Titin & Felix – 21st January 2012

We met with Titin and Felix back in July. They were an hour late for the meeting…and were surprised I hadn’t left (Felix’s mobile ran out of battery and he was unable to call).

I stayed. Not sure why. I just felt like I should…and I am glad I did.

Their budget was small – they were honest with me from the start and I really love honesty. I decided to take on their wedding, knowing how much harder the smaller-budget weddings are (notice I said smaller-budget, not smaller!).

Their brief was:

• 100 guests
• A church or chapel by the sea
• Reception to be at Rosebay
• All the bells and whistles – small-budget, no corner cutting!

We love a challenge, but this was wavering on damn rear impossible. Yet we took it on!

At first the wedding date was late February, but they decided to bring it forward to January, before uni started up again. No date was specified which was great, gave us a bit more flexibility with venues and to work with our own calendar.

We agreed on a lunch wedding, with such a short lead time and smack-bang in the middle of peak wedding season, I knew a lunch would be easier to source and plan than an evening. The couple were more than happy with this option.

We found a venue in Rosebay which had a maximum capacity of 100 which was perfect and a church that worked and had availability.

By the time the wedding came round, we were at 110 guests. The venue was not happy and personally, I was quite on-edge. I like to adhere to fire and safety laws…it wasn’t just a budget consideration, people can’t move around easily, wait staff can’t get meals out and in the event of an emergency, it could all get too dangerous. We negotiated with the venue and they allowed us the 110 and we re-worked the floor plan to fit everyone in comfortably and to ensure safety.

Things the couple had originally thought they wanted or didn’t want – they changed their mind on. To work within the budget, we had to exclude the bridesmaids dresses, brides gown, and the boys suits, which the couple agreed on. When it came to their cake, they said they didn’t want to spend much – just have something they could cut – but not dedicate much budget at all.

We went to Patricia at Yummy Cupcakes and Cakes and they ended up spending over $600 of their small-budget on their cake (but it was awesome and so worth it!). Needless to say, I had chest pains for an hour after seeing what they had chosen. After a chat and a budget shuffle, the chest pains cleared and calm restored!

All elements of their wedding ended up costing more as they always chose the more expensive option, but it is our job to give our couples options – starting with the best affordable option!

Our styling budget cried. There was hardly anything left but the couple were happy with their wedding day plans so we just had to live with it…the stylist in us just wants to make everything as beautiful and perfect as possible.

We made cuts. Then some more and then agreed at last on the bare minimum.

We found out a few months earlier that the couple cancelled the hair and makeup artist we’d sourced for them (they felt it was a bit expensive and wanted to cut back). It was disappointing as we knew Amy Chan would do an amazing job, but ultimately, every choice for each wedding is down to the couple.

They sourced there own stylist and left the trial until quite late (about a month prior). Titin didn’t like the work of her chosen stylist and went back to Amy. By this stage, Amy had taken on other bookings, her first was at 8.30am on the day of the wedding. As a favour to us, she agreed to take on our wedding (again) abut needed to start at 4am. Plus she needed to bring in another stylist in order to get all seven women completed by 8.30am…this meant she had to charge them more. Titin agreed, she knew Amy would do a great job and it was worth it! But at this stage, they’d already lost a bit of money on the trial and now were up for more money.

This is the part where we say. Listen to your wedding planner. Trust them!

So, back to the styling…our budget was so tiny, we needed a magnifying glass to see it! We brought in our own stock (complimentary) as we just couldn’t bare the bare!

We made a wishing tree for the couple and supplied the vase, we brought in some of our own linen (bridal table and cake table flouncing), candles, highchairs (I hated the huge ones the venue supplied – ours are small white ones that don’t stand out), mirrors, table numbers and our table seating chart. That’s just the way we roll!

Where possible we added a touch of blue – whether it was a ribbon tied around the napery, some ribbon on the vases or their initials (which we painted blue). Otherwise, besides the blue chair sash, everything was white because of all the budget cutbacks.

The styling ideas were based around a navy blue colour scheme – it worked with the traditional wedding they wanted and also, always wanting to bring the outside in, we took inspiration from the blue of the water views we had from both church and reception. We loosely based the florals on the royal wedding bouquet – small, dainty, native. We also brought in alot of babys breath which the couple loved.

Alot of the elements needed to be watered down in order to meet the increasingly tiny budget. It was a shame to us, but the couple were happy – and really, that’s all that matters because it’s their wedding.

Titin and Felix never wanted to be featured in a magazine. They just wanted to get married and have a simple, beautiful wedding – and that is what we gave them.

In the lead up to the wedding, we had a meeting with the couple – talked through each minute of the wedding day. The run sheet was distributed, all vendors confirmed. We were ready!

Friday 20th January

Vanessa, Jade and I arrive at the venue. We can bump in from midday but get there closer to 2pm. The venue haven’t done a thing…they hadn’t even setup the tables, the tables were in another room, folded, chairs stacked!

I set up the time lapse (it’s our first ever attempt – so it’s not great!) and get to work. The tables at the venue are so bad, nothing matches – in terms of heights and the thickness of tables. We get to work finding matching tables and laying them out in the agreed layout (which the venue should have done by this stage).

The venue staff were friendly, but not the most helpful. We had to keep going downstairs to ask for things like table linen.

Once the linen was on the tables, we asked if the venue could start laying out the tables with cutlery, glassware and crockery as we just didn’t have much time the following day (bump in was from 10am, with the wedding reception starting at 12pm). We wanted the tables set up so we could layout the napery and wrap ribbon around the napkins, put out the guest favours and placecards. The venue started fiddling with the napkins – making standing fan napkins…umm, no. We’re going for classic, simple styling here. The venue refused to lay out the napkins any other way, so we had to do it.

By this time we looked at our watches, it was approaching time for the rehearsal at the church and had to leave.

Saturday 21st January

4am, I woke up and it took me a while to figure it out…but I remembered that The bridal party makeup had already begun. It’s a shame when a bride has to wake up so early on her wedding day – but this was out of our control.

I rolled over and went back to bed for an hour.

9am – Vanessa and I arrive at the church with order of service booklets and other bits and pieces for the ceremony. The ushers arrive, Vanessa briefs them on what their role. The photographer arrives and soon after, the groom and the groomsmen…after being pulled over by the police of course (just a routine pull over). The moment they step out the car, the heavens open. Thank goodness for all the umbrellas we have and knowing Titin and Felix as well as we do, we brought the white umbrellas for this wedding, although I personally love black umbrellas at weddings – I love the contrast!.

Guests arrive and then the bride. She’s nervous, very nervous, which is just so sweet. The ceremony starts and we sit back and cry (we always cry at weddings!).

Back at the reception, Allie and Jade arrive and finish setting up the napkins while the venue wait staff finish setting up the crockery, glassware and cutlery.

Jo, from Verde arrives with the flowers and gets to work placing them on tables.

Patricia, from Yummy Cupcakes and Cakes arrives and sets up her magnificent cake on the most divine cake stand (I want one!).

The chair cover company arrive and do their thing…finally the room is coming together.

11am – the ceremony ends, photography outside on the lawns.

12pm – Chinese Tea ceremony in the venue. The guests who do not participate in the tea ceremony are entertained in the lobby area with a string trio (slightly cheaper than a string quartet but still just as beautiful). We also use this time to walk around and take photos of guests with the polaroid camera the couple supplied. They write their well wishes on the bottom and we hung them all on the ‘wishing tree’.

12.30pm – doors open, guests take their seats.

Everyone was happy. Everything went quite smoothly and things that didn’t, we’re there to deal with and the bride and groom will never know!

The speeches were spread out – between the course of the meals. First the father of the groom. He made a special mention to BnW for all that we’d done.

Next the groomsman – again, a special mention.

And lastly the groom. After a beautiful speech, he added that last, but not least, a huge thanks to BnW. By this stage I had to go home, heavily pregnant, I just couldn’t stay the whole day. I planned to return later in the afternoon – just before the couple left.

I returned at the end, every guest in there seemed to know me by name – most had never seen me before (I stayed very hidden at this wedding, I feel like a whale and can only wear flip flops to accomodate my swollen feet) but the groom spoke so beautifully and sincerely about all of us and described me well.

I got received so many blessings for my unborn baby from the guests, which is very sweet.

5pm – the couple had left the venue and we began to pack up. They left for more photography – on the beach and also in the city. A huge thanks to Vincent Lai for all his talent and hard work – such a wonderful photographer!

6pm – at the office, dropping off all of our ‘stuff’…then home!

Lunch weddings are lovely and we don’t have enough of them sometimes (although we have back to back Chinese lunch weddings this weekend).

And today, Australia Day, we received a beautiful email from Felix (groom) about us.

From day one to wedding day, my fiance and I found the entire process similar to an emotional rollercoaster and we were relieved that someone was there to take away that emotional burden from us and allow us to focus on our busy lives. When times were tense, I was glad that Bells N Whistles (BnW) remained professional. From hindsight, I think being able to remain professional during difficult times is an important quality to look for when choosing a wedding planner because planning a wedding and the wedding itself can be an emotional wreck, especially when your personal time is a limited resource, and BnW has that quality. Jennifer was very engaging and her enthusiasm towards planning our wedding was one of the deciding factors that made me choose BnW amongst others. Vanessa, who I dealt with, was amazing. She was in control and handled everything with poise, and her manners and people skills are impeccable.

Maybe, just maybe…that’s the reason I choose to stay and wait an hour for a couple I didn’t even know…

And to ‘expand’ on what Felix said about us being professional. Well, yes we are. But I’d like to add that with different couples we have different working relationships. Some we hug and talk about all sorts of things, others are a little less friendly, and more professional. You can’t treat every person the same, just as not every wedding is the same.

It’s quite a good point that Felix makes about the ‘emotional rollercoaster’ of wedding planning. That’s exactly what it is and engaging a planner takes some of that stress off couples, to enjoy the ‘ride’ rather than get off at the end…shaking! I know, I planned my own wedding and even as a planner planning my own wedding, I was still a nervous wreck by the end…that’s why I always tell my staff that when it comes to their weddings, I will take care of all the planning My gift to them!

Amy Chan Hair and Makeup, Bells N Whistles, RoseBay, St Peters Anglican Church Watsons Bay, St Peters Church Watsons Bay, Sydney Wedding Planners, Titin & Felix, Verde Flowers, Vincent Lai, Wedding Planners, Yummy Cupcakes & Cake