mike & lis story

Many of the brides ‘graduated’ as an almost expert in wedding planning after their own weddings were over.

I didn’t become one expert, since my wedding was really simplified and casual. I won’t know the nitty gritty details of the Chinese traditions, since I had omitted most of them (or did I follow any at all?)

I just created a series of ring pillows for my shop. While doing so, I did wished that I had that for my wedding. 

It’s interesting and memorable to have a nice ring pillow. After the ceremony is over, we can keep the pillow as decoration. The ring exchange is such an important moment, it would be so lovely to keep the pillow which will constantly remind us of that moment when vows, and pledge of love was exchanged. 

I have a rather different concept towards wedding. As much as I may wish to splurge the budget on the wedding feast, but I guess, for me, it’s what that may leave behind for me that mattered.

I wouldn’t mind spending a little more for actual day photographer, he has to be good enough to capture precious moments (I really don’t fancy studio takes, guess we are not so wonderful with poses, I prefer impromptu candid takes, which shows the real actions); I would also spend on favors, because that is what people get to keep; I would spend on ring pillows, because I get to keep them too. 

I didn’t spend a great deal on the wedding dress, maybe because I had always dream for a simple dress. I wanted to have a dress that I was completely comfortable in, and a timeless piece is amazingly what turns out to be the simplest. Haven’t we smirk silently when we saw someone’s exaggerated up-to-date ‘trendy’ bridal dress in the photos, years later? We would think to ourselves, ‘wow.. old school.. so yesterday.’ Indeed, it was very yesterday, but do we really need to look out-dated in years to come? 

Year end is crazy for me, so is it for Mike. Soon after Christmas Santa rides away, we will be celebrating our 2nd wedding anniversary, how time flies. Can’t believe we are married for nearly 2 years.

I have been incredibly busy since we got married. 

Despite our crazy paces, often, I settled down in thoughts, stealing some time away to appreciate what I have now. 

Last night, I was peeling the orange for Mike. I love peeling oranges, far exceeding eating them. Due to my reflux problem, I refrain from eating too many oranges. In most evenings, I would ask Mike if he would love to have an orange, knowing that I love the process of peeling, he would always say yes. 

Every healthy relationship and marriage, has its ups and downs. We do have our share of disagreements too. Despite that, I tend to ponder over the brighter side of this marriage. I can’t exactly imagine anyone else in place of Mike, who will take all my nonsense. 

Mike would never force me to do what I don’t enjoy doing, and he tries to create as many opportunities for me to do what I love doing. 

Being so vastly different in personalities, we learn to gain perspectives different from what we normally would. In view of that, it could be a really good point why we are perfect for each other. We may not always be comfortable with each other differences, but with a cool head, we will always be able to understand that we didn’t mean to hurt each other. 

For all we know, we are definitely not matching up to the standard married couple. We are one hell of an odd couple. Mike doesn’t bug me to tag along to all the social activities he is involved in; I don’t drag him to my family gatherings and activities too (Fine, I am not a group person per se; if I am not going to any of them, why would he?)

At this stage, and in many years to come, or rather for the rest of our journeys, we will continue to fine tune, adapt to changes and do whatever it takes to continue appreciating this good fortune to have met each other and come this far in life. 

When we first dated, we talked about stuffs like fights and all, we agreed that we don’t need fiery fights to know each other better. As a matter of fact, I am not a fan to fights and shouts. I have probably outgrown that long ago. I learn that I can only really hear someone, in a calmer conversation. I have long grown tired of challenging the useless ego and messed up emotions, which are present when 2 persons (or more) enter a fiery fight. 

Not only the world needs some good old peace, everyone of us needs a small cut of it too, don’t we?

I am not exactly a fan to using wedding photos as wedding favors. However, if I am making one, I will be selecting photos that carry some significance to the the story/message I want to convey through the favors.

Using my own wedding photos, I have selected the black & white photos for this purpose.

Magnet/Insert card:
+ I chose the photo that was taken at the airport arrival hall - signifying that we have arrived at a new life stage - marriage
+ With a tiny tweak on the hue of the image, to spice in small interestingness to the entire presentation.
+ B/W photo has its limitation, and many people may even think that it can be too boring since it’s just grayscale tones. I have adjusted the image towards a purplish pink hue, while retaining the original color for the magnet. I hope to provide an improved visual effects in terms of toning.

Thank you note:
+ I chose the photo that was taken at the departure hall (we were really leaving the country though) - signifying that we have gracefully ‘depart’ from our bachelor status.
+ To maintain consistency, I use similar fonts and effect for the text
+ The photo was highlighted on the kissing scene (hah!), I don’t know, generally, people feel that it’s really sweet.
+ I dimmed down background just so that the thank you phrase can be highlighted without the noisy background.

I am definitely a story person, the wedding photographer we chose to engage heavily determines if the photos get to tell stories on their own.

I decided to create this mock up after many requests on photo magnets. You may have many other ideas on how to decorate and present your wedding photos and make them into wedding favors. Just drop me an email and we can explore the possibilities.

Although it doesn’t take a special occasion to remember how great our partners have been, but it does help to bring out the best of our partners. 

I had a 3-day birthday celebration marathon for the last 3 days. It wasn’t common for me, I have always prefer a simple meal, or better still, not celebrating at all. 

There is quite a fair bit of bad news lately, which impact on Mike’s work directly. I didn’t want anything extravagant for my birthday, so we had simple meals with friends and family. 

Mike has been exceptionally supportive towards what I do. Crafting is an interest and it creates the best ideal job for me, since I get to work from home, and do what I love doing. Psychology and counseling has been my passion for the longest time. With my present work, I am able to take time to self study in the areas that interest me most. 

Although the days ahead seem challenging, but Mike still take time, and effort to get me small surprises for my birthday. It takes willingness to keep the love in the marriage burning, and I am thankful we are both putting in tons of efforts and still enjoying every moment of it. It’s not trying or draining for us, it’s a process that we are both willing to enjoy.

It’s mixed feelings when someone in your family gets married, isn’t it? 

I haven’t been active, or rather, I have been really absent in the scenes of family gatherings, for as long as 10 over years. You won’t catch me during Lunar New Year, nor during Christmas, nor any other occasions… Regrettably, it’s probably the funeral that you may see a bit of me. 

I am not going to find excuses, sincerely honest, I am just not a group person. 

My baby cousin is recently married. Apart from being really swamped with work, it’s just not a surprise that I didn’t attend the wedding. 

Clarice is baby cousin. I remembered her as a small girl with lovely dimples. When we were younger, when I was still tagging along with my parents for most family occasions, she was always the sun flower standing out in the crowd. She has always been someone who brings joy, and you just need to look at her, to blow any blues away, in an instant.

Her wedding photos can be viewed at this blog. As I went through the photos, I was daunted by the realization that she has grown to be such a fine lady. I feel that I barely knew her, yet it seems like I have known her for life. 

My wishes for the couple were delivered to them by the wedding couple doll I made for them. It’s nothing much, just sincere wishes. I am just a simple person with simple intention.

How often do we think about how amazing a relationship is developed, and later enters into a marriage?

The other night, just before we called it a day and go to sleep, Mike was chuckling to himself. When asked, he said, ‘It’s still amazing that you are my wife’. Huh? 

He explained that it’s still amazing when he ran a flashback on our friendship. It is still unbelievable that I was just his sister’s good friend, and his client, who is now his wife. 

All I know is that, this is going to be a undying story we are going to talk over and over again in the many years ahead of us. 

The conversation always end with my unbelieving conclusion that I have been cast a spell by the Chaong’s family. To be exact, it’s the Chong and Chaong. Jessie is my best friend in Secondary School, she is Mike’s distant relative, who lived just a floor above where his family now lives. Later on, Joycez becomes my buddy when we worked together. That was when Mike came into my life..vaguely. 

Undebatable, I was and still am never able to get away from the clutches of the Chong & Chaong. I am glad and grateful that despite the twists and turns in our life journeys, we managed to keep the friendship, and in turn earn me a sweet husband.

I am very pleased with Blurb’s book printing - my wedding book, so I have decided to print our travel book with them.

I reckon it’s better for us to print the travel book by year. For 2008, we had traveled to Australia; Cambodia; and Vietnam. Mike had traveled to more places though, but I am not including those in the travel book. What do you expect, I have no stories about those places where I didn’t visit!

I have only managed to touch on the Australia trip we did early this year. It was a 15 day trip, so there are tons of photos to print, and I have the habit of writing trip journal as we went along, I want to included the write-ups in the book too. You know some moments were not captured in the photos, but they were recorded in writings, so it does make all sense for me to include the writing of some interesting events which otherwise may be forgotten.

We were planning for a short get-away trip before 2008 ends, but from the way I look at our work schedule, I guess we just have to stick with the annual trip (yeah, we have this annual trip, usually over Lunar New Year, which usually overlaps with our wedding anniversary).

If I manage to finish my orders sooner than projected lead time, I will get down to work on the travel book and get it out by January.

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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!

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. 

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. 

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? 

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! 

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!

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. 

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. 

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

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.

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. 

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

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! 

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. 

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.

It’s still unbelievable that we have been married for more than a year and a half, it felt like it was just yesterday.

Our pace was in frenzy busy mode since we decided to tie the knot. I become a full-time crafter, working from home, while MIke busy ‘hunting’ for food out there. 

Friends have seen very little of me since I was preparing for my wedding. I would say, even if I were not married, but started the journey of my crafting business, it would still pretty much the same. 

Although working from home, I have to say I was never bored, I have been busy forever! It’s however very nice that we still managed some holiday trips. Mike must have traveled to more places than I do. He was in Manchester months after our wedding, Hong Kong/Macau before we took a holiday to Brisbane/Melbourne, Australia, then we went for a mini-convention in Cambodia and Vietnam. 

Now, we are starting to plan for our 2nd anniversary trip. I can’t wait for February already! I hope to be able to get the wedding photobook printed by then, but I am really not that hopeful. Right now, my work schedule is starting to pack up real quickly. With 5 wedding orders on hand, and my new amigurumi designs rolling out for Halloween and Christmas, I doubt I will have any spare time. 

I made the cave couple to reflect Mike and I. It’s really more about me. I would stay home without setting foot to even the common corridor for 2 months or so. I am not sure, many can’t imagine the kind of life I am living. Believe me, this is the perfect job for me. I get to do what I enjoy doing, mum sees me everyday (ok, not every day, she is traveling quite a bit too) and Mike has been wonderfully supportive towards the work I do. Right now, I am content and happy, and I think that is important.