Bridal Studio - Rico A Mona

For the longest time, we thought we were going to go a la carte i.e. we are going to purchase our gowns and suits, and engage our own photographer, florists, and make-up artists. Fast forward to a year after our engagement and we decided that it was just way too much trouble having to liaise separately with different vendors so we decided to book an AD package with a bridal studio instead.

Next came the extensive research about which bridal studio to sign the package with. We had dropped by Zwedding previously (while waiting for our omakase dinner at Teppei) and were completely blown away by how expensive they were. Definitely way out of our budget. So we took time to search through forums and narrowed down to the following bridal studios:

• Labelle
• Digio
• Rico A Mona
• BQueens

Aside from budget, I also looked through the various social media accounts of these bridal studios and got a sense of the designs of their bridal gowns. Generally I was most fond of the gowns at Digio and Rico A Mona so I decided we will check these out first. Rico A Mona was having their 8th year anniversary sale so I decided to make a booking to visit Rico A Mona. Was totally expecting to visit all the bridal studios in the list above but alas, fate had other plans and Rico A Mona was the first and last studio we visited!

I made a booking to discuss the bridal packages at Rico A Mona but did not ask for a specific coordinator. I was assigned to Yenn Yenn which turned out to be such a blessing because she is such a sweet and nice girl. If you would like to check out Rico A Mona, I would strongly recommend Yenn Yenn!

She sat us down and asked us about our general requirements. We told her we only needed an AD package because we had completed our first pre-wedding photo shoot in Japan (reminds me that I should do a review of Lavie Photography soon) and will be heading for our second pre-wedding photo shoot in USA soon.

She showed us the AD package and explained clearly what was included and what was not. Perfect, I love clarity. Thereafter, she led me to the changing room and brought out a few gowns for me to try! I think I tried about 5 or 6 gowns (a mixture of wedding gowns and evening gowns) before we sat down again to discuss the details of the package.

Rico's AD package is pretty standard and includes gowns, suits, flowers and make up. AD photography would be an additional $1,500 but we chose not to go with Rico's photographer for AD since we have another photographer in mind.

What I loved about Rico was that they did not have any weird "designer range" which required a top-up. I always found those bridal studios which charged for their "designer range" rather absurd. I mean, clearly you should pride yourself enough to purchase and rent beautiful gowns, right? Why would you segregate your gowns into different ranges and charge more for a specific range? Just sounds like a whole bullock of money-generating crap.

So we signed with Rico! Super glad with their service so far and love their gowns! Will update again after our AD. But first, here is a sneak preview of the gown and suit from Rico for our pre-wedding shoot in USA.

Conrad Centennial Wedding Show

We were very interested in two hotels for our wedding lunch and Conrad is one of them. We met our coordinator a few weeks before the wedding show, and she was very friendly and responsive in the weeks we were communicating with her. We really liked Conrad's ballroom, the decoration, and we thought the location of the hotel would be great for our guests since it is right in the city center. So we were seriously considering signing our wedding package with Conrad during their wedding show.

Advice for future brides-to-be 

If you do not have time to read everything I have to share in the next few paragraphs, just remember this - if you intend to hold your wedding banquet at Conrad on a popular date, and you intend to secure your wedding date during the wedding show, you may wish to head to Conrad early in the morning and place your deposit even before the wedding show starts. We know this because we learnt the hard way…

So our proposed wedding date is apparently rather popular and we were told that it would be on a first-come-first-serve basis during the wedding show. Unlike other hotels which would share the wedding show perks before the wedding show and allow bookings with the perks before the wedding show, Conrad does neither and you would only know the perks and secure a booking with the perks on the day of the wedding show. 

As such, we asked our coordinator if we could meet earlier to place our deposit before the wedding show starts (registration starts at 11:30 am) and were told that it would be difficult as the sales team would be busy with preparation beforehand. Completely understandable so we decided that we shall be one of the first few to register when registration starts at 11:30 am in order to secure our proposed wedding date.  

We reached at 11 am and, to our utmost dismay, were told that another couple had arrived in the morning, placed the deposit, and booked the day we were looking at! I cannot describe how unfair and unpleasant I felt this was. We had made a similar request to meet earlier before the start of the wedding show but our request was rejected. Yet another couple, who did not have to take time to join Conrad for their wedding show and perhaps did not even have to pay for the wedding show, managed to secure the date even before the wedding show registration started!

For the sake of future couples who I hope would not suffer the same disappointment as us, I have written to the sales team and humbly suggested that for future wedding showcases, Conrad may wish to accept bookings of wedding dates only upon registration. Otherwise, if Conrad is going to accept bookings from the morning of the wedding showcase, this should be extended to all couples.

I am not sure if Conrad would change their internal policy (most likely not, but we shall see), but in the event they do not, future BTBs hoping to secure a popular wedding date should definitely go down early in the morning before the start of the wedding show and place your deposit. 

Why do we have a fixed wedding date?

The short answer is, the date was calculated for us and it was the only suitable date in the second half of 2018 for us. We could not have our wedding banquet in the earlier half of 2018 because of some personal reasons. To cut a long story short, we had to scramble and get another date in the middle of 2018. 

Wedding show

Eventually we did sign with Conrad because the food at the wedding show was great, the ballroom was beautiful, and service (aside from the glitch of booking wedding dates) was good. Our coordinator had been warm, friendly and approachable through the weeks and we really liked her. 

The LOVE theme with baby breaths and white hydrangeas, and a giant LOVE sign on stage. 

The HAPPINESS theme with the traditional red double-Xi sign on stage, and red roses with pink hydrangeas. 

The invitation cards.

It would have been a much better experience if we did not have to go through the unpleasantness and unfairness described above. But we trust that Conrad would deliver on the actual day and I would update our experience next year. 

If you wish to learn more about the package or my experience with Conrad so far, feel free to email me at toseetofeeltoeat@gmail.com.

Golden rules for wedding preparation

If you have caught up with Zg and/or I recently, you would probably know that we have (finally) started our wedding preparation. Frankly, there are so many to-dos, so many items to check off the list, and so many wedding vendors providing so many different services. All these choices just mean that it is very easy to forget that the wedding is just an event (albeit a very happy, meaningful and exciting one) and we still have the bigger task of enjoying our marriage thereafter.

So, while I still have clarity of thought and have not been completely suckered into signing a million things that we will probably regret, I have decided to set some golden rules which I hope we (I, mostly, since I am the more impulsive one) would remember in the months to come.

• Stick to the budget. It is okay to exceed the budget by a little bit (up to $100) but it has to go if it is really too expensive. Just think about the amount of food that amount of money can buy and walk away. Recently, I have also been thinking about money in terms of the number of man-hours I have to put in to earn that amount of money. If the number of man-hours sounds too gross, then that item has to go. 
• Don't have to please everybody. As long as we like it and we are happy, just smile and nod when the naysayers strike. There will always be naysayers and we don't have to mind what other people say. Frankly, why should we? It is our wedding and our money, and I do think we can decide for ourselves what we want to do thank you very much.  
• Research. I'm a nut for researching so this one is easy. I think I research everything to the death of it so no problemo.
• Know what you need and what you don't and don't budge. I'm stubborn as a mule and Zg is an Ox so we probably don't have a problem here too. People will probably have a harder time trying to convince us than we do resisting it. 
• If you like something and the price is right GO FOR IT. Prices in the wedding industry only go north and vendors tend to increase their prices every year. So stop procrastinating, just go for it and hope that they do not pull down their shutters before your actual day. 
• Have fun! Zg and I are pretty good at planning things in general (we are crazy fond of tables and spreadsheets) so I hope we would be able to have fun in the process of planning the wedding. We are also champion saikang warriors (otherwise known as staffers) so I think we should have no problem staffing ourselves. 

Hopefully I will get around to sharing my wedding preparation in the months to come!