer. He is from the New Zealand. I wonder what he is doing here in Malaysia. I should have talk rugby with him but I didn’t. Instead we were talking about movies and stuff.

Well, after the groom got the bride, no one knows where the tea ceremony should be.

WHAT!!!!!

Leave it to the photographer, they know better.

DARN!!! THIS IS YOUR HOUSE!!!!!

This is also known as not organizing properly.

After the tea ceremony, we were getting ready to head off to Cyberjaya clumsily.

Why did I say clumsily? Because no one knows who should follows whose car and there are so many things to move and this should not be happening because everyone should know what to do to have a smooth ride.

Oooo… check out the flower arrangement in front of the car. Shoot me if I decided to use fresh flower for my car. It’s so bloody heavy and hard to keep them fresh under the hot sun!!!

Anyway, we went to the nice apartment in Cyberjaya and another drama begins. Where are the teapot and cups? Where is the tea or tea bags? Where should the elderly be seated? Why nobody boil water?

Oh my! This should not be happening.

Ok... what irritated the hell out of me was instead of getting straight into the tea ceremony (where 15 peoples were waiting and 2 persons to be served), they went to take photo in their room.

Half an hour later, we were all darn hungry and the father of the groom were still patiently waited for them even though he wanted to spend more time with his sick wife in the hospital.

Finally they came out and the tea was served without the help of “tai kam jie”. I was the maid who serves the tea, man!!! How hilarious!

After that, they took more photos with the view of the lake with us (poor 15 hungry people) holding the flowers and boxes of tissue paper. You can imagine how hot it was.

Grrr… it was another afternoon with hot sun above our head. I thought monsoon is just around the corner? Apparently not :(

After about half an hour of photo shoot, all the hungry ghost head out for lunch… although I would love to flirt with the photographer but I don’t like to waste my time over man when it comes to food.

Dim sum in Cyberview Lodge. Yummy. I didn’t eat much though. The bride wondered why…

After that we head off to the hotel.

We practically went one huge round around the world to get to the hotel, it took us more than an hour. Yes. Cyberjaya is very far from everywhere.

We were late for about an hour…

Ok… finally we get to rest. After that I didn’t hear from them until Hui Ling report to me that it’s dinner preparation time.

Haha… instead of monitoring the dinner preparation, we were getting ready to paint our face and getting our hair done.

I helped Hui Ling to do her hair with my ever-famous hair curler. She was so lady like. Ok… and then I changed and make up and do hair.

That took about an hour with Hui Ling’s boy friend and the bride’s brother watching from about 5 feet away… no… we didn’t change in front of them.

And then we were ready to go and check out the place.

Whow!!! The dinner is not at the swimming pool anymore. They moved the dinner to the meeting downstairs.

Wow! That’s new to me and the room was so small.

Ok… so how the guests gonna find out where the dinner take place?

Oh… I forgot hotel always have one of those type of notice board just in case everybody is lost in the hotel.

It’s a bloody big hotel!!!

Ok… we found the guests registration table where we found 2 sets of guests list. We looked at each other and started asking questions.

Where’s the box for ang pow? Where are the corsages? Where is the CD for music?

We called the bride. “I left everything on the table!” She said innocently.

Yea right! Anyway the brother and I went to look for them to get the key and got everything down.

Ok… next drama. What are the corsages for? We looked at them and we have no idea what the hell did she made hand corsages fresh flowers. It’s too heavy!!! Also, they are so many of them (different arrangement) and we had no idea which one is for the parents and which one is for the ushers.

Ushers??? I thought we would be having 5 ushers? Where are they?

Right… Hui Ling and I went ahead, smiling at guests, took attendance and all…

Cocktail was supposed to start at 6:30pm, but they were still setting up tables and chairs.

No bars for drinks? I don’t know where is the bar. No one knows where to get his or her drinks. The funny part was waiters had trays of drinks on them but no one knows what to do. I mean our guests are too shy.

Dinner starts at 8pm.

Darn!!! Shouldn’t they just go round with bottles and ask if they want to top up their drinks?

You have to ask them to bring you a drink and it took ages. So everybody just eat their food and drink what’s they have.

It was a very quiet affair, I must say.

I was the only one walking around looking for drinks, as I was thirsty and I really need to calm down since I was so irritated.

Things didn’t went as planned, I thought.

Dinner finished rather early, the room was cleared by 10:30pm.

Here’s one piece of advice. Malaysian is rather conservative, be it young or old. If you want to have a buffet style dinner, and you made sit where they should be seated, get a set of good waiters and make them carry bottle to your guests and ask them if they want to top up their drinks.

Since it’s a buffet dinner, don’t make everybody sit where you want him or her to be seated. Have only a couple of tables for the ladies to rest their feet. This way your guests will have a sense of freedom by walking around and mingle with friends. This way, your waiters will just walk around with fresh glasses of drink and your guests will help themselves.

And then, if you don’t have crazy crowd, you need good MC who are wicked minded and a good plan for the night so your guests will enjoy themselves.

The moral of the story is GET A WEDDING PLANNER!!!!!!! Or, get someone to arrange everything for you.