Singaporebrides | Real Weddings
December 2015
Melissa and Gavin’s Cosy Wedding at Skyve Wine Bistro
Melissa and Gavin wed in not one, but two intimate wedding celebrations at Skyve Wine Bistro!
Melissa Dong, 32, and Gavin Lee, 32, celebrated their wedding on 14 June 2015 with two intimate soirees in Skyve Wine Bistro, one lunch affair for family, and a fairy-lit dinner for friends. Determined not to end up rushing through their special day like so many other couples, the couple made sure to take the time to mingle with everyone at their two cosy celebrations!
Was it love at first sight?
Melissa: We met through a mutual friend at Zouk some 7.5 years ago. I was there with my girlfriend, Jemina. Jemina met up with some of her hall friends who in turn had other friends with them. Yup, you get the idea… I thought he was pretty cute at first sight. He is still cute (albeit rounder). Haha. I think we kind of hit it off pretty well from the start. He seemed like Mr. Nice Guy (he still is, definitely).
Gavin: My first impression of Mel is that she is a sporty and quietly confident lady, which makes her attractive.
When did you first realise that this was the person you wanted to marry?
Melissa: I think this realisation probably hit over a period of time, definitely wasn’t like an instant realisation. Over the years, I was impressed at how he is a filial son and a responsible man who puts his family first. To me, it is extremely important for a guy to be a family man, one who puts his family first, and he definitely fits the bill.
Gavin: It was during the first or second year when I was doing my part time masters degree. I remembered that it was at an exhibition for a project module I was taking. The guests were mainly from the interior and architecture industry. I was explaining to Mel about my project when some guests came over to my booth and I immediately switched my attention to them, leaving Mel on her own. After the group of guests left, I quickly went to look for Mel, thinking that she must be upset that I abandoned her. I was so wrong. She was not even angry or upset and she even said something which I will remember for life. She said, “It’s ok, this is your exhibition. You should serve your industry guests. I understand.” A simple action and sentence say a lot about the lady I came to love and want to marry. She quietly supports the man she loves when the situation calls for it. I would definitely want to marry a lady who stands by me.
What was the proposal like?
Melissa: He put in good thought and effort into the proposal. He included people that I value most in my life in the proposal; my family and my girlfriends. And he had everything so well planned that I did not smell a rat at all (I think I’m usually quite good at detecting such stuff. Haha).
On Sunday, 31 August 2014, my family arranged to have dinner at Blue Ginger. My sister had just started work and wanted to give the family a treat with her first pay check. Upon arriving, we were ushered to a little room by the window on the second floor of Blue Ginger, a Peranakan restaurant housed in one of the shophouses at Tanjong Pagar.
While we were looking through the menu and having casual conversations, my brother whipped out a remote control from nowhere and said, “Let’s watch TV.” (There was a flat screen TV diagonally across me in the room).
And the TV screen read “Hi Melissa” followed by “I’m here on a mission.”
And so I could guess what that was all about but I didn’t know how it would unfold. I was truly surprised; didn’t quite know how to react. So a photo montage played on the screen to the tune of “All of me” by John Legend (a song I casually mentioned that I like a few weeks prior). The last part of the video was about him learning to play the ukulele and getting ready to leave the house. Once the video ended, my girlfriends came into the room, followed by Gavin, with his ukulele. He sang and played the ukulele to the tune of “I’m yours” by Jason Mraz. I started tearing once he started to sing and he started to tear too. Awww…. I was really touched. He has no experience in playing any musical instruments. He went on one knee and popped the question thereafter.
That is the sweetest story! The wedding planning must have been just as well thought out.
We wanted to incorporate a bit of the vintage feel, to go with the scandustrial theme that we have for our new place. Yes, we did our wedding preparation and house renovation concurrently. We got Wedding Diary to take charge of the decoration for the wedding and we added in a wee bit of personal touches here and there. Us being very practical people, most of the stuff that we bought for the wedding is of use in our house currently. We pretty much left it to Lily and her team to do the decoration for our wedding and we love the ambience that she created on our special day.
What was your wedding day like?
It was exactly how we wanted it to be. Due to space constraint, we decided on a luncheon for family and dinner for friends. We are not fans of all the gate crashing and stuff so we conveniently skipped them all. We started the day at our new place where we got our photographer to take some photos of us in our new abode. We proceeded to Skyve Wine Bistro thereafter. We had great people who took charge of everything for the rest of the day and we could simply relax and enjoy the day.
We had more guests (130) for lunch so we went with a buffet luncheon. The schedule for the luncheon was a little packed as we did the solemnisation and the tea ceremony before lunch was served. Our solemniser was Mr. S. Puhaindran who was my father’s teacher when he was studying in Raffles Institution so that made it even more memorable. Our guests loved the food and we felt like a king and queen the entire time as the awesome staff at Skyve Wine Bistro took care of our every need. The General Manager, C.K., arranged for the food from the buffet to be taken for us as he knew that we would be busy mingling with the guests. He constantly checked on us to ensure that we are sufficiently hydrated and took care of our every need. We booked a suite at the Sheraton Towers, which was just a short drive away so in between the luncheon and dinner, we caught a breather there and freshened up for the next round.
Dinner was a cosy sit-down four-course dinner. With the fairy lights and Hafiz & Yuji singing, the entire ambience was exactly what we envisioned our wedding to be like. With only 80 guests for dinner, it was a small and very cosy affair. We had the luxury of time to go around and mingle with all our guests. Service from the staff at Skyve Wine Bistro was impeccable. Our guests loved the food. As we had a few extra portions of the mains, our French guests gladly took a second helping of the beef. It was that good!
All in all, we had a blast. Prior to our wedding, we have heard so much about friends telling us how their wedding day was a mad rush and they were dead tired after the wedding. We were determined to ensure that we didn’t feel that way. We kept everything really simple and arranged for very reliable people to take charge of everything. I reckon that worked. We were able to savour every moment and no, we weren’t dead tired at the end of the day.
What was the most memorable moment of your wedding?
Melissa: It has to be when Gavin got sabotaged to sing with Hafiz & Yuji and he gamely took the microphone and owned the stage thereafter. He was so sporting and was very into the singing. When the guests went “Encore!”, Gavin very gladly went on to sing a second song. 100 marks for effort!
Gavin: I have a few extremely memorable moments actually. If I really have to choose one, it will be the speech in Cantonese that I made during the luncheon. My floodgates opened when I spoke about my mum and my uncle. I cannot thank them enough for all that they have done to bring me up. I was told later that even the staff at Skyve Wine Bistro who did not understand Cantonese felt like tearing. Skyve’s General Manager, C.K., said that I hold the record for the most amount of tears at Skyve. Quite an achievement there! Haha.
Can you tell us the cost of your wedding and where you spent the most?
Our total bill for the wedding came up to about $48 000, with every little cost included. That bill is before deducting all the red packet collection. Our bill at Skyve Wine Bistro, about $29,000, made up more than half of that amount. The next largest single expenditure will be event decoration by Wedding Diary. That bill was about $3,800.
The Gown: Seletar Broadway
The Bride’s Shoes: Sinderella
The Suit: David Fashion
The Groom’s Shoes: Clark’s
The Engagement Ring: Michael Trio
The Wedding Bands: Michael Trio
The Venue: Skyve Wine Bistro
The Makeup Artist and Hairstylist: Helen Qin
The Florist: Wedding Diary
The Event Stylist: Wedding Diary
The Photographers: Kok, freelance photographer from Seletar Broadway
The Photobooth: Livestudio
The Invitations and Paper Goods: E-invite using Google Forms (Dinner. Guests had to RSVP indicating their choice of appetizer and mains); Hardcopy Invitation cards for lunch were designed by Gavin; Wedding Advice cards were designed by Melissa, and we printed them all at Mister Print
The Wedding Favours: Famous Amos cookies
The Wedding Band: Hafiz & Yuji
The Solemniser: Mr. S. Puhaindran
Credits: Photography by Kok from Seletar Broadway
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