• the bridal gown
• the bridal shoes
• the bridal accessories

as of last night. So really, the bridal trousseau is pretty much settled. We've even managed to get lingerie (tee hee hee), and take a serious look at wedding bands because they cost so much less here.

Last Saturday was spent browsing through 8 bridal boutiques in total - 4 in Tanjong Pagar, 4 at IMM. And because this blog pretends to inform on occasion, I've decided to give a brief run down of the places we went to.

1. Paris Brides de Fashion & Photography Blk 7, Tanjong Pagar Plaza, #01-106 - Nice enough staff, nice enough changing room, SHORT GOWNS. By the 3rd gown that stopped short at my ankles and made me look like Alice in Wonderland after a pill, I was beginning to develop a sick feeling at the pit of my stomach that my trip to Singapore had been for nought, for while the gowns in Australia were too big for me, the gowns in Singapore are fashioned for 5ft tall Lianlets. And hey, rental wasn't $500 like I anticipated. (P.S... toilets were awful.)

2. Wedding News 93 Tanjong Pagar Road - Essentially a one-stop place (typical of bridal boutiques in Singapore) where they can package the bridal gown, the evening gown and photography. What I really like about this boutique are the clean decor, the tasteful background music, the really polite and sincere staff and the very spacious, well-lit changing rooms. The gowns are well taken care of, and very reasonably priced. 2nd-hand rentals are priced at $500 whereas first-hand rentals average at $800. The gowns were very lovely, and seemed made to fit me. Seriously, little to no alterations were needed and it was a toughie deciding, because anything I put on looked gorgeous. (I think the changing rooms were absolutely crucial in making everything look good.) Tiani designs the wedding gowns, so she's the one to liaise with.

3. Thomson Wedding Collection 71 Tanjong Pagar Road - If they turned their noses up any higher in the monsoon season, I swear they'd drown. Staff are young, inexperienced, insincere, and ultimately out to get their commission. Gowns were gorgeous enough, but were ridiculously priced ($1,600 for rental) to make up for the pseudo chi-chi decor, staff commission, and lots of advertising and listings in bridal mags. The changing rooms were of the curtain-in-a-semi-circle variety, which made it ridiculously cramp to try on big, white and floofy numbers. Lighting was poor in the changing rooms. Personally, I feel extremely uncomfortable when a male store assistant comes 'round to help me change, particularly when gowns involve padding, bustieres and zippers. I don't care if he's a metrosexual. The toilets were clean enough, I suppose.

4. J&M Design & Photography 94 Tanjong Pagar Road - I hear this is a famous one. It's actually pretty good, although the gowns didn't thrill me because the fashion was pretty much the same as everything else I saw in Canberra, and I wanted to be sure I get something in Singapore no one there's seen before. The changing rooms were big enough, but lighting was poor. Prices for rental climbed from $800. I flipped through albums and had a look at the photography and noted that it's pretty good. The staff speak Mandarin, but are very courteous and obliging. (I was served by Shermaine, and she was pretty helpful.) Overall, didn't do it for me, though.

5. E Bridal somewhere on the 3rd floor at IMM - In a word, "eeeeeeeeehhhh...". There were, at the very very most, 40 gowns to choose from. The staff were uninterested in the business, and were congregated in the corner chewing seeds and chatting. Again, a man served me. ("Eeeeeeeeeeehhhh...") I managed to pick out one gown that didn't make my skin crawl, and they escorted me to their store room replete with ladder, perhaps for me to climb out if the door were to jam or something. Who knows. After pretending to rifle through other gowns, I left in a hurry.

6. Double Up Bridal and Photo Centre #03-40, IMM Building - The moment my mum and I saw the name of the shop, we started fake-hurling. (Double up. Get it? Get it?) True enough, the prices were double what we had been looking at, and they were certainly trying to look up-market. The gowns were kept in brightly lit glass cases and looked somewhat like cyborgs ready for activation. The decor was ornate, the changing rooms looked like the huge curtained alcoves that Disney's Cinderella's stepmother placed her cat to sleep in, and it somehow crossed the fine line between Grandeur and Gaudiness. Served once again by a man who seriously resembled Frankie Foo with long, yellow fingernails, although he spoke fluent English. The gowns were, I grant you, very pretty but they were also stuff I've seen in Australia. What took the cake ultimately was a demand for a S$1,800 security deposit for a S$850 rental.

7. FOCUS Wedding Bridal Centre #03-84 IMM Building - The service was excellent. The maintenance of the gowns was wanting. Lily was very warm, very easy to talk to and her enthusiasm was infectious enough to mask the disappointment of the changing room. (See E Bridal) I really liked her, but the gowns were in pretty bad shape (foot prints, lipstick and foundations stains, torn fabric) and we felt they weren't going to do a good job ultimately, so we took our leave.

8. City Bridal Photo Centre #03-75 IMM Building - After specifically requesting for 2nd-hand rentals, we found a $500 beauty that actually made me look good, and fitted me to a tee. I also warmed to the saleslady, whom I conversed with entirely in Mandarin, and who was so eager to serve us that my family pretty much started to relax at that point and seriously enjoy themselves. I liked the dress well enough; it was an off-white bustier with really sweet flowers and it belled out at the waist. I didn't get the feeling of absolute "wow" when I saw myself in it, though. Changing room was decent, and there was a platform on the outside that allowed me to walk around and pose for the family.

I have to say that Wedding News won hands down, so we went back on Monday for a full appointment, and made the down payment 2 hours later. We got the shoes on the same day, and the matching jewellery yesterday.

Singapore is such a land of plenty. I'm really gonna miss living here.