Jon x Aisha | Budget Wedding Info
Sup guys welcome back to my channel.
This post is all about info on how we planned & execute our wedding on a mini budget.
We hope it's helpful to anyone planning their own.
Remember it's just a day! No need to be so extra if you can't afford it!
His outfit: Linen shirt & linen pants from British India. Shoes from Camel Active.
Her outfit: Merry Marry dress. Charles & Keith shoes. DIY veil.
- The style of my dress is usually used for ROMs. It's a bit simpler than most and I nearly changed my mind when a bridal studio told me that I needed a super long train to fill a large church hall. Good thing I just went ahead with this simple dress. (No matter how strong willed I thought I was, when the experts told me something, I was likely to believe them)
- A good sticky bra is hard to find! I ended up getting something from Made of Lace, but found out too late that Shopee had so many options (that were like, RM5 a piece).
- Charles and Keith Paradigm Mall has a lot more sales inventory vs. other branches
- We spent more time getting his outfit together, visiting various British India boutiques to get the right item in the right color & size. We went to maybe five branches, and all were empty each time we went!
- I had a tough-ish time looking for the veil. Most of the veils online either had too many applique or were too pricey. So I went to Gold River crafts shop at Klang town to get tulle (1 meter RM4.50) to DIY using a guide on Pinterest
To save cost, instead of doing a card-style, we went with a postcard style (no fold, double sided). One side had the event details and the other was a photo Jon took of sunset at Cenang Beach. Guests could use that side as a memento to stick on their fridge or to scrapbook (I know a friend taped it to her journal!).
- We used Canva to do the design, and exported it into PDF for the printer.
- We had it printed at a no-frills, fuss-free printing shop in Klang near Mydin. Location here. The printing cost including envelope came up to RM1.15 per piece. They have templates and other styles too. I highly recommend to go and see if you just want to copy and paste one of their available designs.
3. Wedding Program
We decided early on to print/produce as little wedding collateral as possible and that included wedding programs (the thing which you put the event rundown, song lyrics, etc). We did print a welcome signage which can be a poster/keepsake later. For the wedding program:
- Canva is really amazing. It was user-friendly and had all that I needed. I used the Instagram Stories template (full screen on mobile) and created my own multi-page program from there.
- Exported the file as multi-page PDF > Upload PDF file to a Google Drive (read-only access) > Shorten the Google Drive link using bit.ly
- We sent this bit.ly to family whatsapp chatgroups a week ahead of time and included this in the emcee script, so that guests could access it easily. You can view it here.
4. Bridal Hair & Makeup
This is one item I found hard to skimp on, but with amazing friends, I managed to keep it within/under the budget. For makeup, I engaged Grace Wong, and her services for the day were a generous wedding gift from Joanne. For hair, I asked Theola if she wanted to experiment with me (she's learning hairstyling part-time) - just for some styling, small braiding (so pretty!) and to help pin the veil in. Try as I might, that one cannot DIY lah hahaha.
I need to do a plug for Grace. I'm so glad to have had Grace do my makeup for 2 dinners and the actual day. Not only was she attentive to my skin on the day and provided a really fantastic toner that stopped my face from sweating (I sweat A LOT), she also learnt what it was like and tweaked the makeup on the actual day to suit it. After the actual day morning makeup, I had to go out in the sun for a bit and felt like my makeup was melting - but it was all part of her plan to keep it dewy. True enough, the makeup looked fresher after I went out in the sun!
5. Bouquet
I was seriously considering DIY-ing my bouquets. I put it in my Stories as one of my birthday wishlist items and didn't expect anyone to answer it, but Dorothy did and gifted me with all the flowers I needed for the day as a wedding gift *crying emoji*. Thank you Dorothy and Stephen for your meaningful wedding gift to us!
The flowers were from Dream in Colours, who provided the most beautiful tropical bouquet for me and my girls (based on inspiration from Pinterest and various tropical weddings) and corsages for family and groomsmen. I couldn't ask for more!
Check it out:
6. Groomsmen & Bridesmaids Outfit
This one is all good timing. Batik print is all the rage, and on eve of Hari Raya (when vendors usually give discounts like crazy - according to Habib), I went to a Ramadan bazaar with a colleague and we scored all the clothes we needed here. The boys' shirts were 3 for RM100 (I don't think I'll ever get that kind of price again, man) and the girls' pareos were around the same price. It helped that I was buying the items from only 2 vendors, so can negotiate a bit more la. Our party just needed to find a suitable top or bottom to complete the look and voila!
7. Teeth whitening - Didn't have time and apparently quite costly. I got a special teeth whitening toothpaste from a pharmacy to use 2 weeks before. Wasn't consistent with the use so can't see the results haha.
8. Mani/pedi - I am blessed with great friends, this was another meaningful wedding gift from Caitlin. We did it at BubbleGum Nails @ Tropicana. Super good service & tip top nails.
9. Music - Spotify playlist
10. Photography - Bryan Ong (all pics here from him)
11. Videography - TBH, really did not have the $ to find someone and I just wanted mood shots. Thankful to Michelle Ding for rising to the occasion to help with this! <3
12. Car & car deco - My mom-in-law offered to take care of this! :)
13. Food & hall rental - father-and-brother-in-law looked into this, we had Big Rajah catering.
Note: The biggest difference between this vs. a typical Chinese wedding is that we didn't have a pre-wedding photoshoot - which would cost quite a nice sum - and the Chinese dinner banquet - also another nice sum. We had discussed earlier on with his parents and my mum about this and they all agreed, plus we agreed that they could organize their own dinners if they wanted to.
As you can tell quite a few key items were early wedding gifts from our friends! Thank you, friends <3 If you're curious on any other expenditure that isn't listed here, let me know.
Related Posts:
Jon x Aisha Tropical Wedding Photoshoot
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