She says: Destination Wedding is Awesome!

I just came back from my best friend’s (Katryn and Arie) wedding. In my humble opinion, their wedding is the one of the most well-thought and detailed wedding I’ve ever seen. The bride is one of the OCD species, which translate to compulsively detailed and orderly. She is the most well-planned bride I have ever encountered. Making the job of her decorator and wedding organizer supposedly easier, but  turns out to be more pressurizing. Her demand for perfection is high, and the vendors need to at least meet her expectation. Since it is held in Surabaya, East Java, 670 kilometres from Jakarta, we have to turn to the local vendors for logistic and decoration. It was a tough decision but with the right direction and references, the vendors managed to do a great job.

Katryn is one of the founder of Pemberley Paperie, together with me and Ricadonna. Hence, her paper products are done by Pemberley in extremely crafty manner. Including the place card, menu card, thank you gift, additional favors, fantastic program book and signages. Katryn is the mastermind of the whole design.Three of us have different taste, Rica is modern and graphical, mine being whimsical and fun and Katryn is classic and a traditionalist, which is depicted well in her wedding.

Hotel Majapahit was chosen as the venue because of the authenticity and historic value. This hotel was build on 1910 and has survived the first World War to second World War. It was built during the Dutch occupancy as Oranje Hotel and was well-preserved by the various owners, including Mandarin Oriental. This hotel held many historic moments in Indonesia’s journey for independence.

They found this hotel from the magazine and fell in love with the big raintree in the middle of the garden. However, tragedy befell on this majestic tree in one fateful storm. It fell and crushed the fountain beside it. They wanted to get married under that tree.

That didn’t stop them from getting married in this gorgeous hotel. With the help of our decorator and strict direction from Katryn, we managed to pull out the backdrop setting that was just perfect for the holy matrimony. With hanging lights and old vintage chandelier among the cluster of leaves, the altar looks rustic yet bore the vintage mark with the wooden table in the middle. Kudos to Veronica and the team from Surabaya!

If you can spot the grand piano beside the altar, you know you are in for a romantic treat. Maria, one of the bridesmaids, is a talented pianist who doubled up as the serenader for the ceremony. One thing I must comment is the flexibility and the can-do attitude from the hotel, which really helped us to achieve our dream wedding.

The bridesmaids wore apple green long dress and carry flowers in rattan umbrella. Very Classy.

I won’t give out most of the pictures in this post. The day photographer will provide much better pictures of the detail in the decor. As he did to my wedding, Andrian from Ian Photography will do justice to this ultra-chic wedding. He is like our family photographer.

The fantastic garden. You can only see the ceremony site from this angle. Wait till you see the rest of the section. Prepare to sigh… in the next post.

Winston posed with my flowers in the presidential suite.