8 Wedding Planning Tips for a Creative and Unforgettable Day That Doesn’t Drain Your Wallet

8 Wedding Planning Tips for a Creative and Unforgettable Day That Doesn’t Drain Your Wallet

I used to think that weddings were overrated. That the whole wedding industry might as well be a glamorized scam. The idea of throwing away that much money for a one-day event that most guests might not even remember in the future sounds like a perfect recipe for a financial disaster.

These, of course, were after I outgrew my much younger self who undoubtedly had her own daydreams about her dream wedding. People have phases, don’t they?

However, at some point, when it was finally our turn to plan and execute our big day, we decided to land somewhere in the middle. An event so warm (quite literally, we’ll get to it), heartwarming, and eye-pleasing that it doesn’t only belong to us – but also to our guests. A day where everything about it is handpicked by yours truly, so that the moment our closest ones pass the entrance they’d immediately wonder how every element and detail truly resembled the two of us both as a couple and also as individuals.

We were never big on celebrations, so when it comes to the day when we finally tie the knot after exactly 9.5 years of being together, why not have fun, consider it a challenge to play with as a couple, and be creative at it?

Most importantly, we wanted to try our best to make every single penny worth it. If we’re going to dig our pocket a little deep for it, it might as well be for all the right reasons only, and as effective as possible. And since we had to stick to a fixed budget, the creativity wasn’t just all about the styling or planning, but also about coming up with workarounds for when the ideal scenario we wanted was too expensive to afford.

Of course, at the end of the day, we were unfortunately unable to realize every single plan, but we took notes on those that didn’t. So that you, who might be planning your wedding day sooner or later, may take a thing or two from our experience and get to make the best out of one the happiest days in your life.

So here it is, a few tips on how we plan and execute the wedding day that every guest that we talked to seems to have enjoyed and left positive thoughts and comments about. Might we add, without necessarily breaking our bank accounts?

And if you’re also wondering how much we end up paying for our 300-pax outdoor wedding at the heart of Bandung – keep reading!

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Life Update: Bedroom Makeover & Houseplants Fever

Life Update: Bedroom Makeover & Houseplants Fever

Hello!

A lot has happened since the last time I was here. Most of the time I was occupied by office workloads, but there were also exciting times where I got to explore new hobbies and interest – which you’d have noticed from the title of this post, and I will share in a bit as well.

We’ll get to the fun and colourful part in a jiffy, but before that, I kind of wanted to share the more *depressing* part of these past couple months as well. Only as a reminder that behind all these pretty pictures you’ll see in a bit, I didn’t always have good days. My working hours, for example, have practically doubled – which is thanks to the combination of my crappy time management, my perfectionism, and the increasing workload. I also skipped so many French classes and didn’t continue to B1 level since I didn’t even have time to study for the final exam. I bought a piano keyboard and planned to learn how to play it but it has been three months since it’s only sitting awkwardly in my bedroom, since I do not have the time to learn. I don’t exercise, the amount of times I’ve left the house since March (even to convenience shops) is countable by fingers, and I haven’t met A or any of my friends since March. It’s stressful, but I’m hanging on. Oftentimes by a thread, but at least it’s not torn apart (yet).

Like many of us, I’ve been searching for a coping mechanism amidst these insane times. Especially one that is doable from the comfort of my own home. And like many people out there, the answer is: houseplants!

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My Beginner Capsule Wardrobe Journey + 8 Tips

My Beginner Capsule Wardrobe Journey + 8 Tips

Back in my undergraduate years, my galaxy-printed tee and pink chevron-patterned tee are the kinds of clothing I’d pick to go to my university classes. Along with my peach-coloured Jansport backpack, a chevron-patterned wooden necklace from a local brand, and a pair of textured plastic flat shoes with ornamental ribbon which I didn’t hesitate to wear to my geology classes. I loved splurging my money on fashion items, and loved wearing them even more. My particular preference was probably anything that did not typically scream “basic.”

As I grew older and finally discovered more meaningful means to allocate my money to, I decided that one of the best ways to effectively put more budget to those things is by reducing my spending on clothing. I’d still be into fashion, but from that moment on, I would try to support my passion in different, hopefully more responsible ways.

Despite being still way too far from living minimally (and hopefully, more ethically, consciously, and sustainably someday), I decided that at least, getting rid of my clothes from those fashion-holic eras was a must-do, in order to convert my wardrobe into a capsule one. I also started collecting mood boards on Pinterest, such as here and here, to help myself choose some modest basic styles that would still bring pleasure when I wear them.

But what is a capsule wardrobe?

This article defines capsule wardrobe as “a limited collection of clothes that coordinate well and can be worn in a number of different ways to cater for multiple occasions.” Essentially, the idea is to keep only the most essential pieces of clothing that would go along with each other regardless of the occasion, therefore keeping the number of your clothes to a minimum. It also typically includes only items with earthy colours, since these tones are the ones that can be easily combined with each other.

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Happy Birthday, A & Some of His Birthday Memento in Review

Happy Birthday, A & Some of His Birthday Memento in Review

My significant other of six and a half years (feels strange to type this, I barely realized this is how long we’ve been together) had his twenty-something birthday yesterday!

The spotlight of this post should probably be on him, but I’m afraid this won’t be the case. If you read this with the intention of hearing a story about A, be prepared to get disappointed. Mainly because in this post, I would talk mostly about some of the past birthday gifts that I’ve crafted for him throughout the years – thus this post is more about my crafting journey than A himself, lol.

Although in the past few years we’ve been getting each other more practical, functional, and long-lasting gifts – mainly because we’re way past the adolescent era where we still had the utmost need for attention, treatment, and so forth, and now we realize we could really use some useful “adult” tools to help each of us get through life – today I’m feeling nostalgic and just feeling like reminiscing the good old days where I would try so hard to shower him with those self-made pretty-pretties excessively.

Those who have known me since at least my undergraduate years may know that I’m a huge fan of DIY, designs, or basically anything that screams arts and crafts. So basically, I’ve been using A‘s birthdays as an excuse to nurture my passion about creating artsy-craftsy handmade knick-knacks – apart from the fact that he deserves the token of appreciation as well, of course. From the classic birthday card, birthday book, birthday lunch decor, and a couple of other things, his birthday has basically been a special occasion for me to experiment with papers and scissors.

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Recollections of Sanctuary

Recollections of Sanctuary

Ever since I took my first office gig in Jakarta last year, I’ve been moving across a couple of temporary housings in the city. “Kostan” is what we call those accommodations here in Indonesia, which is basically almost like a mix of a dormitory (but not only for students) and shared house (although some of them don’t quite look like a house, especially since some of them are not equipped with parking lot, living room, laundry facilities, or even a kitchen).

Funnily enough, none of them ever felt quite as “comfortable” as an actual place to relax and unwind by the end of the day for me. Although in the context of proper beddings, furniture, and facilities which help me to fulfil my basic needs of a shelter, they are indeed physically comfortable. It’s just that none of them ever feels like a “safe haven” that I would gladly spend a whole week inside, unlike some of my previous temporary bedrooms. (I was even almost gone mad the first two weeks of WFH and quarantine, before I decided to stay with my family in Bandung instead.)

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Day 5 of My Creative Streak: 21 Poems Later

Day 5 of My Creative Streak: 21 Poems Later

If anything, this quarantine period has got me bouncing around from one “extracurricular” activity to another. The first couple weeks, I felt so heavily invested in some technical office work that I had to complete for my first-year promotional review. The following couple weeks, I found myself programming until past-midnight, trying to finish two courses on C and Python at the same time. Strangely enough to me, I surprisingly… enjoyed it? But unfortunately, before it even finished, somehow I was already overwhelmed by a surge of inspiration to get creative and start looking into my dusty websites to make changes here and there. Yes, websites in plural, as in all three of them that I currently try to maintain, lol.

In the last five days, I had re-curated some of the photoworks that I held most dearly, that I felt connected with the most, to be showcased here. Not only that, I had also committed that I’d write a poem for every photoset there is. After all, the website was supposed to be called Photographs and Poems initially, which I eventually had to change because apparently I never had enough time and motivation to write poetic captions for every single one of them. But with this quarantine, look who’s starting to get all the time in the world to do so! Welp, partially owing to my having my period in the past week so I couldn’t practice fasting and other forms of Ramadan prayers as well, thus being kind of unsure on how to waste my time a bit more productively. Long story short, the original title of the portfolio has come back with some edits, hence poetry and selected photoworks.

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