The Big Day

After a few weeks of trying to select a suitable wedding date through the services of a geomancer, and trying to find a banquet venue that can cater to our given dates, capacity, and of course, budget (although we may have spilled over on this for our final venue decision :S), we have finally confirmed our wedding date to be 27 September 2009 :)

Wedding Date - Checked
Banquet Venue - Checked

As we progress through our checklist, it should get easier, isn't it? Not the case, what with budgets and renovations for our new home to think about next, Pete is crunching numbers every waking minute, and maybe not just waking...And to add to the list, a new item has appeared in our checklist, which we never thought of including it in before, but the time has arrived for us to seriously ponder over it, and make a decision, so that we can continue with our planning. We still harbour hope of removing it from the list. Remains to be seen...

Church Wedding - Undecided

Happy Birthday, David!

It was David's birthday on 14th June, and we had a great time executing a well-planned surprise party for him for his 29th birthday.

The plan was as follows:

A room was booked at Fairmont Hotel, and Toon will divert David's attention by getting him to accompany him to the PC Fair, while the rest of us (Johnny, Sally, Lloyd, Pete and myself) will get the room ready for the surprise.

Pete & Sally hanging up the birthday banner



Johnny & Pete hard at work with the balloons



Trying our best to fill the room with balloons



The homemade cake for the birthday boy



Sesame Street tattoos for the party gang



Spot the tattoos - Beware: Humps Ahead



A little fun before the surprise



A group party workers shot

Before the birthday boy arrived, we each took our positions at the balcony, behind the curtains, and inside the closet, and turned off all the lights. David was stunned when he came into the room with Toon, turned on the lights, and saw the cake and balloons. He actually thought they walked into the wrong room haha! After jumping out from our various hiding positions, and shouting "Surprise", we presented both David and Toon a box of specially selected chocolates (as it was Toon's birthday a few days before). We settled down to some drinks and the birthday cake thereafter...

Just had to get these Strawberry Shortcake party cups and plates

We headed to Party World for a KTV session after the surprise party, and had a great time with the singing.

It was an enjoyable night, we should do it again!

We got something to announce...

I'm sure most of our friends should know the news already, but in case we accidentally missed anyone out, or we forgot anybody.... We got a flat!!!

Looks like luck is on our side after all. :) Actually, at the time of a previous post, we have given up all hope of getting a new flat already. After all, we got 1190/490, who would have expected that we would actually stand a chance of getting a new flat.

So after getting the ballot results, we dedicated all our efforts into looking for a resale flat and totally put the new flats out of our minds. So we searched high and low and talked to 2 housing agents regarding the flat, with no results. Then one day, I had itchy hands and went into the HDB site to see how the sales were going. Very surprisingly, we actually stood a chance, as the take up rate was slowing down due to the fact that only the Jurong West flats were left.

By the way, that was 3 weeks before our appointment with HDB. I did some simple maths and realised that if the rate did not change, we actually stood quite a good chance! So I told ah mi about it and our focus was back on new flats. I monitored the website everyday, refreshing at least 3 times an hour, for 3 weeks! It was torturing to see the number of remaining flats drop after every refresh.

Our expectations were initially 5th floor and above. After a few days, we were like 4th floor also get. On the week before our appointment, it became "Please give us a 3rd floor!!" and on the day before, we were like "So which of the 2nd floor unit do you think we should get". It is surprising how expectations of people can keep dropping like this. And we were not the only one, as I observed similar behaviour on the SingaporeBrides forum. Unfortunately for them, they did not get it.

I do not expect people to understand our plight, and the reason why we even want a 2nd floor unit. To this, I can only say, you will understand when you get there. :) Anyway, it's not really desperate/impulse buy, we did recce the area, and we actually got quite a nice quiet corner for our 2nd floor 5-room premium unit. We love it (actually, ah mi does not really know where the unit is yet :P).

So boys and girls, with this, we announce, we have a new flat! It will be our home and we will welcome you to visit. (provided we know you lah)

A Big "Phew"

Pete and I can get something really heavy off our minds now. We have been worrying about this day since we decided we wanted to spend our lives with each other.

We had our parents meet for the first time over lunch yesterday at Crystal Jade at Great World City, and it ended with...no casualties!!! Not that we were expecting a cat fight between them, or even anything out of "Meet The Fockers", but there will always be that thought going on in my mind: "What if his parents think that my folks are weird?"

Fortunately for all, the lunch went ok, with our dads doing all the talking, from politics to the recent natural disasters. After a heavy lunch that burnt a hole in Pete's pocket, and a "we leave it to the youngsters to settle, as long as they are happy" with regards to our wedding, we can continue with a peace of mind with the wedding preparations. At this point in time, we are still lost counting and deciding on the number of tables for the banquet. Hopefully in a month or so, we would have booked ourselves a banquet venue.

We "rewarded" ourselves with the Sex and the City movie after the lunch. I enjoyed the movie thoroughly, and I must say it's been a long time since I enjoyed one so much :)

Okay, so far:

Wedding Bands - Checked
Bridal Studio - Checked
Pre-Wedding Photography - Checked
Research on Actual Day Photography - In the midst
Research on Banquet Venue - In the midst
Research on.......Zzzzz....

Gosh, wedding prep.....Zzzzz....

I'm turning in...nitez!