Tips + Ideas

Canvas Clusters

Canvas-13 I believe canvases are a great way to brighten up a home – especially if it is filled with lovely images of your family. At Stories, we have designed canvas clusters for our clients through the years. All you need to do is to tell us the dimensions of your wall in inches and we will design it for you, free of charge. Here are some tips on how to plan for a beautiful canvas wall at your home:

Find a wall that is a feature in your home – meaning, the wall should be in a prominent location that is eye-catching. This could be above the couch in your living room or next to your dining table.
Avoid having too much clutter at the bottom of your feature wall. If the wall is next to a cabinet that is filled with children’s toys, your eyes will be drawn to the clutter and not the images.
Install spotlights that direct your attention towards the images on the wall. This is especially good for night events!
When choosing images to include on the wall, think about some form of continuity – for example, are all the images taken in a nice outdoor environment but one is not? Do the images complement or distract each other? Is there a theme to the images selected? Do also include a series of candid and posed shots for best effect.
Communicate with your designer if you prefer to have designs that are neat (for example, all canvases fit into a perfect square) or if you prefer a more organic design that doesn’t have to align perfectly with each other.

Canvas-10 What do you think of the sample walls at our office?

Grace Tan In Musings, Parties & Events, Portraits, Tips + Ideas

Ways to personalise your wedding bands

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Rings and Bands, a concept store based in the elite neighbourhood of Valencia. Li Dong, the owner of this exclusive wedding ring fine jewellery store, shared some of her experience in the jewellery business. The rings were just exquisite – you could choose from rings made of platinum or gold, or even rhodium. You can also custom design your own rings at the store, overlooking golfers on the lawn next door.

ringsnbands Photo courtesy of Rings and Bands

I was also excited to hear about some interesting ways you can personalise your wedding bands, other than just engraving your name. You can sign your promise, inscribe your love story, write a personal note on the surface of the rings… and wait for this… even put your fingerprint on it!

What a great idea! Not only is it totally unique, you can even use it as a security feature if your wedding band ever got stolen! Just compare fingerprints and you’re done. :) Obviously, the band is not really able to fit your entire fingerprint, but just a small portion of it.

I was also invited to give a short talk to some of the residents at Valencia about the art of people photography. It was nice to be able to collaborate in such a manner. Do visit their concept store or check out their website to see their collection of finest engagement rings and wedding bands.

20160626-RINGSNBANDS_TALK-04 20160626-RINGSNBANDS_TALK-05 Continue Reading

Grace Tan In Musings, Tips + Ideas, Wedding Films & Videos, Weddings

5 Reasons To Have a Lunch Wedding Reception

Ep2-TWS It’s our second episode of The Wedding Stories video, created in collaboration with The Wedding Notebook. If you ever wondered why you should have a wedding lunch reception instead of a dinner reception, here are some reasons for you to consider. Thanks once again to the team of amazing actors (who also worked behind the scene to make this video happen!) and with a special appearance by Jon Low.

If you’d like to see more of these videos in the future, do subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Diane In For Photographers, Musings, Tips + Ideas

Vendor Highlight: Wishing Tree

One would agree that having floral arrangements are essential for weddings as it adds beauty and warmth. The person I know who does a good job at it would be Wishing Tree. I had the opportunity to sit down with the founder, Lily Chew to have a chat about her thoughts and insights on the designer floral business.

VendorHighlight-wishingtree Originally from Singapore, Lily married the love of her life in 1999, who happened to be Malaysian. Since then, she has resided in Malaysia. Through her husband’s encouragement, Wishing Tree started 3 months after she was married. She wanted to make good the time she had at hand by pursuing her passion. With their first branch in Bukit Tunku, they have now expanded many times beyond their original size. Recently, Wishing Tree moved to their new 3-storey premise in Sungai Besi. 16 years since their doors first opened, Lily’s continued passion only grew stronger and it gets better.

Diane In Musings, Tips + Ideas

Vendor Highlight: Milestones

Preparing for a wedding can be a daunting task- sourcing for a venue, food tasting, hiring the various vendors, planning the schedule and, well, you get it, it’s really a whole lot of things to do! While we may have a huge headache trying to figure out how to navigate through this seemingly intimidating long list of tasks, there are people who are gifted and finds delight in helping you with these tasks (thank God!).

The person I know who is perfect for the job is Mun Tzin from Milestones. Her meticulous and detail-oriented personality is exactly what is needed as the wedding planner to make your wedding a memorable feat, without the headache on your end.Mun Tzin’s interest in weddings started off during her university days helping out at friends’ weddings, contrary to the belief of others who thought she picked it up while planning her own wedding. She likes the role of planning, organising and conceptualising things. Seeing it materialise gives her great joy and satisfaction. Mun Tzin helps couples plan their wedding from A-Z – from sourcing vendors to bringing them to see gown designers, as well as delivering the stationeries to hotels. A wedding planner is not just there to plan your wedding. Mun Tzin has occasionally worn different hats, like being friend, a counsellor, seamstress and make up artist.

Take time to enjoy your day
When asked what are some advice she would give to couples who are planning their wedding, Mun Tzin recommends that couples allocate time to take time to enjoy the wedding day. The saying that goes ‘time flies when one is having fun’ is especially true for weddings, therefore it is important that the couple live in the moment and spend some quiet time together.

Trust is key
Only in a perfect world will you find things running flawlessly. The same can be said about weddings in this fallen world. Things will go wrong, like a slight delay on the delivery of the wedding cake. With that, trust the wedding planner to help sort these minor problems for you and don’t fret over it. Focus on the big picture, whereby everyone is enjoying themselves and after all, no one will notice that the wedding cake is missing for a short while.

Credits:
Photographer: Weiming