Singaporebrides | Real Weddings

May 2023

Amanda and Stanley’s Macabre, All-Black Wedding in an Abandoned Building

By Tansey Tang

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One of the most unconventional weddings we’ve featured, Amanda and Stanley’s goth, all-black wedding in an abandoned lubrication plant celebrated their love for exploring urban ruins.

If you’ve seen their steampunk pre-wedding shoot project in an industrial oil refinery, you’ll know that Amanda, 35, Bank Officer, and Stanley, 24, Relationship Manager, met while exploring urban spaces, and connected over their shared interest in the dark and macabre. To celebrate their story, the couple found an old, abandoned lubrication plant in the middle of nowhere, for their unconventional all-black wedding on 4 March 2023, themed “The Black Parade”.

What was the proposal like?

Amanda: After our three-month-long backpacking trip across Africa, he surprised me at Upper Seletar Reservoir, where we had our first date. It was where we knew we were meant for each other and spent the entire night talking about everything under the sun, from evening till 4a.m. the next day.

Our friends (thank you Akidah and Yat!) organised a “hike” to the reservoir and distracted me while Stanley got changed and proposed with the ring and balloons! Subsequently, he surprised me with a romantic night at Pan Pacific Hotel where we had a wonderful seafood buffet dinner and reminisced about all our adventures we’ve had as a couple.

You chose a rather unconventional wedding venue!

Crazily enough, we actually tried getting permission to have our wedding in the old Changi Hospital, but of course, that idea was immediately rejected by the relevant authorities. We were recommended some other venues such as the British colonial houses but they definitely weren’t “desolate looking” enough for us. We wanted a venue that looked completely abandoned, run down, and with algae and moss growing everywhere and they were definitely quite puzzled by our request. After some back and forth, the authorities eventually came through with this abandoned lubrication plant which was once used by Shell. We still recall them cautioning us at least three times saying: “This place is in the middle of nowhere with no water, no toilets, no electricity, are you guys sure you want to get married here??” to which we ecstatically replied “yes!!”. They could probably tell how happy we were when we were finally given permission to use the venue.

We loved how you could still smell the traces of stale oil and gunk stuck on the network of old pipes and oil tanks, which added to the industrial charm. We even managed to showcase and present old photos of the refinery back when it was in operation, and our wedding guests were so impressed to see the before and after photos and learn how the refinery fit into the fascinating history of old Woodlands.

We chose this venue as we both enjoy urban exploring. We have explored numerous abandoned places all around Singapore and across the world, so we thought that it was only natural for us to hold our wedding in a venue which represents our hobby and how we met. We knew that we wanted a theme which was just as unique as our venue, so we called it “The Black Parade”. Our interest in the weird, dark, and macabre led us to designing our wedding invitation card, inspired by an Ouija Board.

How did you create your wedding theme?

For our theme “The Black Parade”, we felt that we wanted something different compared to conventional weddings, and which also fit the environment of the abandoned lubrication plant. The main challenge was planning the logistics as everyone had a hard time finding the location due to the obscurity of it. It wasn’t a venue where we could simply search for photos of it online so it took us a few rounds of site visits to get a better idea of how we want the layout to be. Not having toilets and electricity meant that we had to rent our own portable toilet and use battery-operated speakers and projectors.

Amanda carried a vintage steampunk wind-up mechanical doll while Stanley held a cane with a baby’s head attached to it, lent to us by our friend Yuan Song, who is a horror photographer, known for his unconventional and thought-provoking photography style.

We wanted to channel an enchanted ritualistic vibe to our wedding ceremony, and hence we chose a huge ram’s skull as our wedding altar centrepiece, complemented by a snake’s skeleton in a glass dome and Ulysses butterflies in a frame, made by our friend Vivian from Black Crow Taxidermy& Art. We made our oaths using a spelled oil from The Love Witch and had a witch’s hand as a ring holder.

What was your wedding day like?

Since we kept the wedding small and intimate, we weren’t too stressed over the wedding logistics thanks to the help of our friends. We loved how we still had plenty of time to catch up with our friends after the wedding, unlike the usual big ballroom weddings where the bride and groom would only come to your table for a quick photo before moving off to the next.

What was the most memorable moment of your wedding?

The best part would definitely be how literally everyone was telling us how this was the most memorable and unique wedding they have ever attended. Everyone had such a fun time exploring and learning about the history of the place.

What did your family and friends have to say about your wedding?

We certainly wouldn’t expect everyone to be receptive to our gothic wedding theme, especially since people associate black with bad luck. We are really blessed that our friends and family are really open-minded people themselves, and they were equally excited about our wedding as we were. My mom even came dressed with a black hat, gloves and stockings which added to the gothic vibe. Many of our guests (even Amanda’s parents) were fans of heavy metal and rock music, which we played at our wedding too.We are very lucky to have supportive friends and family members who are open enough to letting us express our creativity, as most of them are also unconventional in their own rights. They encouraged us to never conform to the social norms and more importantly, not to feel obliged to do something for the sake of others.

The Size of the Wedding: 50 guests
The Cost of the Wedding: $3800
The Venue: Former Woodlands Shell Lubrication Plant
The Wedding Day Photographer: Ryan (@destroyryvn)
The Gown: AliExpress
The Bride’s Shoes: LUOFU flipflops
The Suit: Ehkay Corner Tailors
The Groom’s Shoes: Shopee
The Wedding Bands: Fine Skull Jewellery / Alien Forms Jewellery
The Hairstylist: Walking On Sunshine
The Nail Artist: Kimiyo-G Beauty
The Caterer: Rasel Catering
The Florist: Black Crow Taxidermy
The Pre-Wedding Photographer: Hong Ray Photography
The Videographer: Lemon Cage SG (@lemoncage.sg) / Freshfromkenneth
The Solemniser: Joseph Foo

Credits: Images courtesy of couple, credits as captioned. Feature image by Terrence (@ohsnapterrence), cropped from original.

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