My Bridal Affair with Tom Wedding City

Bridal shops and wedding services business are really blooming these few years, as many couples are now more willing to pay a bomb for that special occasion. Some spent more than 10k for the PS, and some went abroad to Bali, Korea, Perth, Taiwan etc for the scenery as a backdrop to their pictures....wow...

As for me and my fh? We signed up a bridal package in January 2011 during a bridal fair at MidValley Megamall, without doing much research and have no idea on the plenty of choices we could have consider. Well, I think our impulsiveness was due to the thought that our wedding would be in the same year...

Anyway, we signed up with the first booth right in front of the entrance, Tom Wedding City (TOM = The Only Match), where the BS is actually located at Jalan Loke Yew...the staff that served us, Lily, was actually the MUA for the BS...because we were so 'naive' on wedding stuff that time, we didn't negotiate much but just listen and nod our heads, swiped the card and signed on the dotted lines without negotiating for extra =.=" Lily told us that since we were the first couple to sign up on that faithful day, we were given discount RM1k, so our package cost RM3k only...till now I'm not sure if she was just trying to make us feel lucky and also as a persuasion strategy lol, because I know the normal package at Tom Wedding City is also around RM3k only...

As our wedding postponed to October 2012, so do our pre-wedding PS. It finally happened in April 2012, after many phone calls by SA Helen to remind us lol...Helen talked very sweetly on the phone that it made me feel comfortable, haha good job...during our first meet-up, Helen told us that Lily has resigned from Tom, so we would be assigned another MUA...doesn't matter to me lah, haha...

So my SA is Helen, MUA is Jacquelyn and PG is CM...and album designer is Bing...our package costs us more than RM3.5k after upgrade, excluding miscellaneous such as fake eyelashes, ampoule, hairspray, nude bra and white wing collar shirt, which were sold at very marked-up price =.=" and we only got the basic usual stuff oh since we didn't negotiate much...

Note: Pictures below are not the actual album design...the BS didn't give us the design soft copies... Helen told me that the design would be additional RM30 per page =.="

This is our first image for the Tom exclusive themed shooting. I chose the dress during the gown fitting day, but not the background and setting. The setting that I chose should be dim lit and has flowers around...I'm not sure why the setting was changed without consulting us, and even worse I didn't voice out the wrong setting...stupid me...We chose 5 pictures only for this image, as many of the picture outcomes were really not nice and I looked really 'weird' from some angles...

The costume image outcomes were quite good. All of the pictures seemed beautiful. The only flaw is perhaps the not-matching-head-gear between us, lol...I was wearing the traditional Chinese wedding headdress but my fh was not...so not matching right...I wonder why CM didn't notice this... Otherwise the pictures would have been perfect...

This was taken at Tom Club, an exclusive outdoor studio for Tom's customers...I thought we were going to get extensive shooting of every nice backdrop or theme here but sadly no...only one backdrop... urgh, felt cheated since one of the reasons we signed up with Tom was because of the private outdoor...my fh voiced out his dissatisfaction and finally CM agreed to shoot one more backdrop, with the red vintage car...this I have to praise him for being accommodating to us...And also I thought I could have 2 gowns for PS here, since I'm very well aware that the indoor studio does not have much backdrop variety...but Helen said no :( Anyway, the sky blue dress was beautiful and suited me well, but I did not book it for my AD because the dress was too long and I'm afraid I would have difficulty walking around with that dress, haha...

I was actually very excited for the outdoor PS... after extensive web surfing and looking at other couples' outdoor photos at Tom's FB, I thought ours would have similarly beautiful photos and have that 'wow' factor too... the outcomes however were quite disappointing...to me, the pictures are nice, but not great...and because it was a rainy day, the land soil became soft and it was quite challenging for me to stand on my heels properly...CM told us that the photos would be touched up to make it look like spring or autumn, but heck, I don't see any close to that here =.=" and the dress, simple and easy to carry, but the 'breast' side was imbalanced due to different size of breast pad...luckily it was not obvious in the photos omg =.="

I like the pictures for this image very much...all were beautiful!! Except that the background was a bit too plain white...and the gown was too tight for me =.=" Initially I wanted this beautiful creamy white gown as my AD wedding gown, but since it's from Collection range, I could not; unless I top-up extra RM300 if not mistaken >.< So I chose another gown for AD instead...anyway, luckily I can wear it for PS since it's part of my package whereby I can have 2 gowns from Collection range for PS ^^ Jacquelyn did a great hairdo and chose an elegant and matching necklace that I really like, although I would prefer a high up-do...

Our last image for  PS... lol, I don't know why the evening gown turned out to become purple in pictures...it was actually a maroon coloured dress...maybe because of the studio lighting, haha...and again, the background was very plain...I thought Bing would put some designs on the pictures but no, he didn't...and the shooting was very brief...it gave me a feeling that CM just want to finish his job fast...i loved the hairdo and looked great in that dress but very few photos only, ugh sad....btw, this dress is also from Collection range...

My overall experience? Great, but not wonderful...Helen, Jacquelyn, CM and Bing were all nice to us, including the other PG who helped us during photo selecting session (his name is Chee if not mistaken)...but in my opinion they could have done better as an added-value to the customers...a lot of things were never informed upfront that made us end-up paying more...one good example would be, ampoule and eyelashes...I was only informed that I could bring my own on the PS day...so with no choice I have to buy the over-priced items from the BS...and they followed STRICTLY the invoice bill; super not flexible...

I am very well aware that my package is perhaps not the high-end package, but the least the BS can do (not only Tom Wedding City, but all other BS) is to advise potential clients properly without being money minded...What's the point of signing up clients then after that only tell clients to upgrade this and that because the signed package is lack of this and that? Might as well bundle up all together in the package and mark it at a convenient price...I didn't know that the small album would have no design during sign-up; I only knew it during photo-choosing, hence the upgrade...and I very regret I didn't ask for two smaller photo frames instead of only one...I saw other couples they have a lot of freebies like poster, table-top frame, soft toy bear for car decoration, music box, guest book, family shooting etc but I don't have...instead, I got two things that I don't need at all; calendar and poker card lol...and nowadays Tom is giving free iPad if sign-up during bridal fairs...*ouch*

My rating for Tom Wedding City? It would be 7 out of 10 stars...but if I were to have another round of bridal PS again (for anniversaries perhaps? lol), I would engage individual professional PG and MUA, never from BS...

Hopefully, the balance items for AD use (1 wedding gown, 1 evening gown, 1 coat, accessories, corsages, car decorations, bridal bouquet) would be great and as per my expectation....I will blog about it after my AD...

Oh ya, I really like the beautiful photo montage video Bing made for us... :)

Legend:
AD = actual day
BS = bridal shop
FB = facebook
fh = future husband
MUA = make up artist
PG = photographer
PS = photo shooting
SA = sales advisor