08.08.08

Old blog, new beginning..

The day finally came. After the euphoria ended, fatigue took its toll amidst all the loose ends that needed tidying up. However, I've written so much on this blog site over the past few years that I couldn't possibly not write about the wedding day itself.

20th Floor

The day started in a daze. I had barely an hour's sleep the night before with so much more that I wanted to do left undone. I know it's gonna be tight to plan a wedding and get a new house in 2 months, but I had all the confidence of doing it well. Unfortunately, there were just so many 'problems' and 'unforeseen circumstances' that need to be dealt with. We've all seen so many weddings with these issues in our lifetime and I never imagined having to deal with them myself. Oh well. The show must go on. And it's gonna be a great show no matter what!

My dearest friend Patsda flew in from Kuching

I was barely out of the shower that morning when I heard Jiun Wei knocking on the front door. Poor fella had been waiting outside for the past 5 mins. Before long, Chen Peng arrived; as well as the other heng dais. Was also very happy when Patsda, Carolyn and KK popped in. I wished I could have savoured the moment more but adrenaline was pumping and so many more things needed handling.

The guys in charged

Over at Daisy's place, she was being dolled up while her 4 jimuis went about planning evil things. Don't be deceived by their colourful appearance, these gals are up to no good.

The ladies

After waiting half an hour for Sam, we set off to pick up the bride. We arrived at her place just past 8am. Honestly, I think we reached at 8.08am. Check out the super cool hengdais (plus Audrey). I think we could have easily picked up George Bush's daughter if we wanted to. If he has one that is.

Arriving amidst a cacophony of honks

Cool guys, and oooh, those legs!!!

True to form, the up-to-no-good jimuis had us dress and behave indecently. But jokes aside, they were the best jimuis ever, letting us in the main door in the shortest time possible as time was really running short. Did I also mention they let us in with the smallest amount of 'ransom' ever paid? A grand total of 8 cents!

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Sad to say, the hanky-panky did not end there. Poor Chen Peng had to endure the most. But it was all in good spirited fun. Right about then, the pig arrived.

I meant the one on the left

Fierce woman

Finally after a few more 'trials', the girls let us into the bedroom where the bride was waiting.
My bride was so beautiful, I almost had tears in my eyes. Almost la..

My beautiful bride

I like this picture

After that, we served tea to Daisy's parents as a sign of respect.

There was an embarrassing moment here

One for the camera!

A quick round of photos later, it was off to church we go!

Watch ur steps..

Here we go

My family members arrived at church shortly after we got there. More friends and colleagues from both sides joined us there. In the great rush of the morning, we forgot to bring along the march-in song cd. Luckily, the cantor was able to sing it. That settled, I pulled Audrey aside and in the few remaining minutes, she helped me memorise my vows.

anxious..

The feeling of anxiety never left me as I stood at the edge of the sanctuary waiting for my bride.
Soon, the music started playing, the church bells began to chime and the great doors of the church swung open. As the cantor started singing Twila Paris' "How beautiful...", Daisy walked accompanied by her dad.

This is it..

The mass was celebrated by Father Ignatius and for the both of us, it was simply beautiful. Very simple, yet intimate.

Newly printed mass booklets

Best man standing by with the rings

*Muahz*

"I Justin, take you Daisy, to be my wife. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you, and honour you, all the days of my life."

Sealed!

And so, we were wed. In holy matrimony, and by the grace of God, let nothing ever break this sacred bond.

Mr and Mrs Ho

Not even the combined temptations of 4 beautiful women. I shall remain faithful!

Oh yeah... I shall.. remain..

Then it was off to the new house!

Off to a new life

I had to carry the bride in and, Phew!, am I glad that Daisy is slim.

Easy nia lah!

I helped her remove her veil while she helped take off my jacket. After that, we closed the door on Chen Munn and his camera.

Nice shot!

No hanky panky happened in the 15 minutes that we had the bedroom door locked. Rather, we were trying to figure out how to 'operate' the traditional 'gua'!

Lim Teh..

Tea was then served to my parents and a simple lunch commenced. Two very glaring absentees from the morning's events were Rohana and WanYing. Why? Because I catered a halal buffet just because of Rohana!!! Grrr..

Mana itu budak?

After lunch, we went downstairs to buy Toto. It's 08.08.08 and the jackpot was SGD$8 million!

Betting strategy

I think we stunned the whole neighbourhood. The emperor and empress of Chai Chee with their bodyguards!

Huat ah!!!

Sadly, we did not win. Sigh.

Initially, I was hoping to be able to catch a nap in the afternoon. That was not to be. After cleaning up the new house, we rushed off to the hotel to prepare for the night. We had a very spacious bridal suit but couldn't enjoy it. MeiKit and Jiun Wei were frantically busy with the video while me and Daisy worked on our thank-you speech for the night. Only people who seemed to enjoy themselves were ChenMunn, TohMin and Vincent (the usual suspects), who went for a dip at the hotel pool.


Bed Decor..

I went for the briefing with the hotel staff at 5.30pm, but somehow, I hardly had the time to talk to him as various little details needed attention everywhere. Luckily for me, ChenPeng, PohMin and XiaoFei were around to take control the situation.

Xiao Fei flirting with girls!!!

The cocktail reception started at 6.30pm and our guests started arriving. By 7pm, it was already pretty crowded but we were nowhere near ready to let them into the ballroom. Reason being, we found out that due to technical difficulties, MeiKit's video was not going to be ready. Not only that, at 6.45pm, we realised that we forgot to bring the bridal photos in softcopy for looping as well as the framed up wedding photo to display at the entrance to the ballroom. For some reason, my mother in law was pretty obsessed with having a framed picture at the ballroom entrance so that was a real reason to panic.

Luckily for us, Minh and Andrew volunteered to go back to Chai Chee to find the missing items. I still have no idea how they did it, but they managed to get back to the hotel with both items. Amazing!

At 7.30pm Daisy also came down to join the cocktail reception. Luckily she was around to entertain the guests because I still had to handle things like uninvited guests arriving and confusing swapping of tables.

I think it was 7.45pm by the time we opened the ballroom doors and by 8.05pm, almost all our guests were seated. To be honest, I think we started playing the first video at 8.08pm! Really!! We were supposed to play MeiKit's video but it was not ready so we played the video I made first instead. At the end of that video, we finally had our 'grand' march in. I definitely felt like a million bucks walking down the red carpet with my bride in the presence of our family and friends.

Grand entrance..

It was definitely a joyful saunter towards the stage and cut our wedding cake. (I still don't know why we Asians do that cut-the-fake-cake routing, haha!)

A nice little 'food-march-in-and-dance-routine' by the staffs at Marina Mandarin later, dinner commenced! A sharks' fins free wedding banquet which we fought hard for. Hopefully, the soup dish served in place of the usual sharks' fins soup was good enough for you guys.

Anyways, after taking a few bites, me and Daisy had to go back up to change into our evening wear. By the time we got back down tothe foyer, the video highlights of the day was just about to be played. Meikit, don't stress lah, even though I have not seen the videotill now, I'm sure you and JiunWei did a great job on it. Thanks guys!

Pouring Champagne

We had our little march in again after that video, this time for the champagne toasting/yum seng. Oh, and lest I forget, the famous"bestman's speech". You can trust Chen Peng to say the darndest-most-memorably-funny-things. You're da' man dude!

Highly recommended Bestman

Girls gone wild!

Daisy and myself then took the chance to thank everyone before we left to change yet again. This time, into traditional costumes.Actually, I doubt there's anything traditional to it; comical and memorable more than anything else.

Huang Shang Jia Dao!

So we went around the tables thanking guests, taking pictures and toasting each other. Thanks again to the Vietnamese and the Filipino,they effectively reduced the amount of alcohol I needed to consume by half! Phew... To think that I got two alcoholic housemates.. gosh!

Cheers!

I really enjoyed the atmosphere that evening. To me, it was a very happy occasion, and I hope those of you who went had a great deal offun. I'm sure I did!

I was very surprised that Chen Peng and Colin still had the energy to 'orchestrate' some bedroom pranks after that. At least they werequick about it. Chen Peng promised 10 minutes and he'll bring everyone out of the bridal suite. And so he did, after some good natured fun.

By then, I was really not feeling well. Much too deprived of sleep. There we still other things to settle and pack up before we could call ita night, and that was no fun at all. It was about 2 or 3 am before we managed to get into bed, and slept till way past lunch the next day.

One last one for the camera

There you have it. I'm a married man! One month, and counting...!!!!