Wedding Breeze

Following the Beautiful Brides Series, I’ve decided to have a Dashing Grooms Series so that grooms will not feel left out. Jhong Ren is the author of Romance-Fire.com and has published an ebook, How To Plan Your Wedding, to help couples who are planning their wedding.

S: How did you get to know your wife? How long were you together before you decided to propose to her?
JR: I knew my wife through the University Days. She was in the main committee for a University Orientation camp for freshies and I was assisting her. It was really fun time working together with her and we moved on from there. We were together for 5 years before I proposed to her.

S: How did you go about planning for the wedding?
JR: We planned our wedding together. We always believe it as a joint project as it is a transition we were going through together. We did all the research together and almost everything together.

We felt that wedding and marriage-planning was a one-time experience and we spent an entire year to plan our wedding.

Read on
continued

S: Where did you take your wedding photographs?
JR: We took our wedding photos at Seletar Broadway and personally we know the owner of the studio and we were very well looked after. I have heard of other studios who gave the service proportional to the amount of money paid.

We were fortunate we are not in this kind of situation. And the staff treated us well.

S: Do you have any suggestions for other couples on things to take note of when selecting the bridal studios?
JR: Get to know the staff personally too and become their friends. I know it may make no sense now but once they become your friends, they will give service which is more than those for a customer.

S: Tell us some memorable events/incidents about your wedding.
JR: I think the entire wedding was beautiful and the most memorable one was the wedding rings exchange. It symbolised unity of a couple and I was pretty nervous then till I could feel the shivers in my hand while putting the wedding ring on for my wife.

S: That must have been a very special moment for the two of you. Were there any hiccups? How did you resolve them?
JR: Hiccups in any wedding is unpredictable and they will definitely happen.

Couples who expected no hiccups are being unrealistic and they should be expecting hiccups and entrust their helpers totally to resolve them. Just glide through the hiccups gracefully and most of the time, things will be fine.

S: What were some of the concerns you had?
JR: Personally, I was really worried about the wedding games whether they could be crude. But it seemed like I worried too much and the anxiety was unnecessary. My brothers or groomsmen were perfect.

They helped to go through almost all the games on my behalf. It was enjoyable though as again, it was only for one time.

S: Usually we hear of brides who have a whole beauty regime as they prepare for the wedding. Some even rope in their grooms. As the groom, how did you prepare for the wedding? Any workouts or facials or anything?
JR: For me, I am a really simple man. No workout for me. But we need to watch the waist line too just in case it is more than the waist line of the groom’s pants. So eat moderately and don’t overeat.

S: Was there anything special that you did for your wife?
JR: I build a 1-metre tall Eiffel tower made out of toothpicks. It was proposal gift for my wife. During the wedding planning process, I started a wedding blog at Romance-Fire.com to pen down digitally my wedding thoughts and frustrations. Of course, I also share with other couples what the planning to be done for a wedding includes.

S: How did you feel when the whole wedding ceremony was over?
JR: I felt a sense of relief that everything was over. I was also surprised how fast time could fly. 1 year of planning just for a day of wedding. It was really an incredible and memorable experience.

S: What advice would you give to those who are planning for their weddings?
JR: Treat the wedding planning as part of life journey and things will go wrong no matter how well you plan for your wedding. But again remember you are going through this magical process with your spouse-to-be and just have fun and do your best to compromise and support each other.

I know now the word ‘outsource’ is really popular but if you have time to plan it yourself, do it. Planning together give the chance for both of you to understand one another better and learn to communicate with each other better.