Archive for the 'Wedding-planner' Category

The whole lot of photos (Part 1)

Nov 18, 2008 in Wedding-planner

We're already being swamped with things to do, and the photos are trickling in. Eight cameras in total (discounting the compacts and phone cameras other people bring around), so imagine the headache. I am supposed to make another Blurb for the occasion, but with some more dvds 'somewhere out there', it looks like that personal project to commerate the big day is going to take a while longer.

Collage - Facebook Pics

My God brother Steven was the fastest to load the photos to Facebook, all three albums full. And btw, if you know Jasemaine who sings really well, she was there at the wedding too, as the FEMALE photographer who gave my favourite photo of the lot:

I think this is gorgeously captured. Check out more photos at her site, and if you're getting married soon, give the girl a call ok? She's got a great camera eye IMHO.

I haven't yet sieved through Leonard's photographs, but he's promised to give me the dvd slide show they made of the day's event which we played during the dinner, so when that comes I'll load it to YouTube and post the video here.

Well, I'm going back to fixing up that photobook of mine, and then compiling another set of photos from the Honeymoon, because everyone's now asking about the honeymoon and whether there are photos to show (like duh). So here's the busy wife's job for now, lots of photo uploading, lots of photoshopping and many many hours of page layout-ing. That's my post-wedding life for now.

Married but still me.

Nov 04, 2008 in Wedding-planner

Hi folks,

The wedding is finally over and I AM NOW MARRIED. The experience was, well, slimming, for lack of a better word kekkeke. The dress that I was ranting about a few weeks ago, got a LITTLE too big for my shrunk boobs on the dinner night, and I was extra-conscious about it slipping over my wonderbra (nope, not even the extra paddng was enough to keep it up).

There's a whole load of photos to show off, from the guo-da-li ceremony where the pig came in the boot of a Mercedes Benz to my house to Eric and me with our stressed out faces as we tried to sort out the guest list the night before the wedding, and on the day of the wedding itself. I'm totally exhausted now and I think the honeymoon which is starting this Saturday will definitely help us regain our lost energy.

(The sex life, cannot be commented upon yet, because we are totally drained. Weddings are exhausting affairs, all right?).

I'm in them midst of compiling the photos (many friends brought along their huge ass cameras to add on to the professionals in Leonard's teams), and my mom's friends thought I was being tracked by paparazzi because we had SO MANY cameras shoved into our faces. Nope, that's just what happens in an age where DSLRs are affordable. HEHHEHE.

A special mention here, but I'll write another post again, must be given to my bridesmaid Yean Yean, who was undoubtably the backbone of the wedding events. Eric and I are truly blessed to have friends like her, and Yu Chiet, Daniel, Philip, Ser Yee, Vincent, etc…. They went out of their ways to make sure Eric and I had the most memorable wedding ever… making sure that we didn't have any thing to do on the day except look good and smile whenever the photographer said so.

I love you all.

Traditions (Part 2)

Oct 29, 2008 in Wedding-planner

Our guodali is happening in a few hours and I am anything but exhausted. Nope I didn't take anything to stall the impending period, and the breakouts are starting (damn period why do you have to come just around the wedding?).

My mom's empty nest syndrome has gone on hyperdrive - hah, can you believe her? She asked me whether I would have lunch ready for me after the ceremony, and all I said was 'Don't worry Mom,' and she went ballistics.

'What don't worry? I know you are very clever and you have everything all figured out, I'm just asking if you will have anything to eat for lunch on that day…'

'Of course mum, we ordered food so you don't have to worry…'

'You really don't have to talk like that ok. I'm just asking, it's not that I want to worry about you ok, I know you know how to take care of yoursef, just answer properly, why must you talk like that?'

OK best to stay quiet. I think Eric has learnt to stay quiet whenever I shrink into my bridezilla mode (I swear I'm only bridezilla on ONE person and that's Eric so he takes all the flack, the dear boy!).

Planning for the guodali has been one of the major contributors to our wedding stress. About a month ago when we met up (both our families) at a restaurant to discuss the 'pinkam' (dowry), my mom went 'Just give a token.'

Deciding what exactly 'a token' is has been a huge headache. Because there isn't a figure told, Eric can't decide what's right to give - too much and you'll be seen as showing off, too little and God forbid, people wll say that he didn't give my mother 'face'. Damn these Chinese traditions. Why do we have to go through them?

Some of my friends have been asking why do we Chinese see the pig as so important on weddings? And how do we get the pig across the roads to the other house?

Here's the answer: You put it in the car boot. No really, seriously, it's not a live pig, It's a roasted one, and the guys family is supposed to put the pig into the car and drive it to the bride's house. No, the groom is not supposed to come for the guodali. Yes there are other things included besides the pig, my mom asked for the two bottles of wine, and apples and oranges, a dress for me, the kaluipeng (marriage biscuits) and etc, and all of this are arriving at my house…

Of course the brides family isn't supposed to just take the things and sit tight. There's the 'huili', since the Chinese are very particular that we always give in return. So the pig that comes to my house will have its head and its tail chopped off, where my family will keep the BODY, to be chopped up and given to friends and relatives as a celebration of my impending marriage. The part where the body used to be will then have a basket of two bottles of honey, two bottles of F&N Orange, some apples and oranges (taken from whatever we received), a belt, a wallet and a pair of pants for Eric and etc…

In days long past the pig wouldn't arrive before the wedding, but instead, the parents of the bride would be looking out for their daughter's visit home along with the arrival of a pig. The pig, in chinese, sounds like the word 'pearl', and the pearl is a symbol of the girl's purity. So a satisfied groom's family is obliged to send the pig informing the bride's family that 'thank you yah, your daughter is really really a good pearl virgin, we liked it'.

Traditions. Yes, we Chinese have very strange ones.

These days we take the pig ON the wedding day itself, but my mum decided to get a little more creative, and to save time, we're taking the pig during the guodali. So, I GET ROAST PORK to eat tomorrow!!! Yay!

Traditions (Part 1)

Oct 20, 2008 in Wedding-planner

Pre-Wedding Photo Collage

I think it's really funny how in Malaysia, the 'take the wedding photos before the wedding' practice has evolved into a 'must do' tradition.

As I have previously mentioned, Eric and I have unanimously agreed NOT to go the distance the usual Chinese way, but instead do an el cheapo short cut. We didn't sign up for any bridal package at any bridal studio, and so we didn't get to experience the one wedding gown three dinner gowns photography package that they're always pushing to brides and grooms to be.

Now I'm deliberately putting that paragraph here for the benefit of friends who read this blog so that they won't ask either one of us when we meet, and also for those who have been invited for the wedding so that you don't go asking 'so where is your album' when we do meet on the wedding day.

Yes, we're cheap, yes we're not so normal, yes, we decided that we didn't want to do the traditional thing, yes, yes, yes we're spending a lot lesser…well actually we're not because bridal studio packages does allow us more economic space).

But look, DO EITHER ERIC OR ME look remotely like the type who can stand still and stare into each other's eyes in front of a stranger with a gigantic camera? This was precisely the reason why I enlisted the help of my friend Leonard and his brother (who run Front Page Studio) to take our photos - at least I've known Leonard for a few years now and being photographed by a friend is anytime better than being shot, literally, by a bridal studio-sent photographer who will probably be speaking cantonese and asking us to 'Get closer get closer ok look into his eyes, ok, still,still still…'

But a while ago, we did succumb to the pressure and decided to do a 'mock' photoshoot session. It definitely helped that my Godbrother Steven had just purchased his first DSLR so Eric requested a favour. Thank God for awesome friends, so at least, now, we can confess to having 'pre-wedding photos'.

Learning to communicate

Oct 19, 2008 in Wedding-planner

I'm both excited and nervous at the realization that my singlehood is about to come to an end very, very soon. We were chatting at Jaya32's Pappa Rich toda, my fiance, his best man and myself, chatting over a very strange concoction of lychee cincau, when Eric asked the best man why hasn't he managed to stay in a relationship, or whether he actually plans to get married one day.

'I am not putting off the possibility that I will get married one day, but I need to find the right woman,' he said. So I chipped in,

'What happened to the one you were dating earlier?'

'I couldn't stand her complaining. I guess there's the number one criteria, I really can't stand a woman who keeps complaining.'

Eric grinned and then patted him on the back, 'Oh hoh hoh, good luck man. TRUST ME, EVERY WOMAN COMPLAINS… tell me when you do find one who doesn't.'

Stupid dungu of a future-husband I have.

I look at it this way. We women, we have this need inbuilt into us, or maybe as Eckhart Etolle calls it, our pain-bodies have resulted in us being severely dissatisfied beings that just have to seek for opportunitiees to keep ourselves feeling pain all the time. And as a result of being in pain, we make noises about it, so yes yes, we complain, we rant, but we look at it as a way of expressing ourselves, its how we communicate something.

So if you're male, single and looking for more than just sex in a woman but want someone who doesn't complain, dude, think of the voices as wind in your ears, and if it hurts your drums too much, imagine that you've grown imaginary wings that can flap the noise away. Or if your girlfriend or wife's nagging voice is starting to annoy the shit out of you, surprise her and look at her, and then tell her, 'does it matter, I LOVE YOU no matter what…'

Or just keep quiet and pretend to pay attention. Come on, if we girls can pay attention to you when you talk about how big a model's boobs are, or how fantastic it is to have a manifold intake installed into your car, and how lovely those latest RM6k rims would look on your racer, I'm sure you can give us THAT little bit of space to let out all the steam in the air. My Eric does that, whenever I'm stressed at work because my staff's a little too dense to understand my instructions or my boss requires me to do something strange and completely out of sync with normal practices or whenever my mom annoys me because she complains so much, or whenever I go shopping and I find out that they're not offering any discounts on a bag I have been eyeing for weeks, I will call Eric and throw all my pains in the world to him.

He listens to me bitch and rant, and he allows me to scold him and shout at him and complain about how lousy he treats meĀ  (but he treats me well lah), because he knows I'm there for him to listen to him rave about cars, and car magazines, I'm there for him to discuss which actress has a better body (Jessica Biel is so whoa), and I'm still there even though he says I've got thunder arms.

So we take some, we give some, is a cliche that is oversaid but definitely necessary. There's a whole lot of other idiosyncrasies about staying in a marriage that previously both Eric and I have never explored before. Trust, among a few things… but that's something to talk about in another post altogether. But there's this little thing I learnt about men and women, in general, is that we are way way different communicators. When a woman is quiet, withdrawn, and requests to be left alone, beware,she's really really angry. If she rants and raves and screams, annoying as it is, it is actualy really really easy to take her out of her rage.

And its the opposite for men.. When a man is quiet, withdrawn, and requests to be left alone, it means he's really happy. Now doesn't that revelation makes you think God has a very naughty sense of humour when he made us such opposing communication types?

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