Wedding tidbits

Yes, it’s been nearly 3 years since we got married, but little nuggets of happiness and randomness from the wedding still linger in our conversations; here’re a random 10:

1. I did a lot of research on wedding rings. A lot. In the end, we still ended up with run-of-the-mill Cartier. -_-

2. The lights didn’t turn on for the walk-in of our Chinese dinner, but our entourage of flower girls and boys bravely soldiered on their procession with giggles in the darkness.

3. We bought cans of beer from Giant and got them delivered straight to the hotel. The delivery man must have thought we were alcoholics!

4. My cousin (the bridesmaid) forgot her favourite brooch for her evening dress and was very upset… Until her then-boyfriend now-husband drove specially down to deliver it :)

5. My false eyelashes started slipping off midway through our wedding party!! This was fixed by my good friend who trudged 1.6km to and fro (in high heels) to the nearest 7-11 to buy cosmetic glue.

6. The husband’s relatives cooked up a whole list of funny items to ‘tekan’ us with (read more here) – it was super duper hilarious!

7. Fantastic service from Shang – the husband merely replied that he actually hadn’t time to eat, to the waiter’s question on how the food was (at the end of the party), and we were immediately told to order room service from anything in the menu – complimentary.

8. My sweet little brother followed us around at the wedding party, offering his hugely-popular polaroid-taking service to anyone who wanted a picture with us.

9. At the end of the wedding dinner, the husband had to remove 48 hairpins from my very stiff hairdo. Despite all that effort (that took more than 15 minutes), the shower cubicle was still littered with hairpins that fell out as my hair melted from the shampoo.

And my favourite one!

10. On the day of our church wedding rehearsal, the pastor came up to the husband with a slight frown on his face saying that someone had driven in the opposite direction in our church’s one-way lane. He then told the husband that we better have road marshals on the day of our wedding to prevent accidents. All this came just 3 minutes after my cousin triumphantly proclaimed to the husband that our church was “so easy” to navigate; she had pulled straight in through the no entry sign and right into the carpark lots (against traffic).

Pre-Wedding Part II – The Singapore Photoshoot

Our Singapore photoshoot

Thanks to Mr’s lovely brother & his girlfriend who’re both avid photographers, we managed to capture our dating memories (those in Singapore, at least).

We shot at 4 main locations – the first was the Ministry of Manpower, where we first met. Mr was working there, while I was doing a short stint at the ministry between my undergraduate and Masters degree.

The second stop was East Coast Park, where – due to its proximity to Mr’s place – we officially started dating, and often hung out at.

The third – another of our dating hotspots – was the Esplanade. No particular reason, other than the fact we liked the vibes of the place, it was near to office, and it was where we first discovered our mutual affections :)

And finally, the area around the Citibank offices, where we both worked at while we were dating (& eventually married). While we didn’t work in the same office, the towers were side by side; great for sharing transport to and from work!

Pre-Wedding Part I – The Proposal

Yes, it was on a special occasion (my birthday), and no, I had absolutely no hint of it.

It was a Thursday evening (I remember clearly I was tired out from work, and I wanted to go home early as I still had to work the next day!!), and it was the 26th of March, 2009. My 25th birthday.

At that time, we were both working in the same bank, and our office buildings were adjacent to each other. So we met up for dinner at Garibaldi – all planned by Mr. (Garibaldi was special because at that time, we were making it our mission to eat our way through the Top Restaurants in Singapore as proclaimed by The Miele Guide, and Garibaldi was the only one we hadn’t visited.)

Nothing magical, just a quiet evening, in a cozy Italian place. The food wasn’t spectacular (at least not that I remember it to be), but the service was charming, and the place was subtle and quiet – just the way we liked it.

Dinner finished, and no birthday gift was presented. I didn’t suspect anything as we were intending to do the birthday celebrations over the next week (we both took 1-week’s worth of leave).

We went back to his place (I needed to send him home as I was driving). We chatted for a bit, it was close to midnight, and then I said I was tired and would see him tomorrow after work to begin the proper celebrations.

Who knows, he said he had a present for me :)

So he set up a Samsung (yes that’s the exact one I have, although I’m too lazy to take a picture of it) digital photoframe, and I thought, wow, cool gift coming from someone who prefers paper over screen.

Then he began playing a series of photos on the digital photoframe, and I thought, wow, he has even figured out how to upload pictures (!!).

& then he started singing You raise me up, by Josh Groban (which I had once declared my favourite song).

So the slideshow played on, and I happened to be looking at Mr, and missed the all-important slide.

At which point he stopped singing, and said “Look at the slideshow” (!!!)

And then he presented the ring :)

Pre-Wedding Part IV – The Wedding Album

The making of our wedding album

To escape prancing around an intensely scorching Singapore in full costumes, we had our photoshoot done in Taipei, Taiwan.

We rented a van (& driver) for the day to lug us, the photographer & his assistant, the equipment, make-up, and all our gowns, suits & accessories around. The most memorable part of the day was driving up dark, deserted alleys to change.

This photo was one of the first few we shot, and you can see from our pained expressions that we hadn’t quite warmed up to being models yet :D

Contrary to popular belief where the guys have zero interest in the wedding outfits, Mr had actually quite a lot of opinions on my wedding gown; probably more than I myself did! One of the things he fancied was a beautiful long train, and we took the above picture (the small one with a white border) specifically to capture the elegance of the train.

In the laying out of the pictures for our big, printed album, we were very cautious about having cutesy but nonsensical words in the pages – you know, the “You are my heaven and earth, the brightest star in the sky” kind of text. So we requested that any text to be incorporated used the passage that was read during our church wedding (Mark 10: 6-9) instead.

The first set of photos (as above), with all the greenery, were taken in a park (I forgot its name), and had all the traditional all-smiles poses. The picture on the right was taken to show off our wedding (& diamond) rings! Although I just realised it’s actually not that obvious.

We had the above pictures taken on a mountain (again I forgot its name). It was actually really chilly due to the wind, despite its deceiving bright sunlight. (& yes, the above picture is actually 2 pictures merged into one.)

This was where we began to warm up a little, so no more forced, cheery grins. The layout artist also added a very pretty purple touch to the background (it was actually green overgrown creepies on a concrete wall).

Having heard quite a bit about the famous themed Taiwanese cafes, we requested to do a shoot at one of them. This was a cute mural right outside the cafe that was picked by the photographer.

The wallpaper and decor inside was really pretty. And the head accessory that I requested for matched the whole ambience really well! :)

We were allowed to choose two gowns for our photoshoot – the actual gown that I’d be wearing on the day itself (only to be used indoors), and an “outdoor gown”, for places where the gown might potentially get dirty. Turns out the photographer recommended that I wear the “indoor gown” outdoors, due to its pretty train, and the “outdoor gown” indoors, as it was a short, light dress. (The dress in the above picture is the “outdoor gown” that we wore indoors :D)

Still within the cafe, the candles they had provided a nice lighting effect.

Yes, we ordered a mango slush because it was getting quite warm and tiring. The photographer had to remind us continuously to “not drink so fast” so he could snap his pictures – both of us were just eagerly gulping down the much-needed thirst-quencher!

The cafe, very nicely, was actually on a strip of beach. So once we were done inside, we trooped to the beach for the mandatory “gown flying in the wind by the sea” shot. To take this series, we actually had to climb up some scary-looking huge rocks. I was balanced precariously at the edge of the rocks and trying to smile bravely – thankfully I was in my Teva slippers instead of the 3-inch high white wedding heels.

& finally, the elusive sun-setting shot. This was quite a rush shoot with the photographer eager to catch every last bit of the sun. The sun set really fast though – in barely 15 minutes there was no light left!

There were just about a million other couples struggling to catch that last bit of sun as well, so it was quite a feat for our photographer to get a good angle while evading all the other people!

& finally, the backpage of the album: we requested for a photo collage, and were really pleased with how this turned out.

All in all, we’re really happy customers – no tacky 3D unicorns & brightly-coloured shiny rainbows floating in the background, cheesy texts & lyrics, terrible colours, over-cluttered pages… Yes, we love our album :)

Pre-Wedding Part III – The Taiwan Photoshoot

Because the bridal shop we chose was a Taiwanese outfit, the package included a pre-wedding photoshoot in Taiwan. This was great news to us because we earlier agreed we would never do our photoshoot in Singapore; imagine prancing around in a tuxedo or long gown in Singapore’s startling scorching afternoons. Not good.

So off we trooped to Taipei, taking the chance to enjoy a 1-week holiday :)

With so many “Taiwanese Oyster Mee Sua” shops in Singapore, there’s nothing like trying the original – complete with the experience of gulping it down by the street side. Just for records, we didn’t like it :( It was starchy and rather bland; condiments (chilli, pepper & garlic) were do-it-yourself style.

One of the tourist-y things we did was to climb take a lift up Taipei 101, supposedly the tallest building in the world (?). The “tallest building in the world” is perpetually contentious.

I’ve no idea what I was pointing at.

We also tried several themed cafes that the Taiwanese are so famous for; one of which was the P.S. Bubu cafe, which featured refurbished (parts of) cars. The food was surprisingly more-than-edible, especially since cute-looking places don’t usually dish out yummy fare.

Another themed cafe we visited was the Modern Toilet restaurant.

You sit on refurbished toilet bowls and eat on covered bath tubs.

The food too, tends to look like something you’d rather not consume…

The dessert was more-than huge.

We also hiked to some random part of Taipei, in search of a good (& non-dodgy looking) 温泉 (“hot spring”). We found one that claimed to have water piped directly from some elusive mountain… but looked just like any good old spa jacuzzi.

We also visited a shopping mall shaped like a huge golf ball – Core Pacific City. It had a really awkward structure, and was touted as a “tourist draw”, but we really couldn’t find much to do… other than ride up and down the mega long escalator.

Our favourite part of the day were the evenings, when the night markets were open – we visited every single one of them! Even the boring ones…

We had some “traditional Taiwanese fare” by a roadside hawker – till now, we still have no idea what we ate. It was gooey.

And lastly, the photoshoot that we did… Despite bringing our camera along, we were too busy enjoying ourselves to take pictures, other than the one Mr took of me when he was waiting for me to get made up (took all of 2 hours!).

Wedding Part IV – The Wedding Party

20 September 2009, 6.30pm
The Wedding Party

We decided to have a separate party-dinner for friends because we preferred to have a slightly more intimate and manageable-sized Chinese dinner for just family & family friends. Again, we scouted quite a bit, visiting more than 10 different venues and asking for quotes before finally settling on The Line at Shangri-La.

We had to rule out quite a lot of places because of (i) insufficient cover should it rain and (ii) the lack of air-conditioning (we didn’t want everyone suffering in Singapore’s immense heat!!).

Once again, we DIY-ed several items, including the “thank-you note” that we painstakingly designed, printed, and cut; ourselves.

Our all-in-ones again: (from right) my cousin the bridesmaid, and Mr’s brother the best man, and his really sweet girlfriend.

The dinner was pretty casual, with table formations of various sorts, rather than the usual 10-seater round tables.

This informal party-style wedding was a lot more taxing than the traditional Chinese dinner though, because we were pulled from table to table to be made fun of congratulated and for countless pictures.

So we went around getting our pictures snapped :)

I liked my make-up and hairstyle that day; it was really natural & I’m looking forward for the next big event to get the same hairstylist back for my make-up & hairdo!

We pretty much spent the night snapping pictures.

We also got a polaroid camera to take keepsakes for friends.

& finally, the groom gets a chance to take his first (& only) bite. The Shangri-La staff were exceptional though. At the end of the event, the staff-in-charge offered to send us a complimentary room-service meal each, seeing as we didn’t get to eat much. (We did have to pay for the per-head buffet cost for the two of us though!)

Somewhere in between, we decided to be systematic about the photo-taking, and went around tables with our ever-obliging photographer to take group shots.

& a great end to a great dinner party! :)

Wedding Part III – The Chinese Dinner

19 September 2009, 7.30pm
The Chinese Dinner

We spent a long time looking for places to hold our Chinese dinner at, before finally deciding on Royal China at Raffles Hotel. It took us quite a few site visits to various restaurants and hotels before we finally decided on Royal China, because we wanted a place that had a traditional Chinese feel to it, yet served good food (i.e. wasn’t just one of those “to-be-seen” places). Most of all, we definitely didn’t want a plain, old ballroom.

Other than the pretty “Tiffany-blue” & white decor, Royal China (the London branch) also holds some memories for us – trekking all the way to Canary Wharf in the harsh winter winds only to face disappointing dim sum! Royal China in London was also a rare treat for us – only when we were desperately craving Chinese food. (They have a better outlet closer to town in Bayswater.)

The only thing about not having a “traditional Chinese banquet” in a hotel ballroom was that most of the stuff you’d usually take for granted had to be done by us – such as table numbers & signages (we handmade the above!!) – & flower decor. Thankfully, we stumbled upon a “cheap & good” florist tucked away at West Coast Plaza.

The wedding favours too, were not included. Thankfully, we managed to find – through recommendations – a lady who makes really cute cupcakes, which she customised for our wedding.

We had a food-tasting session before the wedding, and made quite a few changes to the menu (!!), mostly recommended by our parents – different types of sharks’ fins (I didn’t even know there were differences), a different breed of fish, the addition of wasabi prawns (Mr’s favourite!)…

The “ang-pow” box which we made ourselves (& are really proud of but don’t know what to do with it now) with raw materials from Spotlight, a great place to get every possible handicraft need at once.

Our wedding photo album – with the autumn-leaves cover shot that we took in Taipei.

A brief shared moment just before the walk-in. One of the things we really wanted was starting on time! We kinda made it… by starting only 15 minutes late (early in Chinese-dinner terms), thanks to our cooperative family & family friends!

One of the major disadvantages of having held our dinner at Royal China was their lack of experience in dealing with wedding banquets. The staff were frequently uncontactable, didn’t bother remembering instructions we gave, had difficulty coordinating their own people etc. One of their major boo-boos was not switching on the lights for the walk-in (!!) and playing the wedding march from the middle, rather than from the beginning of the piece!

(The flowergirl-ringbearer entourage bravely trooped on in the darkness though! Great kids!)

Finally, the lights turned on, and we walked in.

Because we already had a church wedding, our Chinese dinner was literally just a dinner following the matrimonial ceremony – other than the march-in. There wasn’t the usual speech, videos, 2nd walk-in etc. The one thing Mr really wanted though, was his favourite yum-seng (a toast to the newly-weds).

Only family & family friends were invited to the Chinese dinner partly due to the lack of space in Royal China (its full capacity was 19 round tables of 10), and partly because we didn’t want to bore friends with a long-drawn Chinese dinner affair.

Who knows, even relatives can poke fun at you – the two of us, trying to gamely sing a cheesy song thrown at us.

And a very confident Mr – having total faith that I won’t crack the (unboiled?) egg that I was tasked to roll up and down his pants – beneath.

As you can see, there’s quite a lot of trust :D

The appreciative audience (Mr’s side of the family).

& our final task – waltzing around the restaurant (to Mr’s father singing 月亮代表我的心 in the background).

Oh yes, we also did have the “table photoshoots” – starting with the “Red Table” (traditionally where the immediate family sits with the bride & groom). We only had one table though, instead of the usual two (one for each side of the family).

& finally, the queue for the privilege to congratulate the wedding couple & their families before leaving :)

& my cousin (in white) – the all-in-one – all smiles as her duties are successfully completed! :D

Wedding Part II – The Church Wedding

19 September 2009, 4pm
The Church Wedding

We initially planned on having the church ceremony outside of the traditional church, but it proved daunting finding a suitable location – air-conditioned, large enough, has a stage, has a suitably-long aisle to walk down etc.

So we settled on having it in our home church – Faith Methodist Church. It was lovely, as there were designated church florists to decorate the aisle and the stage according to our preferred colour themes (cream & pink), but the place was a little big for us (we were expecting 100-200 people, although the church could sit 1000).

Nevertheless, the pews were pretty, and the aisle was long enough to show off my gorgeous train.

My 3 baby cousins (from left, Jaslyn, 6 years old, and Jamie, 4 years old) and Joshua (4 years old) were the flower girls and ringbearer.

The groom being briefed by Pastor Kenneth, who officiated our wedding.

The kids had more than 10 trials of “walking down the aisle” before the actual walk. Their parents had to remind them over and over again not to run down the aisle!

Look at the groom’s eager-anxious face; while the best man is kinda ambivalent. Sneaking a glance at his love perhaps?

And finally, the bride – being led in by my dad to the traditional “Bridal Chorus” piece by Richard Wagner.

The ceremony started with the song that we sung at the very first church service we attended together, in London – Shout to the Lord.

The best man and bridesmaid were made to stand beside us throughout the ceremony – apparently the best man was meant to fight off the groom’s enemies, and the bridesmaid is there to… well, be a maid to the bride :D

“And who gives this lady away?”

“I shall”

And the groom is relieved that he’s finally gotten the bride.

The exchange of vows – that we had a hard time memorising, and for which we actually had a rehearsal!

Finally, “you may kiss the bride”.

The signing of the marriage certificate; this has to be done twice. Once on a very unglam black and white copy, that’s to be handed to ROM, and then the proper one, which you get to keep. (Talking about which, we should get around to laminating ours before it turns yellow.)

Just after the speech, the groom sprung a surprise. The irony of it all was, I printed his speech!! But he carefully deleted the last page of the speech, and hand wrote it himself.

Mr re-enacted the proposal scene – the slideshow he created, and the song he sung: “You raise me up” by Josh Groban.

And now, we present to you Mr & Mrs :)

Hooray! We did it!

Wedding Part I – The Tea Ceremony

19 September 2009, 10.30am
The Tea Ceremony

Contrary to typical Chinese weddings, we opted to start our Chinese Tea Ceremony at the earthly hour of 10.30am. (Most Chinese Wedding Tea Ceremonies start at an “auspicious hour”. This hour is calculated based on the date, I believe, and some ceremonies can start as early as 4am.)

Luckily for us, our parents were not superstitious, and we got to choose our own start time. However, we couldn’t start too late as we still needed time after the ceremony to prepare for our church wedding in the afternoon. So we settled for 10.30am.

This meant that preparation works only began at 8.30am. (That was still pretty unearthly by my books. I had to get up at 8.15am!)

So the make up artist was the first to arrive.

The makeup artist assigned to me by our wedding studio, Julia Wedding News, was Gina, a Taiwanese who married a Singaporean. The makeup went really well, and to my relief, I didn’t resemble a Chinese opera singer, despite a good two hours spent on layering my face with paint.

My bridesmaid – cousin Jeanette, with whom I spent my childhood – had the hardest time that day. She was the all-in-one; single-handledly. Here, she learns from Gina how to remove my veil (when I change into the traditional Chinese kwa) and more importantly, how to put it back on (for the church wedding).

This diamond-studded necklace-earring-bracelet set was a wedding gift from my parents. (Actually, I went along to choose it, with their consultation, of course.) It’s really pretty, but more than a little grand, and has been sitting in a Cisco safe ever since the wedding.

Despite being rather relaxed about the Chinese wedding customs, this is one of the few that my parents kept to – covering the bride with the veil; It can only be lifted again by the groom, when he arrives.

(The veil was really uncomfortable when covered, mainly due to the scratchy surface, and the super long eyelashes which got in the way.)

The welcome surprise my cousin prepared for Mr; It was truly a surprise – to me as well – because we had all agreed earlier that there’d be none of the “wacky” games that typically accompany the “fetching of the bride”, or “接新娘”.

I got a hint of it only the night before, and my cousin prepared a truly meaningful “test” that was in the spirit of the wedding, so it was really sweet :)

The unsuspecting groom arrives with the bouquet…

Only to be met with a locked gate.

Jeanette had, the day before, asked me for a list of 10 things that I’d like my husband / marriage to be, or have. She then made a really pretty chart and asked the groom to fill it up with the list of things that I had requested for. He had to choose 10 wishes I had, out of a list of 20.

One of the dummies: “Give her a (bigger) diamond every year” :D

The other task was shouting “I love you” to me (upstairs in my bedroom) in 10 different languages.

This was easily accomplished thanks to the brother’s (the best man) iPhone.

To make the ceremony a little more meaningful, we decided to have the diamond (engagement) ring “presented” to me on that day. It added a nice, symbolic touch to the whole morning.

And on it goes.

My mum tailor-made this cheongsam when she visited me in Shanghai in December last year – four months before Mr proposed. I suppose my mum has good foresight, since she made this cheongsam for the very purpose of The Wedding. She obviously didn’t have to store it for very long :D

One of the ways we planned our wedding finances well – or so I felt – was that we were very clear of our priorities. & so we allocated our budget accordingly. The wedding car was clearly not one of them (to us, at least), and we borrowed my uncle’s car for the purpose.

Having said that, we were blessed that my uncle’s car was a very pretty & comfortable Mercedes. (Mr was very clear that he wanted to be driven, i.e. no 2-seaters, and that the car had to be big and comfortable.)

The car decor was done by the bridal company Julia; the bouquet at the front was underwhelming, I felt, but as it wasn’t top of our list, we had no complaints there.

Mr’s parents were eagerly waiting for us, and formed the welcome party outside the house.

Mr’s brother was the best man aka the all-in-one for Mr’s needs, and also the designated driver :D

The train of the gown was really long (specially chosen for the impact it would have at the church wedding), making the whole dress really heavy! It was really quite difficult dragging it along, but by the end of the day, I was virtually skipping around with the train carried in one hand.

The champagne-popping…

Yes, it was quite stiff…

But finally it went off in a puff! (& almost whacked a plant.)

Not sure of the significance, but people typically tend to have this champagne-popping ceremony at their Chinese dinner.

The crowd watches, and snaps away.

Mr’s paternal grandmum, who told us at the wedding, “Give me a grandchild this year, and make it a grandson while you’re at it.” I suppose her wish is to be granted, soon.

Tea being served to Mr’s dad, and words of wisdom being handed down.

Mr’s (unmarried) brother, succumbing to teasing, and being served a very expensive cup of tea by us.

Take one of the family photo…

And take two :)

One of the perils of having a very long train: not being able to wear your own shoes. On the bright side, you get waited on hand-and-foot; literally.

Off to the other side of the family – in the traditional red Chinese wedding dress (“kwa”).

And my maternal grandmother – marrying off her eldest grandchild.

My younger brother was more than happy to serve us a very expensive cup of tea.

And the family portraits: the paternal side…

And the maternal.

A lunch buffet wrapped up the morning Chinese Tea Ceremony celebrations, and we had a mere 2 hours to relax, change, and prepare for the arguably most important bit – The Church Wedding. Up in the next post :)

Our wedding posts

I just realised that we haven’t, till date, put up anything on our wedding at all! That must change, so I’m gonna do a series of posts on our wedding :) Soon to come, as I weave through the thousands of pictures taken!