Wedding Guide Asia

Back in 2002, Grant Thatcher realised there was a huge gap in the market when it came to travel guides for the stylish traveler. After all, not everyone is built for backpacking and some of us like it a little more plush, a little more… luxe.  So armed with an idea and a vision, he created LUXE City Guides, which has now become the staple for those who want to be ‘in the know’. With guides that cover destinations all over the globe, which tell you where to go when it comes to food, fashion and entertainment, it’s no surprise that these days, everyone needs a bit of LUXE.

Here’s our 5 mins with Grant Thatcher, founder & editor of LUXE City Guides:

There are many travel guides on the market, what makes LUXE City Guides so special?

First of all our guides have a sense of humour – a first for travel guides! But most of all we tell it like it is and we are not afraid to have a point of view. We tell you the best of the best and leave the rest. Not got a best friend in Seoul? Leave it to LUXE to show you around town.

How does LUXE find the best places in town?

We employ not only a local editor on the ground that knows the city inside out, but also we take the advice of around 20 stylish contributors who live and work in the city. We then send in our own editorial team to check out personally all the suggested entries. No other guide on the planet does this!

Tell us about LUXE online.

You can purchase your LUXE City Guides through our online store at www.luxecityguides.com . You can easily look through hotels, read in-depth reviews and book a room through our beautiful LUXE City Guides hotel & villa collections. How glamvenient is that! Don’t miss our blog, www.luxetasy.com which posts about the things that have caught the gimlet eye of our editors around the world.

LUXE also has mobile guides available! Good news for my Blackberry…

Yes, good news indeed. We have just launched Luxe City Guides mobile.

10 of our cities are now available in app format to download to many handsets including iPhone, Blackberry, Samsung and Nokia. And we are just about to launch 10 more! (more…)

So you’ve got the wedding planner, the theme, the venue, the dress (very important) and then you’ve come to the little issue of the wedding favours. Truth be told, we’ve heard from many a local bride that it’s not easy to find novel or different wedding favours. Even Deborah Henry’s sister found herself empty-handed and ended up lugging her favours all the way (up) from downunder. But since WGA is all about things online, we’ve found a cute little site that sells a neat array of favours – www.weddingkarren.com

And on the upside, you don’t have to wade through traffic, park and what not… but simply shop as you please with the click of a mouse!

Here are our favourite picks:

Beach Wedding

Beach weddings tend to be smaller, more intimate affairs which in turn require a more personal wedding favour. Here at WGA, we like the ‘Fairytale picture frame’ where you can place a nice photo of yourself and your spouse-to-be. Plus it’s memorable and your friends and family will always be reminded of your wonderful wedding!

Chinese Wedding

There are a few cute things to choose from in the Asian category, but since Chinese weddings mean inviting half the town – I’ve chosen a favour that is funky yet affordable. These ‘Double happiness boxes with a gold bow’ make great packages which you can pop some chocolates or sweets inside of. After all, what do we like to do at a Chinese wedding? Eat & drink! (more…)

Would you take the risk and go against the norm of getting a multi-tiered wedding cake on your special day? Well, with establishments such as Cupcake Chic that risk is no more. With three outlets under their belts and 25 flavours to boot, founders Ben and Joanne have a lot to be proud of! Here at TWG, we took the liberty of interviewing Ben and Joanne and give you a glimpse into their wonderfully colourful cupcake world!

Cute wedding favors

How about you guys tell us a lil bit about yourselves and how you met?

J: We met over a messy crab-eating dinner in good ole’ Port Klang about 10 years ago. Ben was working in UK at the time and was back on holidays. We didn’t hit it off, in fact we were so ticked off with each other, we didn’t want to have anything to do with each other!

B: Until today, I still don’t get why we were so ticked off with each other. We didn’t even speak to each other. Jo thought I was obnoxious and I thought she just had a bad day. It was anything but love at first sight.

J: As fate would have it, we met again on 11th of September, 2001 – that’s right, on the very day of the 911 disaster. We were seated next to each other while watching a play at the old Actor’s Studio in BSC and started receiving text messages through the night about the towers collapsing. It was then that things started to take off. Funny how it took a disaster to bring us together. LOL.

B: Actually, the back story to that was a mutual friend of ours actually set me up for a blind date with someone else that night. Turned out we hit it off instead.

How did you guys first discover this common passion for cupcakes?

J: I don’t know if we have a “common” passion for cupcakes. We have a common direction, a common goal and a common desire to achieve in business. Cupcakes came along because I love to bake and we saw an opportunity when we discovered a lack of beautiful and delicious cupcakes in Malaysia… and the entrepreneur blood in us, pounced on it.

Who was the genius behind the idea of starting a chain of cupcake stores?

J: Me!

B: Me! Well, it never started with this grand plan to open a chain of stores. In fact, we started small by setting up a booth at the weekend flea market at the Curve shopping mall – just to test the market. One thing led to another and before we knew it we opened a retail store. Having said that, we knew of the immense opportunity and the potential of a new market blossoming and felt we had a good chance to be one of the pioneers of the cupcake industry. So there was always this dream of having created a brand that could span across the country but it never really felt real until we opened our first retail store.

J: I think it was just a natural progression. We expanded as our level of maturity in business and minds expanded.

(more…)

From Bangkok - a cute cardboard favour of the bride & groom!

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard a friend and bride-to-be moan, “I just don’t know what favours to give”, I’d probably not have to earn my living as a writer now. Although ubiquitous to all weddings, favours can cause many an assiduous bride sleepless nights. You want to give something that guests will want to keep, but which is easily transportable (especially if they’re traveling from abroad for your wedding), doesn’t cost a bomb, and isn’t like everybody else’s: in other words, you want something unique, charming, and which won’t be break the bank.

Stale chocolates in cardboard boxes are blah, paperweights are impersonal, and candles are plain bulky. If you’re someone with a sense of humour, why not get a personalised comic strip created about how the two of you met? Mark Weber at elsewares.com does commissions and you could then use the comic as a base for your favour – an address or notebook with the comic strip as the cover art if you’re a stationery kind of gal, or a retro tin cigar ashtray featuring images from the comic if you’re a cigar lover. The possibilities are endless; all you need is your imagination.

Locally, we like Wedding Karren for some pretty pieces and the fact that they sell online, which saves a lot of time and effort!