Apel Photography by Pande Kadek Heryana (My Wedding)

I'm so blessed with the wedding I had 38 days ago. Especially everything was recorded beautifully by  my talented photographer from Nusa Penida, Pande Kadek Heryana. I am so happy that I made the right choice. I was given many options but my heart set to just one and only one. There were many others that replied to my email but it wasn't as relax and friendly as Pande aka Apel. He's a very young and carefree photographer along with his crew. They are all young and talented!

He recently posted up our wedding video on youtube. And because I love his work so much, I would like to share it to you readers. I HIGHLY recommended ApelPhotography to anybody who's planning for a wedding in bali soon. You can check his website HERE and simply write to him. He will get back to you as soon as possible. He's unlike other vendors, if you text him, he wouldn't ask you to not text him or that it's for urgent use. He will entertain you with any answers you need from him.

I'll also be continuing to share my vendors experiences and help readers and brides/grooms to make the right choice in picking your right vendors. Wait for the next post ;)  But for now, let's check ApelPhotography's work, Shall me?

Hair cut @ Trimmings Hair Salon and Spa Robertson Walk

A couple of weeks ago I made a big change to my look as soon as the wedding was over. My hair was pretty damaged from all the coloring and bleaching due to the prewedding photoshoot and wedding itself. It was very hard to get it right because I had previously colored my hair jet black. You can imagine what I had gone through in order to get even a tiny bit of color. It was simply impossible to get it. I had to go through many process to get a touch of brown. Bleached at least 3 times and god knows how many layers. 

My hair wasn't THAT long but they are thick. So it kinda made me feel tired to carry it around everyday. Needless to say, to wash it and to see how much hair were dropped and drained by the water. It was rough especially (if you spotted) the inner corner of my hair. They were slightly blonde. It was supposed to be lavender but due to the rapid wash, the color came off.

SO...

There are tons of hair salon in Singapore. They are everywhere in Far East but because I had a couple of hair cuts done there, I wasn't amazed by the result. I had no idea why but I felt the choices at Far East were just too overrated. 

I headed down to Robertson walk to check out Trimmings. I initially wanted the Creative Director to do the cut because I thought if I needed to cut ALOT, I might as well get the best out of the salon. But sadly, the creative director only works on Tuesday and Saturday when I needed to go on Monday. All I needed to do was to whatsapp them to make the booking. It was quick and easy! I was offered to go with the Senior Stylist Benson. He's a modern looking guy with (if I could remember) colored blond/plat hair. It took him quite a while to finish the cut. It is not a complaint, in fact I'd prefer someone to spend a bit more time with my hair and REALLY cut the hair. 

His rate cost me SGD70 and it was all worth it. I'm already planning to go down again for a color for my trip next month. If you are planning to have a hair cut and wonder where you might want to go? Just try out Trimmings. You can easily find them via Google. 

GOOD LUCK!

WORST WEDDING PLANNER IN BALI - BALI WEDDING BUTLER aka BWB

"There are more to the story"

That was what I received from a member from Tripadvisor

To cut things short, I've even more proofs of our conversation via Whatsapp

We used to exchange messages via Whatsapp

There was no issue at all

She never once told us (from the beginning) that we HAVE to email her in regards of the wedding.

UNTIL she decided to ditch us

After she received her USD1200 deposit

She clearly had no respects towards us

Just by reading her messages, it got us so deep!

She tried to be all professional but her messages usually are super long and worst, NO SOLUTIONS!

All talks but no works done! get it?

BALI WEDDING BUTLER IS THE WORST WEDDING PLANNER IN BALI!

It was shameful of you to ask PEOPLE on tripadvisor to write good things about you

You have no shame to do such a thing!

You don't have to act all active in tripadvisor because you were never there

No shame!

Check out below for some of the chat we had previously:

1. The last message we received from her before we contacted her back in March was that clearly she mentioned that she "PROMISE" to send the update on catering vendor. That message was sent somewhere in November 2014. 

2. We decided to message her after she disappeared for 4 months without any news. Even if you had no updates, as a WP you need to come back to your clients to tell them what's going on. Instead of leaving them aside (note: it was 5 and a half months prior to our wedding). Her reply was shocking! She was asking if we were ready for the arrangement!?!?!?!?

3. We clearly had nothing else to say... So, if we hadn't send her any emails, she will never ever get back to us??? Speechless with her services!

4. It is funny which kind of vendors willing to make clients WAIT for their new rate. It was already MARCH 2015! Why the hell did she say she's still waiting for the new rate since NOVEMBER til MARCH with no NEWS UPDATE??? We found it really odd! Call me naive but If you guys are in our shoes, you would have been so pissed by this pathetic wedding planner from BALI WEDDING BUTLER! 

5. So do you all get what I've been saying? The only thing she wanted to DISCUSS were "CONFIRM" and "PAY". There were no discussion about negotiation. The fact that she thought we will ever gonna be using iPOD, that was just ridiculously low of her.

6. She finally became rude by telling us not to message her via whatsapp. I guess everybody knows that everything is recorded when you exchange messages with time and date. We messaged each other since we started paying her so what's the big deal now? The reason why we left no choice but to text you because you took a long time to reply to us. To us, IT WAS AN URGENT DISCUSSION. What do you mean that you will have trouble holding phone and chat? Do you realised that you were handling clients situation and not "FRIEND CHAT"? We are not your friends! We got the procedure, we are just afraid you have no decency and no respects towards your clients. 

More on Bali Wedding Butler with emails exchange between us

It is funny that when someone wrote a negative review on tripadvisor, Tripadvisor members would share their own wedding story with my "Fired" Wedding planner and complimented her in the best possible way. In the middle of their compliments on her, they would say "something is not right with this post". DUDE, tripadvisor members have rights to share their experiences and what benefit do i get to create a "not right" story? I'm not working for anybody! I'm strictly a client who was mistreated badly by her. Just because she is tickling mostly Caucasian, European and American + Australian, that doesn't she will be flawless. Every now and then, when you made a mistake especially mistreating your clients, you bound to get negative reviews.

When you posted reviews on tripadvisor website and when you gave a ONE STAR review to hotel/restaurant/villa etc and other people gave a big fat FIVE STAR, do we call you a liar? do we call you out and say "something isn't right with his/her story because i had amazing time". NO! We are not forced to write our experiences. It is to show people that certain people can be very irresponsible and that they have to be extra careful. They might have had hundreds of client but that doesn't mean they are always perfect. You can always b*tch about your clients but if you are professional, you wouldn't abandoned your client right in the middle of the arrangement, especially after we paid deposit to her.

Just because all of them had a beautiful ending with her, that doesn't mean my stories were fake. If you had a terrible moment with a Wedding Planner and exactly like how my partner and i went thru, you wished to share the experience so others will not be treated that way. I do not care if anybody WILL listen to my story but there are flaws with Bali Wedding Butler. And the flaws she made were very unpleasant and unprofessional.

Because I couldn't share my conversation with her via tripadvisor, here are the screenshots (Sorry for the quality as i didn't know how to print screen via Mac but i finally found how to do it and there's a couple with clear view:

1. Desyana from Bali Wedding Butler quoted that she had already emailed Kathryn the GM of Villa agent. but look at what Kathryn's reply to me...

2. Kathryn said otherwise...  and i replied to her immediately.

3. She started to be rude at the end. It was not done on purpose when my husband sent her the email that he had forgotten to sign his name. but we have our own individual email address so i think it is logic that if it was sent via my email, that would be me who was typing but if it was from his email, that would be him. There's no necessary question in regards of who sent the email. Maybe you should start to ask yourself why we complained in the first place.

4. I simply asked her question regarding the band as i thought she would know better. With that said, her replied show basically she isn't as professional as she thought. She told me Villa has strict rules and that I'm not allowed to have music play until midnight or i'll have to pay etc. BUT... look at what she said in the email. I guess if we HIRED her BAND, we get to have the band til Midnight? and sometime 1pm? I think she meant to say 1am. but yea... from no midnight to 1am. How is it possible to have such an ignorant wedding planner? you have to book vendors from her in order to have her service? omg...

5. I replied to her immediately because i couldn't stand the fact that she's lecturing me after everything i've done and not her. It was all my work and since no problem with the vendors regarding their 'reputable status' and she tried to make everything about her. She told me to do this and do that, contact band, contact decorator, ask them this and ask them that. What is she going to do then? Whats the use for us paying her coordination fee of USD1800? when other wedding planner charges half the price she quoted. With no more patience and hesitation, i replied her as the way she replied to me. I think every human has their limit of tolerance with the kind of people who took kindness for granted. In green are all her answers.

Moses Band Medan

First of all, I would like to share a big Thank You to Moses crew.

It is pretty amazing to know that there is a talented bunch of young crew in Medan.

I was pretty unsure about their talent but boy, they are amazing!

I have to admit I did some mistake 3 days before my big day.

You had no idea how terrible I felt and apologetic.

I realized while going through the invoice Moses sent me.

I contacted Reffy (The leader of Moses Band) and he responded quickly.

Of course, I'm sure with a shock of his life too!

I've never met them in person so it was really hard to get to know the group.

All I could do at that time is to trust Reffy.

He told me not to worry and that he would try his best to fix it.

He's a very sincere and helpful young man.

The good news was that they were available on the big day BUT...

Since they had to hire a grand piano, that came the problem.

The vendor they picked refused to rent it out unless he made penalty payment.

I remember telling him if he needed any help (money wise for penalty) just inform me.

I know I made that mistake so it is obviously my turn to help one another.

He tried in that little days to try negotiate with the piano vendor.

I had so little hope that he could manage to negotiate BUT...

VOILA....!

I think he's a charming guy and probably well known in Medan.

The vendor decided to give a good news to him and to me.

If I hadn't had him and crew, I had no idea how the night would go.

Probably as screwed as you might have thought...

My wedding was very small.

Not more than 250pax but It felt so exhausted but...!

I remembered the MOSES so I made a quick turned (my head) to look at the band.

To see who was the one talking to me all these while.

I watched the singers (A young man and A young lady),

I watched the Pianist...

I think that were the only attractive area in the ballroom :)

I thought It was impossible to make eye contact and MIME to the singers,

So I diverted my vision to the Pianist,

And as you might have guessed, Pianist is Reffy himself.

I made the Miming with my lips saying "Reffy?"

While playing his grand piano, he looked and nodded.

At the end of the wedding, I made a quick Hello to him and his brother.

They are YOUNG, TALENTED ANDDDDDD GOOD LOOKING!

For those of you who are planning for a wedding in Medan,

And are looking for youngblood to play you some bubles, Check them out!

Prices are reasonable.

Again, Thank you for everything Reffy!