If you’re planning a wedding without a wedding planner, you’d realise that as you inch closer to the wedding ceremony date itself, there would be ten thousand items that you have forgotten about and not purchased.
As our wedding ceremony took place just one month after we finished renovation and moving in, we realised at the last minute that we had not purchased quite a few necessary items!
While we can’t speak for other types of weddings, weddings with Chinese customs will require a fair bit of decor and props. You can certainly get everything secondhand on Carousell. But if you prefer getting brand-new items at affordable prices, Taobao will be your go-to!
We bought a lot of our wedding items (especially the last-minute ones) from Taobao. We also got some of our pre-wedding stuff from Taobao – so just scroll all the way down if you want to get budget gowns and veils!
Home Decor (for Chinese Weddings)
喜字 decoration block
Cost: ~S$7
This was a very cute piece of Chinese wedding decor that doubled up as a photo prop for us when we were shooting at home, dressed in our kua!
Get the 喜字 decoration block here.
喜字 sticker
Cost: ~S$1.80 for pack of 20
An easy way of sticking the 喜字 around your house without needing glue or tape! Get the option that says 喯水就贴 – and all you need to do is apply a bit of water for the stickers to stick on your carpentry, walls etc.
Curtain decor
Cost: ~S$1.80
If you find your furniture a little too void of colour (like our mostly white Scandinavian house), you can also get some of these cute curtain decor to add some wedding cheer!
Chinese Tea Ceremony
Tip: We highly recommend getting most, if not all tea ceremony items from Taobao as they are much cheaper than if you were to purchase in Singapore. They also offer a lot more designs, be it modern or traditional.
Tea pot & cup set
Cost: ~S$20
We were initially a bit worried that this ceramic tea pot & cup set might break during the delivery, but everything came intact and in good condition!
Paper cups
Cost: ~S$2 for a set of 50
To save time washing your cups during the tea ceremony, we highly recommend getting a set of disposable paper cups that you can just fill and use once. This is especially if you have a lot of relatives and limited time for your tea ceremony!
P.S. We actually bought from another shop but this one offers more design options, so linking this here for you instead!
Cushions
Cost: ~S$5 for a pair
The cushions were another item that almost slipped our minds as well. Thankfully we remembered to purchase this, or else we would have to kneel on the floor!
Verdict: this was quite comfortable to kneel on, our knees didn’t hurt after kneeling throughout the ceremony.
Wedding angpaos
Cost: ~S$1 for a pack of 2
We initially got some generic wedding angpaos for the tea ceremony, but ended up printing our own tofu house wedding angpaos instead.
If you’re looking for aesthetic options on a budget, you can definitely consider getting these.
Wedding Venue
Customised wedding mirror signage
Cost: ~S$40-70, depending on the size
Tofu V suddenly felt very inspired to add this piece of decor after seeing a few different weddings with the mirror signage that guests could take photos in.
This was a little hard to source on Taobao as a lot of them tend to sell only the mirror stickers (then where would we get the mirror from?), but eventually we found this shop that sells everything!
The bad news was that the first mirror that they sent to us actually had a huge crack. We managed to get the Taobao seller to send a replacement for free, and it finally came all intact!
Highly recommend ordering this a little earlier just in case there’re any flaws and you need a replacement to be sent over asap.
Customised angpao box
Cost: ~S$25.50
We only remembered about our angpao box (or the lack of) right before our wedding and panicked a little, but thankfully Taobao’s delivery is pretty quick and this arrived 1 or 2 days before the actual day!
Pre-wedding Shoot
Wedding gown
Cost: ~S$60 (with free veil)
Tofu V really liked this satin gown that she bought off Taobao for her pre-wedding shoot. This padded dress is made of good-quality satin that’s not flimsy – perfect for minimalisst brides on a tight budget.
It’s also quite easy to carry around, so do consider buying this especially for overseas pre-wedding shoots instead of paying so much for gown rental!
Korean-style wedding veil
Cost: ~S$5.50
If you’re looking to do a Korean-style wedding shoot, this type of short veil with ribbons is very popular with Korean brides!
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