A Vintage Tea Party

The beaming bride and groom

I had the absolute honour of attending this lovely tea reception, which blew my socks off with the wonderful light-filled venue, intimate decor and personal touches of the bride and groom! With a beautiful blush pink theme carrying over from their Akad Nikah and Bersanding ceremonies (check out our previous post on traditional Malay weddings here), Alena and Raphael Couzet decided to go vintage with a ‘Western’ reception to top off their celebrations in style.

Here’s my little chat with the beautiful bride, Alena:

* Pictures courtesy of Anna-Rina Rahim.

Vintage style tea reception

Alena: My sister and I grew up reading Enid Blyton books, so our heads and imaginations were filled with images of an old-fashioned English afternoon tea in the garden of a cottage with lots and lots of interesting candies available for the children.  So for the wedding, I was trying to replicate that ambience and mood.

We started out wanting to give away sugared almonds, which is the classic Sicilian wedding favour (Raphael being half-Sicilian). So we had the sugared almonds specially brought in by his uncle from a Sicilian confectionery shop. Then we added in other candies just for the fun of it.

Guestbook
I realised from other weddings I had attended that most times you’re unable to recognise your friends and families writings or signature. So we decided to have some polaroid photos for people to snap photos of themselves and stick in a scrapbook that doubled as the guestbook. The photo corner banner was inspired by a DIY article on Martha Stewart weddings and wonderfully set-up by Spring Cottage (it was really DIY because I had to cut the letters out myself on my TV room floor with scissors!).

My mum’s photos

My mum is the strongest, most beautiful, inspiring woman in my life.  The only sad thing about the wedding was that she wasn’t around to share my happiest day with me.  I wanted very much to surround myself with her presence and our beautiful memories together. So I dug up some of my favourite photos of her, scanned and printed them out to hang on the ‘wishing’ tree.  When I walked into the room that day, I truly felt her smiling down on me and holding my hand.

The Elephant & Rabbit
These adorable balloons were not my doing! It was a surprise arranged by our wonderful friends to acknowledge the nicknames my husband and I have for each other: he is the Elephant and I am the Rabbit. Don’t ask why!

My dress

This gorgeous vintage style tea-length dress was custom-made for me by Toi See Luon at Zang Toi in Lot 10. He also made the other outfits I wore for the other wedding ceremonies. His cut and fit is impeccable, and  he was very good at injecting my personality into the dress.

Alena and Raphael’s Little White Book

Photographer: Anna-Rina Rahim
Venue: Delicious, Marc Residence (food by Delicious Catering)
Decorations: Spring Cottage
Wedding Gown: Toi See Luon for Zang Toi
Groom’s Attire: Toi See Luon for Zang Toi
Make-Up: Sue Cantik (+6019 2742947)
Cake: Just Heavenly