About The Preps

For Con's wedding

I bought a dress that's worn by Karen Mok before. But it looked very different on me...

I looked fat, especially at certain angles.. Can you imagine? I wore a Size L!!

Hubby bought this gorgeous looking tuxedo shirt...

We took the opportunity to have an enjoyable 3.5-day long weekend. On Fri, we're on half day leave & started the weekend with my honey's favourite Korean lunch.

We'd a late & slow one at a Korean restaurant near my office that exudes quite a bit of Korean feel - Dae Bak BBQ Restaurant. I'd say, for now, that's the best Korean meal I've had in Singapore considering it's tasty, cheap (@$10/set for lunch) & we'd the luxury of time to savour our food.

Ginseng chicken soup set & beef rib soup set for hubby. It's the first time I could finish the soup & meat *thumbs up*

After lunch, since we still had time before my manicure at FEP, we took a stroll to Good Morning Nanyang @ Hong Lim CC for a cup of tea. After the long awaited move, the standard was as good as their franchised outlet at Sembawang Shopping Centre.

Nails to match my dress. A combi of the lady boss' & my ideas ;)

The Wedding

Of Ivan & Con on 4 Mar!

Pre-Luncheon Cocktail reception @ The Fullerton Hotel
A pic with our pretty AP birdcage. Guests were amused by it! :)

After the wedding lunch, the few of us wanted to have a drink before heading back. But both OverEasy & Level 33 were closed. Stopped over at Fullerton Bay Hotel's Lantern Bar but it's too hot to chill out.

So we walked further down to The Bank Bar & Bistro @ One Shenton.
We give them 1/5 for service so no, we won't be going back there.

AP "Box"

Con tasked us with making an Ang Pao Box for her Big Day.

So about a month before, hubby & I started to brainstorm.... thinking of ideas to dress up a big box. In the meantime, we got an empty copier paper box from my office. On the Sat that we scheduled to buy all needed materials, there's a sudden twist in the design & Serangoon North was where we got . . . . . .

This birdcage!

We visited all the bird shops in Serangoon North & hubby was so overwhelmed as we're being surrounded by so many birds & parrots! Haha. This was the first time that we bought a bird cage when we've not, in our lives, kept a bird before (& never will :P).

That evening, we went home to spray paint it & got the materials on Sunday. We'd 2 themes in mind... one's our style & the other was the couple's decor style for the wedding event. Just nice that we got to visit the wedding venue earlier that day for the food tasting lunch session.

First, we did it according to our own preference

After another week's consideration, we changed it to what we thought the wedding couple to be would prefer more :)
Just that poor hubby gotta smell the paint twice..

Voilà! This is the final creation of Vincent & Kelly! ;)

And it got a close-up shot at their wedding..

Talking about our 'creation' for wedding event, the last was for Vincent CH's wedding.

For Uncle CH's... we did the stage decor & floral pieces for the high tables.

We really enjoy doing such "special assignment" together! :)

Wedding Dinner @ Mandarin

At hubby's cousin's wedding dinner @ Mandarin Hotel on the last Fri of July

We all were pretty impressed with the special layout of this ballroom on the 35th floor...

We're sitting in the heart of the ballroom.. surrounded by 2 tiers of tables

A clearer look at the ballroom (pic from Mandarin's website)

On 12.12.10

Our 5-year old wedding bears were on their second assignment! :)


It's (Vince's) Uncle CH's Big Day.......

The gatecrash. As expected, the groom & his brothers didn't really get good treatments. Most of the tricks were too déjà vu but still, who on earth will want to experience them? Haha.
Clockwise (from top left):
The guys were fed with a generous serving of wasabi sandwich.
Passing the seaweed, from mouth-to-mouth. Yeeks!
Picking the cherry tomatoes, bare feet, from a bucketful of ice cubes.
Hubby doing the hula while Uncle CH struggling with the Mandrin version of Amazing Grace. Poor hubby... got bruises around his waist after a few takes as that's not an ordinary hula! Tsk tsk...

Finally fetched the bride & having lunch in Bishan, before the tea ceremony

As we're responsible for decorating the wedding dinner venue, we rushed home to get all the flowers & ourselves ready before arriving at the hotel @3pm. Took us more than 2 hours to get everything done. Then went to the bridal suite to get changed, did my hair & touched up on my makeup. Whew..!

Got all ready well before the guests arrived! ;)

Quite a long night with Praise & Worship, Solemnisation & thank-you speech.

Had a group pic before we left

Wedding . Reunion .

Last Sat was cousin SM's wedding and it's a good catchup for all the cousins. On cousin Kelvin's (SM's bro) wedding exactly 1 year ago, we talked about a reunion in Mar 10 but it didn't happen. Last Sat, we talked about having a get-together for all the cousins again this Dec. Only the cousins.. no parents (our uncles/aunties).. hehe.

Really look forward to the gathering... :)

70% of the cousins here :)

3 Weddings in 1 Month

3 Oct, Cousin Kelvin's (Daddy's youngest bro's son) wedding banquet @ Hyatt.

30 Oct, J's (ex-colleague from PwC) wedding banquet @ Furama River Front. All pictures are with another ex-colleague, who's taking ages to circulate.

1 Nov, Cousin Ann's (Mum's 5th younger sis' eldest daughter) wedding banquet @ M Hotel.

Our wallet has gone on a "crash diet".. 3 ang paos in a month. Hmmmm.

Last Sat's wedding dinner @ Hyatt

Was a nice one... a rare get-together for us all @ the youngest counsin's wedding dinner.

A pic with the cousins & sis :)

Group pic. This crowd is only less than one-third of the complete family.

Hubby was actually on standby for recall that day but thank God that it's not activated. So glad that hubby could attend the first wedding dinner with me (my side of relatives). 1 Nov will be another first with my maternal relatives :)

The Wedding Couple

Talking about PY & Brian, they've really amazed hubby & me. We'd a catch up session a week before their Big Day. They felt that the wedding preparations were more like a tax to them & were Not looking forward to that day. They wanted a fuss free affair... no fetching of bride in the morning.. no bridal car.. no decor of the wedding lunch venue.. no photo shoots.. etc....


Ok, as long as they liked it this way. Unhappiness & dissatisfaction arise when there're different wants & needs between the couple. So if PY & Brian are both truly happy with such arrangements, we feel happy for them too.


But hubby & I feel that it's too simple for our liking. We go for grandeur within simplicity.. just like how we had ours.. it holds memories that'll last us a lifetime. So we wouldn't want to have any regrets & truly, till now we still fondly recollect every single detail that had happened on our Wedding Day & wouldn't want to change a thing.

And unlike Mr & Mrs Brian & perhaps most of the couples, we enjoyed every bit of the preparations. It's a hearty celebration for us, after overcoming so much barriers together... So it certainly symbolised more than just a wedding.....

Packed Weekend

@ Sheraton. Attending the Solemnisation & Wedding Lunch of PY & Brian :)

The Bride & Groom.
The Solemnisation venue was a nice lil outdoor area with waterfall & pavalion, in front of The Dining Room.

The pavilion was too small to accomodate all the guests. So many, including us, witnessed the Solemnisation across the bridge.
The JP is from hubby's ex church.

A pic with them. PY was beautiful!

There's a lil interlude though that panicked the bride & me. I was even soaked with cold sweat! After the tea ceremony, PY wanted to change into a tea dress (in pic above). But we'd serious problems with the uncooperative zipper. It took us nearly half an hour & 2 blisters on my right index finger to get PY in that dress. Phew!! While waiting for us, hubby's chatting with Brian & his cousin & they joked that Brian might have a runaway bride (as half an hour was too long for changing outfit without touchup of makeup & toilet trip... & the room was only a level above). Haha.

We left Sheraton around 4pm & went home to get changed. We're attending the 21st birthday party of one of hubby's cousins.

@ Somerset Grand Cairnhill's poolside buffet & BBQ party

The night's theme was Hawaiian but most of them were not participative.
So if there're a best dress award, the winner should have come from our family.. hehe.

On Sun, we'd breakfast @ Hans, National Library. Then went to West Coast Plaza. Sure I haven't been there for long... the place's undergone quite a successful facelift. I couldn't imagine that it's right next to where I previously stayed & was then an everyday pass-through for me, when it's still known as Ginza Plaza. It's so nice revisiting the place which I'd stayed for more than 10 years since school days.

Before noon, we reached IMM & only left at around 6pm. Next stop was Toa Payoh to run some errands.

The weekend was tiring but definitely a fruitful one :)

PY & Brian

Tomorrow is a day worth celebrating. Hubby & I will witness the Matrimony of our dear friends, PY & Brian.

The day PY announced their wedding, & at the same time invited us, was only ONE month away from the actual day. Instantly, we thought if it's a shotgun wedding. As they'd not been really keen to get wedded, especially now that they're comfortably staying in their own apartment, & I was more like her nagging mum:P But that's because I didn't want her to hold regrets in not having her beloved one to witness her happiness. I nearly missed it for ours.. but God was very gracious to us.

That day, we're texting each other & I finally asked. She laughed, saying we're not the first with such suspicion but fortunately, nope:) It's mainly because of her ailing mum.

It's gonna be an intimate wedding lunch celebration with a total of 60-70 guests, out of which 95% would be family/relatives. Brian preempted that it'd most likely look like a senior citizens' gathering as many of their relatives're above the age of 50, hee.

We feel really happy for them :)

Dinner last Friday

Attended an ex-colleague's wedding dinner @ Concorde Hotel (formerly Le Meridien) on Fri night. Was a pretty good one.. catching up & listening to some juicy gossips ;)

My former boss said he wanted to take a pic with his 2 Exes. Haha.

Food was nice. The experience would have been good if not for the hotel's carpark. It took us more than an hour (70mins to be exact) to get out, with the first half hour in a standstill. By the time we left the carpark, it's 12am sharp.

Wedding Dinner on a Monday night

Beauties in Black!

At hubby's cousin's wedding dinner. On a Monday night.

Nuptials

Attending wedding events never fails to bring back all the fond memories of our own

Well for last wed's wedding dinner of LL & Mandy, we arrived early at 7.40pm. That's the earliest in my record, hee. We went straight after work, that was why. And our table was still empty... been wondering with whom we would share the table as apparently, all other classmates we mutually know weren't in the list. Made a boo boo the day before by asking an ex-classmate, Chris, whether he'd be attending the dinner. He said he wasn't invited. Oopz... had to end this awkward sms exchange by saying "let's organise a gathering some time soon ya?". Hope LL won't kill me for that. If Chris not informed, needless to talk about my other classmates.

Thought I could at least see his former buddies - mickey mouse & ninja turtle.. but no sight of them. Maybe the turtle had mutated till beyond recognition? (duh~) The table was slowly filled up but none of them I knew. Perhaps except one, the Malay guy, who I found a lil bit familiar & thought we're from the same school but I wasn't sure at all. We tried very hard to figure out who our table was made up of - besides us, 4 of the other guests knew each other, another couple was all by themselves, a relative dropout from the next table (hubby's so amused by my description), then there's this poor dude who's there all by himself. Finally during the 2nd or 3rd course, I broke the ice & spoke to the girl next to me. We got to know that 2 other guys (including the only Malay guy... so I was right to have recognised him!) & I were from the same college.. they from science (same as LL) & me from commerce. The girl was one of the guys' wife & the other chap was the Malay's ex-colleague & LL's IRC friends (complicated!). The 6 of us ended up chatting happily & cracking jokes. The remaining four were very quiet throughout the dinner. So it turned out to be quite fun.

We felt really happy for LL. After all that he'd been through, he deserves an angel like Mandy. We believe he's so looking forward to this day, to celebrate their love & to share his life with someone he loves who also loves him for who he is.

I thought we could take a pic together with the bride & groom. It's a pity we didn't manage to.

Some pix of ourselves after the dinner then! ;)

French-cuff shirt with blue floral prints, the second piece bought in KL.

Close-up. Don't think I've mentioned how much we paid for this... S$12.

As for me, this a pretty good way to hide the tummy fats after all the good food in KL.

Nouvelle Année Heureuse

Contrary to the Christmas weekend, our New Year weekend was a lazy & relaxing one. No countdown party.. no celebration.. We started & completed 1 korean serial during the holidays & caught up on household chores... had a thorough cleaning.


The wedding dinner last Fri night ended very late, @ 11.30pm! We're so tired but the consolation was the 4-day long weekend. Just love the feeling of knowing the next day would be a no-work day... so were the day after next & next next. But good times never last. Hmm...

The Week before Christmas

Before I'm into the main topic, just wondering who, in Singapore, isn't affected by the breakdown of internet connection for the past 2 days?

Below was meant to be posted on 27th....

Busy week that started last Tue night… busy shopping for presents.

Wed, rushed to get the remaining presents as we knew we wouldn't have much time to do so. Within 4 hrs, we'd been to Orchard (a short visit to Justina, shopped @ NAC/Wisma & dined in @ FEP), then back to Parco to shop for another 1 hr+. Reached home near 11pm. Still had a couple of things to do before I called it a day. Sewed the crystals on my dress & did my nails (on the same day only managed to do pedi @ Parco during lunch as 3 of my toenails cracked near the base! So had to let the experts handle my problematic toenails). Slept at 2am.

Thurs evening, attended Gerald's wedding & reached home around 11.30pm. How we wished it's on a Fri night instead so we could have more rest. After shower, wrapped some presents for the next day - hubby's gift exchange during the Christmas party & for my colleague.

@ Gerald's wedding dinner

Fri evening, went to Millenia Walk to get some chocolates for the kids before going back to the same hotel (as Gerald's) for our pre-Christmas dinner. As usual, had a great time.

We thought Sat would be a more relaxing day without agenda. Last minute sis suggested lunching together. Only had about an hour after fetching mum from market & before going to Thomson Plaza of which I made use to wrap some presents.. so the whole morning was gone like this. Had a sumptuous dim sum lunch & reached home just in time for our shower set delivery. We’d ordered 1 that comes with a rain shower (yeah!).. there’s promotion in price + free installation.

After taking 2 hours+ to wrap more presents & the kids’ Christmas goodie bags, rushed to Sembawang Shopping Centre & got almost all the ingredients for the next 2 days’ potluck. Then went back to pick mum up for dinner with bro & family @ Vista Point. During lunch with sis & family, we received a call from bro inviting us for dinner (for Zoe’s birthday & 冬至 which’s the previous day). Reached home around 9pm & there went our Sat.

Early morning of Christmas Eve, got the remaining stuff from the market & back home to settle some of the preps… then went to fetch mum from church. Visited daddy before rushing home again. I made my signature fried rice (hubby’s fav) & some yasai tempura for the evening’s Christmas party at Constance’s. It’s fun & we enjoyed a generous spread as every1 tried to bring the tastiest food there. Yummy!

After we'd filled up our stomach, June & I took quite a few pix with different poses to kill time.

Constance's beautiful home.

After the gathering, we sent my inlaws home & again, went to fetch mum from church as she attended the evening’s Christmas gathering. After sending her home, we went to get some cocktails & drinks… also cooked the popiah fillings (decided to prepare this as we bought lotsa Vietnamese rice paper back during our last trip) for tomorrow.

Then it's Christmas Day! After we got up, only had time to settle the rest of food preps (incl. frying the remaining yasai tempura). Spent the day at sis’ place, indulging in lotsa good food. It’s literally food, chats, food, chats & more food! Exchanged presents & before we could unwrap (which’s the tradition), mum urged to go back. She’s totally exhausted. It’s good actually.. it’s already 9pm+ by then & we gotta work the next day.

What a hectic & 100% family-orientated Christmas holidays for us.

A funny crown! Haha!

On the 1st day back to work, we supposed to return home almost immediately after work for an early rest but on both Tue & Wed, we couldn’t resist the post-Christmas sale we saw wherever we went. Also took the chance to buy some nice winter wear. Hehe..