Happy V-Day everyone!

Mr. & Mrs. Quah

WE DID IT!!

4th December 2011: WHAT A DAY TO REMEMBER =)

Thank you everyone for your continuing support, encouragement, help, advice, guidance, smiles and gifts! It was a beautiful day of joyous celebration, blessed with good weather, superbly kind and patient friends, cheerful parents and delicious food...

Looking forward to a lifetime together =)

Final Briefing Done!

The final briefing with our pals helping out at the wedding was held last Sunday. It started messily enough due to unexpected venue issues, but thank goodness for friends with good sense of humour and high levels of tolerance! Actually, we're super thankful to our friends for putting up with so much and offering to help us with so many things! This wedding would not be what it will be without their input and advice and helping hands.
Here's a big shout-out to (in no particular order):
Jon, Jean, Nitya, Rachel, Ting-Ting, Justin, Alexa, Adrian, Mark - Thank you so much!

So anyway, the schedule is more or less done, as is the mass booklet. We went for the final gown-fitting and everyone is super excited, thanks to our super enthusiastic designer Jeff from La Vie! He's added a few more touches to Sherm's evening and bridal gown, and totally reshuffled my suits order. I'm happy too!

We collected the Made In Candy customized candies yesterday and will be doing packing them in the coming few days. Come Wednesday morning, we'll be submitting the administration forms to ROM. Some sound testing will be done at the hotel on Wednesday, followed by the church rehearsal in the evening. The caterer's site-inspection will be done just before then too. We'll be doing a mock-up of the decorations as well so as to provide our helpers a visual aid.

The only thing left to do is slide-editing for the church, and a complimentary 75-min spa from Grand Park City Hall's Spa Park Asia! haha.. (how did we manage to find time for THAT?)

Looking forward to being Mr & Mrs Dax Quah!

10-DAY COUNTDOWN

Highly stressed.

Absolutely no sense of humour left.

Panicking about everything.

Swamped with things to do (both work + wedding).

Lacking sleep; no appetite to eat.

Welcome to the world of a bride-to-be!

=0

Solo Soldier Shermy!

Dax has gone off to Vietnam to attend a family member's wedding, as well as to have his stag night with a few friends...

It's up to Shermy to man the fort this week, so she's doing what she does best... getting frazzled by the impending wedding! ONE MONTH LEFT TO THE BIG DAY!

Haha... among other things, settling the scheduling for the run-up before then... arranging to meet the gown-makers for a final fitting, altering the tea-ceremony cheongsam, ordering customised sweets for the church favours, trying to set up a final briefing with the helpers etc...

Can Shermy do it without Dax?!

Come back soon, you!!!!

过大礼 / Guo Da Li

The gift exchange or guo da li (过大礼) was carried out last Saturday morning to great success! The two families have officially agreed to the wedding!
Thanks go out to Auntie Dolly, Gideon and John who helped me out as Matchmaker and assistants. We brought over the gifts of Ang Baos, Traditional 伍色糖 / 饼, 2 bottles of XO, some seeds, oranges and a suckling pig as well! The bright and gleaming home of Shermaine's parents was such a welcome, with everyone dressed up as well.
Each item was introduced and the significance explained by Auntie Dolly (in English!), while broad smiles were seen throughout. We were served some cakes and drinks while Uncle Danny proceeded to cut the torso section of the suckling pig, and Auntie Karin repacked some of the edible goodies to return to my family.

Along with part of the goodies we brought, we were also given the following items to bring back: bedlinen, pillows, bolster, quilt and quilt cover, as well as Ang Bao for my parents and 2 grandmothers. These items that were previously agreed on between the 2 families during the food tasting session at Park Palace Restaurant.

The exchange signifies the agreement by both sides of the family to the wedding. It's official!

Full Steam Ahead!

Things are moving pretty quickly! We're down to the last 3 days before the big Gift Exchange - the Guo Da Li! Recently, both our families met at Grand Park City Hall's Park Palace restaurant for the food tasting and ironed out all the specifics of the exchange as well as made our choices on the final menu for the big night.

The past week and earlier have been spent gathering recommendations and doing research as to where the buy Suckling Pig, Teochew traditional biscuits called Wu Se Bing, and other things. We've also received our Chinese Dinner invitation cards (see sample above) and will soon receive the Church invitation cards. Today, Deepavali, was spent writing out names and addresses for some of our invitees.

Following the Guo Da Li, we'll be sending out the Dinner and Church invitations to our guests. Apart from the collection of our finished Wedding Bands, our next big project will be the photo montage and arranging for the gown refitting before the actual day itself. It's all coming together quite nicely! Oh yes, and we've been doing lots of research into Italy for our Honeymoon too!

Just today, we were browsing through some photo albums that Shermaine's mom put together about her daughter. There were quite a lot of photos of Shermaine in her younger years, up till about 10 yrs of age. I think its quite endearing to see so much of her current mannerisms and behaviour manifesting from age 2 onwards. =D Adorable!

Success!

You have successfully filed a notice of marriage online with the Registry of Marriages (ROM) on 10/10/2011 11:10 AM

Your e-filing a notice of marriage is successful.

The History Of Teochew Wedding Cakes!

(Lianhe Zaobao SUNDAY - Translated by bobafett81)

In the olden days, the Teochews usually married people from the same villages back in China. During engagement and wedding day itself, they will distribute 10 over kgs of peanut candies, sesame candies and other candies to relatives. Those elaborate weddings would even get hundreds of 月劳 饼 (Lao Bing). The teochews would put these wedding cakes, pork, dragon phoenix candles, wine, wedding invitations and other presents in 2 bamboo baskets. A pole would bind these 2 baskets together and they would be carried back to the female's parents house.

In the Teochew province back in China, they value the variaties of the wedding cakes. Usually, there will be a Tau Sar Pia 豆沙饼 with 4 candies (Gong Tang, Mi Run, Soft Candy and Soft Cakes) 贡糖， 米润， 软糖， 软糕. This 5 variaties became known as 普宁喜饼 Pu-Ning Wedding Cakes. The Hokkiens also had similar wedding cakes, but had Tau Sar Pia with 4, 6 or 8 candies wrapped in red wedding papers. Pu-Ning Wedding Cakes were more expensive then the common teochew wedding cakes 月劳 饼 (Lao Bing). Therefore, the common cakes were more popular and when the Teochews came to Nanyang (Singapore), the tradition of Lao Bing for wedding became common.

During the Japanese Occupation in Singapore, 泰茂栈饼家 Tai Mao Zhan Pastry Shop was set up at 连城街. Majority shareholder Mr Xu Shu Ting was the 1st generation management, who was previously a Teochew grocery shop manager. In 1943, he cooperated with 3 Teochew pastry chefs to established the pastry shop. Other than the Lunar 1st and 8th month, the chefs were busy baking wedding cakes for customers. As the teochew cakes were oily and has a nice texture, it was popular among the immigrants in Nanyang. Chefs at the pastry shop increased to 10 over peoplpe, and other Teochew goodies like 油酥饼， 咸豆沙饼 came out from the oven. Many customers bought their cakes and pastries from this shop.

Looking at the way things are going, we will likely be getting the most traditional Pu-ning style cake box to give to the bride's relatives, as pictured above. It is also known as the "Wu Se Bing" or Five-coloured Sweets/Biscuits, as my dad had specifically requested for "the most traditional one", the "poh leng biah" (Teochew dialect for Pu-ning biscuits)...

Need to find a reputable and traditional Teochew baker to acquire these goodies... have shortlisted Gim Thye so far, but theirs is amazingly pricey... hope we can find a better substitute, or it's going to be more $tre$$ haha!

No Grecian, its gonna be a European Honeymoon!

Will it be winter in Prague? Snow-capped architecture!
or Beer in Munich? Where's my beer wench!?
maybe Sounds of Music in Salzburg? ~I am 16 going on 17......
or Romancing in Venice? ~Wheeeen thhhe moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie!
or Romancing in Rome.. err... I mean, Vaticanizing in Rome!

Oh the choices! I love the European Honeymoon options!!

Help Comes... in the Form of FRIENDS!

Thanks to lovely friends who have stepped forward to gallantly volunteer their help, things have started rolling with more momentum, and at no better time too, as we enter the 2-month mark before our big day!

A big shout-out of THANK YOU to the dear friends who have availed yourselves at our time of need, being so kind and giving in your advice, help and support... helping to set us back on track, re-invigorating us and giving us fresh hope again that we can get everything done (barely) in time for 4th December!

Short term focus is to have our first major meeting with the key helpers/coordinators/brothers + sisters, to iron out the day's schedule, and to try to do as much pre-planning as we can before crunch time, namely the videos, cards, montages, decorations and favours!

Thanks friends, for being there always, and making us smile again!!

Feelin' loved! =)

Invitation Cards Nearly completed!

We've been going full steam working on the Church invitation cards. By completing the invitation cards, we would have achieved:
1) Alerted and informed our guests as to the date they should be keeping free,
2) Ascertained the number of people attending the Church ceremony,
3) Completed the design and layout of the invitation cards,
4) Ensure that the cards can be sent out at the opportune moment.

Thank goodness for having done the pre-wedding shoot way in advance! Using some of the shots for our invite! =D Watch out for it!

Things we've been busy with recently - confirmed our choice of caterer for the Church high-tea reception (just need to book them in October), working on the Wedding Schedule, arranging food tasting at the hotel, deciding on the Guo Da Li date, repacking and arranging new layout of my room. Need to continue sending out FB and SMS invites, and follow up.

What's been completed - Painting. we've got a new coat of paint in a colour scheme that gives the room a fresher look. As a result, I've gone through another session of stuff-throwing (with probably a final one to go).

Highly Stressed!

3 months to go: Wedding planning (guest list not compiled!!), dealing with multiple highly stressed individuals, rings/cards/theme designs, room redecorating. The wedding stress is surely getting to us... And our sad Honeymoon planning is on the backburner again.

Voyage Night Festival, 2011

 

Falling hearts, Shermaine has already captured mine. ;)
 

For more photos, click here.

Graduates of MPC!

We've graduated from the Catholic Marriage Preparation Course (MPC) at last!

Six weeks of lectures, sharing, "couple-pak" worksheet doing, presenting and candidly ironing out our differences in views... it was a good experience on a whole, we learnt some useful and valuable lessons. Hoping it will help us to pave a smooth path to, and in our married days to come!

Next up, planning for the Church wedding caterers, guest lists, schedule for the actual day, stag/hen parties (I'm not even sure if I want a hen party... being the anti-social creature that I am), consolidating all our plans, outfits for the parents, gathering our brothers and sisters for the big day... only 3 months left, so many things to do!

Gambatte!!

Attended the first of the family weddings for 2011!

I was invited to shoot my cousin's wedding this August, she liked my style of candid photography and I was looking for experience shooting such events. Match made in heaven, just like the two people pictured at the top of this post =D

It was a lively and fun wedding, definitely not the run-of-the-mill type ending with a Chinese dinner. Even though I was preoccupied shooting most of the time, I'm glad for my family, including my aunties and cousins who kept Shermaine occupied and entertained!

This is one of my favourite shots of the evening, rendered in Black & White, a mode I'm growing to like a lot actually. Shermaine actually helped me with the composition! While watching one of the bridesmaids give a speech, I noticed Simon slipping his arm around Cherie and took the opportunity to snap a shot since they happened to be caught by the light. Shermaine mentioned that I should try lowering my framing a little and voila, the shot above was taken! Tag-team double-combo!

Next of the family weddings - my Uncle Ivan's! Then my own at the year-end of course! Busy! Thanks Shermaine for holding the fort and getting us back on track regarding the planning.

To see more of the Wise Wedding, click the link here.

Welcoming Roxy Rocket!

5 months before our big day, and we've adopted a kid! She's a 5-year-old miniature Pinscher from SPCA and awesomely cute! Sherm's been coming over daily to train and feed the little girl, I can't complain. Our first priority was to get her to assimilate into the Quah pack, including our 2 four-legged friends Jacky and October. That's sorta been done already, and we've established ourselves as the Alpha and higher-ranked pack-member. Next up - training her. She understands her name already, we just need to get her to "Come" more frequently. "Sit" has taken about 5 days and she's sorta getting it more on the dot already, so we'll be moving on to words like "Go", and "Heel" soon.

You may be thinking, that must make you quite busy before your Big Day doesn't it? Adding on the extra load of taking care and training the new member must be affecting your schedule. Well, sort of yes and no. We're seeing more of each other now, but we're not getting the things done. Take for example, we're into our 3rd week of the Marriage Preparation Course (MPC) and we've accumulated 2 couple-paks that need doing before this Sunday. We're still tossing about ideas for our Honeymoon, and we've got the guest list that still needs to be put together. Furthermore, I'm meeting up with my buddies to plan my Stag party, and I still need to make arrangements for my flight and lodgings for Uncle's Vietnam wedding in November. Phew.. Not to mention the wedding event things that we need to finalize (oops).

Oh well, Roxy's a darling, and she's getting both our combined effort and energy to keep her in check. She'll be the most well-behaved dog in the house, and we hope to bring her around where we go in time to come too! haha..

Ah well, that's the latest update for ya. =)

Keeping the parents informed

So it is just over 6 months to our wedding. During the entire process, thinking of things to do, trying to get them done, organizing and planning - it is quite easy to forget that the parents are an integral part of this as well. So as a dutiful son or daughter, one must also take the time to meet up with both sides and let them know what is going on, touch base, and check that the expectations are aligned.

For instance, if like us, your dinner venue is small (26 tables is comfortable, max of 30 incl 2 reserve tables), managing the parents' enthusiasm to invite friends and relations from way back is absolutely necessary. I have assigned a certain number of tables to them, and I hope that they are able to keep within that number.

I met up with Shermaine's parents recently, and talked to them about the Guo Da Li (approx conducted 1-2 weeks prior to the actual day). Since neither of us knew who was supposed to give what to whom, and how many, I had assured them that we will be getting the list, after consulting with the traditional wedding gifts fella. Using this list, we will then ask the parents to check off which items they absolutely must have, and which are optional. I also informed them of the exchange in Ang Paos, including the dowry (or pin jin which they have to return a portion of) and the err.. Ang Pao for Sherm's mom for bringing her up (I shan't mention the exact name here, its quite crude lol), which she gets to keep. Of the gifts we bring over during the Guo Da Li, we should also indicate the exact number which the in-laws have to return to us. This I will consult with said traditional wedding gifts fella.

The follow-up meeting between the parents where all this will be finalized will be at the official food-tasting session at Grand Park City Hall, about 2 months prior to the big day. During this dinner, all terms and requests should be brought up for discussion between the 2 families.

Those Doc Marts..

About a year ago, Sherm and I came across a limited edition run of Dr Marten's boots that Sherm totally fell in love with. The boots are white and flocked with a silver baroque print in silver glitter. Apart from that, everything else was the standard DM design.

Well, by some strange/lucky coincidence, Sherm's chosen evening gown design went very well with the boots and we decided to use it during our pre-wedding photoshoot!  When we presented the idea to our designer Jeff, and showed him the boots, he was so excited as he was actually eyeing a similar design in gold but didn't purchase them cos he couldn't fit in them! Thank God for a designer who was so supportive and shared our ideas! We used the boots with the short version of her skirt and practically pranced around Ubud Pasar in them. =)

 Those Doc Marts are unique and beautiful and we hope it gets some 'air-wair' time on our wedding day!

Pre-Wedding Photo Shoot - DONE!

We're back from Bali! I have so much to say, I don't know where to start.. For this post, I'll just talk about the pre-wedding shoot.

At the Goa Lawah bat cave,
not one of our pre-wedding photos!

So our pre-wedding shoot arrangement with Aditi Niranjan Photography was discussed entirely over email with Thea, Aditi's marketing manager. The discussion started months earlier and only within the last 2-3 weeks did we finally get down to the nitty gritty details of planning the locations and props to be used. On their Facebook page, Aiditi called us their "most creative and organized couple" haha.. I wouldn't say we were organized, we just knew what we wanted!

On day 1 in Bali, the Aditi team manager Dedy, assistant photographer Wayan and make-up artist Annie came over to our villa and we had a sit-down discussion with them. They basically went through all our details, venues, made some recommendations, noted our outfit changes for each venue and planned the day's itinerary, including lunch and advising how to take our breakfast! We went through the style of make-up and hair as well, so everything was set. We just had to be ready by the time they picked us up early the next morning.

Day 2 was the day of the shoot. Shermaine and I, along with our entourage of friends, were driven to the Aditi Niranjan studio for make-up before our first venue - the Ubud Pasar (market)! At the studio, we were introduced to the rest of the crew that would follow us that day - Mario the owner and main photographer was a bald man with a charming smile.
So off to the market we went! What a culturally interesting place it was, offering at least 3 different looks for the background of our images! We even got to sit on a local police motorbike!
We headed back to the studio for a touch-up and outfit change before the long drive to Kintamani. The drive there offered excellent views of Mt Batur at the crest of the perimeter before descending to the valley where we had our 'lonely' roadside shoot with the mountain as our backdrop. What a lovely blue sky we had! Not to mention the Vespa that was ridden there for us by the umbrella-man =D  Our friends Jackie, Jon, Mark and Justin really helped a lot here, helping bear the heat with us, knowing where our accessories and clothes were, and picking up Sherm's train and sash after every click (in order to avoid the many trucks that would pass by every 3 minutes or so!). We wouldn't know what we would have done if not for their generous help!
We couldn't have Ikan Bakar for lunch as initially planned, so Wayan drove us to the famous Ibu Oka for Babi Guling (roasted suckling pig) lunch.
Next, we proceeded to a black sand beach nearer to Ubud and had our 3rd series of shots with a rented horse which was adorned with a shiny new red bridle. The horse was lovely and perfectly well-behaved, apart from him sticking out his tongue and the occasional foamy cough! Still, Sherm was smiling from ear to ear (she really loves horses) the entire time.
Our final location was Tengal Wangi, a beach location that would replace Tanah Lot since that was a place that Sherm could hardly let her bridal gown down (it being a very wet location). We hadn't realized how much of a treacherous climb down it was to get to the beach itself! Anyway we managed to do it, and took another excellent series there before changing out to casuals so that Sherm could climb back up with less difficulty and without worrying about ripping the intricate lace on her gown.


That night, we sat up for about an hour after being sent back to our villa. With assistance from Wayan, we chose our 80 pictures to be edited. These pictures would also make up the 2 albums that came with our package, and 1 would be our blown-up large size canvas wall-hanging. During this time, we could specify the edits we wanted to make to any particular image, or simply leave it to their good and capable hands.

Two days later, some staff from Aditi came to deliver our 2 albums, CDs, video DVD and the canvas. We spotted a few images which used a green filter which we really didn't like at all. So we told them about our dissatisfaction. Luckily we had 1 extra day to our holiday, so they promptly returned to make the alterations and could deliver our perfect album early the next day, before we set off for the airport!

There were some issues with their service, of which I will state here:
1) The make-up tended to the heavy side... Annie's initial hair arrangements was not to our liking as well, but that was fixed with some advice frm Jackie - thanks!
I would suggest bringing more pictures of what you want done, or examples, which will help greatly.

2) Effective communication in English is not so perfect either. It would be good if either the bride or groom spoke some Bahasa Indonesia, or have a member of your entourage help in the communication, to express ideas, or make specific requests.

However, on the whole, we were VERY IMPRESSED with the service we received from the company throughout, and I would whole-heartedly recommend their services to anyone wanting to do a pre-wedding shoot or even a family shoot in Bali.

Some acknowledgements:
Once more, thanks again to our friends, Mark, Jackie, Jon and Justin without which this shoot would not have turned out as fun, as relaxing or as enjoyable as it did. =D
Jean, Jessica and Kelvin who accompanied us on our holiday to Bali.
Finally, to Mark and Jackie again, who fervently recommended the studio to us after going through a similar experience 2 yrs prior, a heartfelt thank you to you both!